Category Archives: Jeers

Don't count on Qwest to roll out universal fiber services anytime soon. Qwest has decided to take its time with FTTH projects, preferring to only roll them out to popular master planned developments as opposed to wide-spread deployment. Given that they've only recently solicited bids for a major fiber project, I'd say that most or all of the original UTOPIA cities will be built out before Qwest has fiber anywhere but the Daybreak community in South Jordan. I guess they're not serious about competing internationally or providing us with the high-speed services we demand.

The big irony here is that Qwest got towns like South Jordan and Sandy to not join UTOPIA because they promised next-generation services in those towns Real Soon Now(TM). I guess we can chalk up a few more broken promises from this RBOC.

(See full article.)

Several news stories have come out recently showing Japan, Korea, and China not only with more broadband deployments than the US, but faster growth as well. This is in spite of efforts by large providers like Verizon and AT&T to roll out new fiber projects like FIOS and U-Verse. Japan now tops 7 million fiber users and is having to upgrade backbones to over 40Gbit/s to maintain speed with 100Gbit/s on the horizon. The short of it is that our nation's telecommunications companies don't seem to have the will or vision to compete with other industrialized nations and maintain our edge, preferring to compete only with each other at our expense. Even when the service is semi-competitive on speed or features, the prices are significantly higher than what Koreans and Japanese enjoy. Now more than ever, we need market-leading fiber projects like UTOPIA to even the international scorecard.

(See full articles here, here, and here as well as more on U-Verse and information on SureWest pushing a 100% fiber network instead of a fiber/coax hybrid.)

The Reason Foundation, a libertarian think tank from California, has released two studies recent slamming iProvo specifically and municipal broadband in general. They make a solid case that city-run WiFi networks (as with all WiFi networks) face rapid obsolescence that a city probably can't keep up with. However, they go well off the mark by including fiber projects in their slams, paying little heed to the long-term viability of these networks and the obvious benefits to the city to have such networks available for their use.

The slams on iProvo are particularly ill-founded. Yes, iProvo was hamstrung by a bad initial choice in a broadband provider. Yes, they've had three years of losses as a result. What we have to ask, however, is if a private company that built the network would have closed up shop after only three years. In the pursuit of their obvious agenda, they have placed the bar for success much higher for iProvo than any reasonable person would for a private enterprise. Once iProvo meets their target for subscribers within the next two years, it should start breaking even.

When we take a closer look at the figures, we see that residents of Provo are paying about $12.40 per resident per year for the losses. For a family of five, you're at $62 a year, or around $5 a month. If they switch either their Internet or TV service to iProvo, they are saving more than that every single month. As more subscribers come on, that difference drops even more. While it sounds impressive to quote big numbers, these "Reason" Foundation nitwits have also been horrendously dishonest.

In short, iProvo is a winning proposition for residents of Provo, it's a winning proposition for true telecommunications competition, and it's a hearty stab into the heart of the over-charging and under-delivering incumbent providers that we've all been saddled with. Having a $1.24M loss in a year is a drop in the bucket compared to what the telcos have been overcharging us for over a decade. It's a small price to lay the groundwork of a truly competitive space for communications services.

Let's hope these obvious industry shills will learn to keep their dishonesty to themselves and stop defending the industry that ripped us off for over $200B since 1996.

(See articles here, here, here, here, and here.)

Michael Copps of the FCC says we're behind even Estonia as the cable/telco duopoly forces inferior service with higher prices on all of us. He also cites how disingenuous their broadband penetration numbers really are. It's good to see people in high places that know just how deep in it we are.

(See full article.) 

In a not so surprising story, a telecommunications consultant warned the city council of Wilson, NC that their support for municipal fiber projects could cost them their jobs. Catharine Rice told members of the council that they should fear a media blitz and retaliatory attack ads from the incumbent carriers, Time Warner Cable in particular. It cites the expected methods: astroturfing, direct mail, radio and TV ads, and even going to the state legislature to try and attack it from the top and get municipal networks outlawed.

They fight dirty because they have a lot to lose. Cable and phone companies are very cozy with charging exorbitant rates for inferior service and don't want their sham competition with each other to be brought to a hasty close. Here's to hoping that the city has the fortitude to weather the storm and go forward on the plan anyway.

(See full article.)

The Heartland Institute earns major jeers for calling municipal communications networks "a lesson in how governments waste taxpayer money." How little they get it! They don't understand that municipal communications networks lower costs, increase competition, raise speeds, and are an engine of economic development. I suppose we can't expect any better from an organization opposed to Net Neutrality and in support of state-wide cable franchising. Boo! Hiss! Throw the bum off the stage!

(See full article.)

Reports from the latest WiMax World convention prove what most of us already knew: WiMax is a half-baked technology and nobody knows how long to leave it in the oven. Plenty of hucksters gave their pie-in-the-sky vision of high-speed wireless Internet wherever you go, but there's no finished products to back up the claims and a lot of doubt remains about interoperability. Will a WiMax device from Sprint play nice with Verizon? Nobody can answer that yet meaning just like with cell phones, you might have to chuck your product when changing providers.

Most reports place this Real Soon Now(TM) technology at a year out. Considering how many times we've heard that, I'm calling vaporware on this lemon.

(See full article.) 

A forum on San Joe's new WiFi system resulted in a lot of concerns over privacy, ID theft, rural access, and underserved residents. The bottom line is that WiFi is bringing up more issues than it solves. WiFi is never really secure (even WPA2 keys can be cracked relatively easily), you can't throw the signals far enough to reach low-population areas, and even making it free can't make people happy. The lesson to be learned is that the "free" service is exactly what you pay for: service is not guaranteed, you might have to purchase a signal booster for as much as $120, and the speeds aren't likely to be as competitive as cable or DSL especially when comparing prices. Sounds like San Jose is preparing itself to become Silicon Alley by not investing in the future that is FTTP.

(See full article.) 

California has joined a number of states in issuing statewide cable television franchises, a move that will probably leave small towns even further out in the cold. The telephone and cable companies, who both supported this bill, claim that it will increase competition and result in lower pricing.

Who do they think they're kidding? Why on earth would a company support a law that forces them to compete harder? The simple answer is that they're lying. This law removes cable television franchising from the intense scrutiny of the cities and places it far removed from them in Sacramento. Small towns may have to fight an endless battle with the state when a cabe television provider acts up as opposed to simply kicking them out of town.

Cable companies will now be able to sneakily cherry-pick neighborhoods, avoid rolling out comparable services to rural areas, and increase their monopoly powers by creating a maze of state regulations that only cash-laden companies can navigate. That's always been the intent of these bills, and leave it to crazy California to take the bait hook, line, and sinker.

These unscrupulous and monopolistic behaviors make it more and more apparent that we cannot depend on the incumbent carriers to make good on their promises of better service at lower prices. The only way left to get real competition is through municipal fiber projects like UTOPIA that bring in competitors on an even footing.