Author: Mark Milliman

Mark Milliman is a Principal Consultant at Inphotonics Research driving the adoption and assisting local governments to plan, build, operate, and lease access open-access municipal broadband networks. Additionally, he works with entrepreneurs and venture capitalists to increase the value of their intellectual capital through the creation of strategic product plans and execution of innovative marketing strategies. With more than 22 years of experience in the telecommunications industry that began at AT&T Bell Laboratories, Mark has built fiber, cable, and wireless networks around the world to deliver voice, video, and data services. His thorough knowledge of all aspects of service delivery from content creation to the design, operation, and management of the network is utilized by carriers and equipment manufacturers. Mark conceived and developed one of the industry's first multi-service provisioning platform and is multiple patent holder. He is active in the IEEE as a senior member. Mark received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Iowa State University and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.

Socket lands Callaway broadband project

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“Big city broadband. Rural reality.”

That’s how Socket Telecom is touting the fiber-optic network it’s set to build in central Callaway County and a sliver of eastern Boone County.

This month the US Department of Agriculture awarded Socket a $16.6 million grant and a $7.1 million loan under the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Within the next 90 days, Socket will use that money to start building a fiber-optic network capable of serving more than 3,000 homes and businesses.

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Consumers getting only half of advertised broadband speed

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Publish By Consensus

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Articles like the one below flooded the media this week when the FCC released its’ “Broadband Performance: OBI Technical Paper No. 4.”  All of the articles jumped on the headline that users were actually receiving half the bandwidth that the carriers were purchasing which implied that consumers were being cheated by carriers.  Even the typically conscientious ARS Technia jumped on this headline (or SEO) grabbing theme/meme.  Some of the articles took the time to extract from the report that the reasons for speed variations could be due to a multitude of factors such as user network, other Internet, and server delays, but many of them stuck with the prevailing theme.  The technical press seem bent on pressing the meme that “carriers are evil and we need the government’s regulation to save us.”  While I would be the first to chastise a carrier that was not providing what I purchased, my experience is that the transport usually lives up to the advertised speeds.  Remember too that there is always the obligatory “up to” qualifier on the speeds as well.  If I have any complaint with the incumbent ISP is that the price per bit is too expensive.

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LightSquare, Inmarsat start first phase of broadband collaboration

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By Tess Stynes, Dow Jones Newswires

Deal gives firms more contiguous spectrum in U.S.

Wholesale broadband company LightSquared has triggered the first phase of a late 2007 cooperation agreement with mobile satellite communications services provider Inmarsat PLC, which will receive a series of payments totaling $337.5 million, in a plan to meet growing demand for wireless broadband.

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Opelika Votes to Create Municipal Network

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BroadbandBreakfast.com Staff, BroadbandBreakfast.com

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WASHINGTON August 11, 2010- The Alabama town of Opelika has decided to set up its own cable television and internet network.

The town voted in a referendum aimed at providing some competition to Charter Communications; the town’s only ISP.

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Company wants to wire Sarasota for superfast Internet

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SARASOTA – A British company plans to soup up a number of U.S. cities — including Sarasota — with ultra-high-speed fiber-optic Internet networks.

The discussions have been going on for several months, according to Rich Swier Jr., founder of the Sarasota think tank known as The Hub and a member of a recently created Sarasota broadband task force.

“They were following the Google fiber effort and we connected with them during that campaign,” Swier said.

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How To Finance a Community Broadband Network When Incumbents Fight Back

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By Craig Settles

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Municipal broadband networks may the fastest way for smaller communities — and those in areas without much competition — to bring better broadband to their businesses and residents. These networks aren’t generally popular with incumbent communications providers, which have a history of suing to stop them. However, their tactics have changed.

In 2005, the main goal of large incumbent telcos and cable companies was to try for an outright ban on municipal networks. As the public vigorously fought back, incumbents switched to creative assaults on communities’ ability to find or use money to pay for networks. Eighteen states have restrictive muni network legislation (see map) that makes building a community-owned network impossible or difficult, especially when it comes to funding them.

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$116 million for broadband targets unserved areas of Vermont

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According to my friend who blogs for www.freshloan.co.uk – the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced Wednesday that an $81 million broadband stimulus grant and a $35 million government backed loan to Springfield-based Vermont Telephone Company (VTel).

The $35,166,081 loan and $81,664,754 grant to VTel Wireless, Inc for their Wireless Open World (WOW) project is one of 49 broadband infrastructure projects announced nationally.  The broadband investments will give rural residents in 29 states access to improved service that will expand economic, health care, educational, and many other opportunities to underserved rural communities. Today’s announcement is part of the second round of USDA broadband funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Recovery Act).

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