Catch up with broadband efforts across the US

Thanks to some easy links from the Baller Herbst email list I was able to track down updates for what’s going on with broadband efforts in various high profile communities across the country. Let me just say after perusing the playing field – it’s rough out there.

Chattanooga – Comcast files suit

Comcast of the South has asked the Hamilton County Chancery Court to stop the fiber-to-the-home project planned by the Chattanooga Electric Power Board. Last week the Tennessee Cable and Telecommunications Association tried to file suit in a neighboring County but the court said no go, since the TCTA were not the party that would be injured.

(Read more, read past blog posts on the Chattanooga project.)

New Orleans says goodbye to WiFi

Earthlink is shutting down its WiFi network in New Orleans. (The network was built soon after Katrina.) Apparently it tried to find a buyer, including asking the city to buy – but no one rose to the occasion. The network will be shut down on May 18. Subscribers will be offered other Earthlink broadband options.

It sounds as if Earthlink wants to get out of the municipal WiFi game entirely. They are currently transferring networks in Corpus Christi and Milpitas and are looking to find other arrangements for Philadelphia and Anaheim.

Utopia is falling on hard times

The Utopia and iProvo FTTH networks in Utah are running into problems with lower subscriber rates and revenue shortfalls. With less money coming in, the project wil have difficulty paying back bond payments.

Both networks are open networks, or as TCMNet put it, access wholesalers, and neither network has gotten enough retail partners, nor have the retailers done well enough to fatten either network’s revenue, either on the business or consumer sides of the business.”

(Read more, read some background)

Burlington Vermont hasn’t reached goals yet

Burlington’s city’s chief administrative officer, Jonathan Leopold, reports that Burlington Telecom will not be breaking even by June as earlier projected by previous general manager, Tim Nulty. (There seems to be some disagreements regarding the numbers and culpability here.) Revisions have been made to the business plan and the hope/plan is to compete with other providers to get the necessary subscribers and cut costs where necessarily to be solvent and eventually be in a position to pay back the $33 million it borrowed to build the system.

(Minnesota-based Christopher Mitchell was also recently mentioned in the same publication for his case study on Burlington Telecom for Institute for Local Self Reliance.

LA is going mobile – but not wireless

The Metro in LA has been studying options for providing WiFi to passengers on the Orange Line that runs through the San Fernando Valley and on the subway – but so far it’s a no go. The cost is too high and no providers have jumped at the opportunity.

The 10 Most Disruptive Technology Combinations

I just ran across my new favorite technology article (The 10 Most Disruptive Technology Combinations). In it the author talks about 10 great marriages of inventions that changed the digital landscape over the next 25 years.

I’ll give you the marriages – you’ll have to check out the article for the explanation (As you’ll see most of them assume or require broadband):

10. DVRs + Entertainment on Demand
9. YouTube + Cheap Digital Cameras and Camcorders
8. Open Source + Web Tools
7. MP3 + Napster
6. Blogs + Google Ads
5. Cheap Storage + Portable Memory
4. Cloud Computing + Always-On Devices
3. Broadband + Wireless Networks
2. The Web + The Graphical Browser
1. Cell Phones + Wireless Internet Access

FiberNet in Iron Range is back on track

Last month we reported that the project was at a crossroads. They were committed to moving forward, the method was undecided.

Well they are starting to move forward once again and have started by hiring Gary Fields (who has worked with Blandin in the past) and Tim Nulty (speaker from the Blandin Broadband Conference last fall).

Gary and Tim are going to make presentations to the 11 FiberNet communities to talk about their plans to develop a financial plan. If funded, the network would be operated jointly by the participating cities, would also offer high speed services (telephone, ultra high speed Internet, and video, including cable television) to customers in the participating communities.

Thus far the FiberNet Project has been funded primarily by the Blandin Foundation and Iron Range Resources. However, to move forward it looks as if the communities will be asked to lend 15,000 to the project to pay for completion of a bankable business plan.

For more information, visit the Timberjay article (Fibernet project takes a key step forward).

FiberNet Monticello April 2008 Update

Have you ever wanted to be a fly on the wall as a town funded, designed and implemented fiber into their community? Well thanks to Lynne Dahl-Flemming we got something even better – we’ve got the notes from the fly on the wall.

Monticello received funding from Blandin Foundation as part of the Get Broadband program. After an amazing referendum vote for fiber last fall, they are moving ahead in all direction. Read on to hear how it’s going. I think this account will be particularly interesting to anyone who is in a position to consider fiber in their area…

WiMAX Connecting Rural AZ and FL

Thanks to Bernadine Joselyn for the heads up on the recent article in CNN (Charles Street Partners Selects Nortel WiMAX to Bring Broadband to Rural America).

The headline says it all, Charles Street Partners(CSP) plans to use WiMAX technology from Nortel to bring wireless broadband to U.S. residents in rural areas of Arizona and Florida. The network will offer data and VoIP capabilities to about one million residents and businesses – some who haven’t had access to broadband before.

CSP has found that WiMax provided the lowest cost-per-megabit. It sounds as if CSP works with a number of local providers, so they act as an umbrella organization (parent company) of some sort  but that the last mile support will be provided by local entities. Nortel will provide an end-to-end, completely integrated WiMAX solution that provides operators with everything they need - from devices and applications to infrastructure and services.

Charles Street Partners has secured over $35M in loans to bring broadband to underserved rural markets in the U.S. from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development Community Connect Grant Program.

Community Broadband Resources Assists Clearwater MN

Clearwater is located between the Twin Cities and St. Cloud on I-94. Many people recognize Clearwater as the shortcut over to Highway 10 on our way “up north.” The Clearwater Economic Development Authority applied for and received a technical assistance grant through Blandin Foundation’s Community Broadband Resources Program. They requested assistance in assessing their community’s telecommunications environment as they are unsure if their current services are meeting the current and future needs of their community.

Our first meeting was used to draw up a short term effort to do some basic groundwork. We needed an understanding of the supply and demand for broadband services. First, surveys should be sent to the three known providers – Frontier Communications, US Cable and CitEscape Wireless to better understand their current infrastructure and service offerings. We also wanted to know their future plans. I took the lead on this task.

We also developed a plan to survey the businesses belonging to the commercial club to understand their current broadband usage and satisfaction with their telecommunications service offerings. The Clearwater EDA and staff took responsibility for this activity.

We just had our second meeting earlier this week. Representatives from Frontier and CitEscape joined us at the meeting for individual discussions and both community and provider representatives learned a lot. We found out that Frontier Communications has upgraded its backbone connection to Clearwater and that DSL customers will now be enjoying 6 Mb DSL speeds, up from 2 Mb which was great news to learn (our committee’s first win!). We also learned from Frontier that Clearwater is on a bit of a network dead end, which is not so great from an economic development standpoint. While committee members did not recall any outages, it is still not the best situation, especially for attracting tech-sensitive firms. Frontier was very interested in the community’s comprehensive plan and future business development plans and was anxious to coordinate infrastructure development. Finally, Frontier advised the group that Frontier’s new infrastructure development was primarily fiber to the home.

CitEscape talked about their ability to reach rural customers with broadband services from their towers in the area. Their ability to serve customers depends on line of sight technology, especially as the distance from the tower increases. Clearwater has two water towers and one of those has no current telecommunications facilities on it. It seemed like a great match. CitEscape will be providing the city with a map of the prospective service coverage if a radio was placed on the water tower. CitEscape’s services offer some advantages, like symmetric service and as an affordable redundant connection.

For a second meeting on the telecommunication’s topic, the day offered several opportunities for progress. Our next steps will be to meet with US Cable and to complete the survey of the business community.

If you are interested in bringing Community Broadband Resources to your community, go to www.blandinfoundation.org or send an email to bill@communitytechnologyadvisors.com

Senate Network Neutrality Hearing Recap from Benton

The Benton Foundation has done a great job of tracking Tuesday’s US Senate Meeting on the Future of the Internet.

The main topic was Net Neutrality. FCC Chairman Martin stands firm on the FCC’s responsibility to ensure that the public and full and unfettered access to the Internet to pursue legal activity. Senator Daniel Inouye (who introduced the Broadband Data Improvement Act) is optimistic about recent activity around Net Neutrality. People seem to be working together. And then lots of content providers came out in favor of Net Neutrality and the network providers came out against that barrier on their business plans.

The full story (from Benton) includes a link to Justine Batemen’s testimony (that would be Mallory Keaton to many of us).

New Spectrum Marketplace

Haven’t heard enough about spectrum these days? Well a new marketplace just opened this week…

LMDSXchange is the first online marketplace that allows government agencies, businesses and telecommunications companies to locate and lease licensed broadband wireless spectrum in the 28-31GHz range, commonly called LMDS or Local Multi-point Distribution Service spectrum, on a nationwide basis. (Not that this is far removed fromt he 700 Mhz spectrum that has been in the news lately.)

According to the site, LMDS spectrum supports the transmission of data at speeds ranging from 1.5 Mbps to 800 Mbps, and can be used by businesses, government agencies and service providers to support a variety of network applications.

Broadband Policy Status in MN & US

I’ve been waiting on official word that Governor Pawlenty signed the Broadband Study Bill. He signed on April 17, but official notice has been slow to surface – but I just found a scanned copy of the bill and the signature on the GIG Group’s web site.

So I’m going to call that official and share the news here.

Also I wanted to share a great map of broadband policy activity in the US. The map was created and kindly shared by the GIG group. It gives a nice easy (very high level) view of what’s happening around the country.

Home and Community Options, Inc

Blandin Light Speed Grant

Six Month Progress Report

Peter Walsh, Project Coordinator

April 22, 2008

 

We have just completed the first six months of our Light Speed Project and it is exciting to provide an update on the progress we have made toward our goals.

 

All in all we have made good strides in either completing or moving forward on our goal related activities.  Perhaps the biggest disappointment has been the slow progress of HBCI making the FTTH connections.  We hope that with warmer weather their technicians will be better able to complete this task.  HBCI has indicated that they will be starting to lay underground cable now that the ground is frost free and they assure us that once they get started installations will flow steadily.

 

We are very pleased with the response of our staff and their desire for additional training.  We are excited to see the ease in which our E-File system is being deployed and we have programs clamoring to be next on our installation list.  Fortunately, that decision is made by the agency Directors and they select programs on the basis of need and readiness.

 

Our remote monitoring venture is unfolding very nicely.  We have a model home in the midst of implementation with a variety of security devices working and progress being made every day.  We have most of the call escalation program completed and are designing the user interface screens.  We are testing the phone interface and find that it works well.  I am sure we will find more things that we need to adjust as we start playing out some scenarios.  

 

We are meeting monthly with a local group made up of providers of care to the elderly who are seeking ways to improve the delivery of service to seniors within the Winona community.  They are excited about our participation and we hope to find some opportunities to implement some of our remote monitoring solutions within their care population. 

 

We are grateful to the Blandin Foundation for this opportunity to implement our broadband applications.