BPL an exercise in obsolescence

Broadband Over Power Lines (BPL) is a broadband last mile delivery technology that was declared all but dead in 2008. But BPL refuses to die despite a barely detectable pulse of just 256 Kbs at the low end and 1 Mbs when it's ticking along. Ten years ago that would have worked great for web browsing and email. But now it's a turkey that won't pack the bandwidth needed for fast growing applications like streaming video.

I.B.M announced in November it would pony up $9.6 million in a venture with a small company to deploy BPL via electric power cooperatives formed decades ago in areas of the U.S. skipped by private power companies.

Rather than engage in misguided and already outmoded technological ventures such as BPL, power companies and cooperatives should instead string fiber optic cable cable on their poles and towers and lease the fiber to coops, telcos and Internet Service Providers. Pacific Gas and Electric considered this idea more than a decade ago. It should dust it off and implement it and urge its industry peers to do likewise and avoid investing in BPL technology -- as PG&E wisely avoided -- that's already obsolete even before it's deployed.

Don't subsidize slow, outmoded AT&T DSL, groups urge California PUC

One of five AT&T broadband build out projects subsidized with 40 percent matching funds from the California Public Utility Commission's California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) has drawn criticism from community groups in California's North Coast area.

The groups, the Mendocino Coast Broadband Alliance, Redwood Coast Rural Action, Redwood Coast Connect and Humboldt Area Foundation protest the award of $15,200 in CASF funding to AT&T to finance the roll out of DSL technology to serve 97 homes over existing wire line facilities. The groups complain that won't deliver sufficient throughput in the affected areas including Albion, Little River, Caspar, Mendocino, Fort Bragg, Elk and Point Arena. The so-called Comptche project's DSL throughput of up to 1.5 Mbs for downloads and up to 384 Kbs for uploads is too slow, they say, urging the CPUC demand AT&T offer throughputs of 3 Mbs down and 1 Mbs up as originally specified in CASF funding guidelines adopted by the commission in 2007. Moreover, some of the groups say, a Wireless Internet Service Provider (WISP) could provide faster speeds over a shorter timeframe than AT&T's DSL project.

However in its resolution adopted Feb. 20 awarding funding for the project, the CPUC notes it "has no control over what applicants ultimately offer," and that the 3 Mbs download and 1 Mbs upload speeds are guidelines and not firm requirements. "We believe that broadband speeds below 3/1 still offer large benefits to communities that have no broadband service at all and does not hinder the possibility of upgrades by incumbents or competitors," the resolution states.

The unstated cause of the debate: AT&T's aged copper cable plant that cannot support higher throughput as well as the company's reliance on underpowered DSL technology that has very limited range over copper cable due to signal degradation.

Broadband provisions of U.S. economic stimulus legislation

Here are the broadband grant funding provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 signed into law today by President Barack Obama, taken from a summary of the bill prepared by the House of Representatives:

Provisions on Broadband Infrastructure

The Conference agreement creates a new Broadband Technology Opportunities Program within the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (“NTIA”) of the Department of Commerce. The new grant program will distribute $4.7 billion to fund the deployment of broadband infrastructure in unserved and underseved areas in the country, and to help facilitate broadband use and adoption. An additional $2.5 billion in loans and grants will be administered by the Rural Utilities Service.

The Conference agreement combined portions of both the House and Senate bills. The main provisions of the NTIA program include:

• Grant Recipient Criteria. Any entity is eligible to apply for a grant, including municipalities, public/private partnerships, and private companies, so long as the entity can comply with the grant conditions. Applicants must put forth 20% of the proposed project’s total cost, subject to a financial hardship waiver.
  

• Grant recipients must agree to abide by a set of conditions, including adhering to a build out schedule, to interconnection and non-discrimination requirements as established by NTIA, and to the principles contained in the Federal Communications Commission’s Broadband Policy Statement. The Conference agreement does not require that grant recipients meet certain broadband speed thresholds, although the NTIA is expected to consider and support the highest possible broadband speeds in awarding grants.
  

• National Broadband Plan. The Federal Communications Commission is required to develop a national broadband plan within one year.

NPR story on U.S. broadband access illustrates major flaw in media coverage of issue

NPR's Morning Edition has a story out this AM on the $7.2 billion set aside for grants to subsidize broadband telecommunications infrastructure that Congress sent to President Barack Obama. Unfortunately this NPR story like others in the mainstream media paint the U.S. broadband landscape with far too wide a brush and reinforce the myth that lack of broadband access is confined to rural areas.

Due to the technological limitations of Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) over copper cable offered by telcos and the limited footprints of single purpose cable company plants built decades ago solely to provide TV, broadband black holes can be found most anywhere in the United States: in urban centers, suburbs, exurbs, quasi-rural as well as rural areas.

Homes and small businesses in one part of these areas may have access to broadband while those adjacent and just one or two miles away -- and oftentimes in even closer proximity -- don't. As noted by this blog recently, the Google search phrase that brings the largest number of hits and visitors to it goes along the lines of "My neighbor can can high speed Internet access but I can't/why not?"

California broadband nonprofit hopes for share of federal economic stimulus dollars

The California Emerging Technology Fund (CETF), a San Francisco-based nonprofit that helps fund projects to improve broadband access in California using $60 million in seed funding provided by AT&T and Verizon as a condition of the telcos' recent M&A activity, is hoping to get additional funding from the federal economic stimulus legislation.

Expected to be finalized this month, the legislation calls for between $6 billion and $9 billion (House and Senate versions of the legislation, respectively) in grants, loans and tax credits to fund the build out of wireline and wireless broadband telecommunications infrastructure. The administration of President Barack Obama has characterized the broadband stimulus funding as a down payment toward the administration's overall goal of providing universal access to broadband throughout the U.S.

"We want California to be poised to take optimum advantage of the stimulus package," CETF President and CEO Sunne Wright McPeak said at the CETF's Sacramento Regional Broadband Roundtable hosted today by the Sacramento Area Council of Governments as well as several other local institutions. "We want this region to be well deployed."

If it receives federal stimulus funding this year, CETF's role subsidizing the deployment of broadband infrastructure could overshadow that of the California Public Utilities Commission. The CPUC's $100 million California Advanced Services Fund provides a 40 percent match to subsidize broadband infrastructure build out but has not attracted the level of interest hoped for by regulators.

The 3-hour roundtable discussion was attended by about 70 people representing a wide variety of individuals and organizations with an interest in expanding broadband access, applications and adoption.

El Dorado County was well represented by Carol Anne Ogdin representing El Dorado County Supervisor Ray Nutting, Woodrow Deloria of the El Dorado County Transportation Commission, Jason Harm of the El Dorado County Office of Education, Tom Straling of the El Dorado County IT Department and your blogger.

I was pleased at McPeak's obvious zeal to get broadband infrastructure deployed as quickly as possible to enable the various applications and associated beneficial impacts discussed at the event including reducing transportation demand through telework and online commerce -- a clear benefit in this era of constrained transportation funding and strapped county budgets -- and allowing remote medical consultations for individuals living in rural areas who lack easy access to medical providers and specialists. McPeak and her staff clearly understand a salient point raised by Ogdin: that it's far cheaper (and greener) to move bytes than bodies.

Cisco's Chambers: Time to broadband the U.S. economy

From an op-ed piece by Cisco chief John Chambers published earlier this month in the San Jose Mercury News:

Imagine what the United States could accomplish if our broadband speeds were not just competitive, but leading-edge. Imagine what broadband could do for health care: A medical specialist in Cleveland, Ohio, could do a virtual house call via high-definition video to a homebound retiree in Henderson, Nev. We have the technology now, but we need the connectivity. Imagine applying that same technology to education and changing the very nature of the way students learn — or the way we train workers.

Our economic challenges are too dire to merely rely on Band-Aids. It's time to broadband our economy. The innovation, the productivity and the growth that is possible with a proper broadband infrastructure is nearly limitless. The time to act is now. Doing so will not only help stabilize and stimulate a recovery but create the foundation for long-term prosperity and competitiveness.

Thy neighbor's broadband

In the three years this blog has been in existence, by far the top Google search phrase that directs readers to it goes along the lines of "My neighbors can get high speed Internet/DSL/cable but I can't/why not?"

The common question ultimately reveals the hodge podge, Balkanized deployment of premises-based wire line broadband Internet access that's about as maddening as not being able to get telephone service when the folks next door can. Or them getting electricity while you're left off the grid.

The high frequency of the Google query directed to this blog also calls into question the widely repeated myth that broadband black holes can only be found deep in rural Iowa or Nebraska when in fact they turn up most anywhere in the United States.

The common Google search term also points up the technological shortcomings of DSL over copper, which is very sensitive to and degrades with distance, as well as the severely proscribed footpoints of cable deployments based on the number of dwellings per an arbitrary linear metric suitable only for neighborhoods laid out along urban gridlines.

AT&T slows Project Lightspeed/U-Verse deployment

AT&T will decelerate build out of its hybrid fiber/copper Project Lightspeed infrastructure that delivers the telco's bundled U-Verse offering, TelephonyOnline reports today.

The publication cites comments by AT&T executives in a conference call Tuesday discussing the company's Q4 2008 earnings and citing Lightspeed/U-Verse as a drag on profits.

Under the scaled back deployment, AT&T has decided to delay its goal of passing 30 million homes from 2010 to 2011, according to TelephonyOnline, and concentrate on the former BellSouth territory in the southeastern U.S. AT&T acquired in late 2006.

Last month, AT&T also pushed back the deployment of VDSL copper pair bonding technology to extend the severely limited range and throughput of U-Verse. The new target date is sometime this year, the second delay after a planned late 2007 deployment was scrapped.

Unclear on the concept

The National Cable & Telecommunications Association is creating a 22,000-square-foot main street-themed exhibit space that it says will be the centerpiece of its exhibit floor. The exhibit will demonstrate "The many ways in which high-speed broadband service has and will continue to improve the lives of Americans."

The effort, announced Tuesday, matches the centerpiece that broadband deployment has become in the new Obama administration's economic stimulus package.

It also comes as Congress is debating how to dole out over $8 billion in grants for broadband. Satellite operators are fighting for their share of the money, arguing that satellite-delivered broadband will be the only way to reach some rural enclaves.

Like those rural areas on the edge of the Arctic Circle? Talk about unclear on the concept. I think I'll launch some of those digital dirigibles and apply for funding too. And let's not leave out BPL while we're at it.

Congress should reject telco whining over broadband requirements in economic stimulus measure

Economic stimulus legislation on a congressional fast track that would allocate $6 billion (House version) and $9 billion (Senate version) for broadband telecommunications infrastructure build out to underserved areas is unsurprisingly eliciting whining from the big telcos.

Industry representatives and think tanks that front for them complain the measures' minimum connectivity speed requirements for wireline and wireless service to underserved areas as well as open access requirements would not dispose them to applying for broadband infrastructure grants, loans and loan guarantees.

What they want instead are tax breaks just as telcos received under the 1996 Communications Act that was to have brought broadband to all Americans in a decade's time. Bottom line: business as usual. Continued proprietary (and geographically limited and underpowered) DSL access over crappy, aging (depreciating from the telcos' perspective) copper cable, maintaining wireless Internet connectivity at or below the less than impressive capabilities of current deployments and continuing to tell millions of Americans to go suck a satellite or live in dial up purgatory.

Congress should reject these whiners that have led the U.S on a race to the bottom when it comes to advanced IP-based telecommunications services. The telcos propagated a broadband boondoogle with the 1996 Communications Act. Broadband access is too important to allow them to repeat the fiasco.

Maintaining open access requirements in the stimulus legislation will assist local governments and citizens by providing seed funding to form their own fiber cooperatives. That will allow them to break free of the telco/cable duopoly that has failed to provide them adequate broadband access for their current and future needs.

Tax cuts, expanded NTIA funding for broadband proposed

Provisions of economic stimulus legislation rapidly moving through Congress could be expanded to include tax cuts and tripling the amount of grants for broadband infrastructure.

Bloomberg reports today U.S. Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-West Virginia) will propose tax credits to encourage telephone, cable and wireless companies to expand broadband access. The Bloomberg item also states the Senate Appropriations Committee wants $9 billion for broadband grants administered by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), compared to $3 billion in the House Appropriations Committee's version of the stimulus legislation.

The broadband provisions of the economic stimulus measure will likely undergo more revisions before the bill reaches President Barack Obama, who has called for its enactment by mid February to shore up a flagging U.S. economy.

President Obama reiterates need for broadband infrastructure in weekly radio address

President Barack Obama mentioned the expansion of broadband telecommunications infrastructure in his weekly radio address today urging swift enactment of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The measure, which cleared Congressional committees this week on track for passage by mid-February, includes $6 billion in grants and loans to finance broadband build out.

Here's the relevant passage from the president's address:

Finally, we will rebuild and retrofit America to meet the demands of the 21st century. That means repairing and modernizing thousands of miles of America’s roadways and providing new mass transit options for millions of Americans. It means protecting America by securing 90 major ports and creating a better communications network for local law enforcement and public safety officials in the event of an emergency. And it means expanding broadband access to millions of Americans, so business can compete on a level-playing field, wherever they’re located.

The challenge facing WISPs

While fixed terrestrial wireless Internet service providers (WISPs) are well situated to pick up where DSL has derailed on the route to fiber to the premises (FTTP), their major challenge going forward is to provide users decent connectivity at an attractive price point. Especially as consumers and businesses become more frugal in the current economic contraction.

The challenge is evident in the case of one WISP that recently expanded into your blogger's area of El Dorado County, California. When I mentioned Central Valley Broadband in a Dec. 3, 2008 post, the WISP was offering 3 Mbs service to telco neglected SOHOs (Small Office/Home Office) at a relatively appealing monthly rate of $60.

According to the company's Web site, that's no longer the case. Now its best business plan offers 2 Mbs down and 1 Mbs up -- at the much higher price of $130 a month. A lower priced business plan at $90 a month provides throughput of 1 Mbs down and 512 Kbs up.

While some SOHOs might be willing to pay that price, it's likely to give pause to others and limit the company's growth prospects in the SOHO segment. Additionally, neither of these nominally businsess grade plans meet the minimum wireless connectivity standards of 3 Mbs down and 1 Mbs up established for California Advanced Services Fund subsidies or for grant funding under federal economic stimulus legislation curently making its way through Congress. Nor do any of the company's consumer plans, which start out at $40 a month for 512 Kbs down and 256 Kbs up and go up to $90 a month for 1.5 Mbs down and 1 Mbs up. The latter plan might barely support video downloads depending on the latency. But even if it proves adequate, late adopter residential users currently on dial up aren't likely to be motivated to pay nearly 100 bucks a month in order to watch YouTube and NetFlix video at minimum recommended throughput.

For WISPs hoping to pick up significant numbers of customers in the years before FTTP is widely established (and be perceived as a superior alternative to the crippled and costly connectivity of satellite Internet) their challenge is to offer services with both decent throughput and attractive pricing. Otherwise their growth prospects are severely constrained and self limiting.

FCC data show DSL availability hit wall in 2006; nearly 20 percent of U.S. homes continued to lack access in 2007

Newly released data show U.S. telco DSL availability hitting the wall in 2006 with virtually no increase during 2007. The data are contained in Table 14 of the Federal Communications Commission's semi-annual report on broadband deployment as of Dec. 31, 2007.

The data show show the percentage of residences that can get DSL from their telcos during the last half of 2007 -- about 80 percent averaged among all states -- barely budging compared to all of 2006. That leaves about 20 percent of telco customers stuck with circa early 1990s dial up or the substandard option of satellite Internet, a technology more appropriate for the Alaskan frontier than the lower 48 states.

That telco DSL availability showed virtually no increase over 2006 and 2007 starkly illustrates that DSL provided by incumbent telcos over copper cable is a failed technology for delivering high speed Internet access to Americans that should be abandoned in favor of fiber optic-based telecommunications infrastructure.

As with previous versions of the semi-annual reports required by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the same states remain in the cellar measured on lack of telco DSL access including Vermont (31 percent), Virginia (35 percent), New Hampshire (38 percent), Maine (31 percent), Michigan (29 percent), Mississippi (28 percent), Maryland (25 percent) and even New York (24 percent). DSL availability exceeded 90 percent or greater in just two states, Georgia and California.

Government funded info tech, telecom spending as potential economic elixir

This item in today's L.A. Times paints a bleak outlook for the U.S. economy during Barack Obama's four-year presidential term that begins tomorrow. Additionally, investment in information and telecommunications technology has remained weak since the 1999 dot com bust and the 2001-02 recession, the article notes, suggesting goverment spending in this sector could help stimulate the overall economy.

Broadband infrastructure provisions of U.S. economic stimulus legislation

The House Appropriations Committee has released a draft of the economic stimulus legislation titled the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 appropriating $6 billion in loans, loan guarantees and grants for the build out open access broadband telecommunications infrastructure.

Slightly less than half of the funds will be directed to the Rural Utilities Service prioritizing rural areas that received funding for electrification under the Rural Electrification Act of 1936. The Secretary of Agriculture would determine which rural areas lack sufficient access to high speed broadband service.

The balance of the funding would be directed to a State Broadband Data and Development Grant Program administered by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. (NTIA) $1 billion would be allocated to wireless and $1.85 billion to wireline broadband; up to 20 percent could be shifted between wireless and wireline.

Within 75 days of the proposed legislation's enactment, states desiring access to funding would be required to submit reports to the NTIA identifying areas with the greatest need for broadband infrastructure. States would be required to identify those areas that lack basic wireline broadband -- defined asymetrically under the measure as capable of providing throughput of at least (not "up to") 5 Mbs download and 1 Mbs upload -- and advanced wireline broadband -- defined asymetrically as 45 Mbs download and 20 Mbs for uploads. Both voice only and advanced wireless telecommunications infrastructure are eligible for funding, however 75 percent would be set aside for advanced wireless infrastructure in capable of providing broadband connectivity of 3 Mbs down and 1 Mbs up.

Lacking from the throughput requirements for both wireline and wireless broadband are latency standards, which should be a maximum of 50-60 milliseconds.

Notably, entities eligible for grant funding include private providers of broadband services, states, local governments and other entities as authorized by the NTIA. The measure requires the agency to adopt rules to prevent unjust enrichment of grant recipients including meeting build out requirements for proposed projects.

The bill leaves it to the Federal Communications Commission to define broadband ‘‘unserved" and "underserved" areas as well as what constitutes open access broadband infrastructure. I would suggest that it be defined to mean the opposite of the proprietary broadband infrastructure owned by the large telcos and cable companies that has been only partially built out, leaving gaping broadband black holes and lack of access to modern IP-based telecommunications services. As World Wide Web creator Vint Cerf observed in 2008, these providers have impeded the expansion of broadband since they have large amounts invested in legacy infrastructure that was never intended for broadband and IP-based services.

Economic stimulus measure includes $6 billion down payment on U.S. broadband infrastructure

The House Appropriations Committee today released an outline of the economic stimulus funding bill being readied for President-elect Barack Obama's signature after he takes office next week.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Bill of 2009 will include $6 billion in grants earmarked for broadband and wireless services in underserved areas of the nation "to strengthen the economy and provide business and job opportunities in every section of America with benefits to e-commerce, education, and healthcare." The summary of the stimulus measure estimates that the $6 billion investment in broadband will produce a $60 billion multiplier effect for the nation's struggling economy.

This is just for starters. Blair Levin, a technology advisor to the incoming president, told the State of the Net Conference in Washington Jan. 14 that the $6 billion being set aside for broadband in the stimulus legislation represents only a portion of the incoming administration's planned efforts to boost broadband deployment in the U.S.

Update 1/16/08: For details on how the funding is parsed out, here's what I've obtained from the actual draft legislation.