Category Archives: Legislation

Laws and bills affecting UTOPIA development and deployment.

Congress Pushes Broadband Bill

By | | , ,
Leave a comment

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.)

Telecommuting and IPTV Will Drive Bandwidth Requirements Higher

By | | ,
Leave a comment

Our bandwidth-hungry days are far from over. With spiraling gas prices hitting most of the country, many workers are turning to telecommuting to get the job done. Pair that up with the financial benefits of telecommuting (especially with new tax incentives from Congress) and we're likely to see that trend continue. Of course, this places higher bandwidth requirements on both businesses and workers even when using low-bandwidth tech like Remote Desktop or VNC. Pulling files over a VPN on a typical cable modem is also an exercise in frustration with some larger documents taking minutes to finish transferring. Considering that a recent reports shows that Brits lose over 2.5 days a year waiting for slow websites, businesses will have more reasons to push for better bandwidth.

IPTV is also going to push bandwidth requirements much further. ABC is going to push its shows to the web as HD streams, Joost is going to be distributing for Viacom and NBC (among others) is pushing lots of video content via iTunes. Considering that HD content pushes about 80Mbps of data, it's painfully obvious that current broadband won't be cutting the mustard for distributing high-quality streaming video.

Continue reading →

Cable Industry Tells Feds to Encourage Stronger Cable Monopolies

By | | , ,
Leave a comment

In a move stunning only in its audacity, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) has demanded that the FCC be gutted and almost all cable regulation be done away with. Among the things they want killed are network neutrality, must-carry rules (which require a basic package) and a la carte channel pricing. Their claim is that increased competition has made these mandates unfair, but I can't see what competition they are referring to.

Most Americans don't have much choice beyond the cable or phone company. Many people in rural areas don't have any choices. (Even Provo, an urbanized area, is only 95% covered by either Qwest or Comcast.) It reeks of a monopolist industry trying to circle the wagons. This is an industry that has failed to understand the market. (See previous article about the industry's tanking customer satisfaction rates.) I have yet to meet anyone that wouldn't rather pick and choose their cable channels for a lower price. Some would even think about signing up as a new customer if a la carte pricing was offered.

Cable companies aren't looking out for consumers: they're looking out for cable companies. If they want something as radical as total deregulation, you can bet they have an angle they want to play to increase their monopoly power, just like with the old 1996 Telecommunications Act.

(See full articles here and here.)

Meeting with DynamicCity

By | | , ,
Leave a comment

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.

SB209 is Dead… For Now

By | | , ,
Leave a comment

In the final hours of the legislative session last night, the House chose to take no action on SB209 leading to its defeat and the prevention of statewide franchise agreements. You can bet, though, that this bill will probably be proposed again, potentially in a special session to be call later this year. Keep your eyes and ears open so that we don't let this one happen again.

Stop Statewide Franchising!

By | | ,
Leave a comment

Senate Bill 209 has passed committee and will be going before the whole of the Senate for a vote. This bill would allow state-wide franchising of telecommunications services and would destroy universal access. During a breakfast sponsored by the Utah Technology Council this morning, Both House Speaker Greg Curtis and Senate President John Valentine acknowledged that it would allow new entrants to the market to cherry-pick only the most profitable areas to serve. This cannot be allowed to come to pass.

I urge you to contact your legislators as soon as possible and urge them to oppose passage of this bill.

Legislative Action: My Proposal to the Utah Technology Commission

By | | ,
1 Comment

I'm just starting on my journey to get the legislature to hear about the restrictions on UTOPIA, but there is already good progress. I've submitted some brief comments as a synopsis of why we need UTOPIA and why it is critical for us to expand it to unincorporated areas. Below are the comments I have submitted for the co-chairs of the Utah Technology Commission to review.

Continue reading →

Setting the Wheels in Motion

By | | ,
Leave a comment

I've decided to step things up a notch and really get the ball rolling on changing the state law prohibiting counties from participating in UTOPIA. Yesterday, I got a notice that the Utah Technology Commission will be meeting on October 19th at 8AM. This seemed like the proper venue to air my concerns about the current law, so I shot off an e-mail to the chair of the Commission, Rep. John Dougall.

I promptly got a reply back from him guiding me to the right person to talk to, so I'm seeing if I can't get a spot on the agenda of the next meeting (which, as I understand it, should be November 15th) so that I can make a short presentation. I'm crossing my fingers that I'll get a chance to do so.

FTC Report Shows Many Benefits to Muni Broadband

By | | , ,
Leave a comment

Among the benefits are increased competition, lower prices, and higher efficiency. The only con it can come up with is a weak sauce possibility that municipalities would engage in anti-competitive behavior. That's amusing considering how long cable and telephone companies have been abusing their monopoly status. The article also cites that HR 5252 would have protected efforts to roll out municipal communications services had it not been stalled by the Net Neutrality debacle.

(See full article.)