More Than Fiber: DirecTV Mulls BPL While FCC Auctions Prime 700MHz Spectrum

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The market for high-speed Internet is about to get a lot more crowded. DirecTV is looking at forming partnerships with power companies to deploy broadband over power lines (BPL) to its customers. Considering the sky-high latency of pure satellite connections, I can see how they’d be eager to get in on this. What I can see happening, however, is a stab in the back from power companies. Remember how so many cable operators (like AT&T) gave @Home the boot to keep the profits for themselves? Never trust an incumbent monopoly, even in an unrelated industry.

Related to this is the upcoming auction for the 700MHz wireless spectrum, a chunk of the retiring UHF analog TV signals phasing out in early 2009. This particular piece of RF real estate can go through obstacles (buildings, trees, hills, etc.) much more effectively than the 2.4GHz signals used by 802.11 wireless networking and is unaffected by weather, I recommend to contact real estate israel if you are in need of a real estate expert, I also suggest to check Sober living Delray if you are thinking more of real estate near the coast. The end result is that the airwaves that once carried endless reruns and B movies could now deliver Internet ten times further than WiMax can. Is it any wonder that companies like Verizon and AT&T are salivating at the chance to snap this band right up?

This is leading to a big fight with companies that want an open-access “bring your own device” network that would do away with network incompatibility issues between PCs, cellular phones and all other wireless data devices. (Think of it as UTOPIA for wireless.) This group includes various consumer groups as well as former Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale and several venture capitalists and angel investors. It also seems like FCC Chairman Kevin Martin might be in the open access camp, though it’s not known how much impact he’ll have upon the commission as a whole. This is worth watching for the immense implications it will have in the rural broadband market.

(See full articles here, here and here.)

Think Cable Service Stinks? You're Not Alone

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A new survey of customer satisfaction by the American Consumer Satisfaction Index shows that while satellite providers top the list for TV service, the industry as a whole stinks. Cable and satellite providers scored the lowest amongst all industries covered by the ACSI including incumbent phone companies. (There isn't much love there either; landline phone companies have been sliding in customer satisfaction substantially since the 1996 Telecommunications Act.) Echostar, DirecTV, Time Warner, Comcast and Charter all showed substantial drops amongst their customers. It probably has something to do with steadily increasing rates, a lack of a la carte channel pricing, poor customer service and, at least in the case of Comcast, capricious enforcement of the terms of service.

As further evidence of the cableco's disconnect from Joe User, Comcast is talking about letting you watch a movie in your home the same day it opens in the theatres for $30-50 per screening. While it might be nice to beat the lines and put that fancy surround sound and digital projector to good use, that sounds like a whole lot of crazy to me. What can you expect from a company that charges $3.99 for a pay-per-view movie that's years old?

(See full articles here and here. Check out the ACSI scores here.)

City Council At Odds on iProvo Financing

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City Council Chairman George Stewart is going head-to-head with Mayor Lewis Billings over a proposed million-dollar loan from the city to pay down iProvo's bond debt. While the current subscriber base makes enough to pay operating costs and sustain the network, current revenues don't quite cover the payments on the bond. As part of the loan, Mayor Billings wants to bring in additional network providers and market more aggressively to business users, a market segment with higher margins that remains untapped.

Most of the debate on financing hinges on the current projections of 60 new subscribers per week. The City Council cut a deal with the Mayor to run the numbers presuming 40 new subscribers a week and revisit the loan. Let's hope they don't make the same mistake that American Fork did by refusing to spend what was needed to ensure a final success.

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

Vermont and Norway Join Push For Universal Broadband

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Hot on the heels of Sen. Rockefeller's demand for 100Mbps broadband, echoing the sentiments of the FTTH Council, Vermont has passed a so-called "e-state" bill that requires adequate cellular and broadband coverage across the entire state. This is monumental for a rural state where those living outside of cities often don't have access to more than basic phone service. Norway has also joined the push for universal broadband access, realizing that a digital divide between urban and rural is bad for the economy. The Universal Broadband Express is really picking up some steam!

(See full articles here, here and here.)

Could FIOS Spell The End For CLECs?

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Prepare to have less choice for local phone service. Thanks to FCC rules, incumbent carrier are not required to share their new fiber networks with competitors the same way they shared their copper networks. Considering that upgrading to Verizon's FIOS is a one-way street (no going back to copper for you!), competing phone companies are rightly worried that they could be entirely pushed out of the market. More than ever, municipal networks like UTOPIA make more sense for bringing true competition into the market by remaining vendor-neutral.

(See full article here.)

Cable Companies Thwart DVRs, CableCARD

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In two related news stories, cable companies are clamping down further on network control by skirting around the requirements to support CableCARD and force DVR owners to watch ads. In testimony before congress, TiVo has alleged that cable companies are starting to use protocols and signaling that's incompatible with the uni-directional CableCARD standard. CableCARDs are designed to allow you to plug a digital cable signal directly into the device of your choice without a special box from the cable company, just like the old analog cable used to do. Bypassing support for "bring your own device" standards ensures that the cable company can keep you renting their equipment indefinitely, imposing significant trouble with using third-party devices such as DVRs and TV tuner cards for PCs.

Related to this is Cox Communication's recent announcement that they would no longer let customers renting their DVR to skip commercials for some content from ABC and ESPN, both Disney companies. I guess they missed the part where most people buy a DVR just for that purpose, eh? They probably also forgot to read the numerous reports that fast-forwarded ads are recognized just as much as ads played at normal speed. Boo on them for trying to force more ads down our throats.

Once networks like UTOPIA start breaking up the monopolies, maybe these companies will start to comply with interoperability requirements. 

(See full articles here, here and here.) 

Congressional Push for 100Mbps

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Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia wants broadband and he wants it now. He's just introduced a resolution (albeit non-binding) to push for universal 10Mbps access by 2010 and 100Mbps by 2015. Because it's non-binding, it amounts to little more than fist-shaking at providers who've been dragging their feet, but I suppose it's the thought that counts.

With the upcoming phase-out of analog TV signals to free up so-called "white space" and the auction of the lucrative 700MHz spectrum by the FCC, wireless might get a needed boost to be just what the doctor ordered for rural areas. For most areas, Sen. Rockefeller supports fiber networks similar to what the Koreans and Japanese already enjoy.  The non-binding resolution doesn't have any teeth, but it may pave the way for better speeds, truly universal access and increased competition in the broadband market.

(See full article here.)

Comcast Demos 150Mbps Cable Modem

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Comcast's CEO demonstrated a DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem today running at a speed of 150Mbps. It works by building on DOCSIS 2.0 to include channel bonding of up to 4 channels. The real question to be asked is why we need this. Comcast could be using DOCSIS 2.0 with its 45Mbps limit and still not come anywhere near that speed. Even with DOCSIS 3.0 approved, the tech won't hit consumers for at least another year and isn't likely to be available to more than 40% of cable subscribers by 2012.

If you make a really fast Internet service and don't make it available, does it even matter? Survey says no.

(See full articles here, here and here.)

Comcast Slams Subscribers With Contracts, Early Termination Fees

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Want to keep that special triple-play pricing in effect for longer? Just hope you don't want to cancel anytime soon. Comcast has started trying to sucker you into a 2-year contract for the service to lock in the rate with a $150 early termination fee if you cancel OR DOWNGRADE service before it's up. They'll also retroactively charge you the regular price for all of the months you had service, making switching providers a very expensive proposition. I suspect they're looking for ways to cut down on customer churn and shut out competitors to bleed them dry. With networks like UTOPIA and a myriad of new municipal and private wireless options, they're starting to sweat.

(See full article here.) 

Meeting with DynamicCity

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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.