community broadband networks

Eduardo Porter has an important column today in the business section of the New York Times, "Yanking Broadband From the Slow Lane." He correctly identifies some of the culprits slowing the investment in Internet networks in our communities.

The last two paragraphs read:

Yet the challenge remains: monopolies have a high instinct for self-preservation. And more than half a dozen states have passed legislation limiting municipalities from building public broadband networks in competition with private businesses. South Carolina passed its version last year. A similar bill narrowly failed in Georgia.

Supporting these bills, of course, are the nation’s cable and telephone companies.

Not really "supporting" so much as creating. They create the bills and move them with millions of dollars spent on lobbyists and campaign finance contributions, usually without any real public debate on the matter.

Eduardo focuses on Google Fiber rather than the hundreds of towns that have built networks - as have most of the elite media outlets. Google deserves praise for taking on powerful cable and DSL companies, but it is lazy journalism broadly that has ignored the networks built by hundreds of towns - my criticism of the press generally, not Eduardo specifically.

The person who deserves plenty of criticism is former FCC Chairman Genachowski. From the article:

According to the F.C.C.’s latest calculation, under one-third of American homes are in areas where at least two wireline companies offer broadband speeds of 10 Mbps or higher.

We have 20 million Americans with no access to broadband. The rest are lucky to have a choice between two providers and even then, most still only have access to fast connections from a single provider.

When the National Broadband Plan was unveiled, we were critical of it and believed it would do little to improve our standing. Even its architect, Blair Levin, is annoyed at how Genachowski failed to implement even the modest proposals put forth.

Back in the NYT piece, we find this:

Mr. Genachowski contends that broadband deployment is on the right track. He points to the growing number of high-speed broadband deployments like Google Fiber and municipal projects around the country, as well as to AT&T’s announcement that it will expand the footprint of its U-verse network — the number of homes to which service is available — to 33 million. This uses fiber part of the way and, AT&T claims, can attain up to 75 Mbps.

Absurd. First of all, the supposed AT&T expansion is playing with numbers. If anyone actually gets U-Verse from this new deployment, it will be fewer than 1.5 million people but we really have no way of knowing because neither the states or the FCC really keeps track of these deployments. They just take AT&T's word for it.

As for 75 Mbps, talk about cherry picking data. Most people live far enough away from the DSLAM or have old enough copper wires that they will not even come close to that number. And this is only for downstream - the upstream capacity remains a fraction of that. This is a fantasy in a fantasy but these numbers are repeated by media sources because they come from AT&T.

I'm rather surprised Genachowski did not also take credit for AT&T's pretend fiber press release in Austin or the overblown CenturyLink pilot in Omaha. Communities engaged in the hard work of building a network received scant attention until they had a ribbon cutting where Chairman Genachowski would appear suddenly supportive and trying to take some measure of credit.

Genachowski likely felt more comfortable with AT&T, CenturyLink, and a few other big corporations because they share his preference for press releases rather than doing the hard work that needs to be done. We look forward to seeing which of these firms he joins as a lobbyist of some sort ... after a stint at a nonprofit to make it less obvious, of course. Wouldn't want to be as obvious as former FCC Commissioner Baker.

Lest I go too far in attacking our former FCC Chairman, we do remain thankful that once in awhile he did stand up the big corporations and meekly request a reasonable concession.. Most recently, he spoke out against legislation in Georgia to revoke local authority to build networks. For years, FCC Commission and acting Chair Mignon Clyburn has fought to preserve local authority and we were pleased to see her get some backup from the then-Chairman. He didn't actually use his power to actually do anything, but it was nice of him to think of us.

As we move forward with the new FCC under Chairman-nomineer Wheeler, we hope to see real progress on expanding fast, affordable, and reliable Internet access to everyone. Given his industry background, we cannot help but be nervous. And the utter disaster Obama has been for a public interest media and telecom agenda does not help either.

As this NYT article confirms, communities are smart to pursue their own strategies in solving this problem, not waiting for DC to sort anything out. And if DC can be bothered to take any action on telecom, it would be smart to start by removing barriers for communities that want to invest in themselves.

In 2008, the Tullahoma Utilities Board in Tennessee, created LighTUBe. In addition to attracting employers, the FTTH network connects residents and provides smart meter capability. The network now offers 1 gig service to business and residential customers.

Andrea Agardy, from the Tullahoma News, covered the story. Residential customers who now purchase the highest tier, 300 Mbps, will be automatically upgraded at the same $300 monthly rate. LighTUBe will provide 1 gig business connectivity on a case-by-case basis.

Brian Skelton, General Manager, said:

“It shows that we can provide anything they want,” he said. “The TUB board made the decision to build a fiber to the premise system for economic development reasons, and it is paying off for our community. We want to make Tullahoma a much more desirable location for technology companies to locate, due to our ultra-high speed Internet and our highly skilled workforce. Tullahoma is light years ahead of most cities in the United States with the ability to offer these incredibly fast Internet speeds, and we look forward to the benefits this will bring to our city.”

Kudos to LighTUBe and the community of Tullahoma!

I just left the Broadband Communities Summit in Dallas, where I ran into many people doing great work to ensure everyone has access to affordable, reliable, and fast Internet networks.

Also while there, Google announced it had reached an agreement to offer Google Fiber in Provo by purchasing the municipal FTTH network. Provo has long been cited as a failure by critics of community-owned networks (even as it continued to attract jobs to the region).

Though Provo originally wanted to offer television, telephone, and Internet services directly using its trusted reputation in the community, the state legislature bowed to pressure from Comcast and CenturyLink (then Qwest) to limit local authority and tilt the playing field in favor of two distant corporations (that have still largely failed to invest in the networks needed by Utah communities). Provo was forced to use a wholesale-only business model.

That approach is rarely used today by communities that seek to build out the entire community at once because it is very difficult to generate enough revenue to pay the full costs of the network.

Despite Provo's struggles, Google recognized a community it wanted to work with. From Google's blog post:

Provo started building their own municipal network in 2004 because they decided that providing access to high speed connectivity was important to their community’s future. In 2011, they started looking for a partner that could acquire their network and deliver an affordable service for Provoans. We’re committed to keeping their vision alive, and, if the deal is approved and the acquisition closes, we’d offer our Free Internet service (5 Mbps speeds) to every home along the existing Provo network, for a $30 activation fee and no monthly charge for at least seven years. We would also offer Google Fiber Gigabit Internet—up to 100x faster Internet than today’s average broadband speeds—and the option for Google Fiber TV service with hundreds of your favorite channels. We’d also provide free Gigabit Internet service to 25 local public institutions like schools, hospitals and libraries.

At the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, we strongly encourage communities to own the essential infrastructure upon which they depend and we are dismayed to see such investments fail to meet their own goals or be privatized as has now happened in Provo.

But we also recognize the authority of communities to decide for themselves what the best path is and we believe that in these two isolated cases, Google Fiber will be a boon to the communities over the short term and resolve ongoing problems.

We have concerns over the longer term, but understand how difficult this business can be, particularly when state laws undermine the capacity of local governments to use the business models that give them the greatest opportunity to succeed.

As long as the Utah Legislature continues to kowtow to Comcast and CenturyLink demands, there would not have been an opportunity of Provo to fix the problems iProvo developed as a direct result of the initial crippling legislation.

I had an opportunity to speak with Milo Medin, head of Google Fiber, after his lunch keynote (which I hope to comment further on shortly) and he once again reiterated his (and Google's) opposition to states that restrict local authority to build these essential networks. He and we are on the same page - communities should be free to choose between building their own networks or partnering with others... or even doing nothing, though both Google and ILSR counsel strongly against that option.

One of the reasons Google chose Austin was because it was ready to work with them. In fact, we have long believed that if AT&T hadn't convinced the Texas Legislature to revoke local authority from communities, Austin Utilities probably would have already made network investments to benefit the community. As Google continues to look for partners, it will ignore entreaties from local governments that have had their heads in the sand, hoping they could avoid taking responsibility for ensuring great Internet networks.

We continue to be excited that Google's investments in fiber access networks have changed the paradigm regarding access to the Internet. Those efforts have awakened the media to the pioneering work already being done in communities like Chattanooga, Lafayette, Bristol, Morristown, and many others (including Clarksville now). And we will continue to advocate for communities safeguarding their self-determination by having a measure of ownership over the networks on which they depend.

There is no doubt that communities are foolish to depend on distant national cable and DSL companies to build the next generation of Internet networks.

And don't be fooled by these two quick annoucements -- Google takes many months to negotiate agreements with local governments like Austin, Kansas City, and Provo. I would not be surprised to see another announcement or two in 2013, but would be surprised to see more than a handful more. Communities need to make their own plans, not hope for an outside entity to rescue them.

For cities that don't want to get into offering services, we have been identifying communities that have made smart investments in partnerships with other providers or on an open access basis -- see Danville, Palm Coast, Mount Vernon, Indianola, Princeton (IL), Cortez, and many others on our map of community-owned networks.

What can you do with a gig? There is a residential customer in Clarksville, Tennessee, that knows. CDE Lightband, Clarksville's municipal provider, recently began offering 1 gig service for $349.95 per month. The Leaf Chronicle recently reported that CDE Lightband also just signed on its first 1 gig residential customer.

CDE Lightband offers triple play and is part of the Clarksville Department of Electricity. Clarksville is a fast growing city with around 133,000 located along the northwestern border of the state. In addition to the 1 gig service, CDE Lightband offers speeds from 10 - 100 Mbps symmetrical and a variety of smartly priced packages.

While 1 gig of service will make life faster for the residential customers who choose it, community leaders also see the possibilities for the community as a whole. From the article:

"Opportunities for education, health and industrial uses are unlimited with the 1 gigabit of Internet services that CDE Lightband now offers, and it helps to position our community for further economic growth,” Clarksville Mayor Kim McMillan said in the [press] release.

Congrats to CDE Lightband, its new 1 gig customer, and the Clarksville community!