community broadband networks

We want to let you know about an upcoming one-day workshop that looks to be a good opportunity to learn more about FTTH networks. "Lighting Up New England" will be June 13 in Westford, Massachusetts, at the Westford Regency. The workshop will be hosted by the Fiber-to-the-Home Council and is part of the 2012 NEFC FiberFest.

Here are specifics from the announcement:

Fiber, Fiber Everywhere - a discussion panel covering the latest technologies that require more fiber to operate effectively - including fiber for wind farms, solar energy and for greater wireless reach using fiber to the antennae and to the cell tower.

Monica Webb, Executive Committee Chair, from WiredWest will be speaking about working with state and local organizations in Massachusetts as they build their own fiber optic networks. We have been seeing impressivee results from the work of WiredWest and their group of 40 communities. Also speaking will be leaders from the FTTH Council, the American Cable Association, and analysts with expertise in FTTH and the fiber optic broadband industry. From the 2012 NEFC FiberFest website:

There will be a special focus on the trends in FTTH technology and equipment, as well as a focus on what network operators are doing to leverage fiber to the home into their strategies for success in the telecommunications market. This workshop is an outstanding learning opportunity for anyone who is interested in next-generation broadband -telecom service providers, consulting network engineers, manufacturers of optical access equipment, or anyone else who wants to get the inside scoop from the front lines of the all-fiber revolution.

You can register for the workshop here and visiting the exhibit area free.

Leverett, Massachusetts, is one step closer to a community owned FTTH network. The town of 2,000 will have weekly public information meetings until the Annual Town Meeting scheduled for April 28, 2012. If the required $3.6 million funding is approved at the meeting, the city will issue a Request For Proposals to build the network.

The 1 gig network is slated to be an aerial build, except where existing utilities are underground, in which instances, fiber cable will also be placed underground. Leverett plans to use a $40,0000 planning grant, obtained from the Massachusetts Broadband Institute, to hire G4S Technology to design the last mile fiber-optic network to connect to MBI's stimulus-funded middle mile. The middle mile project is scheduled to be completed in June, 2013, and Leverett plans to be ready to connect soon after. The goal is to have every home connected with fiber by 2014.

Whereas most communities explicitly choose not to use tax revenue to pay for a community network, Leverett's present plan is for a slight increase in local taxes to assist in the financing. The town will borrow the amount necessary to build the network and pay it back over 20 years using a combination of tax revenue and revenues from the new broadband service. Peter d'Errico, Chair of the MBI Grant Broadband Committee observes that homeowners' net spending figures will decline once the system is in place. From the article:

A town survey concluded a municipal network could offer better Internet and phone service at far cheaper rates than private providers, he said.

"It will be a little more on their tax bill and a lot less on their Internet bill, so overall they will be pay less," d'Errico said.

According to the Broadband Committee, approximately 37% of households in Leverett use slow, sketchy satellite, 23% use dial-up, 20% are on DSL, 14% use wireless, and 6% of households have no internet access. Some households, although theoretically accessible via satellite, never get a connection because of trees and the picturesque, hilly Massachusetts countryside.

Leverett is situated in the Five College area of Amherst, Hampshire, Smith, Mt. Holyoke and the University of Massachusetts. The town is rich in history, but now finds that, because of their disconnect from reliable internet, they are losing opportunities usually found in towns that neighbor such academic centers. Housing sales are impacted, as are renting opportunities. From the article:

"Junior faculty, graduate and undergraduate students that normally would be very interested in renting in a lovely town like Leverett are just unable to do it," said [Richard Nathhorst, a member of Leverett's Broadband Committee], "To be able to work or complete their studies they need access to the Internet."

In addition to lack of internet access, the town has had longstanding problems with their telephone service, provided by Verizon. Last year, the State Department of Communications ordered the telco to assess and repair the telecommunications infrastructure in nearly 100 western Massachusetts communities, including Leverett.

"People are realizing that private companies are not making enough money moving into rural areas," d'Errico said of the capital investment needed to bring broadband to smaller communities. "The only other alternative available is a municipal network."

Leverett's plan is to contract with a two separate entities, one to provide network management and services and another to provide infrastructure maintenance.

We have previously reported on WiredWest, a consortium of towns in western Massachusetts that have come together to form a regional network. WiredWest has been instrumental in organzing local communities, including Leverett, to work together on a jointly owned, open access FTTH network connecting everyone. The Wired West efforts have included $100,000 worth of mapping, $30,000 in engineering, and $20,000 in marketing, project management and financial services over the past six months. However, most Wired West communities are seeking funding for the network that would not require borrowing backed by the local tax base.

Leverett says it is committed to further collaboration with Wired West, but its present plan involves finding a single provider to operate on the network rather than the open access approach embraced by Wired West. Some recommend that new networks start with a single service provider to get up and running before later inviting additional service providers to the network. Working with an experienced service provider right away can offer more confidence to potential investors.

Residents have responded favorably to the proposal, including the increased taxes, and officials expect a high take rate. Such an approach is much more consistent with the spirit of local self-reliance than those who continue holding out hope for more federal grants.

Jason Whittet, Deputy Director of the Massachusetts Broadband Institute, is officially on board with public ownership of broadband:

"What you are seeing come to fruition with this Town Meeting is a town that takes a lead in creating its own destiny when it comes to broadband."

Leverett wants to be the leader and they clearly have the ambition to realize that goal:

"We are showing the way," d'Errico said. "The network we build will become a template for other towns."

The last of three scheduled public meetings with the Broadband Committee to discuss the proposed project will be Sunday night, April 15th at the Town Hall, 9 Montague Road at 7 p.m.

A local ABC station reported on Leverett's plan:

It's a new year, but most of us are still stuck with the same old DSL and cable monopolies. Though many communities have built their own networks to create competition and numerous other benefits, nearly half of the 50 states have enacted legislation to make it harder for communities to build their own networks.

Fortunately, this practice has increasingly come under scrutiny. Unfortunately, we expect to see massive cable and telephone corporations use their unrivaled lobbying power to pass more laws in 2012 like the North Carolina law pushed by Time Warner Cable to essentially stop new community broadband networks.

The FCC's National Broadband Plan calls for all local governments to be free of state barriers (created by big cable and phone companies trying to limit competition). Recommendation 8.19: Congress should make clear that Tribal, state, regional and local governments can build broadband networks.

But modern day railroad barons like Time Warner Cable, AT&T, etc., have a stranglehold on a Congress that depends on their campaign contributions and a national capital built on the lobbying largesse of dominant industries that want to throttle any threats to their businesses. (Hat tip to the Rootstrikers that are trying to fix that mess.)

We occasionally put together a list of notable achievements of these few companies that dominate access to the Internet across the United States. The last one is available here.

As you read this, remember that the FCC's National Broadband Plan largely places the future of Internet access in the hands of these corporations. On the few occasions the FCC tries to defend the public from their schemes to rip-off broadband subscribers, Republicans (joined by a number of Democrats) threaten to overrule what is supposed to be an independent agency to defend the corporations that just happen to be donors to their campaigns.

Back when most assumed AT&T would be able to push its horribly anti-competitive takeover with T-Mobile through an impotent federal government, a few stories exposed the tip of the iceberg of AT&T's astroturf efforts, as with this report from the Center for Public Integrity:

“It is important that we, as Christians, never stop working on behalf of the underserved and forgotten,” the Rev. R. Henry Martin, director of the clinic, wrote to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski in June. “It might seem like an out-of-place endorsement, but I am writing today in order to convey our support for the AT&T/T-Mobile merger.”

...

Not included in Martin’s letter to the FCC was the fact that his organization had received a $50,000 donation from AT&T just five months earlier. Indeed the Shreveport-Bossier Mission is one of at least two-dozen charities that were recipients of AT&T’s largesse and have written in support of the T-Mobile buyout, which will cut the number of national wireless companies from four to three.

When AT&T's wasn't able to buy enough influence with legitimate groups willing to sell out the interests of their members (who would pay more for their communications in a less competitive environment), it would simply create its own groups to push its interests:

Tallahassee Mayor John Marks brought an Atlanta nonprofit to the city as a partner in a $1.6-million federal-grant project, saying it would put high-speed Internet into the hands of poor people.

What he didn't say, and now says he didn't know, was that the Alliance for Digital Equality (ADE), in its first three years of existence, was nearly 100-percent funded by AT&T and spent most of its money — four of every five dollars — to pay board members, consultants, lawyers and media companies to push the global communication giant's positions on Internet and wireless regulation. Nor did Marks disclose, initially, that ADE had paid him $86,000 over several years as a member of its board of advisers.

We continue to see these massive companies abuse their market power to increase their prices, knowing that their lobbying arms will continue pushing legislation to stop communities from building their own networks.
Time Warner Cable hiked its rates in North Carolina immediately after passing its legislation to stop communities from building networks. Mediacom raised its prices while it attempts to sabotage efforts in rural Minnesota to build networks in unserved areas. And invented new fees to rip off its subscribers while trying to disrupt a rural fiber-to-the-farm initiative that slightly overlapped some territory in which they have long refused to invest.

Even as profits on cable broadband services approach Exxon proportions, Time Warner Cable has pushed for usage-based pricing to further overcharge subscribers, but mostly to strangle enormously popular competitors like Netflix. CenturyLink is not far behind, with usage caps prioritizing its own video content over competitors.

Verizon Wireless tried to sneak a new fee past subscribers by announcing it just before Christmas but backed down after outraged consumers reacted. One has to wonder whether it would have backed down in a world where AT&T took over T-Mobile, resulting in 3 out of 4 wireless customers being with Verizon Wireless and AT&T. Four competitors isn't the robust competition envisioned by Adam Smith, but it still beats the duopoly dynamic that results from even less competition.

Speaking of less competition, the recent deal between Verizon and cable companies is troubling. We already knew that FiOS was all but dead, but this deal truly puts a fork in it:

I'll assume that neither cable operators or Verizon are going to let us see the deal fine print to confirm the Times guess, but the logic fits Verizon's strategy. Verizon already cherry picked the most valuable FTTH upgrade markets, and has shown total disinterest in further upgrades. This deal allows them to save money on FTTH upgrade costs, instead soaking up remaining customers with LTE -- which we noted was the plan some time ago. This deal is very bad news to the rural telcos without the cash for large-scale upgrades (CenturyLink, Frontier, Fairpoint, two of which Verizon sold aging DSL networks to), and for satellite broadband providers.

The future of next-generation networks is now only community networks, cooperatives, and some small private networks.

We've long argued that phone and cable companies have systematically overstated their coverage in mapping efforts as part of their effort to blunt any sensible public policy that would result in all Americans having a choice between fast, affordable, and reliable connections to the Internet. The New England disaster called FairPoint is back in the news for overstating the number of subscribers that have access to DSL. The company has not met the requirements it agreed to when purchasing Verizon's lines a few years ago.

And in the continuing saga of Comcast's growing domination over the information people can access, Bloomberg TV is fighting Comcast's practice of discriminating against channels in which it has no ownership stake. Comcast has long strongly encouraged those who want to put television channels on its lineup to give Comcast a piece of the action, not unlike a mobster encouraging a small business to pay protection money. It wants to continue expanding its role as a gatekeeper to the Internet, particularly in the many areas where people have no real choice from other high speed providers.

And perhaps the best example of why we should not trust these massive corporations to run essential infrastructure is the revelation that AT&T defunded 9-11 call centers in Tennessee to gain a market advantage over competitors, a practice they were previously caught doing, leading to settlements out of court.

These corporations are not evil, they are following a sensible mandate to maximize their shareholder value. It is our government that is not sensible -- entrusting them with the future of Internet access without even bothering to enact the most basic regulations. Communities must continue to wise up and ensure they have the access they need to modern communications -- access that reponds to their needs, not those of distant shareholders.

When it comes to expanding access to the Internet across the US, the federal government has long looked first to the private sector, ignoring hundreds of years of experience showing that unaccountable private companies cannot be trusted to sufficiently invest in or govern essential infrastructure.

Inevitably, they price access to high and invest too little as they maxmize their profits -- thereby minimizing the profits of all other parts of the economy.

So let's take a little survey of the progress we see from these companies.

We have long railed against the Verizon -> FairPoint fiasco in New England that left Verizon much richer at the expense of residents and businesses in rural Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine particularly. Well, FairPoint creditors have realized the depth of Verizon's scam and are suing Verizon for $2 billion. Read the complaint [pdf].

According to the complaint (pdf), Verizon not only made out like a financial bandit up front, but took advantage of regulatory delays to strip mine the assets of anything of value, including core IP network components, business services, and localized billing and support assets required to support the three states. Verizon then billed out their support assistance for millions per month during the very rocky transition, during which time 911 and other services saw repeated outages, resulting in millions more in refund penalties.

Karl Bode is right to criticize the state authorities that allowed this fiasco to occur. Their inability to regulate in the public interest has hurt everyone stuck in the mess. While we can expect powerful companies like Verizon to try to game the system at every opportunity, there is no excuse for making it so easy for them.

As long as we are talking about Verizon shedding its rural investments, let's take a look at how Frontier is doing since it inherited thousands upon thousands of FiOS customers as part of its recent deal with Verizon. Frontier has decided the best approach is to transition those customers from the next-generation FTTH network to an older, slower, less reliable, DSL alternative. Find me another country where a major company is moving customers away from fiber-optic connections. This is a national embarrassment.

Rather than investing in better technology, Frontier has literally doubled down on DSL by marketing a second DSL line to customers. Connect one computer to one line and the TV/video game unit to another one. Of course, it turns out they are lying (or incompetent) when it comes to how much they are charging for it...

In other words, that $13.50 1.5 Mbps (if you're lucky) DSL line is actually closer to a $50 1.5 Mbps DSL line once Frontier gets done slamming you with additional fees. These kinds of below-the-line fees have been a mainstay at phone companies for decades, essentially allowing them to engage in false advertising and covertly jack up the advertised price post sale. It's a practice that has yet to see any real attention of regulators, even those ceaselessly professing dedication to "transparency." It helps that Frontier serves a lot of uncompetitive markets where users have no other options, resulting in "deals" like this one.

Let's move on to the nation's largest cable company, Comcast. We recently noted Comcast's dubious distinction as the least trusted company in America. It was simultaneously the second least trusted. I'm guessing we won't see that award plastered on the side of the vehicles their poorly compensated contractors drive around.

Occupy Philly, the City of Brotherly Love offshoot of Occupy Wall Street, recently demonstrated at the Comcast Center to bring attention to Comcast's corporate tax dodging. Hey -- I thought Comcast routinely said it wasn't fair that non-profit entities don't pay taxes!

Finally, the big cable companies in general have been singled out in a study showing that Americans lost $38 billion in wages last year while waiting for technicians and delivery people. Cable companies were the worst at making people wait - prompting one person to say "SCAMCAST should be their name."

There is plenty more of examples like the above, but I'm done writing about them today. Just recall that the federal government prefers that this group of unaccountable corporations build, own, and operate the most important utility of the 21st century. We prefer local ownership that is accountable to communities. Time Warner Cable has actually been sued for its terrible customer service!