Kentucky middle mile telecom infrastructure project needs solid last mile solution

 

Kentucky.gov: - Governor Beshear, Congressman Hal Rogers Launch Statewide Broadband Initiative, Beginning in Eastern Kentucky: The first stage of the project is to build the main broadband fiber lines across the state. These major fiber lines are called the “middle mile.” The “open access” network will allow the private sector to use the fiber to deliver services into communities. Once complete, other Internet service provider companies, cities, partnerships, or other groups may then tap into those “middle mile” lines to complete the “last mile” – the lines that run to individual homes or businesses.

This last sentence is key and delineates between what's actually planned to be built and what's theoretically hoped to be. Without those last mile ISPs, Kentucky will end up with an incomplete network, condemning many of its residents to continued subpar Internet service. It would be like building an expressway and having gravel or dirt roads at the exits and on ramps. As the news release from Gov. Beshear's office notes, Kentucky rates poorly compared to other states on Internet access. That sad statistic is unlikely to improve without a solid plan to build fiber to the premise infrastructure to serve the last mile.

Historically, middle mile projects like this one do a good job getting anchor institutions like schools, libraries and government offices connected. But that doesn't automatically mean nearby homes and small businesses will get connections and can even hinder their getting service as network expert Andrew Cohill has noted since the network operators tend to concentrate their efforts on serving anchor institutions and figure someone else can solve the last mile problem. That someone else has typically proven to be nonexistent. It's essentially a funding problem since there tends to be insufficient and/or uncertain future revenues to attract those interested in investing in the needed infrastructure to bridge the last mile to homes and small businesses.

In Utah, the private funding partner of the Kentucky initiative, Macquarie Capital Group, is working with the Utah Open Telecommunications Infrastructure Agency (UTOPIA) on an open access fiber to the premise project serving 11 cities. That project solves the last mile funding problem by treating the fiber to the premise infrastructure as public works, funded in part by fees assessed on property owners. Which makes sense since these properties collectively benefit by being able to access the various economic, educational, health care and other services made possible with fiber connections. Kentucky would be wise to draw upon the Macquarie/UTOPIA partnership to plan and construct a complete fiber telecommunications network that will serve all its residents in the 21st century.

Incumbent telcos, cablecos should reconsider shunning wholesale open access fiber networks

Incumbent telephone and cable companies that enjoy a natural monopoly over last mile Internet infrastructure connecting customer premises have been loath to offer services over open access, wholesale fiber to the premise (FTTP) networks like the Utah Telecommunications Open Infrastructure Agency (UTOPIA) system. In some states, they’ve even successfully supported legislation outlawing or making the creation of publicly operated open access networks difficult. As monopolies, they want control over both the “pipe” serving customer premises and the services provided over it. Having control over the premise connection is essential to this business model since it puts the incumbents in the dominant position with regard to selling their proprietary services.

But with a growing chorus of calls for competition for Internet service from the White House, members of Congress, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission and consumer advocates, the threat of federal antitrust litigation to break up the incumbents’ last mile monopolies has increased. 

Given that possibility, incumbents might want to reconsider their flat refusal to do business with wholesale open access fiber networks. If they chose to purchase access to wholesale networks to sell retail services to customer premises, they’d likely appear to be far less insular and monopolistic in the eyes of the government. Doing business with wholesale, open access fiber networks would also spare the incumbents –largely reliant on metal wire and cable last mile infrastructure – from the expense of having to upgrade their last mile plants to fiber in areas where these networks exist and allow them to reach customer premises outside their limited footprints.

Financial distress of PPP toll road projects holds lesson for telecom infrastructure

Are US toll roads in crisis? | Jacques Cook | LinkedIn: In a recent article “On the Road: Navigating the twists and turns of US highway P3s” (Dec. 8, 2014), Michael Dunning describes some of the serious financial difficulties facing some of the most important US P3 toll roads. He notes that the Indiana Toll Road, once described as a trend setter in the US P3 market, has declared bankruptcy; while several major projects in California (SR-125), Texas (SH-130), Virginia (I-495 Hot Lanes, Pocahantas Highway) and Illinois (Chicago Skyway) are also in financial distress and in various stages of bankruptcy and restructuring. These are not encouraging signs for the US P3 market. Dunning notes however that there are important lessons to be learned from these transactions.

While each of these projects was funded at different times and under different legal and institutional frameworks, they share one common characteristic—they were being funded entirely with tolls paid by automobiles and trucks.

The experience here can be applied to other costly infrastructure projects like modernizing and building out fiber optic telecommunications networks. Relying completely on user fees for its financing heightens the risk of insolvency.

Aspirational sloganeering won't build last mile fiber

Half of Connecticut says it wants fiber-optic Internet —and soon - The Washington Post: Although the state has fiber-optic cables connecting all 169 towns, that infrastructure typically ends in nodes serving the local town hall or police and fire stations. The next step will be to connect individual homes to that network. As many as 1.8 million Connecticut residents would get access to fiber if the public-private partnership plans move forward.

That figure also represents a significant opportunity for Internet providers. ISPs would not only be able to tap into a lucrative subscriber base for fiber-optic services, said Vallee — they'd be able to do so at little cost to themselves, thanks to the infrastructure that's already been built and state incentives to streamline the building process.

There are two big questions not addressed in this story: Who will build the residential fiber infrastructure and how will it be financed? Without those details, talk of Connecticut being "number one" for fiber connectivity is merely aspirational sloganeering.

It's also misleading to suggest that ISPs will be able to deploy that infrastructure "at little cost to themselves." Cost barriers to building last mile fiber infrastructure are significant and the primary reason why once anchor institutions are connected to fiber, homes and small businesses are left unconnected as is the case here. Connecticut and other states need realistic and well thought out plans to meet and overcome them.

Story on CAF subsidies encapsulates much of what's wrong with U.S. telecom policy

This story on the U.S. Federal Communications Commission's high cost infrastructure subsidy program, the Connect America Fund (CAF), encapsulates much of what's wrong with U.S. telecommunications policy.

CAF subsidizes technologically obsolete copper cable designed to serve a pre-Internet telecommunications system. Not only that, the telecom companies that would benefit from the CAF subsidies aren't grateful to get them and immediately put them to work. Instead, they bitch and moan as CenturyLink and Windstream do here.

Pathetic. It's no wonder other nations look at U.S. telecom policy and shake their heads.

Back to the future: How Title II litigation could spark antitrust actions against AT&T and Verizon

In 1984, AT&T was split into seven regional companies under a consent decree to settle a 1974 antitrust lawsuit brought by the U.S. federal government, United States v. AT&T, aimed at busting Ma Bell’s monopoly over local and long distance telephone service. Three decades later, AT&T has through a series of mergers and acquisitions reassembled itself into a telecommunications behemoth, rivaled in size only by Verizon, which was formed out of NYNEX and Bell Atlantic, two of the AT&T regional operating companies.

Now as the U.S. Federal Communications Commission considers classifying Internet-based telecommunications as a common carrier utility service under Title II of the Communications Act, the stage is being set for another potential massive antitrust court case.

Here’s how it might play out. Both AT&T and Verizon vow they will litigate to block the FCC if it opts to put in place common carrier regulation as recently urged by President Barack Obama. If that happens, it could spark complaints to Obama’s Justice Department from core content providers like Netflix and transport layer providers like Level 3 Communications that the monopolies that AT&T and Verizon enjoy over residential Internet service in their respective service territories violate the Sherman Antitrust Act and restrain interstate commerce. The Justice Department could then opt to initiate antitrust lawsuits as logical counter actions to the telcos' lawsuits against the FCC.

In the antitrust actions, the complainants could conceivably point to disputes with the two big telcos over interconnection arrangements and allege the telcos are engaging in anti-competitive behavior by deliberately degrading services delivered to their end user consumers while wholly denying other consumers services by redlining landline-delivered Internet services in selected neighborhoods and streets. They could demand the courts order the FCC to require the telcos to open their last mile networks to competitors pursuant to the 1996 amendment of the Communications Act. Or sell them off to smaller regional providers or local governments or telecom cooperatives.

Verizon exec: We'll continue to invest in FiOS and mobile wireless under Title II common carrier regulation

Verizon: Actually, strong net neutrality rules won’t affect our network investment - The Washington Post: Francis J. Shammo - EVP and CFO I mean to be real clear, I mean this does not influence the way we invest. I mean we're going to continue to invest in our networks and our platforms, both in Wireless and Wireline FiOS and where we need to. So nothing will influence that. I mean if you think about it, look, I mean we were born out of a highly regulated company, so we know how this operates. But related to this discussion around Net Neutrality, the FCC has the right to regulate under 765, they do not need to go to Title II, and why would you go to a 1930 piece of literature to try to regulate something that is a 21st-century technology.

This is newsworthly insofar as it signals that Verizon intends to end its 3-year-old moratorium on new fiber to the premise infrastructure CAPEX, even if the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) subjects Internet service providers to common carrier regulation under Title II of the Communications Act.

A common carrier mandate that providers serve all customers without discrimination would bar Verizon and other Internet service providers from their current practice of redlining neighborhoods and streets within their service territories. Under Title II, they'd have to invest in upgrading and building out their infrastructures to serve these areas, but on a faster schedule than they would like. That's why Verizon and other legacy incumbents plan to attempt to delay the mandate by taking the FCC to court if it adopts a Title II common carrier regulatory regime.

As to Shammo's reference to the 1930s when the Communications Act was first enacted, the law's common carrier requirements brought all Americans telephone service in the 20th century. There's nothing outdated about the principle of universal telecommunications service. It only needs updating to encompass IP-enabled telecommunications services in the 21st century.

Incumbent misapprehensions and myths: Time to get real

Fiber fight: Broadening broadband Gig City touted as model in broadband debate | Mobile TFP: In its filing with the FCC, AT&T notes that many municipal broadband networks never got off the drawing board, putting taxpayers are risk, while others have pre-empted private investment.

"Although many government owned networks (GONs) have failed, or at least failed to live up to expectations, GONs can nonetheless discourage private sector investment because of understandable concerns by private sector entities of a non-level playing field," AT&T attorney Christopher Meimann said.

A natural monopoly like telecommunications infrastructure cannot and will not ever be a "level playing field." Whoever is on the field holds a monopoly advantage. Incumbents have used that advantage to pick winners and losers by building Internet telecommunications infrastructure to serve some neighborhoods but not others.

"Any policy that risks diminishing private sector investment would be short-sighted and unwise."

AT&T wants incumbent, private telecom providers to have a "right of first refusal" to deploy high-speed broadband before a government utility starts such a competitive service.

It's entirely appropriate for government to construct telecommunications infrastructure given market forces alone cannot ensure all homes and businesses have access to modern fiber optic telecommunications service. Private sector investment has already been substantially diminished insofar as millions of U.S. premises remain unserved by landline-delivered Internet connections even under current U.S. "light touch" regulatory policy. 

Where service is not available, phone companies and cable providers suggest broadband can be subsidized through the FCC's Connect America Fund, which is targeted at the 18 million Americans living in rural areas with no access to robust broadband infrastructure.

In theory yes. But legacy incumbent telephone and cable companies have largely shunned the Connect America Fund subsidies because they are incompatible with their market segmentation strategies that concentrate their capital investment in high density, metro areas.