Aging copper cable plant drives — and limits – DSL

AT&T is facing a broadband conundrum brought on by the company’s historical reluctance to invest in upgrading its aging copper cable plant.

In El Dorado County, California, for example where your blogger resides, there are few good pair remaining in large stretches of the cable that in some cases is reportedly three to four decades old. Demand for additional lines from existing and newly arrived residents and businesses taxes the cable’s capacity, resulting in two subscribers ending up on the same line as well as noise and static when summer heat expands the cable and when winter rains penetrate it.

In an ironic twist, Ma Bell’s cable capacity crunch is driving the deployment of Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) service to some neighborhoods, particularly where fiber optic trunk lines are nearby.

Last year AT&T deployed DSL to the remote El Dorado County community of Grizzly Flat, about 25 miles east of Placerville. What prompted this unlikely move was the lack of good pair left in copper cable in the community. The capacity shortage was being exacerbated by people ordering second lines in order to not tie up their phone line with dial up modems — their only option to access the Internet — and for fax machines. Since AT&T already had a fiber optic cable running to Grizzly Flat from Placerville to serve a school there, the company decided to reduce the demand for additional lines by placing a remote terminal in the community fed by the fiber and capable of supporting DSL. DSL runs over a subscriber’s existing phone line and doesn’t require a second line.

That solved one problem but led to another. DSL signals are notoriously weak and prone to attenuation over distance. They require “clean” copper cable in good condition in order to carry the DSL signal reliably. Aged, deteriorating cable on the other hand is a suboptimal carrier, which is exactly what AT&T faces in Grizzly Flat and elsewhere in El Dorado County. Consequently, some Grizzly Flat residents complained, they couldn’t get DSL service because DSL propagated over a shorter than normal distance and their homes were too far away to get service. Poor quality cable also limits customers to AT&T’s lower speed DSL packages since the cable cannot reliably support higher speeds.

A scenario similar to Grizzly Flat appears to be playing out in my neighborhood. DSL wasn’t even on the radar screen here until an infill lot was recently developed. The new resident needs a broadband connection for his home office and ordered up a dedicated T-1 business class data line. That turned out to be the proverbial straw that broke the back of the antiquated cable plant that has been barely able to support plain old telephone service (known in the industry as POTS).

Consequently, AT&T recently installed a remote terminal and may begin offering DSL in the near future pending further testing. As in Grizzly Flat, fiber is available and provides the “backhaul” connection upstream. However, an AT&T planner I spoke with is downplaying the remote terminal’s DSL capabilities. It’s salvage equipment (the faded graffiti on the side of the cabinet is a clue), is not AT&T’s standard DSL remote terminal equipment and may not provide the typical 14,000 foot range. Moreover, if testing shows the copper cable plant needs to be upgraded in order to reliably carry DSL, the planner warns, that would add to the cost of the deployment and increase the odds the bean counters at AT&T corporate will nix it.

Lack of broadband economic death sentence for small town America

Rural residents, some of whom remember living in the dark for decades while electrified city lights glowed in the distance, say they're being passed over again for services considered crucial to modern life.

Nearly all can get dial-up modem Internet service, the kind of connection that allows a user to link to the Internet for short periods of time, surf a few Web sites and check e-mail.

But dial-up connections are slow. A simple document exchanged in less than a second on a broadband connection can take hours with dial-up.

That slow pace makes running an Internet-based business from a rural area impossible, though that's exactly the type of business many people believe can help keep America's small towns from dying.

Broadband adoption slows; lack of access persists in rural areas

The Pew Internet and American Life Project is out with its latest survey of U.S. residential broadband that found the rate of broadband adoption slowing considerably as rural areas continue to remain left behind with just under one third having broadband Internet access at their homes.

Silicon Valley startup's big plans for wireless broadband blocked by FCC

Over the past year or so, this blog reported on venture capital-backed Silicon Valley startup M2Z's big plans to build a nationwide broadband network that would serve 95 percent of the U.S. within ten years.

But M2Z claims the Federal Communications Commission isn't giving the idea a fair hearing and has taken the FCC to court, Dow Jones News Service reports.

Startup hopes chipsets will expand reach of DSL

Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) over copper is notoriously underpowered, only able to travel reliably no more than 14,000 feet from a telephone switch to subscriber, with throughput speeds degrading as the distance increases.

A Denver-based startup, Xtendwave, has gotten $10 million in private funding to develop computer chipsets for DSL modems and terminals that the company hopes will push the distance limit out to more than 20,000 feet. If the technology proves feasible, it could provide a boost to telcos that have literally hit the wall with DSL and have reportedly all but halted further DSL deployments since extending the service beyond existing footprints requires them to make extensive investments to upgrade their infrastructures.

Wisconsin offers tax incentives to encourage broadband expansion

Nine businesses will invest more than $80 million to install equipment providing broadband service. The projects will reach 261 communities in 63 counties.

Businesses included in the plan are Amery Telcom Inc., AT&T, CenturyTel Inc., DiscoverNet of Wisconsin LLC, Door Peninsula Internet Inc., Lakeland Communications, Midwest Fiber Networks, Northern Net Exposure and TDS Telecommunications Corporation.

DIRECTV partners with BPL player for Dallas "premiere"

DIRECTV announced a couple of months back that it was looking to partner with a broadband over power lines (BPL) provider in order to be able to offer broadband to its satellite TV subscribers.

Today, it announced the "premiere" of the service in the Dallas metro market in alliance with BPL player Current. The companies claim the BPL service, to be offered sometime later this year and early next, provides a faster symmetrical connection than cable but no specific throughput speeds are mentioned.

BPL is considered a dark horse among three possible "third pipe" alternatives to the cable/telco duopoly for providing broadband in unserved areas along with WiMAX-based fixed terrestrial wireless and a venture by a coalition of high tech companies including Microsoft and Intel to use portions of the TV broadcast spectrum to provide broadband over the air.

Microsoft wants FCC to reconsider white spaces prototype interference test

As reported last week here, the FCC has told the White Spaces Coalition to go back to the drawing board after its prototype devices to deliver wireless broadband over unused "white spaces" in the television broadcast spectrum failed initial testing to assure they wouldn't interfere with TV and wireless microphone signals.

The Washington Post reports one of the coalition's members, Microsoft, wants the FCC to reconsider because it contends a backup prototype worked without producing any interference. The Post reports the FCC is to meet later this week to discuss testing protocols.

This is a major story that deserves close attention because if the devices pan out, they could provide a desperately needed "third pipe" to break the stranglehold of the telco/cable duopoly that has left large parts of the U.S. unwired for broadband.