Analysis & commentary on America's troubled transition from analog telephone service to digital advanced telecommunications and associated infrastructure deficits.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Welcome to my neighborhood, a broadband black hole
Apparently my neighborhood is an exception to both rules and I wonder if perhaps there are others like it. It's just two miles from a major U.S. highway where both DSL and cable services are available.
The demographics are don't fit the usual rationale for digital redlining either. One nearby property owner is building two residences and a home office (and large pool complex) on his land. Just up the road, another property has just been listed for more than $1 million. Seems like the kind of demographics the nearby telco (AT&T) and cable company (Comcast) would like. Can't blame low density either. Several of my neighbors are within 100 feet of my home.
Apparently broadband black holes are like the physical black holes in space to the incumbent telco and cable providers. It's as if they don't exist and no information about them can escape.
Media think tank faults flawed U.S. telecom regulation for shortcomings in broadband access
[W]hile the European Union has defined its issues focused on their definition at the highest levels of policymaking and seems to be addressing the challenge created by social inequity, Congress is mired in regulating the relationship among the operators. Instead of managing competition it manages the competitors. It perceives the issue as one that arises from the need to allow operators to provide certain services, and as a result the regulator does not deliberate the goals of the policy. Indeed the focus of policy in the United States is on the needs of the industry and not on public service.According to the Benton Foundation:
America is on the verge of vast new broadband-driven digital transformation that promises to make life more livable, businesses more productive, jobs more plentiful, and the Internet more accessible. However, at the dawn of this digital age, those who could benefit the most from this economically empowering technology are also those most likely to be left without access because of where they live or how much money they make.As Congress puts universal service reform at the top of its telecom policy agenda, this page will provide a one-stop collection of papers and speeches advancing a new vision for Universal Service -- for making broadband as universal as telephone service is today and a pathway for progress. This effort will embrace the premise that Universal Broadband access is now as important to the advancement of the American ideal of equal opportunity in the 21st century as universal access to education and universal phone service was in the last.
HDTV growth emerges as driver for fiber to the home
Video services consume most of the bandwidth within the voice, video, and Internet Triple Play portfolio. About 2 Mbps is required to deliver Standard Definition TV and 9 Mbps is required for High Definition TV. Whereas network designers can safely over subscribe bandwidth higher up in the network this cannot be done when allocating bandwidth to a single enterprise establishment, household or local serving area— especially for video service. HDTV sets are already out selling SDTV so HDTV must be taken as the standard offering when planning an Optical Distribution Network. This means that each household must be allocated a minimum of 20 Mbps because several HDTVs are likely to be in use at the same time..
Legacy analog copper, cable infrastructure stymies U.S. broadband growth
"The problem is basically we can't use the legacy system of cable and wire" for broadband and have to build out across rural areas, Stevens said. "Wireless technology has brought new communication, but it is slower and not adaptable."
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
U.S. continues to lose ground on broadband connections
The United States continues to lose ground when the number of people with broadband communications connections here is compared to other countries.U.S. broadband penetration among worldwide industrialized nations dropped from 12th to 15th place, according to broadband rankings released this week by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
In addition, the United States ranks 20th in the 30-member OECD roster in terms of growth rate of broadband penetration in the last year.
"We are failing to bring the benefits of broadband to all our citizens, and the consequences will resonate for generations," said Ben Scott, policy director of Free Press, a national lobbying group whose goals are to reform the media and universal access to communications.
Monday, April 23, 2007
A message from the dark side of the digital divide, El Dorado County, California
14 Years ago, I could only log on at 26,400kbs. Today, i Can only log on at 26,400. What is the major problem here? Somebody needs to make DSL available for those of us who do not live in town. My Son cannot even use the Net for a reports hes working on due to the load times of web pages these days with multimedia/java apps. Enough is Enough!
Friday, April 20, 2007
Remotely program my U-Verse DVR? Huh?
First of all, only a small number of AT&T customers can get Ma Bell's IPTV (Internet Protocol TV) service. Second, large numbers of AT&T customers aren't even offered broadband services at all, left twisting in the wind on the wrong side of the digital divide.
Yet another exercise in irrelevancy by AT&T. What planet are AT&T product managers living on?