Lafayette, Louisiana has never sit still for private companies bypassing the heart of Cajun country. When electric companies refused to wire the city, the community elected to do it themselves. When Cox Cable and AT&T said no to providing the kind of cutting-edge broadband that would allow Lafayette to protect its reputation as an entrepreneur-driven community, publicly owned utility LUS constructed a fiber to the home broadband network for every resident and business. Today, LUS Fiber has helped transform the parish, with half the unemployment rate of the rest of the country and an attractive place for digital economy jobs. It has even helped curtail well-educated recent graduates moving away in search of high-tech employment.

“There really is no infrastructure more important in the 21st century economy than fiber,” said Geoff Daily, executive director of Fibercorps, a non-profit group promoting digital economic development in Lafayette.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/FTTH Council – LUS Profile 9-24-12.flv[/flv]

Watch how LUS Fiber has transformed the lives of students, attracted new high-tech business, and promoted job growth with broadband infrastructure most cable and phone companies simply won’t provide.  (9 minutes)

AT&T has secured support from the Federal Communications Commission for authority to deploy 4G LTE service within a 20MHz portion of the 2.3GHz WCS band after cutting a deal with a next door neighbor especially sensitive about potential interference.

WCS spectrum holders have fought for years to develop commercially viable wireless service, but faced regular opposition from the satellite radio industry concerned that interference problems would result from using the band for mobile data. Right in the middle of the WCS band is Sirius XM, which depends on sensitive receivers to pick up the company’s satellite signal.

But now AT&T and Sirius XM have worked out a compromise both companies believe will protect mobile data and satellite radio. AT&T has conceded 10MHz of its total WCS spectrum for two 5MHz guard bands, devoid of signals, around Sirius XM’s frequencies. Sirius XM signal engineers believe this, combined with power limits, will protect radio receivers from overloading whenever near AT&T’s ground-based LTE cell towers.

In August, AT&T announced its intention to acquire WCS spectrum from NextWave Wireless, a spectrum-squatting holding company, for $600 million. The phone company is also attempting to acquire the remainder of WCS spectrum from the last two significant holders — Comcast and Horizon Wi-Com, which both have between 10-25MHz of spectrum in 149 and 132 communities respectively.

When the acquisitions are complete, AT&T will have WCS spectrum covering virtually the entire nation.

Frequencies in the 2.3GHz band are best received outdoors. Signals crossing windows and walls lose potency. (Courtesy: Greenpacket)

AT&T says it needs the spectrum to further deploy 4G LTE data service across the country. But the company admits it will take up to five years before it can switch on the new frequencies — no current smartphones support the 2.3GHz WCS band.

AT&T has also included provisions to ensure fixed wireless base stations will be able to utilize AT&T’s WCS spectrum, within reasonable limits to protect Sirius XM radios from harmful interference. That has important implications for AT&T’s long-term view that rural landline and broadband service is best delivered over a wireless network.

A major limitation of spectrum in the 2GHz band is the quality of indoor coverage it can deliver. As many Clearwire customers can attest, these frequencies suffer from high transmission loss, poor ability for diffraction, and most importantly, poor building penetration — especially in urban and suburban areas. Tall nearby buildings, homes, and even trees all impede WCS reception. According to Andrea Goldsmith in her book Wireless Communications, there is also a 6dB penetration loss when 2.5GHz signals cross un-insulated glass windows and a 13dB loss for concrete walls, with wood falling somewhere in-between.

But rural areas do better, in part thanks to the higher likelihood of unimpeded line-of-sight access between a cell tower and receiver. AT&T’s fixed wireless solution would place a small antenna on the roof or side of a home, positioned for maximum reception from the nearest cell tower. The signal is then brought indoors through cabling (or in some cases Wi-Fi) and available to customers, comparable to a home broadband connection.

AT&T’s strong spectrum position in WCS gives the company an opportunity to construct a robust, near-nationwide wireless network suitable for rural wireless communications. In more urban areas, WCS could operate seamlessly with AT&T’s lower frequency holdings and offer an extension of its current LTE service.

AT&T’s acquisition of WCS has several important implications for the wireless marketplace:

2GHz signals travel the least distance in urban and suburban areas, often blocked or degraded by buildings or trees. But better results in rural areas suggest AT&T’s WCS spectrum could partly be deployed as a fixed wireless broadband solution, if enough towers are available to support it. (Courtesy: Greenpacket)

1. It proves AT&T never needed to acquire T-Mobile USA. Through spectrum acquisitions like WCS, AT&T can still find relatively inexpensive spectrum suitable for mobile broadband use, without spending tens of billions to acquire a competitor just to poach its spectrum and eliminate a competitor.

2. The Competitive Carriers Association worries AT&T’s acquisition of secondary spectrum holders is allowing the company to gather a massive amount of spectrum.

CCA President & CEO Steven K. Berry said, “Allowing the largest carriers to obtain unlimited amounts of  spectrum on the secondary market raises serious competitive concerns.  The only way for the FCC to truly see the devastating consequences of further spectrum aggregation is by consolidating the proposed applications.  On their own, AT&T’s proposed license acquisitions may not seem significant, but when added together, it totals to a significant amount of spectrum.”

Berry continued, “Should the FCC decide to approve the transactions, it must impose conditions to ensure interoperability across the Lower 700 MHz band and to ensure data roaming – both are absolutely essential ingredients to a healthy, competitive marketplace.  Competitive carriers need access to usable spectrum, and I urge the Commission to carefully review the negative impact these transactions will have on the wireless marketplace.”

3. Clearwire’s 2.5GHz spectrum could become more valuable if AT&T can demonstrate its 2.3GHz service can deliver robust service, if provisioned adequately for customers. Clearwire’s capital investments and overall performance of its limited coverage WiMAX network have been deemed inadequate by its biggest partner Sprint, now constructing its own 4G LTE network to replace Clearwire’s WiMAX network.

4. Credit Suisse analyst Jonathan Chaplin notes Verizon will still have a better standing in spectrum even with AT&T WCS: “AT&T will have the following available for LTE: 20 MHz of 700 MHz nationwide; 20 MHz of WCS nationwide; a few AWS licenses (5 MHz on average). With Verizon’s deal with large cable companies, Verizon will have: 20 MHz of 700 MHz nationwide; 20 MHz of AWS nationwide; another 10 MHz of AWS in 60 percent of the country (13 MHz on average). In addition, Verizon’s spectrum is usable immediately, while AT&T’s WCS will take three to five years to deploy.”

Anger management failure at the Time Warner Cable store

I always wondered why some Time Warner Cable stores maintain a very visible security presence, often with a uniformed guard stationed in plain sight. This morning, I got my answer.

While visiting a local cable store to exchange a set top box, I ended up behind five other customers, with just a single representative on duty. Seated on the provided couch, I was well-positioned to hear the issues of customers in line before me. It was the usual pattern — a bunch of late-payers wondering how much of their $400 past due cable bill they needed to pay to reconnect service, a customer exchanging a troublesome remote control or turning in unneeded equipment, and one older “gentleman” who clearly spent his morning preparing for a personal indictment of Time Warner’s customer service.

He was in line right before me. I should have realized there was going to be a problem, considering he spent 15 minutes muttering under his breath and mocking the representative’s answers to other customers as he waited his turn.

His moment finally arrived, and he unleashed.

“How do you people sleep at night,” was his opening. “Time Warner Cable sucks.”

And they’re off….

For at least 10 minutes, the woman behind the counter took a relentless verbal, often personal lashing.

Phillip “Next in line after Mr. Angry” Dampier

“I worked for a utility company and I would have been fired if I ever provided service as bad as yours,” was quickly followed by “do you actually train your people?”

It seemed, in-between the insults, this particular customer lost cable service the other day, called Time Warner’s automated attendant, and was erroneously told there was no reported service problem in his area. Finally reaching a live person, the customer service representative quickly repeated that, despite protests that “the whole street is out.”

Over the course of the day, the perturbed customer repeatedly called Time Warner to give regular updates on their conclusion there was no problem.

“There were Time Warner trucks on my street and you people have the nerve to tell me there is no problem,” relayed the man. “I’m glad I don’t have your phone service because even your own people told me not to get it because it was unreliable. I would not have been able to even call you then.”

But the final indignation was the customer’s perception a Time Warner Cable employee ordered him to stay home for a service call the next day.

“How dare you tell me what to do. You people wasted my time and yours and I never had this problem with Dish when I had them,” he lectured. “I don’t know how you guys even stay in business with crappy service like that and you lie to your own customers.”

The employee behind the counter had evidently been well-seasoned by prior encounters with angry customers. While never telling the man she understood his concerns, she did repeatedly tell him she was not the one telling him the things that obviously had upset him.

Other customers watching the display further back in line began to leave the store, noting the man showed no signs of drawing his angerfest to a close.

“I should just go back to Dish,” repeated the man. “You people are just awful and you always have been and you should be ashamed.”

For a few moments, there was silence as the representative looked up information about the customer on her computer. That was her big mistake.

“I am going to back my truck up and just chuck my cable box through your window for all it is worth,” as the relative calm of the eye of Hurricane Angry Guy had now passed on by. “Screw all of you.”

Having self-satisfied himself with his venting, he stormed off slamming the store door open as hard as he could.

“Customer #110 is now being served at window 2,” proclaimed the automated voice.

That was me. I hesitantly approached the desk.

Initially defensive, the customer service person cut me off the moment I took a breath to speak and tartly asked for my phone number.

It should be obvious to any reader here that I am a relentless critic of some of the policies and decisions made by the management of large cable and phone companies like Time Warner Cable. I am also a customer, so technically I could feel entitled to unleash my concerns about the industry as a whole on any employee of the cable company. But that would be wrong.

Taking your frustrations out on a customer service representative that had nothing to do with creating a problem will not solve the problem. Hurling a tirade of personal, verbal abuse is simply unacceptable.

If Time Warner Cable made the mistake, calmly discussing the problem without yelling at the representative would have probably netted the customer a customer courtesy credit and an apology. Asking the representative what she could do to alleviate or compensate for a problem gives them a chance to help. Putting them under a state of siege is a sure way to shut them down, hoping you will leave as quickly as possible.

In short, nobody deserves to be treated the way this representative was this morning.

Being affable got me a lot farther. The representative’s initial defensiveness quickly dissipated and she went out of her way to address concerns and even offered things I did not request. When it was all over, I thanked her for her help and she returned the courtesy wishing me a great day.

Some people believe being difficult and browbeating customer service will get them satisfaction. But I have found that remembering the “three P’s” of customer <-> customer service interaction work far better:

1. Be polite. If you have a problem with your provider, don’t assign blame to the one person that might be able to alleviate the problem. Calmly explain what the company did wrong in your eyes and empower and encourage the customer service agent to be your ally to resolve the problem. Making things personal puts anyone on the defensive, which guarantees less interaction, not more. Treat people the way you expect to be treated.
2. Be persistent. If the offered solutions don’t work for you, let them know in a calm voice that their suggested resolution is insufficient. Ask them if there is anything else they can do to resolve an issue or compensate you. If they seem unable to help, ask them if a supervisor could.
3. Be persuasive. Reminding a customer service agent you appreciate their help and that, as a long standing customer, you want to preserve a positive attitude about your provider gives them the incentive to go further for you. If necessary, remind them that a happy customer stays a customer. An unhappy one leaves and tells everyone they know. Keep things business-like and keep your anger in check.

Broadband’s perceived negative impact on print publications is not just a North American phenomena. In Great Britain, the legendary left-leaning national newspaper the Guardian is pondering its future as the UK heads towards a digital online future.

Leigh

David Leigh is the Guardian’s investigations executive editor:

Having survived more than 40 years at the coalface of British journalism (longer than a term of service in the ancient Roman army), I have been feeling a bit depressed lately by the insistent predictions of media pundits that the Internet is killing off quality newspapers. There are very few people in the trade who are prepared to bet that all our daily papers will still be publishing newsprint copies in five years’ time.

According to conventional wisdom, print is doomed. Circulations are collapsing because readers can get everything they want on the Internet. Not only do those readers dislike the idea of paying to read online, but the existence, among other sites, of the rival licence-fee-payer-funded BBC website guarantees that they will never actually need to pay for a supply of reliable day-to-day news. Paywalls will never really work in a UK context for that reason.

Yet when the day comes that the newspapers are forced to stop printing altogether, it will be a disaster for democracy. The lean pickings from web advertising on a free newspaper site will only pay for a fraction of the high-quality investigative journalism that commercial newspapers generate. We’ll just get the timid BBC on the one hand, and superficial junk on the other.

Leigh is convinced the British public will never pay for online news, but the newspaper industry might survive if broadband users are compelled to cough up, with a new surcharge on Internet access bills amounting to no more than £2 ($3.23US) a month, distributed to news providers in proportion to their UK online readership.

The new surcharge would raise at least £500 million annually — a “transformative” amount of money for the ailing print press, according to Leigh.

Those papers already behind an online paywall would receive substantially less from the fund — an incentive to keep online access to news free and open, albeit not monetarily free for UK readers.

Gannett has erected a paywall for its online newspaper editions

The openly self-interested Guardian Media Group would receive in the region of 20% of the cash – £100m a year from the proposed fund.

Leigh defends the new tax in the context of other European countries. Nordic newspapers, for example, receive a direct government subsidy to help keep the presses rolling.

Such a proposal in North America would likely cause a forest fire of controversy, but a large number of avid Guardian readers are having none of it either.

“You’ve got a cheek,” exclaims Elliot Mills. “What about people who don’t read newspapers online and yet would be paying money to the likes of [Rupert] Murdoch if this ridiculous idea came about.”

“A £2-a-month levy on automobiles could save our horse and cart business,” quips Roman David.

“This has got to be one of the most stupidly selfish articles I’ve read for a long time,” shared Mark. “And, for the Guardian, that takes some doing. Why on earth should the customers of a successful business be forced to subsidize a failing and outdated one?”

Even fellow journalists seem skeptical.

“I’ve been a journalist for 38 years, and I have to tell you – this is a stupid idea,” writes Terry Collmann. “Why should the Internet-using public have to pay for newspaper managements’ failure to set up a workable economic model for the post-newsprint world? It’s like advocating a tax on cars to subsidize horse-drawn hackney cabs and omnibuses. If newspapers can’t make themselves pay, they don’t deserve to survive.”

In North America, many newspaper chains are erecting paywalls to promote new subscription models. Gannett newspapers, for example, provide a limited number of free articles before a reader is prompted to subscribe to the online edition. Print subscribers get free, unlimited access.

The question is whether readers confronted with a paywall will simply take their news reading elsewhere, or will they value the content sufficiently to subscribe to maintain access. Leigh’s proposal would avoid pondering that  altogether with a compulsory license fee similar to what UK residents already pay for the BBC.

AT&T and Verizon: The Doublemint Twins of Wireless

Wireless carriers other than AT&T and Verizon Wireless have joined forces asking federal regulators to help level the playing field in wireless competition.

At this week’s convention of the newly-relaunched Competitive Carrier Association (CCA), Sprint, T-Mobile USA, Clearwire, C Spire, and more than 100 other small regional rural carriers joined forces in Las Vegas to sound the alarm about a wireless duopoly restraining competition and raising prices for consumers.

“Humpty Dumpty has been put back together again,” said C Spire CEO Hu Meena. “And while the identical twins sometimes agree to meet and discuss industry issues with other industry players, they seldom, if ever, support action that might better the industry as a whole.”

C Spire should know. The company filed a lawsuit against AT&T earlier this year claiming the phone giant manipulated its 700MHz band allocation to lock C Spire customers out of getting access to the latest smartphones.

“At some point, and that time is coming, regulators and politicians are going to have to acknowledge they have a choice to make: they are going to have to decide whether the communications industry, the fundamental driver of the information economy, is going to be regulated by true, healthy competition or by the government,” Meena said.

In the last 20 years, rampant consolidation has reduced the number of national wireless carriers down to four — Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile. Filling in the gaps are various regional providers, all who depend on one of the major four to provide reasonable roaming service for customers traveling beyond the service areas of smaller companies. Without reasonable roaming, competitors are left at a serious disadvantage.

Another major problem is access to the latest smartphones. Major manufacturers largely design and market cell phones for the largest four companies, often relegating smaller providers to sell older or less prominent phones to customers. When phones do not work on the spectrum acquired by smaller competitors, roaming becomes a problem.

But beyond those issues is the question of wireless spectrum. Traditionally sold in competitive auctions, the deepest pocketed companies traditionally win the bulk of frequencies, leaving competitors with less desirable spectrum that has difficulty penetrating buildings or requires a more robust cell tower network.

Meena

Members of the CCA recognize that mergers and consolidation can bring costs down through economy of scale, but in their eyes, AT&T and Verizon’s actions have promulgated a new paradigm for wireless on Wall Street: consolidation around a handful of wireless carriers is healthy; having too many competitors is inefficient.

“Consolidation can introduce business efficiencies,” said Michael Prior, CEO of Atlantic Tele-Network. “But government has a role in making sure that infrastructure is used in a way that works for the entire country. All we’re asking the FCC to do is to make sure there is a level playing field.”

Observers expect the CCA to ask the FCC to set aside spectrum in future wireless auctions exclusively for smaller carriers to help protect what competition still exists.

“There used to be dozens of railroad companies,” Prior noted. “But the government didn’t allow certain companies to develop rails that wouldn’t allow trains to interconnect to rails run by other companies.”

Meena warned the same thing could happen in the wireless industry.

“We know what happened in the first 20 years of the industry where we have had many healthy competitors,” Meena said. “There remains a false hope among too many carriers that the duopoly will one day become reasonable. But, we all know, whether we choose to admit it or not, that until all competitive carriers become fully committed to work together for open competition, the wireless industry playing field will remain harmfully tilted toward the duopoly. They will never give an inch unless and until they have to do so.”