Broadband act could expand service in Chaffee County - TheMountainMail.com: Free Content: As introduced, the bill’s language would define unserved areas as: areas outside a municipality or a city with less than 5,000 people in which a majority of households do not have access to at least one satellite and one non-satellite broadband provider.Summed up in two words: Useless and laughable. It basically tells Coloradans with no other premise Internet options to go suck a satellite and be happy with the crappy customer experience, bandwidth "fair access" caps and poor value. A bill only the incumbent preservatives could love. Indeed, they probably drafted it.
Analysis & commentary on America's troubled transition from analog telephone service to digital advanced telecommunications and associated infrastructure deficits.
Sunday, March 30, 2014
Colorado measure would bar Internet infrastructure subsidies to small towns served by satellite ISPs
Event highlights scarcity of high-speed Internet in rural areas | The News Leader | newsleader.com
Event highlights scarcity of high-speed Internet in rural areas | The News Leader | newsleader.com: During a break, Korte explained how he, his wife, and their business, The Balance Group, switched to 4G cellular broadband service. However the data limits cellphone providers set make business more expensive, Korte said.
They’ve had to stick with it, though, and absorb the cost from exceeding data caps.
“I go to the (cellphone provider) and say, ‘Well, we need 300 gigabytes a month. That would probably do it.’” Korte said. “They laugh at it, and tell me to go to the cable company.”
Like many residents in Augusta County and those served by the two-dozen other rural, local government officials gathered for the workshop, cable service doesn’t extend to his home.
This pretty well sums up the sorry state of Internet infrastructure in much of the United States and trying to get by on mobile wireless.
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
The case for overbuilding incumbent telcos and cablecos
Twentieth century, metal wire-based legacy incumbent telephone
and cable companies naturally don’t like it when progress inevitably emerges in
the form of 21st century fiber optic to the premise (FTTP) telecommunications
infrastructure offering the proverbial better (and faster) mousetrap as well as
protection against technological obsolescence. Particularly if they have opted
not to construct it and someone else is planning to do so. Especially if the
new fiber infrastructure benefits from government subsidies. No fair, incumbents
protest. That’s government subsidized competition that picks winners and losers
and we’ll lose.
That argument cuts both ways, asserts Christopher Mitchell of
the Minnesota-based Institute for Local Self Reliance (ILSR), one of my
favorite incumbent spin busters. Incumbents have benefitted from favorable governmental
policies that have been in place for decades including the availability of high
cost subsidies and public policy that permitted them to maintain a monopoly.
Not allowing government subsidization of FTTP infrastructure built by
non-incumbents in the footprints of the incumbents, Mitchell suggests, is a
double standard.
Given that telecommunications infrastructure must be broadly
dispersed in order to be economically viable and adhere to Metcalfe’s Law,
Mitchell accurately notes FTTP infrastructure builders must be able overbuild outmoded
incumbent infrastructure when they opt not to upgrade to FTTP -- and receive
government subsidies for doing so if available. That’s eminently fair and good
old American progress – the same progress that brought electricity to large
swaths of the nation in the 1930s when market forces alone could not do so.
As for the incumbent argument they will come out losers,
Mitchell observes incumbents have made losers out of nearly 20 million
Americans who according to a 2012 Federal Communications Commission estimate live
in neighborhoods incumbents redlined and declined any wireline premises
Internet connectivity, leaving them to dialup and satellite.
Click here
to hear Mitchell and ILSR colleague Lisa Gonzalez elaborate in a 13-minute
podcast.
Saturday, March 22, 2014
U.S. at inflection point on premises Internet infrastructure
The United States is at an inflection point relative to
premise Internet infrastructure serving homes and small businesses. The “walled
garden” business model of legacy incumbent cable and telephone companies has
reached the limits of its reach. Connecting the remaining 20 to 30 percent of
premises outside the wall isn’t economically practical as testimony at a U.S. House Small Business Subcommittee hearing this week in
upstate New York illustrates.
Mark Meyerhofer, a government relations
administrator for Time Warner Cable, said while there has been a change in the
national mindset that favors a greater focus on unserved areas, nevertheless
“It remains extremely challenging to extend broadband to most rural areas of
New York State, where geographic isolation and topographic issues make it
economically infeasible for companies to reach these areas,” Meyerhofer explained.
“Investments simply cannot be recouped before it is time to reinvest.” Although
Meyerhofer was specifically referring to only one part of the country, his
testimony applies elsewhere across the nation including many suburban and exurban areas where service gaps exist. That economic reality of the
walled garden Internet also applies to Google Fiber, which plans to expand into
several metropolitan areas.
The other challenge faced by the legacy
incumbent providers (but not Google Fiber) is the ever growing demand for more
Internet bandwidth. It’s similar to the problem facing manufacturers of silicon-based
microchips that eventually will reach a physical barrier where no additional
circuitry can be crammed onto the chip. That will require the incumbent providers
to change out their metal wire-based premise service infrastructure with fiber
optic connections to accommodate the additional bandwidth demand and stave off technological
obsolescence. But barring a revolutionary breakthrough that significantly reduces
the cost of constructing fiber to the premise infrastructure, their
shareholders aren’t likely to approve of such large capital expenditures that
could cut into dividends as shown by Verizon’s 2012 pullback of its FiOS fiber
to the premise product offering.
Given the growing consensus that the
so-called “last mile” premise Internet infrastructure challenge can’t be met within
a commercial framework, it strongly suggests other business models including a nonprofit
cooperative or public works approach similar to that used for roads and
highways will be necessary in many areas of the U.S.
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Good wireline Internet connectivity becoming a job requirement
One clear indication of the role good Internet connectivity plays in the economy is starting to show up in job postings. This telecommute position with Aetna, for example, states the following job requirements:
Minimum internet requirements for a telecommuting position include:
· A separate wired Internet connection
· Minimum download speed of 6MB
· Minimum upload speed of 1MB
· Satellite and other wireless Internet are NOT supported
Minimum internet requirements for a telecommuting position include:
· A separate wired Internet connection
· Minimum download speed of 6MB
· Minimum upload speed of 1MB
· Satellite and other wireless Internet are NOT supported
Monday, March 17, 2014
Sprint Chairman Masayoshi Son: A New Visionary In Our Midst?
IVP Capital TMT Advisory - SpectralShifts Weekly
I'm skeptical of Son's assertion that wireless is the solution to the U.S. premises fiber Internet infrastructure deficit. What's surprising is the incumbent telcos have been trying to sell this canard to divert attention away from their own wireline premise shortfalls. That's hardly disruptive or visionary.
What would impress me is breakout, actionable thinking that offers a functional alternative business model that would enable rapid build out of universal fiber to the premise.
I'm skeptical of Son's assertion that wireless is the solution to the U.S. premises fiber Internet infrastructure deficit. What's surprising is the incumbent telcos have been trying to sell this canard to divert attention away from their own wireline premise shortfalls. That's hardly disruptive or visionary.
What would impress me is breakout, actionable thinking that offers a functional alternative business model that would enable rapid build out of universal fiber to the premise.
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