Russian state-controlled telecom operator Rostelecom has announced it is refocusing most of its capital investment on broadband expansion, after the Russian government called on providers to build out Russia’s broadband infrastructure.
At least 60 percent of the company’s investment from 2013-2017 will directly target improved broadband. The company previously emphasized expansion of its mobile wireless division, a highly-criticized decision on the part of Russian officials who consider the country’s cell services already highly competitive and sufficient. Five major cell companies compete in Russia: MTS, MegaFon, Vimpelcom, Tele2 and Rostelecom — the smallest of the five.
Broadband expansion is key for Russia’s economic growth and private market development. Rostelecom maintained a landline monopoly until it merged with several regional operators and today competes among private rivals in the telecom business. Rebuilding and expanding its network is deemed critical to its long term survival.
But the current management of Rostelecom may have fallen out favor with the Kremlin.
Reuters reports Rostelecom CEO Alexander Provotorov may be headed for an early exit after state investigators searched his home in an unrelated fraud probe.
The government is expected to sell off its remaining interest in Rostelecom by 2015 after a restructuring of the government’s telecom assets is complete.
At least 95 percent of Vermont residents will have access to broadband by the end of today, because of a combination of private investment, public funding, and innovative service solutions for some of the state’s most rural areas.
State officials say 2012 was an important year for broadband availability in Vermont, as dominant phone company FairPoint Communications made inroads in expanding its DSL service in areas that never had access before.
In 2011, Governor Shumlin set an ambitious goal to see 100 percent of Vermont covered by broadband by the end of 2013, and the state appears on track to achieve that target in the coming year.
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Gov. Shumlin answered questions from state residents regarding his plan to see 100% broadband coverage in Vermont by the end of 2013. (Feb. 3 2011) (3 minutes)
Vermont’s small size would seem to make it an easy target for total broadband coverage, but significant rural areas have made it unprofitable for commercial phone and cable companies to make inroads.
Comcast, the state’s largest cable operator, has not grown much geographically over the past five years. FairPoint, which took control of much of the state’s landline network from Verizon in 2008, has been compelled to achieve broadband expansion as part of an agreement that approved the sale.
Karen Marshall, who heads a state effort to expand both cell phone and broadband access in Vermont says the remaining areas without coverage will be a difficult challenge, but one that can be achieved with the help of private and public investment.
“The last 5 percent are the needle in the haystack,” Marshall told Vermont Public Radio. “They are the most far-flung, probably the most expensive and sometimes even the most physically challenging to get to.”
Wireless is often the most cost-effective solution, both for broadband and cell expansion, and Marshall suggested Vermont would use microcell technology along Vermont’s rural roadways.
“I think we will be one of the first places in the country that is deploying microcell technology for example, on the top of telephone poles or utility poles, kind of like a daisy chain,” Marshall said.
The rural Vermont Telephone Company won a $5 million state grant to cover Vermont’s southernmost counties with a combination of wireless phone and broadband service.
While areas of rural Vermont will likely have broadband access for the first time, improvements have also been available to those who already have the service.
Marshall estimated the average broadband speed in the state has increased from 5.5 to 9.7Mbps, which is above the national average.
Vermont Public Radio surveys how the state is doing meeting Gov. Shumlin’s goal to see broadband service available to every Vermonter. (December 28, 2012) (2 minutes)
You must remain on this page to hear the clip, or you can download the clip and listen later.
This FCC broadband coverage map depicts broadband service gaps in orange.
According to broadband coverage maps drawn from data provided by telecommunications companies across Mississippi, high speed Internet service is available just about everywhere in the state.
Only it isn’t.
Now one Public Service Commissioner is going public warning broadband expansion funding is in jeopardy because the Federal Communications Commission is relying on faulty map data.
Northern District Commissioner Brandon Presley told the DeSoto Times-Tribune things are not nearly as rosy as some providers would have you believe.
“The maps the FCC have are just plain wrong,” Presley said. “Their maps show that Mississippi is almost completely covered and that is certainly not the case. Getting this corrected is a top priority so that Mississippi can get its fair share of funding to cover these areas for residents and businesses.”
The implications for DeSoto County, Mississippi’s fastest growing county, are profound.
Thanks to map data volunteered by service providers that suggest virtually the entire state already has access to broadband, federal assistance funding for expanding Internet access may be off-limits. Most assistance programs require that areas be unserved to avoid duplicating existing service.
“Currently, the map vastly overstates the broadband coverage in the state,” Presley said. “While the map shows neighboring states with extensive underserved areas, Mississippi appears with nearly universal coverage.”
The FCC’s map of unserved areas depicts Mississippi as a broadband outlier in the southern United States, with far more service options than other nearby southern states. Digging deeper reveals major problems with the FCC’s data.
For instance, the state’s map reveals much of Mississippi is covered by wireless providers like AT&T, C-Spire, and Verizon. But those companies offer only limited data plans at high prices that are not equivalent to traditional wired broadband from a cable or phone company. A company called Callis Communications is depicted as providing a large part of the state with DOCSIS 3 cable modem service, when in fact Callis markets cloud-services to business customers and does not operate a cable company.
Most of Mississippi’s broadband connections from cable companies and AT&T are in larger communities including Tupelo, Jackson, Meridian, Gulfport, Hattiesburg and Biloxi. That leaves large sections of central and western Mississippi with significant service gaps.
Presley said his office is working to correct the FCC’s National Broadband Map, but with federal spending cutbacks looming, it may already be too late.
“Without this assistance, rural communities will continue to be left behind as small businesses, health care and emergency services will be left without necessary access to the Internet,” Presley told the newspaper.
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WLOX in Biloxi reports Mississippi officials are scrambling to correct faulty broadband map data with the FCC so the state can qualify for broadband expansion funding. (2 minutes)
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Bloomberg TV investigates how much those sports channels are costing you as part of your monthly cable bill. The surprising answer: many times more than America’s most familiar basic cable networks. (1 minute)
Phillip DampierDecember 27, 2012Consumer News, VideoComments Off on Analyst Declares Cable Customers Will Pay $50/Month Of Their Cable Bill for Sports in 2013
The largest share of your cable bill in 2013 will go to cover just one genre of television programming: sports.
Leo Hindery, Intermedia’s managing partner, claims $50 of your monthly cable bill will cover networks like ESPN, YES, NFL Network, and a wide range of national and regional sports networks, whether you watch them or not.
Appearing on Bloomberg TV’s “Bloomberg Surveillance,” Hindery says there is no end in sight for sports programming-related rate hikes. They have increased 16% in just the past two years.
Hindery noted in the beginning sports cable networks largely covered national, pro teams. But the newest wave of networks cover collegiate sports, at prices nearly as high as ESPN charges its cable affiliates. With just about every major sport now sporting its own cable network, the possibilities and the accompanying rate increases are endless.
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“Next year, we will pay directly or indirectly something on the average of $50 [a month] for sports which we didn’t ask for,” Hindery said. “It’s not a-la-carte, it is part of the bundle.” (4 minutes)
Be Sure to Read Part One: Astroturf Overload — Broadband for America = One Giant Industry Front Group for an important introduction to what this super-sized industry front group is all about. Members of Broadband for America Red: A company or group actively engaging in anti-consumer lobbying, opposes Net Neutrality, supports Internet Overcharging, belongs to […]
Astroturf: One of the underhanded tactics increasingly being used by telecom companies is “Astroturf lobbying” – creating front groups that try to mimic true grassroots, but that are all about corporate money, not citizen power. Astroturf lobbying is hardly a new approach. Senator Lloyd Bentsen is credited with coining the term in the 1980s to […]
Hong Kong remains bullish on broadband. Despite the economic downturn, City Telecom continues to invest millions in constructing one of Hong Kong’s largest fiber optic broadband networks, providing fiber to the home connections to residents. City Telecom’s HK Broadband service relies on an all-fiber optic network, and has been dubbed “the Verizon FiOS of Hong […]
BendBroadband, a small provider serving central Oregon, breathlessly announced the imminent launch of new higher speed broadband service for its customers after completing an upgrade to DOCSIS 3. Along with the launch announcement came a new logo of a sprinting dog the company attaches its new tagline to: “We’re the local dog. We better be […]
Stop the Cap! reader Rick has been educating me about some of the new-found aggression by Shaw Communications, one of western Canada’s largest telecommunications companies, in expanding its business reach across Canada. Woe to those who get in the way. Novus Entertainment is already familiar with this story. As Stop the Cap! reported previously, Shaw […]
The Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission, the Canadian equivalent of the Federal Communications Commission in Washington, may be forced to consider American broadband policy before defining Net Neutrality and its role in Canadian broadband, according to an article published today in The Globe & Mail. [FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s] proposal – to codify and enforce some […]
In March 2000, two cable magnates sat down for the cable industry equivalent of My Dinner With Andre. Fine wine, beautiful table linens, an exquisite meal, and a Monopoly board with pieces swapped back and forth representing hundreds of thousands of Canadian consumers. Ted Rogers and Jim Shaw drew a line on the western Ontario […]
Just like FairPoint Communications, the Towering Inferno of phone companies haunting New England, Frontier Communications is making a whole lot of promises to state regulators and consumers, if they’ll only support the deal to transfer ownership of phone service from Verizon to them. This time, Frontier is issuing a self-serving press release touting their investment […]
I see it took all of five minutes for George Ou and his friends at Digital Society to be swayed by the tunnel vision myopia of last week’s latest effort to justify Internet Overcharging schemes. Until recently, I’ve always rationalized my distain for smaller usage caps by ignoring the fact that I’m being subsidized by […]
In 2007, we took our first major trip away from western New York in 20 years and spent two weeks an hour away from Calgary, Alberta. After two weeks in Kananaskis Country, Banff, Calgary, and other spots all over southern Alberta, we came away with the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: The Good Alberta […]
A federal appeals court in Washington has struck down, for a second time, a rulemaking by the Federal Communications Commission to limit the size of the nation’s largest cable operators to 30% of the nation’s pay television marketplace, calling the rule “arbitrary and capricious.” The 30% rule, designed to keep no single company from controlling […]
Less than half of Americans surveyed by PC Magazine report they are very satisfied with the broadband speed delivered by their Internet service provider. PC Magazine released a comprehensive study this month on speed, provider satisfaction, and consumer opinions about the state of broadband in their community. The publisher sampled more than 17,000 participants, checking […]