Community Broadband Media Roundup - September 12

This week, you might have been tripped up by some infuriating “spinning wheels of death” on the Internet, but don’t worry, the slow-down was largely symbolic— at least for now. Fierce Telecom covered the Internet Slowdown Day protest on Wednesday, organized by “Battle for the Net." It was designed to bring attention to what will happen if so-called “slow lanes” are allowed under new FCC net neutrality rules. 

Netflix, MuniNetworks, Kickstarter, Reddit, and thousands of other sites took part in the protest. “The New Yorker’s” Vauhini Vara writes that Internet Slowdown Day produced more than 700 thousand comments about proposed FCC rules. 

Meanwhile, Amazon is positioning itself to come out on top whichever way the Net Neutrality rules fall. Susan Crawford urged the FCC to take action and “Think Chattanooga.”

“This is not a story of huge companies fighting one another. This is a sweeping narrative of private control over the central utility of our era: high-capacity Internet access. We, the people of the United States, are the collateral damage in this battle; we are stuck with second-class, expensive service.”

Muni Networks are gaining more ground, with Chattanooga and Wilson, NC still in the spotlight. Anne L. Kim took up the issue of preemption on CQ Roll Call. She interviewed Chris Mitchell for the article:

“Communities build their own networks because they think the private sector isn’t investing in them, said Christopher Mitchell… According to Mitchell, in the case of city-wide municipal fiber networks, reasons for deployment are often a mix of getting fast, reliable service at an affordable price.”

Blogger KateCA of My FireDogLake commented on the failings of the invisible hand in the telecom realm in her Corporations and The Commons post. 

“While free enterprise usually merits a hearty rah-rah in certain circles, competition between for-profit entities and publicly-owned ones seems to be a no-no, at least to Rep Blackburn and her crowd when it comes to [Chatanooga’s] EPB.”

In The New York Times, Colin Dougherty laments the search for a killer app in cities where Google Fiber has set down roots. He talked to Chris Mitchell and other experts about the difference between local control and dependence on a corporation like Google:

“It felt like a righteous invading tech company coming in to tell us how to run the city,” he said. Faster Internet helps Google in lots of ways."

The more time users spend searching the web or watching YouTube videos, the more ads Google sells and the more Google services people use. The company could also use Fiber to test new services like household-targeted TV commercials.

As FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler announced his intention to address barriers to competition and broadband deployment, several reporters, including Stephen Hardy of Lightwave Online wrote on the topic.

Regarding the definition of broadband, Ars Technica’s Jon Brodkin and Fierce Telecom’s Sean Buckley wrote that AT&T, Verizon, and others made claims that consumers simply don’t need or want faster Internet speeds.

"Consumer behavior strongly reinforces the conclusion that a 10 Mbps service exceeds what many Americans need today to enable basic, high-quality transmissions," AT&T wrote in a filing. 

AT&T’s comments were made public after Wheeler mentioned that the current definition for broadband is much slower than is necessary for economic growth.  

Casey Houser suggests that gig networks are forcing big telecom to play a game of “anything you can do I can do better”. But many communities are not waiting around for the big guys to come in. More announced this week they are dipping their collective toes into the municipal broadband pool. 

Lexington, KY mayor Jim Gray says he’s moving forward to give his city a big gig push. 

Austin, MN’s Vision 2020 group is studying how it can get its own gig, after being passed over by Google Fiber three years ago. The Daily Herald’s Trey Mewes reports that the group will be going door-to-door to get feedback about the Gig Austin proposal.

Finally, a recent article in The Advertiser counters some false statements made by a paid muni network hit man. Lafayette Utilities System (LUS) director Terry Huval said a report published by “Reason”, and written by Steven Titch is extremely flawed and biased. 

“Steven Titch, a paid analyst, and formerly a news editor in the telecommunications industry, has been criticizing LUS Fiber and other municipal broadband systems for virtually the past decade,” Huval wrote in response to the report. He takes data and twists it in a way that meets the particular needs of that client,” he said. “The bottom line for us is we are doing well. We are growing every year.”