Obama administration should focus on community-run open access fiber, not 4G wireless

The Obama administration's recent announcement of its National Wireless Initiative to subsidize the build out of 4th generation (4G) wireless Internet to make it available to least 98 percent of Americans appears based on the assumption that cutting edge wireless telecommunications technology can play a central role in the nation's telecom infrastructure.

I'm not convinced. 4G wireless is only just emerging and remains unproven in terms of whether it can deliver sufficient bandwidth at the same time bandwidth demand is increasing exponentially. It's primarily designed for mobile use and portable devices such as smart phones and IPads that are gobbling bandwidth at such a prodigious rate that providers have a difficult time meeting the demand. That's why they ration bandwidth and penalize wireless customers who use more than 5 GB per month. The rationing is due to a more basic telecom infrastructure problem: the lack of adequate wire line infrastructure to "backhaul" or feed the distribution system that supports that huge and growing universe of wireless devices.

The administration's wireless initiative seems to suggest that people can "cut the cord" for Internet access just as they have done for wire line voice service, which requires far less bandwidth. 4G wireless, the administration apparently believes, can provide access to medical tests, online courses and applications that have not yet been invented.

That remains to be seen. What is certain now is wire line fiber optic connections to American households and businesses can deliver more than enough bandwidth for today's needs without the need for rationing plus plenty of additional capacity for those yet to be invented applications. The administration's telecom infrastructure efforts should focus on bringing it to the 24 million Americans that Federal Communications Chairman Julius Genachowski said remain disconnected from the Internet. "The infrastructure simply isn’t there," Genachowski explained.

The reason: It's simply not sufficiently profitable for investor owned providers to build it. Alternative, lower cost methods are urgently needed. The best and most rapid way to bring about these alternatives is to focus at the local level and provide local governments and consumer telecom cooperatives technical assistance grants and low cost loans to build open access fiber networks to serve their communities.

The administration's health care reform legislation allocates $5 billion in technical assistance grants to for new health insurance cooperatives to pool risk and purchase health coverage for their members. The administration should provide a similar amount of technical assistance funding for local governments and telecom cooperatives to help them plan and design open access fiber optic telecom networks.

Virtual workforce requires robust telecom infrastructure

While a recent survey found that less than 4 percent of U.S. private sector workers actually work from home, that figure could reach as high as 30 percent by 2019, according to TechCast, a George Washington University–based virtual think tank.

What's behind this coming workplace revolution? Quite simply, "work" no longer needs to be defined as a place you go. We're witnessing the emergence of a next generation workforce that is always-on and hyper-connected via broadband, with a proliferation of connected devices and access to on-the-go Internet-based applications and cloud-based services that make working from anywhere possible.

The above excerpt from a Reuters article goes on to point out various pluses of telework including reduced carbon emissions from less commuting and mutual benefits for employers (better productivity, lower office costs) and employees (greater work/life balance and job satisfaction). While not mentioned specifically, improved work/life balance could also yield big benefits in lower health care costs by freeing up time for exercise that would otherwise be spent commuting to and from the office.

In order for the virtual workforce to become a reality, workers will need advanced telecommunications infrastructure at their doorsteps that can support videoconferencing and other interactive applications. That means fiber optic connections offering symmetric upload and download speeds and scalability for future growth that is generally not offered by incumbent telco and cable companies.

Satellite Internet provider targets U.S. exurbs as growth market

The notion that being disconnected from the Internet is a problem largely confined to rural areas isn't true. The latest evidence comes courtesy of Arunas Slekys, vice president of corporate marketing for satellite Internet provider Hughes Network Systems.

Slekys told The Washington Post that Hughes' best growth prospects aren't necessarily deep rural America but the outer rings of metro areas where telcos and cable companies haven't built out their wireline infrastructures to provide premises Internet connections. "These aren't people sitting on a mountainside in Idaho," Slekys told The Post. "They're actually exurban. You can go 20 or 30 miles outside of D.C. and there are a lot of areas where you can't get terrestrial broadband."

Indeed. Ditto for other metro regions of the United States. Living in the exurbs often means no Internet, which won't help property values recover in despite their typically upmarket homes.

Slekys makes a excellent point about the extent of the problem in the U.S. But his company's solution is, frankly, not a solution. Even on an interim basis until terrestrial infrastructure is constructed to serve these offline areas. Satellite Internet connections are notoriously sluggish due to the high signal latency caused by the 46,000 mile round trip to the satellite and back to the Earth's surface and are prone to frequent drop outs. Then there are the dreaded FAPs, aka Fair Access Policies. This fine print in satellite providers' contracts allows them to slow your connection to dial up speed -- often for days on end -- if the connection is used too much or for applications that use a lot of bandwidth such as video.

So those of you in the offline exurbs, forget about streaming Netflix films on a satellite connection unless you want to spend some time in FAP jail with your Internet connection slowed to a crawl. And if you're an executive who lives in an upscale exurban property or a small business owner/consultant, forget about using your satellite connection to videoconference with your offices or to exchange large files. The connection isn't sufficiently robust and stable to support it.

The Economist: Why LTE can't substitute for fiber

Some believe the Internet will become untethered over the last mile and point to cutting edge wireless transmission technology known as LTE or 4G. The two biggest telcos in the U.S., Verizon and AT&T, are rolling it out (or are about to in the case of AT&T.)

But it won't be able to replace the nation's aging copper cable infrastructure that has grown increasingly difficult and costly to operate reliably. Nor is it likely to provide sufficient capacity for future growth in bandwidth demand -- something that Verizon and AT&T are acutely aware having faced growth pains and capacity constraints with their current generation of 3G wireless.

The Economist explains why:

Already LTE has shown itself good for at least 5Mbps—impressive for a mobile technology still in its infancy (see “Generational change”, December 3rd, 2010). But with peak speeds of 1Gbps theoretically possible, LTE’s next iteration should make downloads of 100Mbps over the airwaves a matter of routine. Developments beyond that could lead to near-gigabit speeds.

Of the two, though, a fixed link like fibre remains the better bet. Sooner or later, even a 4G wireless protocol such as LTE or its country-cousin WiMAX will become overwhelmed by the exponential growth of mobile traffic. By contrast, an optical link to the home could use a multitude of different wavelengths to boost throughput almost indefinitely.

Network World also weighs in:

So the next question about wireless broadband as a substitute. Recall that according to the U.S. Government Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 1 in 4 homes has cut the legacy wireline phone cord in favor of wireless-only voice. Could we see wireless substitution rates that high for broadband access? We think not because radio spectrum is a limited resource, and unlike wireless voice networks that have plenty of spectrum to manage voice calls, if 25% of broadband users shifted from wireline access, the demand for wireless broadband would likely exceed available spectrum given today's technology.

The post-broadband era begins

As 2010 draws to a close, we are also seeing the closure of a chapter of the early Internet era and the beginning of a new one. The first chapter opened in the early 1990s when the few people who connected to the Internet did so with narrowband "dial up" connections using the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). By the end of that decade, dialup evolved from 1200 and 2400 baud connections to 56Kbs connections as well as ISDN offering Internet connections of up to 128Kbs. At the same time, "broadband" began emerging with DSL and Internet services offered by cable companies.

We are now beginning a new chapter where throughput speeds that defined an Internet connection will be less relevant than the services and applications people use when they access the Internet. If the connection can't support them, it no longer will be considered bona fide Internet-based service. From a practical standpoint, that means dialup and satellite connections are now obsolete since they cannot provide end users a full Internet experience due to the inherent physical limitations of their technologies.

Also being rendered obsolete as bandwidth demand grows exponentially, particularly with the explosion of video content and mobile Internet:

-- The U.S. Federal Communications Commission's definition of a "broadband" Internet connection as 4Mbs down and 1Mbs up.

-- The term "broadband black hole" and dubious efforts to "map" these locations. These areas will simply be regarded as disconnected from the Internet, similar to the "off the grid" term applied to those locations lacking electric power service.

FCC ruling heralds regulatory end of "broadband" era

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission's decision this week barring providers of fixed premises wireline Internet connectivity from selectively rationing (or blocking) bandwidth based on the source and/or content marks the regulatory beginning of the end of the "broadband" era. Whereas broadband once defined a premium telecommunications service offered at a premium price, the FCC is effectively declaring that an Internet connection is an Internet connection regardless of what information or content consumers receive from it. ISPs cannot devote greater bandwidth to some information or content (for example, their own proprietary content) while affording less bandwidth to other information or content.

This is the right decision that recognizes the Internet as a de facto common carrier telecommunications network similar in that regard to traditional voice telephone service. The large national legacy telcos and cable companies warned before the FCC adopted the ruling that it would discourage capital investment in their infrastructures, which the FCC noted early this year continue to leave an estimated 7 million U.S homes offline.

There's no evidence the business case for more network investment by the large national legacy telcos and cablecos would have been improved had the commission come down on the other side of the issue. Their business models are constrained by the need to pay their shareholders generous dividends as they have done for decades and by high labor costs to modernize and build out their plants outside of densely populated urban and suburban areas.

NTIA report reinforces outdated notion of "broadband adoption"

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is issuing a report today that continues to promote the outdated notion that Internet connectivity is separate and distinct from other types of Internet delivered telecommunications such as voice and video. It does so by parsing out "broadband" usage among various demographic groups.

Unfortunately, it's about as useful as reporting distinctions among these groups in their landline long distance calling patterns. Whether they make long distance calls or not, all use telecommunications infrastructure serving their premises. It's the same with the Internet as it replaces the publicly switched telephone network (PSTN) for voice calls and even cable TV for video. "Broadband usage" is no longer a meaningful metric.

If the calendar read 1999, the NTIA's report would be timely rather than more than decade out of date. Back then, "broadband" and "high speed Internet" was an emerging service option offered by legacy telephone and cable companies. Customers paid about $50 a month for the service over and above their usual monthly service charge.

Accordingly, discussing adoption of this service in terms of demographics and income would have made sense then since some groups of people would find this premium service more appealing and affordable than others -- especially since Internet applications such as websites and email were at the time only just starting to reach most consumers.

However, at a time when the Internet provides multiple services that formerly required separate, proprietary cable and telephone systems to deliver and can do so over a single tiny fiber optic strand connected to every home and business, reports like the one being issued today by the NTIA are increasingly irrelevant. It would be more far more useful and relevant if the NTIA and others instead studied how to hasten the build out of fiber optic infrastructure so that no homes and businesses are left offline.

Blair Levin perpetuates false distinction among IP-based services

Blair Levin, in another recent interview looking back on the U.S. National Broadband Plan he lead authored for the Federal Communications Commission before becoming an Aspen Institute fellow this summer, perpetuates a false distinction among Internet Protocol (IP)-based telecommunications services. IP-based services include Internet applications such as web browsing, email and e-commerce as well as Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) and video, also known as Internet Protocol TV (IPTV).

In an interview with Marguerite Reardon of cnet news, Levin does so by differentiating VOIP and IPTV from Internet applications. Levin -- as do many incumbent legacy phone and cable companies -- continues to describe the latter as "broadband." That term was appropriate in the mid-1990s when "broadband" denoted a premium service offered by telephone companies over their single purpose, proprietary copper cable plants. But as fiber optic cable technology increasingly obsoletes metal wire for delivering multiple IP-based services, the term is no longer relevant.

Levin reinforces this artificial split by talking about "broadband adoption." That too was relevant in the 1990s when broadband was being offered as a premium service, requiring customers to sign up for or "adopt" it. Today, it no longer is when Internet applications, voice and video can be delivered to consumers over a single fiber "pipe."

Further reinforcing the bogus notion of "broadband adoption," Levin elaborates that "broadband" requires consumers to be literate whereas voice and video do not. Therefore, Levin implies, we first need to improve the literacy of Americans to drive "broadband adoption" before the nation revamps its outmoded telecom infrastructure with fiber. Here's what he told Reardon:

Even though there are a lot of low-income people who may not be able to afford multi-channel video (cable TV), there is still a high proportion of people subscribing to the service. And people are not leaving in huge numbers. The big difference between TV and broadband is that to watch TV, you don't have to be literate. The same is true of phone service. You don't need to be literate to use a cell phone, so penetration of those services is higher. But to use broadband for things, such as getting access to public services, health care, job training, etc., a basic level of literacy is necessary. It requires a skill set. And teaching people those skills is a serious effort. So price is a piece of it, but literacy and relevance are also aspects too.

This is so much sophistry. Moreover, even if one accepts Levin's false dichotomy between Internet applications on one hand and voice and video on the other, it would argue for a bigger push to deploy fiber optic telecom infrastructure since video requires the "fat pipe" bandwidth fiber can provide.