Lac qui Parle County Talks Broadband

Over 30 community leaders from economic development, local government, education, business and health care met yesterday in Dawson, MN to begin a discussion on broadband deployment and use. Lac qui Parle County is in western Minnesota on the South Dakota border. The county’s communities range in size from just under 2,000 people down to towns with fewer than 100 residents. In the countryside, the farms can be large and the residents widely scattered. I was pleased to see several county commissioners and elected officials at the meeting. The group really understood the need to work on this topic at the county and regional level, rather than focus at the city level.

Existing Internet providers were well represented, including Farmers Mutual Telephone Cooperative, Frontier Communications, Farmers Cooperative Association and MVTV. Representing Blandin Foundation through Community Broadband Resources, I provided some background information on broadband technologies and the issues that rural communities are facing.

We talked extensively about the mix of existing service providers within the county and learned about some planned improvements. For example, Farmers Mutual Telephone Cooperative will have FTTP to every subscriber in its service area by the end of 2009. Frontier Communications is upgrading their backbone pipe into the region which will enable more capacity to the end-customers. They are also beginning to extend DSL services into the more rural parts of their exchange. The wireless providers talked about their ability to reach into the countryside.

People understood that this will require an incremental approach. Two first step needs emerged from the discussion – better understanding of what is available where and the need to education consumers, especially businesses, about the power of broadband and broadband applications. I look forward to meeting again with this motivated community.

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.

Comcast Brings Big Broadband to Minnesota

According to the Pioneer Press, Comcast will today announce big broadband service in the Twin Cities. With the new service, subscribers will be able to download at speeds of up to 50 megabits per second and upload at speeds of 5 megabits per second. The cost will be $150 a month for residential users and $200 a month for businesses, which includes support for business e-mail and Web hosting. (I didn’t see any info on the new service on the Comcast site - yet.)

I am very interested to see how popular the service is. They claim to be targeting online gamers. I think the businesses might be the most likely audience. I will look forward to trying out the service once I get home. I wish I could get it here. I run into bandwidth issues almost daily and while I spend a lot of time online – I don’t hitnk of myself as a super user. I don’t do online gaming and I don’t generally send or receive large files such as online x-rays or CAD files.

The article mentions that Qwest will soon be announcing a new product too.

FCC Chairman Says No to Skype

Sorry I will be posting a few things today. I tried to combine them and I just couldn’t do it. There have been a few newsworthy events in the last 24 hours and they just aren’t relate-able.

First FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said at the CTIA Conference that he does not support Sykpe’s petition for Carterfone regulation that would force operators to connect any device provided it doesn’t do any harm to the network.

Martin insists that regulation is not necessary because (quoted from the San Francisco Chronicle) Verizon Wireless announced last year it would open its network to outside devices and applications, provided they pass their certification process. Sprint and T-Mobile have also embraced openness through Google’s Open Handset Alliance, which calls for similar open access.

Before I make any comment I must admit that I love Skype. I use it almost daily to call home. OK sometimes I use it to make work calls – but really it lets me call family back in the US at any time. It makes me feel so much closer than I ever felt living overseas 15 years ago when I could call on Sunday only.

So, I am sad at this unofficial decision. As a consumer, I feel as if maybe the vendors do just the bare minimum to get by. Sure they say that they’re all over innovation that will happen tomorrow but I don’t see anyone embracing the innovation today.

I think that hesitation to innovate is part of what’s keeping the US out of the top technology ranking on a worldwide basis. As we work to maintain the status quo – the rest of the world is playing as if they have nothing to lose and we’re eating their cyber dust.

Comcast Opens Lanes for All Traffic

Thanks to Ann Higgins to sending me the heads up on shift of winds at Comcast (Comcast to stop hampering file-sharing). Comcast got into trouble for throttling customer traffic based on usage. One of the big examples was cutting off BitTorrent users.

Well, faster than prom dates are made and broken at this time of year – Comcast and BitTorrent are friends. They are going to work together to find a better way to manage the traffic so that all users get the bandwidth they need.

It sounds as if they are hoping to have some solutions in place by the end of the year. It will be interesting to see how if this has any effect on the FCC meetings. I think that the fact that the vendors have worked on a solution together will demonstrate that a light touch in regulation can work. (That’s not a vote one way or another from me – just an observation.)

Broadband Customer Gets Cut Off for Overuse

Last week I wrote about the Judiciary Committee Antitrust Task Force Hearing on Net Neutrality and Free Speech on the Internet. One of the big issues discussed was the fact that ISPs are reducing bandwidth for folks they feel use too much bandwidth.

Several ISPs have been cited for doing this, most notably Comcast. In the hearing the ISPs maintained that they needed to be able to manage their networks to work for everyone. One presenter seemed to note that the real issue was that the super users were generally doing something illegal.

Well today a blog post from someone who had been cut off caught my eye (Clearwire Makes Me Sad). It’s not the first instance I’ve read about – but this blogger (Aaron Huslage) does a good job of describing the facts of his situation. Also he mentions that he worked for an ISP in the 1990s (so I liked him right away) and compares how the ISPs budgeted for customer usage then as compared to how they do it today.

I can remember one issue we had with capacity in the 90s in some rural parts of Minnesota was that people were online a lot more in the winter. So you had to decide whether you’d build for the peak times or for a sunny day in August.

I think the ISPs today need to consider the same today and market accordingly.

PacketFront on Open Access

I had an opportunity to see Tim Scott of PacketFront talk about open access FTTH networks at the Digital City Expo in January. I thought his presentation was interesting and asked if he would follow up with more information for the blog. PacketFront was gracious enough to send us their responses and I am happy to post them below. I want to thank them for their time and consideration…

PacketFront is a very strong and vocal advocate for the open access model in municipal broadband. Open access is the only community network model that offers true freedom of choice and competition for consumers. In the right setting, open access networks bring down retail prices and increase service innovation, thus stirring economic growth and enhancing quality of life.

That being said, open access isn’t a viable option for every community network. In fact, we don’t believe open access is really feasible for networks of less than 3,000 homes. Further, to be really successful, open access networks need to start with 30,000 homes and businesses and go from there.

But how then can small and rural communities hope to reap the benefits of an open access network? To answer this question, it is probably useful to define the options available for service provider access to networks.

Closed: Networks that have one exclusive service provider. This single service provider may provide a variety of services on the network (voice, video, different levels of data service, etc.). This scenario is often seen in networks that are actually owned by the service provider as well (good examples of this are the Verizon FiOS networks, cable company networks, etc.). Closed networks are also found in smaller communities that, due to the low number of potential subscribers, cannot offer enough incentive for more than one service provider. Sometimes, a municipality that builds and owns its network will also choose to offer retail services on that network as the only service provider.

Limited Access: Networks that limit access to a capped number of service providers—more than one but fewer than five. This is a newer model which may suit some rural networks, especially in their earlier phases. Typically, the suite of service providers in this scenario would include at least one major triple-play provider, as well as one or two additional voice/data providers, and perhaps one or two niche providers.

Limited access networks allow smaller networks (less than 30,000 addresses) some of the same benefits of a completely open network while still allowing a solid revenue proposition for the service providers. In other words, by limiting the number of providers on the network, there is more revenue to share.

Open Access: Networks that are open for any qualified service provider to use. Sometimes these are owned by municipalities that offer the use of the network to service providers for a wholesale rate. The service providers then sign up subscribers and charge a retail rate; their profit comes from the difference between the retail rate they charge their subscribers, and the combination of their operating costs and the wholesale rate (or revenue share) they pay to the network owner. In a completely open network with a large enough subscriber base (typically more than 30,000), many service providers will join the network, offering major voice/video/data products, along with niche products that fulfill specific needs (i.e, distance education, telemedicine, security, gaming, visual communications, etc.).

No matter what option works best for a network at its outset, bear in mind that it is much easier to accommodate future growth on a network if it is initially built as an open access network. Why? Technologically, it is much easier to move from a limited access network to an open access network than it is to move from a closed network to an open- or limited access network. This is because the decisions made early in the design and build of the network (open, closed, limited) will dictate many of the decisions regarding governance, financing, marketing, electronics, and operating systems.

So if any type of an open network is anticipated or desired in order to achieve the long-term objectives of the network, PacketFront would recommend that the network be initially built to accommodate an open access model, even if it will be operated, at first, as a closed or limited access network. Doing so will enable a far easier and less expensive transition as the network grows and evolves.

The idea here to be able to easily add more service providers to a network as it matures, (even if the network starts with just one provider) in order to provide the freedom of choice and service innovation that is the promise of open access.

A community fiber network will encourage innovations beyond the standard services typically provided on a closed network to include telemedicine, distance education, local community outreach, social services, e-government services, spiritual services, and in-network communications. Competition drives innovation and product development. Traditional phone and cable providers are not on the leading edge of new application development—because they operate in a closed environment and do not invite true innovation.

For example, if a local health care clinic wants to run a consultation service (a live “Ask a Nurse” service that uses remote visual communications) on the network, do you think the local cable company would consider allowing the clinic to host their service on the cable network (even assuming it had sufficient bandwidth)? No, but the clinic could easily offer this service on the community-owned network. Likewise with any other local service provider—a community network creates opportunities within the community to foster innovation, creativity and competition.

This sense of community growth through a community-owned network has been extremely successful in many European communities. Though the concept is still emerging in the United States, it is gaining mindshare and being implemented in communities this year.

Peter Drucker said that there are only two things that really matter in business—Innovation and Marketing, everything else is an expense. The success of a community-owned open access fiber-to-the-home network will happen when these two things come together. Remember—when communities began installing electrical grids, the only thing we really knew to use electricity for was to power light bulbs. Think of all the applications we’ve since discovered and expect from electricity!

To address the specific questions posed by Blandin, PacketFront’s responses are below each question:

Qwest Won’t Invest

Thanks to the Baller Herbst list for sending out word on the Broadband Reports article on Qwest.

The very quick take on it is – Qwest is not interested in FTTH. Here’s the big quote:

It’s too expensive. We don’t see the return.

It seems a little shortsighted to me especially since they recently reported that income rose to $366 million from $194 million a year earlier. In fairness, the same article claimed that“Qwest’s revenue slid 1.5 percent to $3.4 billion, and CEO Ed Mueller said the company experienced a “tough December in retail.”

But there’s the news on Qwest.

Paul Bunyan is Getting Bigger

Nope, he hasn’t found a friend for Babe the Blue Ox. It’s Paul Bunyan Telephone Cooperative – they are getting ready to buy Blackduck Telephone Company and Blackduck Cablevision Inc.

I saw the story in the Bemidji Pioneer Online. I wasn’t able to find a press release on either the Paul Bunyan or Blackduck web site – but the article reads a lot like a press release – a really nice one.

According to Blackduck’s web site, they currently offer DSL but have been installing fiber. Paul Bunyan has fiber and offers “speeds up to 40 Mb”. So it looks like good news for Blackduck and very amicable merger.

Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2008

I’ve been dragging my feet but it’s time to catch up on Net Neutrality. Last week,  the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2008 was introduced in the House and Comcast filed with the FCC defending their policy of purposely slowing down some traffic on its network, including some music and movie downloads to ensure better flow of traffic over its network. (Comcast’s FCC filing was in response to petitions by the consumer group Free Press and the online video provider Vuze, which claimed that the cable company was abusing its control over its network to impede video competition.)

On February 13 Representatives Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Chip Pickering (R-Miss.) introduced the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2008, to “establish broadband policy and direct the Federal Communications Commission to conduct a proceeding and public broadband summits to assess competition, consumer protection, and consumer choice issues relating to broadband Internet access services, and for other purposes.”

For a librarian, I don’t actually have strong feelings on Net Neutrality. I can see both sides. From the consumer end of course, I think we should all have access to information equally. But I don’t know that we have it now. Right now some companies can pay the big bucks to advertise all over the Internet or hire people to help them do well with search engines – and some can’t. Some neighbors hog bandwidth and slow us all down. (More with some technologies than others, clearly.) Now prioritizing traffic might add yet another barrier – but it’s not the first barrier to information. That leads me to think – if companies such as search engines and content providers (web site owners) can profit from diverting traffic to a site, shouldn’t the ISPs (be it wireless, fiber, cable, copper…) be able to capitalize on it too? After all they are the ones who keep the lines working; that requires large investments. (And wouldn’t we like to encourage more investment?)

Mostly I feel like we’re rearranging the chairs on the Titanic when possibly a better answer is to overpower the problem with a lot more bandwidth.

So there’s my wishy-washy two cents on the matter. Here is what some smarter (or at least more decisive) people are saying. I’m going to assume that most people reading this know the issue. (If not you can check out Wikipedia’s definition.) I’ve tried to distill the notes as much as possible so the quotes below and really paraphrased quotes.