Solar storm could hit GPS and satellite broadband

Another reason not to be suckered in to sucking a satellite....

Internet access is the new dial tone, but millions of Americans are disconnected

Three years ago, then-U.S. Federal Communications Commissioner Jonathan S. Adelstein called on the nation to make broadband "the dial-tone of the 21st Century."

Adelstein's characterization is correct. Today, the Internet is the telecommunications network. Those who don't have access to it are disconnected and isolated.

The Huffington Post has posted a summary of Akamai Technologies' State of the Internet" report for the first quarter of 2010 showing which states are the most offline. (Hat tip to Jason Wilson) It wouldn't surprise me if these states find it toughest to help boost the nation out of a deep economic contraction, being sidelined in an increasingly Internet-based economy.

The governors of these (and other) states should ask the Obama administration to create a Work Projects Administration-like entity to embark on a crash program to construct locally owned and operated fiber networks to serve all Americans where they live and work. Achieving this goal is a stated administration policy. Moreover, given the administration's projected multiplier effect of a project like this in terms of job creation and economic activity, it could well end up being revenue neutral when increased tax revenues are factored in.

Telecom infrastructure upgrades could aid economic recovery

PALM COAST, FLA. -- The recession is claiming yet another victim: Americans' near-constitutional right to pick up and move to a better job.

Labor mobility has nearly ground to a halt in the past two years, and policymakers are increasingly worried that the slowdown is not just a symptom of the nation's economic struggles but also a barrier to overcoming them.

With many people locked in homes by underwater mortgages, only 1.6 percent of Americans moved between states in a one-year period that ended in March 2009 -- a labor stagnation not seen in half a century. Though household mobility has gradually declined for more than two decades, the recent sharp downturn has caused economists to worry that it could harm the already struggling recovery.

"In the past, people tended to move to where the jobs are," said Assistant Treasury Secretary Alan B. Krueger, who oversees economic policy for the department. "Now it is necessary to have more of a strategy to move the jobs -- and create new jobs -- in areas where the people are."

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Bringing work to where people live also means they'll need affordable access to modern, Internet protocol based telecommunications services that will allow them to work remotely and teleconference with their employers and customers.

There's an added bonus. Constructing fiber to the premises telecom infrastructure is as Christopher Mitchell of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance pointed out in a recent radio interview is very labor intensive, which means badly needed jobs.

Residents near two state capitols struggle with outmoded telecom service

Residents living near state capitols might expect to have access to modern telecommunications services given their proximity to their states' political power centers. Not necessarily so.

As noted on this blog recently, the town of Berry located near Wisconsin's capital, Madison, is a case in point. Ditto for some folks living just four miles from the Vermont statehouse in Montpelier, according to this item from ABC News.

Like their countparts several states away in Berry, the natives are restless and their patience worn thin after much talk and promises but little action. While telecom infrastructure upgrades aren't yet certain, it's clear more talk is on tap. Vermont gubernatorial candidates are raising the issue of lack of advanced telecom infrastructure in year's campaign, the ABC News article notes.

Rural electrification better model for driving expansion of next generation networks

Give a listen to Christopher Mitchell's interview on the public affairs radio program Minnesota This Week. Mitchell is director of the Telecommunications as Commons Initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

Near the end of the interview, Mitchell advocated government loans and loan guarantees to telecom cooperatives similar to those made by the U.S. federal Rural Electrification Administration to electric power coops starting in the 1930s. Mitchell said this would be a better policy than subsidizing investor owned telcos.

Such subsidies, Mitchell suggested, don't provide sufficient incentive to and accountability of private providers to offer quality service and network upgrades. Since community based cooperatives don't have to earn a return for investors, they can concentrate solely on serving their members.

Local governments, coops better positioned than legacy providers to meet burgeoning bandwidth demand

Check out Lance Whitney's July 21 cnet News article that illustrates the growing conflict between burgeoning bandwidth demands of Internet video content and the incremental billing business models of the legacy telco and cable providers that ration bandwidth.

Faced with the explosive demand for bandwidth, the legacy providers are responding the only way they know how given their business models: charging more money for more bandwidth via tiered service offerings and rationing bandwidth with the use of caps.

This puts the legacy providers in a bad spot since incremental bandwidth pricing and punitive caps will only tick off their customers. What's worse is the legacy providers can't upgrade their infrastructures to accommodate the jump in bandwidth demand and leave room for future growth over the foreseeable. That's because they are owned by shareholders who have been with them for decades and expect a nice safe, utility company style dividend -- money that can't be allocated to capital expenditures.

The take away here is alternative providers such as local governments and consumer telecom cooperatives who don't have to pay those fat shareholder dividends are better positioned to deploy fiber to the premises infrastructure that can easily deliver the bandwidth needed today and leave headroom for tomorrow.