Roanoke Valley Broadband Authority, Internet providers disagree on state of broadband - Roanoke Times: Roanoke News
This story illustrates that local government officials are growing less inclined to rely on what incumbent legacy telephone and cable companies claim they have in place or will build when it comes to last mile Internet infrastructure.
Good for them. Other local governments should follow this example and create and fund special districts and authorities to build the infrastructure they need. Collectively, their doing so will help the United States bridge a persistent Internet infrastructure gap that leaves millions of Americans without adequate connectivity -- many of them still forced to use dialup connections that were state of the art 20 years ago.
Analysis & commentary on America's troubled transition from analog telephone service to digital advanced telecommunications and associated infrastructure deficits.
Saturday, August 09, 2014
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Study finds Missoula city, county should spend $10M on broadband
Study finds Missoula city, county should spend $10M on broadband: As proposed, the city and county together would invest $10 million toward a $17 million system, with the local government funds leveraging other money, Copple said. The local money would be paid through user fees, not taxes, and it would build roughly 60 miles of an “open access” fiber-optic network.
“Everybody has the same chance to use it,” Copple said.
“Everybody has the same chance to use it,” Copple said.
Thursday, July 24, 2014
Open access fiber telecom infrastructure funded in West Virginia over telco's objections
Competition in telecommunications infrastructure isn't really among major telcos and cable companies. They operate in market that due to the high cost barriers to entry functions as a natural monopoly or at best, a duopoly where service is available from just two landline providers: the phone company or the cable company. In much of the United States, the choice is only one of the two or sadly, neither because they have redlined parts of their service territories.
The real competition is between the business models for premise Internet connectivity: open access Internet infrastructure such as employed by the Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency that regards it as a public asset like roads and highways or the proprietary, closed access infrastructure model of investor-owned telephone and cable companies.
This week in West Virginia, the debate tipped in favor of open access after the West Virginia Broadband Deployment Council voted 3-2 to provide $690,000 in funding to the West Virginia Network, a state agency that provides Internet service to schools, universities and other public facilities. The deciding factor was the state wanting more control over the infrastructure and not being subject to the whims of a monopoly provider.
“Frontier is the only provider in the region, and there is no open access to that infrastructure,” one of the council members noted. “You can’t really connect any of the dots [communities] together . . . . We can hopefully connect those rings and enable broadband expansion in the area.”
This is a notable development because it signals that public policy is shifting towards viewing Internet infrastructure as essential as public thoroughfares and thus not best controlled and operated as a hodge podge of private toll roads with high tolls and serving only some areas while leaving others disconnected from the Internet.
Click here for the story.
The real competition is between the business models for premise Internet connectivity: open access Internet infrastructure such as employed by the Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency that regards it as a public asset like roads and highways or the proprietary, closed access infrastructure model of investor-owned telephone and cable companies.
This week in West Virginia, the debate tipped in favor of open access after the West Virginia Broadband Deployment Council voted 3-2 to provide $690,000 in funding to the West Virginia Network, a state agency that provides Internet service to schools, universities and other public facilities. The deciding factor was the state wanting more control over the infrastructure and not being subject to the whims of a monopoly provider.
“Frontier is the only provider in the region, and there is no open access to that infrastructure,” one of the council members noted. “You can’t really connect any of the dots [communities] together . . . . We can hopefully connect those rings and enable broadband expansion in the area.”
This is a notable development because it signals that public policy is shifting towards viewing Internet infrastructure as essential as public thoroughfares and thus not best controlled and operated as a hodge podge of private toll roads with high tolls and serving only some areas while leaving others disconnected from the Internet.
Click here for the story.
West
Virginia Broadband Deployment Council voted 3-2 to award the money to
West Virginia Network, or WVNET, a state agency that provides Internet
service to schools, universities and other public facilities. WVNET
would own the three-segment fiber network that would connect Snowshoe to
Cass, Valley Head to Mill Creek, and Durbin to Green Bank. - See more
at:
http://www.wvgazette.com/article/20140723/GZ01/140729675/1419#sthash.ldOg1t7a.dpuf
West
Virginia Broadband Deployment Council voted 3-2 to award the money to
West Virginia Network, or WVNET, a state agency that provides Internet
service to schools, universities and other public facilities. WVNET
would own the three-segment fiber network that would connect Snowshoe to
Cass, Valley Head to Mill Creek, and Durbin to Green Bank. - See more
at:
http://www.wvgazette.com/article/20140723/GZ01/140729675/1419#sthash.ldOg1t7a.dpuf
West
Virginia Broadband Deployment Council voted 3-2 to award the money to
West Virginia Network, or WVNET, a state agency that provides Internet
service to schools, universities and other public facilities. WVNET
would own the three-segment fiber network that would connect Snowshoe to
Cass, Valley Head to Mill Creek, and Durbin to Green Bank. - See more
at:
http://www.wvgazette.com/article/20140723/GZ01/140729675/1419#sthash.ldOg1t7a.dpuf
West
Virginia Broadband Deployment Council voted 3-2 to award the money to
West Virginia Network, or WVNET, a state agency that provides Internet
service to schools, universities and other public facilities. WVNET
would own the three-segment fiber network that would connect Snowshoe to
Cass, Valley Head to Mill Creek, and Durbin to Green Bank. - See more
at:
http://www.wvgazette.com/article/20140723/GZ01/140729675/1419#sthash.ldOg1t7a.dpuf
Sunday, July 20, 2014
The FCC wants to let cities build their own broadband. House Republicans disagree. - Vox
The FCC wants to let cities build their own broadband. House Republicans disagree. - Vox
House Republicans would be well advised to consult with or hire new, better economic advisors. They demonstrate a fundamental misapprehension of telecommunications infrastructure in viewing it as a competitive market when in fact it's a natural monopoly as Susan Crawford notes (see the embedded video interview).
Competitive markets (like retail grocery and furniture, for example) have many sellers and many buyers. Due to high cost barriers to entry, telecommunications infrastructure is not characterized by a multitude of sellers and will likely never be a competitive market. It's a utility like telephone service as Crawford correctly observes, and should be regulated accordingly.
House Republicans would be well advised to consult with or hire new, better economic advisors. They demonstrate a fundamental misapprehension of telecommunications infrastructure in viewing it as a competitive market when in fact it's a natural monopoly as Susan Crawford notes (see the embedded video interview).
Competitive markets (like retail grocery and furniture, for example) have many sellers and many buyers. Due to high cost barriers to entry, telecommunications infrastructure is not characterized by a multitude of sellers and will likely never be a competitive market. It's a utility like telephone service as Crawford correctly observes, and should be regulated accordingly.
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Another public regional telecom infrastructure project may be ripe for PPP investment
In Utah, several cities are moving ahead with due diligence on a public-private partnership (PPP) to construct fiber to the premise (FTTP) telecom infrastructure.
Another public FTTP infrastructure project in the eastern United States might also be an attractive partner for private investment companies like Australia-based Macquarie Capital Group, which is looking at investing in Utah's UTOPIA regional network.
This one's in western Massachusetts and is a utility cooperative of 42 municipalities. According to a June 2014 update by the Wired West cooperative, it is hoping to obtain state funding to move forward with construction as people in western Massachusetts continue to be vexed by the lack of adequate internet service.
Given the scope of the Wired West project, it will likely need significantly greater funding from the private sector as part of a PPP like that under consideration in Utah.
Sunday, July 13, 2014
Gigabit over fiber altering telecom landscape
One word is exerting substantial influence over U.S.
telecommunications infrastructure: gigabit. It is literally exponentially redefining
what constitutes modern premises Internet connectivity from megabits per second
(Mbs) range to gigabits per second (Gbs).
Gigabit is also aiding in a shift of market power to the
demand side and away from legacy telephone and cable companies that supply megabit
class service – often in the single digit Mbs range in the case of telcos -- over
“last mile” metal wire or cable to customer premises. The limitations of this
infrastructure versus fiber optic lines easily capable of delivering gigabit
class service have led telephone and cable companies to ration bandwidth,
selling it in various “bandwidth by the bucket” consumption tiers like
electricity or natural gas. Gigabit over fiber to the premise will obsolete
that business model at the same time premise bandwidth demand continues to rapidly
accelerate. Drivers include more and higher definition video streams, multiple devices in the home and emerging Internet-enabled home services. Also, more
knowledge workers working at home at least part of the work week.
Gigabit over premises fiber service will also obsolete the
legacy telcos and cablecos themselves, burdened with decades-old twisted pair and
coax cable infrastructure as well as high debt and shareholder dividend obligations.
That will give advantage to agile and financially creative overbuilders connecting premises with fiber
service.
Since telecommunications infrastructure is a natural
monopoly, once fiber first movers have established a substantial market
presence, the economics of challenging them with parallel infrastructure become
very difficult. This same dynamic has historically deterred those who would
overbuild the incumbent telcos and cablecos. But the shift toward gigabit class
service delivered over fiber could reverse the advantage of incumbency the
legacy telephone and cable companies have enjoyed for more than a decade.
The first mover advantage would be particularly high in
parts of incumbent telephone and cable company service territories where the
incumbents don’t offer landline Internet connections or very slow ones such as
first generation DSL.
Tuesday, July 08, 2014
Telcos’ copper cable plants deteriorate with no clear plans to replace them with fiber
A crisis affecting Americans who obtain premises telecommunications services (Internet, voice, and video) from legacy telephone companies has been slowly unfolding over the past 10 years.
These companies’ copper
cable plants are growing very aged and nearing the end of their useful lives
with no clear plan to replace them with fiber optic cables.
The problem has worsened in the past decade as telcos have
concentrated their infrastructure investments on mobile wireless services while
all but ignoring their deteriorating landline cable plants. Much of it is in
such poor condition that it can’t deliver any Internet connectivity or only marginally
at sluggish speeds.
One strategy going forward is to sell as AT&T
is doing with its Connecticut residential landline unit. However, in parts
of telcos’ service territories where the copper cable plant is ancient and a
fully depreciated asset, it’s questionable as to what value any potential buyer
would see in such a deal.
A possible path to resolution of this crisis could come later this
year if the U.S. Federal Communications Commission opts to subject Internet protocol-based services to common
carrier and universal service requirements under Title II of the
Telecommunications Act of 1934.
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