As reported by Christopher Mitchel from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Qwest has scored quite the little victory in its efforts to keep itself (and the good people it serves in Minnesota) from the evil socialist menace known as “local government providing broadband when the incumbent does a lousy job.”
Apparently,MN State Senator Bakk and MN State Rep Dill introduced a bill that would have made it easier to for local governments to build municipal networks. Right now, it takes a local referendum vote with 65% to authorize a locality to build a network that offers commercial telephone service (and therefore any “triple play” broadband access service — or so they read it in MN). A State Senator and State Rep offered a bill to reduce the threshold on the referendum to a simply majority. By the time the relevant jurisdictional committee was finished, the revised bill included one of the favorite incumbent roadblocks to localities: a mandatory “feasibility study” designed to be so onerous and expensive to conduct that few local governments will want to even try.
Meanwhile, the good folks of Duluth are so desperate for real broadband that they made this joke video to get citizens to show support for bringing Google Gigabit Fiber project to town.
Question for the good Senators and Representatives of Minnesota: when you’ve got folks clamoring for real broadband, do you really want to be “protecting” your underperforming incumbent? By “clarifying” that your referendum law applies to any indirect provision of telecom service, and imposing a five year plan on municipalities, you are making it very hard for your local governments to — in the words of Duluth’s mock Public Service Announcement — “suck up even harder” than the competition. While I am hardly privy to Google’s secrets and innermost workings, I am willing to bet real money that when they weigh where to set up their pilot project, they will consider any possible legal landmines. Would you want to set up shop in a city where Qwest or some other provider might sue to block your use of city assets under the amended state law? Even if Google were to ultimately prevail, it would tie up the deployment in litigation. Who wants that, when the number of communities begging for Google to come and work its fiber magic keeps growing?
Mind you, there’s a good argument that even this version of the bill is better than the current law. Dropping the referendum requirement from 65% to a simple majority will do a lot of good even with the feasibility study requirement. But should that really be the choice? Don’t the people of MN deserve the better bill, without throwing (yet another) bone to Qwest to reward its failure to provide what people want and need?
So folks in Duluth, and other communities in MN trying to get Google Fiber, you might want to ask Qwest’s buddies in the legislature to cut y’all some slack and pass the original bill without the study requirement. that would send a signal that MN is serious about bringing broadband to its citizens and would welcome the sort of public/private partnership that Google appears to be offering. Or perhaps the MN legislature is just rooting for the people of “Google,” KS instead of the folks in Duluth.
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See this map for the coverage area of Superior Broadband, which provides wireless broadband to all of Duluth and Superior. And this doesn’t count the cellular companies (there are four to choose from) and cable TV.
There’s likely to be even more competition in the future, so long as government doesn’t try to kill it via needless “network neutrality” regulations or by driving it out of business via unfair competition (which is what municipal networks are).
But you won’t hear this from PK, of course, because it lobbies for Google…. It’ll say that anything like Google’s proposed, unsustainable FTTH networks MUST be good.
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That first commenter is Brett Glass, network neutrality opponent, Wyoming WISP owner, and Google conspiracy theorist. You can tell because he posts that same essential tirade on every telecom forum on the Internet in the hopes that repetition makes his argument true.
Seriously Brett, do you ever get tired of hearing yourself talk?
A handful of marginal WISPs tromped underfoot by massive incumbents nursing last-generation technology is not “competition.”
And municipal networks aren’t “unfair competition,” they’re quite often the will of the public — a will that wouldn’t exist were Mr. Glass and the incumbents providing them with the kind of service they wanted.
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Which only goes to show that Public Knowledge — like all of the inside-the-Beltway “astroturf” lobbying outfits — has no scruples whatsoever. Its sole goal is to obtain what its patrons want. And, yes, Google is one of its key patrons. That’s not a “conspiracy theory;” it’s a fact.
Of course, since Google’s corporate lobbying schpiel (which PK parrots) says that there is “no competition” in broadband services and that they must therefore be heavily regulated (in ways that suit Google, of course!). Therefore, the existence of a large number of vibrant competitors is extremely, er, inconvenient. So, Google’s lobbyists deny the fact that there are more than 4,000 WISPs, covering approximately 250 million people throughout America. (See
http://www.wirelessmapping.com/WISP%20National%20Map.png
for just a PARTIAL map of the areas covered by WISPs; not every WISP responded to the survey.) And despite what Google’s lobbyists would have folks believes, WISPs are by no means “marginal.” Our technology is faster than DSL, the majority of cable systems, and 4G.
Municipal networks are not financially viable or sustainable (see
http://www.digitalsociety.org/2010/03/why-municipal-fiber-has-not-succeeded/
and
http://www.digitalsociety.org/2010/03/burlington-muni-fiber-sticks-tax-payers-with-massive-debt/
for examples)
and they cost jobs and harm competition. If PK really cared about the public interest, it would opt to encourage small, local businesses to create jobs, serve their communities, and create competition. But because PK’s real interest is in serving Google, it publishes falsehoods like the ones in the message just above. And even dares to publish them under a false identity. This is not ethical, folks — but it’s business as usual for coin-operated DC lobbying groups.
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We don’t edit or preview our comments (or track IP addresses, for that matter) and that person put your name as the “Subject” of a message, rather than passing him- or herself off as you. Thus, we’ve no more “published” that comment than we’ve “published” yours.
While WISPs are valuable, the wirelessmapping.com map is not accurate. For example, it says that WISPs “cover” the entire DC metro area, which is false, as least as far as my home address is concerned. Not only have I personally investigated, third party comparison tools invariably show that only DSL, cable, and satellite are available to me. (Many of the “WISP Directory” listings in my area offer commercial services, but not residential. That map is based on data in that directory, however, which in addition to the usual self-reporting biases or any staleness, limits the map’s usefulness.)
I would welcome an accurate map of WISP coverage that is not based on self-reported data or business listings, preferably taking into account terrain features and capacity. Fixed wireless (both point-to-point and point-to-multipoint) can solve many problems, from backhaul to last mile.
The National Broadband Plan’s assessment of WISPs shows them as serving ~2 million customers, and this data is based on CITI’s report, which was co-authored by Robert Atkinson. I mention this because Robert Atkinson and ITIF are wonderful but definitely not in agreement with PK on policy, and this report is available here:
http://www4.gsb.columbia.edu/citi/
Even if the “250 million” covered figure were accurate, it is unlikely that WISPs would have the capacity to quickly go from serving 2 million to serving 250 million. Nor could, for that matter, satellite broadband, which has the best “coverage” of any technology. Coverage without capacity isn’t useful.
Finally, competition is a matter of degree, and not either/or; thankfully, the broadband plan takes a more sophisticated approach.
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WISPs do cover the entire DC metro area. Supply your address (offline, if you’d like; I have a Web mail page at http://www.brettglass.com/mailbrett.html), and I will provide you with the names of WISPs who serve that area.
As for your quotation of the CITI report: CITI is correct in that WISPs in the US serve approximately 2 million customer accounts. Some of those accounts comprise far more than one person, though. For example, when my company serves a 200 unit apartment complex that provides Wi-Fi to its tenants, that’s one account.
On the other hand, WISPs COVER areas with a total population of 250 million people — the majority of the US population. Why don’t we have larger market share? Mainly, it seems, because people are not aware that WISPs are an option. We’re working on changing that. We also do encounter anticompetitive tactics from the cable and telephone companies. However, groups like PK — while they claim that they favor consumer interests — are not fighting those tactics. Instead, they’re fighting to strangle WISPs and other independent ISPs with onerous regulations.
As for the accuracy of that map: if anything, it understates WISPs’ coverage because only about 30% of all WISPs responded to the survey. WISPs have no interest in over-reporting their coverage, because calls from people that they cannot serve will only consume their time needlessly.
Finally, very few WISPs serve only commercial accounts. 90% of my own WISP’s customers are residential, and residential accounts constitute 85% of my revenue.
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I will contact each WISP whose name you provide for the zip code 22203, and check their pricing and availability. Thanks.
As for “fighting those [cable and telco] tactics,” PK filed last month in the special access docket. I hope that the FCC does something in the short term to address the issue.
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PK is active on the issue of “special access” because Google wants it to be. (Google’s worldwide fiber network runs to major network hubs, and it needs lines from the ILECs to get out to other places.) The fact that this action might benefit WISPs is sheer coincidence. Google is driving the train here. Your DC lobbying outfit is just doing what its client is paying it to do: pose as a public interest group and then promote its corporate interests.
As for WISP service: Try Rapid DSL and Wireless at rapiddsl.net. If they cannot provide you with service, they will know who can.
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It would be an offensive insult or silly joke from someone in the passenger car business to claim that their product can compete with large trucks and railroads in regard to bulk ground transportation.
Anyone who knows anything about competition knows there’s a difference between connecting modes of transporation and communication compared to bypassing modes. When a large truck unloads and loads product to and from smaller trucks, the large trucks are not competing with the small trucks, they’re just connecting with each other to serve different territory.
When an airline passenger pays $200 for a seat on a commercial flight, the airline is not competing with the airport shuttle that brought the passenger to the airport, and it is not competing with the small planes that provide the same flight for fees of several thousand dollars. It’s only competing with other commercial flights if they exist at all.
For the most part WISPs provide the equivalent of “connecting” internet service rather than “bypassing” service in the sense that they provide service in areas not served by the major providers of landline broadband service rather than competing directly with them.
For WISPs to claim that net neutrality requirements for the duopoly providers of broadband to the vast majority of customers somehow restricts the ability of WISPs to compete in any way is also an offensive insult or silly joke. They might as well claim that driving by car coast to coast is competitive with taking an airline flight and if it weren’t for the FAA interfering with free markets everyone would be driving instead of flying.
If anything net neutrality would help prevent the duopoly from blocking entry into the broadband market by WISPs who could compete on price and quality under limited technical conditions. For example, WISPs are hypocritical at best to complain about facing discriminatory special access rates in the wholesale sector then ridicule consumers defended by Google and PK who face similar discrimination at the retail level from duopoly providers.
Wherever these claims are coming from, they don’t make common sense or technical sense and just embarrass the WISPs that do understand how their business works.
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…to claim that WISPs aren’t fit competition for DSL and cable. We’re faster than DSL and competitive with DOCSIS (in fact, we can beat DOCSIS on business-class connections with dedicated point-to-point links). You clearly know nothing about the technology or the industry.
On the other hand, “network neturality” regulations that would apply inappropriate restrictions that were apparently intended for cell phones to WISPs (as in the current FCC NPRM) would prevent the proper engineering and operation of fixed wireless networks. They would also outlaw WISPs’ most popular service plans, harming consumers.
But of course, we can’t expect lobbyists like you to know or care about the facts. That’s not your job. You are just paid to heed marching orders from corporate clients.