Category Archives: Cheers

Good news.

Illinois Pushing for Universal Rural Broadband

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Rural areas are found to be woefully underserved when it comes to broadband options, a condition that could stunt economic growth. It's no wonder then that Illinois is aggressively pursuing universal access for everyone in the state. Lt. Governor Pat Quinn is one of the main cheerleaders for rural broadband, pushing the DOT to install fiber lines whenever they do a road repair. That's not a bad idea considering that trenching is the bulk of your expense. They're taking some leads from Virginia, a state that has spent millions to install fiber-optic lines to rural communities. Already it's paid off with over 700 new jobs in the town of Lebanon, population 3,000.

(See full articles here and here.)

Congress Pushes Broadband Bill

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In a move sure to keep cable and telco execs stocking up on Mylanta, Congress is pushing through a new broadband bill designed to improve speed, access and reporting of availability. The bill borrows from the successful Connect Kentucky program to invest more money in bringing broadband to rural and underserved areas. It also authorizes the FCC to define a Broadband 2.0 standard for connections capable of reliably delivering full-motion high-definition video and collect broadband availability data based on the more granular ZIP+4 rather than ZIP Code alone. Under the old data collection standard, even one broadband subscriber was enough to qualify the whole ZIP Code, hardly representative of availability as a whole. A consortium of tech companies has praised the bill as essential to economic growth, particularly in their industry.

(See full articles here, here and here.)

Vermont and Norway Join Push For Universal Broadband

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Hot on the heels of Sen. Rockefeller's demand for 100Mbps broadband, echoing the sentiments of the FTTH Council, Vermont has passed a so-called "e-state" bill that requires adequate cellular and broadband coverage across the entire state. This is monumental for a rural state where those living outside of cities often don't have access to more than basic phone service. Norway has also joined the push for universal broadband access, realizing that a digital divide between urban and rural is bad for the economy. The Universal Broadband Express is really picking up some steam!

(See full articles here, here and here.)

Congressional Push for 100Mbps

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Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia wants broadband and he wants it now. He's just introduced a resolution (albeit non-binding) to push for universal 10Mbps access by 2010 and 100Mbps by 2015. Because it's non-binding, it amounts to little more than fist-shaking at providers who've been dragging their feet, but I suppose it's the thought that counts.

With the upcoming phase-out of analog TV signals to free up so-called "white space" and the auction of the lucrative 700MHz spectrum by the FCC, wireless might get a needed boost to be just what the doctor ordered for rural areas. For most areas, Sen. Rockefeller supports fiber networks similar to what the Koreans and Japanese already enjoy.  The non-binding resolution doesn't have any teeth, but it may pave the way for better speeds, truly universal access and increased competition in the broadband market.

(See full article here.)

Meeting with DynamicCity

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I was invited to pay a visit to the offices of DynamicCity last Friday to talk about what can be done to help spread UTOPIA. (For those that don't know, this is the company in charge of building the physical plant for UTOPIA.) A special thanks to Joel, Cory and Keith for taking time out of their day to talk to me.

There's some really exciting stuff on the horizon. A few years ago, the legislature passed SB66 to limit participation in UTOPIA by barring new cities from joining before July 1, 2007. Qwest was the main pusher of the bill and originally wanted to use it to kill the project. The moratorium was seen as a compromise that Qwest and UTOPIA member cities could live with. Now that it's coming up for expiration, new cities will be free to join the project.

We also spent a lot of time discussing how to bring UTOPIA to unincorporated county lands. It seems that the best solution is to create a special improvement district in conjunction with the White City Community Council. This would overcome the issues with not being a city without having to amend the law to make unincorporated areas eligible. This is going to be untested water since the law explicitly permits cities but doesn't specifically permit other entities. (By the same token, an SID is not explicitly prohibited either.) The next step is to round up some of my neighbors and start talking to Community Council members at next month's meeting to gauge the interest level.

If you live in White City and want to see UTOPIA in your area, please contact me as soon as possible. The next meeting is Wednesday June 6th at 7PM at Eastmont Middle School, 10100 S. 1300 E. Room #105 in Sandy. If a bunch of us show up in support of this project, we just might be able to get it rolling here and pave the way for other unincorporated areas to do the same.

Companies Building Fiber Punished By Short-Sighted Investors

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It's earnings report season, and it looks like the short-term thinking of investors has been ruling the day with telcos. Verizon has watched earnings tumble as they make significant investments in their FIOS system while Qwest tripled their profits by building a whole lot of nothing and cutting retirement benefits. Investors have reacted accordingly to drive Qwest stock higher while Verizon stays flat despite their significant investments in an upgraded network they are likely to use for the next fifty-plus years. Meanwhile, AT&T's second-rate U-Verse network is slow but cheap, keeping investors happy while putting on a "we do fiber too" facade for the general public. It's only a matter of time, however, before those last mile issues catch up to them and force the expensive upgrades that Verizon has already jumped on top of.

Diving deeper into Verizon's numbers, we see that the take rate for FIOS is about 13% of homes served with a jump of over 20% in the last quarter alone. Over 42% of Verizon's new broadband customers signed up for FIOS so the demand for the higher-speed connections is definitely there. Verizon has also positioned itself as a triple-play provider with this network and has been entering new markets to aggressively compete with incumbent phone and cable providers. Companies like Qwest and AT&T that refuse to make these kinds of capital investments are going to be stuck in the perpetual state of catch-up with more nimble competitors and networks.

Who knew that big, bad Verizon would end up being the company to lead the charge on making good on the industry's broadband promises? Better late than never.

(See full articles here, here and here.) 

Vermont Passes New Universal Service Law

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Vermont's Legislature passed a bill requiring universal broadband and cell phone service. The mountainous state is notorious for cell phone dead spots and most of the rural state doesn't have access to broadband services, even under the weakling 200K definition. It includes provisions for faster approval for new facilities (including towers) as well as gives municipalities the right to build their own communications systems for residents. Sounds like Vermont is going to be ahead of the curve on this one.

(See full article here.)

Fiber in Rural Tennessee Comes Online

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The rural town of Pulaski, TN has recently opened their FTTP network to all residents in the city. The network offers triple-play services for about $100 a month at a cost of a $17.9M bond to be paid off in 17 years. It'll be interesting to watch this project and see if it does much better than American Fork's network has done.

(See full article.)