Tag: Internet service provider

Community group lobbying for fiber Internet investment in Baltimore

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This is an all too familiar tale of a city embarking on a broadband venture where only the consultants make money (Sorry friends). Residents of the city want to see competition but turn to the government. When that fails they start a grassroots effort. Unfortunately any grassroots campaign will not be enough to even fund a neighborhood. I wish this coalition the best of luck but they need to use their funds to get someone that can try a novel approach to engage a public/private partnership to drive broadband competition.

By Scott Dance,

Baltimore was among dozens of disappointed cities when Google announced it had picked Kansas City, Mo., for a high-speed fiber-optic data network in 2011, but officials vowed to continue fighting for fiber nonetheless.

Nearly four years later, some are disappointed by the lack of progress— and want to show that some of the fervor that wooed Google remains, waiting for new, affordable options for fast Internet service. Continue reading

How Google Fiber is Disrupting the Broadband Deployment Model

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Editor’s Note: Why don’t publications capitalize titles any more?

I really do not see Google Fiber as being disruptive other than offering a lower price to consumers. They offer the lower price because they can afford to offer the service and just break even on costs. Their “real experiment” is to determine if the higher speeds equate to greater ad revenue. Google’s goal is to increase access to Google properties where they will deliver more advertising to consumers as well as collect more data on their living habits. Their business model is perfectly valid.

Having another competitor in the market is always beneficial and Google has shaken up the market in a few areas, but they still offer the same types of services in the same bundled paradigm. It is not Google’s fault. They are forced to offer the video packages from the content providers. Maybe someday they will have enough market clout to break the forced video bundles or at least change the way that they are offered.

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State Legislatures to Wheeler: See You in Court

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I like the spirit behind Chairman Wheeler’s move to allow municipalities to determine their own broadband future, but unfortunately he does not have the legal standing to take in the matter. The constitution is pretty clear on states’ rights, and the FCC’s regulatory authority is not sufficient to override the Constitution. Wheeler will lose this battle should he chose to fight it. I wish the 25 or so state legislatures would review these laws that they have passed and either repeal them or change the wording to allow communities to develop business relationships that promote open access broadband in a taxpayer neutral fashion.


 By: John Eggerton
National Conference of State Legislatures

National Conference of State Legislatures (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The National Conference of State Legislatures wrote FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler this week to say they would challenge the constitutionality of any attempt to preempt state laws restricting municipal broadband networks.

Wheeler has said those laws are attempts by ISP incumbents, including cable operators, to prevent competition and that he wants to use the FCC’s authority to loosen “legal restrictions on the ability of cities and towns to offer broadband services to consumers in their communities.”

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AT&T Sends Mixed Messages on Paid Prioritisation

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AT&T partially has the right idea by supporting traffic prioritization at the users’ request but they present it as selling more bandwidth instead of guaranteeing maximum latency and jitter. The user should be able to specify if they want their traffic prioritized whether they pay a service provider for that option or whether they purchase an option to label certain traffic from the ISP. AT&T wants to use this as an opportunity to sell a higher tier of service so they can drive up ARPU instead of selling a guaranteed maximum latency and jitter rate that is much less expensive to provide. Is AT&T being disingenuous or are the people presenting the public face truly ignorant on the subject of traffic management? I am beginning to wonder.

AT&T

AT&T (Photo credit: MrVJTod)

U.S. telco in favour of enforcing net neutrality under section 706 but wants to give customers option to pay for Internet fast lanes.

AT&T has somehow managed to simultaneously support a ban on paid prioritisation while at the same time recommending that prioritisation agreements should be permissible.

In a blog post late Thursday, the U.S. telco came out in favour of reinstating the Federal Communications Commission‘s net neutrality rules “including banning paid prioritisation – where an ISP prioritises packets over the consumer’s last mile broadband Internet access service without being directed to perform that prioritisation by the consumer”.

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The Municipal Menace?

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Although I agree with Rep. Blackburn that government involvement in communications is a states’ rights issue, I find it rather ironic that she is going about it with a federal law. I have applauded Chairman Wheeler’s support of allowing municipalities to take control of their broadband destiny even though I do not believe that they should be in the communications services business. I do not believe that the FCC has the authority to trump state law in saying that states cannot pass laws prohibiting cities from building and operating broadband networks. This fact is why I am deeply suspicious of Rep. Blackburn’s bill.  

The LightReading article below is a good synopsis of the situation without the typical editorializing I have seen in many other publications. I agree that there should be no state laws prohibiting local governments from determining their broadband destiny, but I do not believe that they should become a service provider like so many of them attempt. The communications’ industry moves much quicker than electric or water utilities, and the market works better when there are more competitors not one that can operate with an unfair advantage. I do support local governments building and selling the infrastructure though.

JASON MEYERS

My favorite recent headline about the ongoing legislative brouhaha over municipal networks is this one, from a publication called The Escapist: “Tenn. Congresswoman Valiantly Protects ISPs from Evil Municipal Broadband.”

That sarcasm is a reference to an amendment attached by US House of Representatives Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) to the fiscal 2015 Financial Services appropriations bill that would keep regulators from modifying state laws prohibiting municipalities from building and operating broadband networks. The amendment was approved 223-200 in the House last week, but a final version of the bill must still be passed by the House and Senate and signed by President Obama to become law.

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Santa Fe Launches Municipal Broadband Project

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Santa Fe, New Mexico is the latest city to support its own municipal broadband infrastructure. The city is launching a million dollar effort to build out its own fiber optic infrastructure with the goal of increasing both broadband access and competition among broadband providers.

Santa Fe has slower broadband than large surrounding cities like Albuquerque, which undermines local economic development, and frustrates residents according to city officials who have recently faced backlash from broadband providers. Incumbent providers in Santa Fe say they may consider litigation and that the project won’t drive up speeds. We’ve seen this movie before in municipalities where officials take action when providers fail to provide adequate services. Continue reading

Is municipal broadband more important than net neutrality?

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I had high hopes for this article because the author successfully saw the link between the two concepts.  Maybe he read my tweets.  There is a definite correlation between municipal broadband and net neutrality, but I have only read one or two articles that actually get it right.  

Municipal broadband evolved from the concept that the cost of building these networks is prohibitive so it is a function that the government could provide.  That concept is fine when no service provider is serving an area but most of the municipal broadband deployments have one or two franchised providers.  This situation results in the government competing with private enterprise.  Granted that a duopoly does not create a competitive market, but the government has several advantages over private enterprise that makes it an unfair competitor.  Also, any subsidization of broadband networks by taxpayers creates an unfair advantage.

The reason that there are not more competitors for broadband network is that they are extremely expensive to build.  Investors do not like waiting almost 10 years to see if their investment is going to yield a profit which is what would happen with 3 or more competitors.  People seem to overlook that fact when accusing the incumbents of snuffing out the competition.  Economics have snuffed out the competition.

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