Author Archives: Jesse

Wither Nuvont? Canceled Orders, Lost Customers Point to Trouble

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Rumors are afoot that Nuvont Communications may be closing shop. My sources tell me that they recently canceled a large order of phone terminal adapters citing to the suppliers that they no longer planned to be in business. Service providers have also reported picking up Nuvont phone customers who claim they were told that Nuvont did not plan to offer phone service any longer. I’ve heard that company principals have denied the rumors, but I haven’t been able to get any specific responses to the evidence that’s popped up. It seems confusing given the press release several weeks ago reaffirming Nuvont as a provider on the network.

Any Nuvont customers have similar experiences? Any Nuvont employees want to clarify what’s going on?

UPDATE: A rep from Nuvont contacted me and set the story straight.

Comcast Launches DOCSIS 3.0 in Utah with Sneaky Higher Prices

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The Salt Lake Tribune reports that Comcast has launched DOCSIS 3.0 service in their Utah markets with speeds up to 16M/2M. (Media-whoring alert: I got quoted in the article.) The speeds are about on-par with entry-level UTOPIA connections, but the upstream can’t do any higher. Comcast has no doubt chosen Utah as one of its first DOCSIS 3.0 markets because of systems like UTOPIA.

Commenter xxzone pointed out that the 16M/2M tier is an automatic upgrade for users on the old 8M/1M tier… at a price increase of $10/mo. As Consumerist has previously noted, smart users will likely downgrade to the 12M/2M tier to save some money. After all, is 4Mbps of extra downstream really worth another $10?

Revolt in Traverse Mountain? New Management May Boot Broadweave

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A post at the Traverse Mountain Community Forum reveals that a recent change in mangement with Mountain Home Development Group has the Christensens out of management positions. The new management discussed issues with Broadweave at length including, in the commentor’s summary, the continued lack of video, pricing disparities, poor phone service, poor customer service, and potential contract violations. Residents in the master-planned community are obligated to pay $75/mo for phone and Internet services, but it’s unclear as to what speeds or services are being provided. Many are worried that they signed up for long-term contracts with DirecTV or Dish Network and could be obligated to pay for both services if/when Broadweave rolls out video.

The subtext seems pretty clear: the new management is pretty ticked off at Broadweave and wants them to shape up or ship out. Without the family connection protecting them from enforcing provisions of the contract, Broadweave may be on thin ice.

Net Neutrality Advocates Need to Stop Overusing the Term

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Net neutrality is a real hot-button issue for a large swath of Internet users and for good reason. The happy accident of interconnected networks and free flow of information has lead to a lot of useful and creative uses of the world’s largest network. That said, it seems that far too many proponents have added a whole host of other issues under the banner of net neutrality, diluting its value and entangling what should rightfully be separate issues. In the words of Inigo Montoya, “you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

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Broadband Bytes: January 24-30, 2009

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This week saw the DTV transition delay get, uh, delayed (though not for long), Cox’s new traffic management plan, and a competing version of the broadband stimulus package that offers 50% more cash for 90% fewer conditions. Qwest also renewed its fight with SkyWi, Charter dropped a 60Mbps gauntlet, and Google launched tools to find out if you’re being throttled by your ISP. All that and more in this week’s Broadband Bytes!

  • The DTV delay got stalled up as the House failed to consider the bill for a fast-track passage despite unanimous support from the Senate. The Senate later passed a second DTV delay bill that the House should vote on next week; it’s widely expected that it will pass and President Obama has already said he will sign the bill as soon as it hits his desk. Now Congress just needs to figure out if/how to fund the 3.2 million (and growing) backlogged requests for DTV converter box coupons. I think the whole thing is kind of silly since Hawaii made the switch and there was no TV armageddon. Besides, interim FCC Chairman Copps says that a seamless transition is impossible.
  • Cox Communications is the latest large ISP to implement some kind of network management, opting for a system that’s a lot like what Comcast did. Unlike Comcast, however, they plan to throttle specific “low-priority” traffic types once the congestion gets too high including FTP file transfers, torrents and newsgroups. Predictably, there are a lot of people calling bunk on the plan, but I don’t think it’s so bad. Comcast is getting ripped by the FCC since their protocol-agnostic version would degrade competitor’s VoIP traffic if you end up being one of the hogs, so it makes sense to try and only smack around the data types that generate a lot of packets and a lot of transfer. Most users are fine with network management schemes so long as they are transparent and generous; the complaining just happens to be very, vey loud.
  • The US Senate has put together a competing version of the House’s broadband stimulus plan. The good? It ups the funds by 50% to $9B. The bad? It strips out all of the open access language and allows anyone to get in on the action. DSLReports rightly calls it a giveaway to Verizon since they can become eligible for money at the flick of a switch without having to really do much of anything differently and, as expected, Qwest doesn’t like how the plan is shaping up either. The House has already passed the $6B version and kept open access provisions intact. It also keeps the money restricted to rural and underserved areas and will only be available via loans and grants, not tax breaks as incumbents had hoped for. GigaOm has a great breakdown of who wins or loses in the various proposals.Telco lobbyists are already launching a multi-pronged attack. They want to scrap special access rates for competitors, up the spending, drop the speed requirements, get more tax breaks… pretty much anything they think might stick. Incumbents, though, seem to have missed the memo that the goals of this plan are to increase availability of braodband AND increase competition, not entrench the incumbents. I suppose they’re too used to abusing the USF and getting their way.
  • Qwest decided to ignore an order from New Mexico’s PRC and disconnect some of SkyWi’s customers without the required 10-day warning. Qwest has likely figured that whatever the penalty is, it’s worth it to kill off a competitor and SkyWi might not be around to finish its lawsuit. The company tried to pass it off as a clerical error. Expect New Mexico’s PRC to give Qwest a serious smackdown (provided it can survive Qwest’s army of robot lawyers) and keep an eye open for possible FCC involvement. Spurned CLECs like SkyWi are prime companies to recuit onto open networks like UTOPIA.
  • Charter, despite its severe financial problems, stole the St. Louis speed crown from AT&T by launching a 60Mbps DOCSIS 3.0 service at a wallet-busting $140/mo. This bests Comcast and Verizon by about 10Mbps, but it far faster than anything AT&T can do with ADSL2+. Verizon took the opportunity to make fun of DOCSIS 3.0 and its limits as compared to fiber. Users on UTOPIA are likely very “ho-hum” about the announcement since 50Mbps service has been available for quite some time.
  • Speaking of Verizon and AT&T, they announced earnings this week that reveal that DSL and landline users are being cannibalized by their FIOS and U-Verse systems, respectively. Both systems are picking up a lot of video users, but the margins on most television packages are very slim. Wireless revenues were the real shining spot, but it didn’t stop AT&T from posting a large drop in revenues and announcing a sharp decrease in spending for system upgrades. Guess the iPhone wasn’t enough to save them as AT&T also froze executive compensation (including bonuses) and brought a lot of jobs back to the US from India. Verizon is also rumored to be contemplating layoffs despite a good quarter.
  • Google fired a shot at ISPs who employ any kind of throttling or traffic management by offering up free tools to test for it. Even if your ISP isn’t engaging in these kinds of practices, the presence of these tools will help keep them honest. In the debate over network management, it’s very important to be clear and upfront about any caps or network management policies you plan to employ. Comcast got a PR black eye by hiding its policies for months as angry users took to the Internet and flooded forums with complaints. They get kind of stabby when you mention it after the fact (and for good reason).
  • I imagine users on Comcast and AT&T will appreciate these new tools. All three ISPs have signed on with the RIAA to disconnect users who are sharing copyrighted files. It’s part of the RIAA’s broad approach to turn ISPs into their copyright cops in exchange for a cut of the action, something they have successfully pulled off in Ireland. Given the lack of an appeals process and frequent ISP mistakes, you can bet that this opens the market for competing providers to snap up those customers.In the UK, they’re debating a different approach: a £20/mo “piracy tax”. Such a tax has already been implemented in Isle of Man which allows residents there to pirate as much as they want for under $1.50/mo. The RIAA would probably do better to offer an “all you can download” music service or some kind of “piracy license” that gives you the right to download whatever you want.
  • Comcast is thinking about offering WiFi to subscribers, but no word yet on if they plan to charge for it or use it as a perk to lure in customers. They’re currenting testing it out in New Jersey in a partnership with Cablevision. Cox Communications really took the lead on this by snapping up a lot of regional 700MHz licenses so that they can start offering wireless services as well, including leasing tower space to cell phone carriers. Thinking beyond the triple play to include these kinds of services is a smart move for any service provider.
  • Smart companies also focus on customer service. Charter has taken up permanent residence on the DSLReports forum and, like Comcast, has a customer service team assigned to Twitter. And while Sprint has announced that they will layoff 8,000, they plan to avoid sacking anyone in a customer service position even as subscribers decline sharply. High customer satisfaction leads to low churn and lots of free word-of-mouth advertising. I recently got support from Sprint’s Twitter team and got my issue resolved in record time.
  • Guess who’s making money hand over fist? If you guessed Netflix, give yourself a red envelope. Or don’t, since most of the company’s revenue has come from users switching from mailed DVDs to streaming on their PC or TV. Even with the switch to streaming, Netflix is going to start shipping DVDs on Saturdays to help speed up processing and delivery times. (No word on how the post office’s plans to drop Tuesday service will affect this.) I wouldn’t be surprised if the secret sauce in Netflix’s bottom line is customer satisfaction. The few times I’ve had an issue, I had a short hold time to talk to a live person who was empowered to make me happy.

Coming Soon: The FreeUTOPIA Podcast

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It’s time to take to the digital “airwaves” here at FreeUTOPIA. The other night, I decided it wouldn’t be a bad idea to run a regular podcast to highlight service providers, talk about UTOPIA and discuss the state of telecommunictions in general. I’m working on lining up a guest for February and have one lined up for March.

When looking around for the best way to do it, I found that, of all things, TeamSpeak is a pretty darn good platform. The software is available for Windows, Mac and Linux, it supports recording and moderation, plus there’s a text chat feature. Listeners can ask questions in text chat or even be given temporary speaking privileges to ask questions just like a caller to a radio show.

If you have a show or guest idea (or would like to be a guest yourself), send me an e-mail or use the #freeutopia tag on Twitter.

Broadband Bytes: January 17-23, 2009

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Just because Kevin Martin was on his way out the door doesn’t mean he couldn’t make noise on the way. The FCC started checking into Comcast’s network management practices yet again and slammed cable pricing. There’s also more talk about the broadband stimulus that just passed the house and it looks like a 4-month delay of the DTV transition is going to pass. All this and more in this week’s Broadband Bytes.

  • Just when Comcast thought it was going to catch a break on its network management processes (which, I must say, seem pretty clear and concise to me), FCC Chairman Kevin “Ma Bell fo’ Life” Martin decided to see if they were using the new system to purposefully degrade competing VoIP offerings. The allegations are that phone calls could get choppy during peak times when bandwidth demands are highest. (For what it’s worth, I haven’t noticed any problems with my Vonage phone on Comcast.) The FCC is also looking at regulating Comcast’s VoIP product like a traditional phone line since Comcast Digital Voice is being given preferrential routing treatment. Comcast has previously worked with Vonage to ensure smooth operation of the competitor’s VoIP service, I think this is a lot of smoke and not much fire, even if consumer advocates are happy to use Comcast and thier lousy customer satisfaction as a big punching bag.
  • Not to be content with just getting in another dig at Comcast, Martin gave all cable companies a special parting gift: an inquiry into video pricing and a big bag of fines. Given that prices have jumped an astronomical 122% since 1995, he might be onto something here, though I hope that satelite and IPTV competitors are included in the inquiry. (I’m looking at you, Dish, DirecTV, AT&T U-Verse and Verizon FIOS.) The complaint also cites moving channels to premium tiers and a lack of data being provided to the FCC. While cable operators are certainly complicit in rising rates because they don’t act as advocates for their subscribers (who have little to no voice in the matter), the real investigation should be into programmers who drop double-digit rate increases for channels that cable operators consider their foundation (ESPN, Disney, MTV, etc). All of this might just be Martin trying to strike back at cable operators who he believes were behind the unflattering report from Congress last month.
  • Microsoft also got into a tiff with Comcast, this time over a soured deal to use MS cable boxes. Comcast bought 500,000 boxes from MS that largely collected dust and only saw usage in Seattle, Microsoft’s backyard. Once Comcast dumped the boxes, Microsoft picked up its toys and went home. It could have had better timing; cable stocks took a real beating over the last year.
  • A House committee passed one half of the $6B broadband spending package and more details as to what to expect are starting to shape up. Network neutrality is in and so is “open access”, though what the latter means is up to the FCC. It could just be a euphamism for net neutrality, it could also include Carterphone-like “bring your own device” provisions or require an open service provider model like UTOPIA. I’m pretty sure that Michael Copps would take the more all-inclusive approach given his past positions, but Genachowski is a wildcard. The bill also strongly favors a grant and loan structure at the exclusion of tax credits, something that is upsetting both Republicans and incumbents. (Republican leadership is basically looking to gut the bill of all speed requirements, build-out requirements, net neutrality language and pretty much every other kind of accountability control.) Even advocates aren’t entirely in agreement over what provisions are the most important.

    You can read some in-depth analysis of the package from AppRising and Blandin on Broadband. And don’t forget that this is just a down payment, not a fix-all.

  • The NY Times, meanwhile, published an op-ed that a stimulus wasn’t needed. The entire thing read like pro-incumbent sock puppetry and the backlash was swift and furious. It’s one thing to be pro-incumbent, but that doesn’t mean you have to be anti-reality. That’s one of my main beefs with the Utah Taxpayers Association.
  • The delay of the DTV transition is all but assured as the Senate and House get ready to vote on a final compromise bill. The transition would be pushed back to June 12 allowing Comcast (among others) to continue to confuse TV watchers about what this means for them. The bill would still need more money for the digital converter box program for all of the procrastinators who haven’t yet picked one up. Stations still have the right to make the switch early, but I doubt many of them will take that plunge and risk losing viewers. Nielson projects that as much as 5.7% of viewers would lose access to TV signals, but that number is a sharp decline from just a month ago. (See: procrastinators.)

    Meanwhile, more voices keep wieghing in on the delay. Verizon changed its tune and now supports the delay, Qualcomm says no way, the TV tower industry isn’t in favor and Ars thinks the government should keep the original date despite botching the transition. One of the biggest concerns is rural access. While analog signals get fuzzy with interference, digital signal experience a cliff effect where the signal is either there or isn’t. Up to 20,000 residents of Hawaii may not be getting signals after that state’s switch and many in rural areas could lose signals while the FCC figures out how to extend their range.

  • Rural residents are getting shafted from another direction as big cablecos and telcos dump their less-desireable rural networks. Hawaii Telecom was one of those experiments and ended up filing for bankruptcy not that long ago. Fairpoint Communications faces the same challenges with the New England networks they have acquired from Verizon. Many of the rural networks are in desparate need of upgrades and the small companies assuming them don’t have the capital to upgrade broadband speeds or, in the case of cable operators, deploy VoIP. Powell, WY is one of those cities that got fed up with the crappy options and built their own FTTH network; it should be operating Real Soon Now(TM).
  • There’s still a lot of hold-outs who want to hang on to their dial-up or not have Internet access at all. A third of non-Internet users just aren’t interested and 19% of dial-up users wouldn’t ever switch to broadband. Price and availability, however, remain the main barrier to about half of dial-up users and about 20% of non-users. So what do we do to drop prices? That depends. A recent study suggests that wholesale rates charges by incumbents are way too high and a lack of competition often reduces your bargaining power.
  • There’s still plenty of throttling and capping news this past week. The CRTC, Canada’s equivalent of the FCC, composed a pretty comprehensive report listing who engages in throttling. Some of the companies never responded, but the largest ones are definitely doing it. Vodafone is trying a different kind of soft cap in Hungary that scales back available bandwidth to heavy users during peak times, a method similar to what Comcast does. Wave Broadband, however, is doing a really good job at illustrating how not to roll out caps. They used to do a 3GB/day limit, and now they publish a different limitation on the top-tier account with an unpublished limit on lower-lever accounts. Moral of the story? Users don’t hate caps or throttling nearly as much as they do a lack of transparency.
  • In gadget news, Verizon is rollout out a device they call Verizon Hub. It incorporates a 7-inch LCD touchscreen to sync calendars, contacts, maps and traffic directions with a wireless phone. The Hub also lets you send text messages or pop directions to your cell phone. It does not, however, integrate a femtocell. At $200 for the device and $35 per month for service, it’s hard to see how such a gadgety phone will end up catching on, especially since many consumers already can’t figure out the features on their wireless phones. Verizon is separately launching a $250 femtocell to support up to 3 CDMA calls at a time over a 5,000 square foot area. If the femtocell were integrated into the Verizon Hub, it might be a better deal.

    Separately, check out Engadget’s Netflix player shoot-out. With video streaming options becoming more of a standard feature than an exotic add-on, ISPs need to be ready to embrace and support users who choose to go Internet-only for video.

Broadweave Misses Another Again Uses Reserve for Payment Despite Claiming Sharply Increased Revenues

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The Daily Herald reported today that Broadweave failed yet again to make their payments to Provo from their operating revenues, dipping into the reserve fund for the third month in a row. This is despite claiming revenues that have increased 20% in the last 6 months and adding 400 more subscribers since last month. Some back of the napkin figures from a telecom professional I know shows that Broadweave may need to add as many as 5,000 new subscribers at an ARPU of nearly $65/mo in order to make that bond payment.

Because of the weather, new installs are challenging at best. Trenching the frozen ground isn’t much of an option right now which would force new installs to lay fiber across their lawn until the trench and conduit can be put in. Odds are that a lot of the new subscribers are incoming college kids for the winter semester, the ones that are predominantly Internet-only subscribers and disproportionately heavy users.

Since the only data we have is pre-Broadweave or heavily filtered, all we have to go on are best guesses. So far, though, it’s not looking too good. If they experience a sudden drop in subs in May-June, we’ll know for sure that the student population is making up a large proportion of the subscribers.