North Carolina Legislate to Limit Muni Broadband is Neither Fair Nor Level

Last week House Bill 129 was passed by the North Carolina House of Representatives, and it is now making its way through the Senate.  This piece of legislation’s sole purpose is to protect the incumbent service providers in the state in areas where they cannot afford to make investments for advanced broadband services.  It unfairly limits municipalities ability to drive economic growth and stimulate competition in the communications marketplace.  States that enact this type of legislation are limiting their long-term growth capabilities.  Competitive content and service providers need to band together to support municipal broadband as an alternative method to deliver their services and content.  The best way to ensure net neutrality is through greater competition. 

I have written a longer editorial on the topic in the news section at Inphotonics Research.  Please read it and provide any feedback you feel fitting.

Technorati Tags: North Carolina,broadband penetration,net neutrality,telecom,municipal broadband,rural broadband,NC politics

Where Are Your Blog Posts?

You may have noticed that I have not posted anything on my blog since mid-December.  Instead, I have been posting commentaries to the articles I post on Inphotonics Research.  Every day I post and article or two to the news page of our company’s site, and I will add my comments to the story.  I post articles relating to municipal and rural broadband on this page.  There is an RSS feed associated with this page to make it easy to track new articles.

I will continue to publish a blog post or two each month to this page, but they will be on other telecom related topics like net neutrality or carrier strategies.  Feel free to request a topic that you would like for me to expound upon. 

In the mean time, I was sent a link to this YouTube video posted by Ogilvy Asia for a Taiwanese bank.  Normally I hit the 30 second skip ahead button on the remote or only watch the beer commercials e-mailed to me.  I started watching this one, and I was compelled to finish it.  This advertisement struck a chord in me to remind me that the human spirit is much stronger than societal norms.  I am including it on my blog for your enjoyment and as an interlude until my next post.

Enjoy.

Technorati Tags: Inphotonics Research,Ogilvy,motorcycle,municipal broadband,net neutrality

Qwest’s Request for Statewide Video Franchise Has a Weakness

The proposal by Qwest for statewide franchising for video services is not necessarily a good move for consumers unless communities have options to ensure their broadband future.  By simplifying the franchising process, Qwest/CenturyLink and others can easily re-enter the video market in Colorado without negotiating with every city they want to provide service; thereby, allowing competitors to satellite and cable TV companies.  I personally welcome Qwest’s re-entrance into the market.  Local franchise negotiations are often fraught with requests for community TV stations and equipment, free or reduced charges to schools and other institutions, municipal network access, and that pesky universal service requirement.

Elimination of these individual negotiations will reduce the cost of providing services to consumers and speed time to market.  Wireline providers such as Qwest and Frontier Communications will be able to develop successful business cases to deliver video services in communities enabling more competition and choice.  The problem is that there are still a limited number of competitors for video services in the state, and without a universal service requirement new entrants will likely serve only the markets that can be reached for the lowest cost and highest probability of market penetration leaving some suburban and rural areas with limited or no choices.  Additionally it gives new entrants an advantage over current municipal franchise holders like Comcast that are required to provide service to all households in the franchise territory.

I support Qwest’s move to simplify the franchise process with the caveat that allows communities to have control over their broadband destinies.  If a community can no longer guarantee that they will have video (and broadband) services that meet their needs, then they should be able to offer alternatives for their community.  A few years ago the legislature passed SB-152 that prevents communities from building their own broadband networks for public use.  The intent was to keep communications services in the hands of private enterprise and not divert taxpayer money for these purposes.  What is does is prevent many communities from having advanced broadband services that many of their urban counterparts have.

Building broadband networks to every home is a very expensive endeavor.  The economics to build these networks for just a single carrier use is not feasible for public companies except in the densest metro areas which is why you see Verizon’s FiOS in only major metropolitan areas.  A community could build that last mile network and lease access to multiple service providers and see it break even in 5-7 years.  Google is trying to institutionalize this model in their Fiber for Communities project.  These open-access last mile networks have proven to be economically feasible in many cities throughout the world, but in Colorado cities are prevented by law from building them.

Any proposed change in franchising and lessening of the “universal video service” requirement should come with a repeal of SB-152.  This change would allow municipalities to form public/private partnerships to build and operate network infrastructure where private service providers could purchase network to deliver voice, video, and data services.  Communities would then be assured that their citizens would have a choice of service providers and the revenue from the network would replace franchise fees.  Eventually Qwest and Comcast would see the benefits of municipal broadband infrastructure and begin purchasing capacity as well.

Denver Post Article

Technorati Tags: CenturyTel (CTL),Colorado,Comcast (CMCSA),Google Fiber for Communities,Qwest (Q),Verizon (VZ),broadband penetration,rural broadband,telecommunications,video

New US "mega kill bill" would give President and DHS even more power to control the Internet

Laws like this is the reason that I am against the FCC or Congress getting involved in any regulation of the Internet especially net neutrality.  This bill, if passed, would give the President and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) sweeping powers to shut down parts and the whole Internet or even terminate specific users they deem are threats by executive fiat.  There is no Congressional oversight.  There is little definition of what IS a cyber-threat.  Once again is proves that the current Administration and Congress does not understand the Internet. 

There are several things wrong with this proposed legislation not to mention that it is probably unconstitutional without “war power” authority to go along with it.  This power would allow the Executive branch to interfere with commerce and suppress free speech.  Wasn’t this administration suppose to be “open” and “transparent?”  They are actually more totalitarian than they claimed of the previous administration. 

Next, the legislation allows continued unwarranted surveillance of “suspects” that are deemed “threats” to national security which is an extension of the Patriot Act.  Finally the legislation barely takes into account the fact that the Internet is a global network and not just a U.S. network. 

The philosophy of the bill can be summed up by Senator Joe Lieberman’s comment on CNN that the U.S. needs the same ability to shut down the Internet as China.  So it looks like the current administration and Congress is benchmarking ourselves with the Peoples’ Republic of China.  God help us all. 

The Internet is a global network for commerce, information dissemination, and communications.  There may be a need during war to manage ingress and egress to the United States, but it should not be wholly shut down.  The NSA is better equipped to understand and manage this job than DHS.  The government should recall that open communications did more to bring down Communism than anything else we did during the Cold War.

Senator Lieberman’s legislation is ill conceived and needs to be killed immediately.  This is not a partisan issue, but one of freedom and openness.  Also, there must be checks placed on the application of such a power.  It must not be given unilaterally.  Contact your Senators and urge them not to support S.3480.  When will our industry and tech community realize that as a whole the government does not really understand the Internet and any attempt to control it will have disastrous effects?

Technorati Tags: Internet,eavesdropping,net neutrality,politics,president,telecom,wiretapping,terrorism

The Wrangling on Net Neutrality Continues This Week

The debate on net neutrality rages on this week with AT&T checking with their position on the topic.  Not only did they effectively state their case for differentiated services, they also addressed the inaccuracies in the positions of the political opposition groups.  Mr. Hultquist noted, in his blog post, that the position of net neutrality groups like the Church of Extreme Net Neutrality (CoENN) will make the Internet a “dumb network.”  I applaud AT&T for coming out in support of differentiated services and backhandedly supporting the Verizon/Google principles.  Their article took the direct approach to dispel the myths of political opposition groups.

Declan McCullagh of CNET wrote a rather objective piece on AT&T’s announcement covering the basis for AT&T’s position.  In the article he presented an opposing views from groups like Free Press.  Mr. McCullagh shows the astute reader that AT&T’s position is based in technical facts while the Free Press’ position is based on opinion with no historical or factual basis.   I hope that CNET and the rest of the press will continue to provide objective reporting on the topic and continue to produce well researched articles like this one.

The FCC took some action this week requesting more data from Google and Verizon as reported by ARS Technia.  Anti-differentiated services proponents chastise the FCC for dragging its feet, but I think that it is giving industry time to align itself and reach an agreement.  I am sure that they will not public admit to this strategy, but their passive role and quiet support of differentiated services in their Broadband Performance report seems to support my supposition.  The FCC is treading lightly because it knows that net neutrality is a political hot potato, and if they take no action, then the political opposition groups will utilize the President to put pressure on the FCC.  They realize that their legal authority to implement net neutrality is weak so they will drive the industry through their inquiry process.  If they push the industry to address wireless networks as well then they can claim credit for being an active participant. 

Companies continue to come forth in support of differentiated services.  Hopefully in the coming weeks more content companies will release statements.  I would like to see a content provider like Vonage, Netflix, or Disney chide in the debate.  If these companies realize how differentiated services can allow them to compete and create new content delivery models, then the political opposition groups will not have much ground to stand on.

Technorati Tags: FCC,Google,Verizon (VZ),broadband,differentiated services,net neutrality,politics,wireless