(Source: JVC)

The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), a trade association and lobbying group representing many of the nation’s television stations, says claims by wireless carriers of a nationwide spectrum crisis are troubling and counterfactual.  That conclusion comes in a new report issued by the NAB this morning that wants the FCC to keep its hands off UHF broadcast channel spectrum the agency wants to sell off to improve mobile broadband.

The paper, “Solving the Capacity Crunch: Options for Enhancing Data Capacity on Wireless Networks,” written by a former FCC employee, suggests claims by wireless carriers that they will “run out” of frequencies to serve America’s growing interest in wireless services are simply overblown.

Many wireless companies own spectrum they are not using, the report argues, and other licensed users are holding onto spectrum without using it either, hoping to make a killing selling it off at enormous profits in the future.  Besides, the federal government holds the largest amount of underutilized spectrum around — frequencies that could easily be allocated to wireless use without further reducing the size of the UHF broadcast TV band.

Many of the ideas in the NAB report emphasize the need for carriers to deploy innovative technology solutions to increase the efficiency of the spectrum they are already using.  Those ideas include additional cell towers to split traffic loads into smaller regional areas, and improving on network channel-bonding, caching, and intelligent network protocols.

But the NAB report has some obvious weak spots the wireless industry will likely exploit — notably their recommendations that seek a reduction in wireless traffic — ideas that would suggest there is not enough spectrum to handle every user.  Among those recommendations:

• Implementing Internet Overcharging schemes like “fair use” policies and consumption-based pricing to discourage use;
• Migrating voice traffic to Internet Protocol;
• Migrating data traffic to a prolific network of “femtocells” — mini antennas that provide 3G service inside buildings, but deliver that traffic over home or business wired broadband connections;
• Offering wider access to Wi-Fi networks in public areas;
• Encouraging the development of bandwidth sensitive devices and applications.

The National Broadband Plan’s conclusion of a spectrum shortage is based on little more than a wish list by wireless carriers, says the paper. Its author, Uzoma Onyeije, cites contradictory statements by high-ranking corporate officials to show the Plan’s calls for making 500MHz of spectrum available for broadband in ten years is a gross overestimate of the actual need.

“There is no denying that the corporate imperative of mobile wireless carriers is to obtain as much spectrum as they can,” Onyeije wrote. “However, the fact that wireless carriers cannot find a unified voice on the amount and timing of their spectrum needs suggests that this advocacy is more strategic gamesmanship than factual reality.”

The NAB has heavily lobbied Washington officials on the issue of spectrum because their members — broadcast television stations — are facing the loss of up to 120MHz of what’s left of the UHF dial, already shrinking because of earlier reallocations.  The FCC proposal would resize the UHF dial to channels 14-30 — 16 channels.  In crowded television markets like Los Angeles, up to 16 stations would be forced to sign-off the public airwaves for good, because there would be insufficient space to allow them to continue a broadcast signal.  Instead, the FCC proposes they deliver their signal over pay television providers like cable or telco-provided IPTV.  Or they could always stream over the Internet.  But that would mean the decline of free, over the air television in this country.

Considering the millions of dollars many stations are worth, it’s no surprise broadcasters are howling over the proposal.

Onyeije’s report suggests AT&T and Verizon, among others, are grabbing whatever valuable spectrum they can get their hands on.  What they don’t use, they’ll “warehouse” for claimed future use.  By locking up unused spectrum, potential competitors can’t use it.  The proof, Onyeije writes, is found when comparing claims by the wireless industry with the FCC’s own independent research:

AT&T predicts 8-10 times of data growth between 2010 and 2015 and T-Mobile forecasts that data will have 10 times of growth in 5 years. Yet, the Commission’s assessment that 275MHz of spectrum is needed to meet mobile data demand is premised on data growth of 35 times between 2009 and 2014.

The Data Tsunami Debunked

Some providers are sitting on spectrum they already own.

The NAB also takes to task the “evidence” many providers use to claim the zettabyte era is at hand, where a veritable exaflood of data will force America into a widespread data brownout if more capacity isn’t immediately made available.

[…] The [industry claims rely] on suspect data. In arriving at its conclusion, OBI Technical Paper No. 6 relies heavily on forecast data from Cisco that is both wildly optimistic about data growth and unscientific. In a blog entry entitled, Should a Sales Brochure Underlie US Spectrum Policy?, Steven Crowley states that “[t]here is overlap between the people who prepare the forecast and the people responsible for marketing Cisco’s line of core-network hardware to service providers. The forecast is used to help sell that hardware. Put simply, it’s a sales brochure.”

Onyeije takes apart the oft-repeated claim that a data explosion will be unyielding, unrelenting, and will be the wireless industry’s biggest challenge for years to come.  It also speaks to issues about broadband use in general:

In particular, the paper appears to be premised on the highly suspect assumption that the high demand curve for mobile data will not slow. While smartphone growth is significantly increasing now, it will no doubt plateau and slow. It has been widely accepted for decades that the process of technological adoption over time is typically illustrated as a classic normal distribution or “bell curve” where a phase of rapid adoption ends in slowed adoption as the product matures or new technologies emerge.

As recently reported, Cisco now projects that U.S. mobile growth will drop by more than half by 2015. As Dave Burstein, Editor of DSL Prime, explains: “The growth is clearly not exponential.”  Mr. Burstein went on to say “Every CFO and engineer has to plan carefully for the network upgrades needed, but the numbers certainly don’t suggest a ‘crisis.’” Jon Healey of the Los Angeles Times Editorial Board similarly explains that “Much of the growth in the demand for bandwidth has come from two parallel forces: a new type of smartphone (epitomized by the iPhone) encourages people to make more use of the mobile Web, and more people are switching from conventional mobile phones to these new smartphones. Once everyone has an iPhone, an Android phone or the equivalent, much of the growth goes away.” AP Technology writer Peter Svensson echoes this concern and explains “AT&T’s own figures indicate that growth is slowing down now that smartphones are already in many hands.” Thus, the assumption that data demand will continue to grow unabated is deeply flawed.

Internet Overcharging is About Rationing and Reducing Use

Although the NAB favors Internet Overcharging to drive down demand for use, Onyeije’s report inadvertently provides additional evidence to the forces that oppose data caps, meters, and speed throttles: they are designed to monetize usage while driving it down at the same time:

While unlimited data plans on mobile phones were once the standard, there is now more focus on using pricing as a network management tool. As AT&T Operations President John Stankey put it, “I don’t think you can have an unlimited model forever with a scarce resource. More people get drunk at an open bar than a cash bar.”  In the past year, AT&T and Virgin Mobile abandoned unlimited data plans. In 2010, T-Mobile announced that it would employ data throttling and slow the download speeds of customers that use more than five GB of data each month. And Bloomberg reported on March 1, 2011 that “Verizon Communications Inc. will stop offering unlimited data plans for Apple Inc.’s iPhone as soon as this summer and switch to a tiered pricing offering that can generate more revenue and hold the heaviest users in check.” Usage-based smartphone data plans substantially reduce per-user data traffic. As a result, data growth is likely to slow over time. And companies, including Cisco, are marketing products to carriers to help make tiered data plans easier to implement and help carriers “increase the monetization of their networks.”

While many AT&T residential customers continue their exodus from the company’s forthcoming Internet Overcharging scheme, there are many rural Americans who have just one choice for broadband service — AT&T DSL.  For them, escaping usage caps is not as easy as calling the local cable company and arranging for new service.

While consumers continue to register their displeasure with AT&T over capping Internet usage at 150GB for DSL or 250GB for U-verse, there appears to be a way to get away from the usage limits while still maintaining your AT&T DSL service — switch to a usage-cap-free business account.

AT&T sells business broadband service to at-home, small, and medium-sized businesses at a substantial discount for the first year — $30 a month for up to 6Mbps.  A one year term commitment is required, but that likely won’t present any problems for customers who don’t have any other option for service.  With an AT&T modem/router already in place, making the change should just require a phone call to AT&T.

The company may offer different pricing and service plans depending on the region where you obtain service.  Former BellSouth customers may get different promotions than former Ameritech customers do.  We also found a few customers who still were able to access AT&T’s “usage measurement tool” on their business accounts, but business customers have not been notified usage caps apply to them, and we suspect that will continue to be the case.  AT&T promotes business class service at $25-30 a month in one offer we found, and service was even available to those who don’t want a business phone line.

After the first year, rates increase substantially, but we’re hopeful AT&T will learn the error of their ways and rescind their unjustified usage limits before the year is up.

Thanks to Wayne in Madison, Wisconsin for capturing these screen shots from AT&T's website.

If you are going to switch to AT&T’s business class service, share your experiences in our comment section to help other readers.

Shaw Communications today announced they are boosting speeds on one of their popular broadband tiers — Shaw Extreme, from 15/1Mbps to 25/2.5Mbps.  The current price for the Extreme plan remains the same.  So does the monthly usage limit of 100GB.

Customers appreciate the faster speed, but are not impressed Shaw has continued to limit customers to how much service they can use.

“Now I can hit my 100GB usage cap that much faster,” shares Shaw customer Dan Peek, who lives in Calgary.  “Shaw just completed dozens of listening tours, but they are obviously not listening at all.  What good are the faster speeds when you are effectively limited from using your broadband account to full advantage?”

Shaw claims the new broadband speeds are part of an effort to unveil new Internet packaging anticipated for early summer.

“It’s an exciting time at Shaw as we begin to create a world-class Internet product, giving our customers the ultimate experience in connectivity and entertainment,” said Peter Bissonnette, President, Shaw Communications Inc. “The Shaw Extreme speed upgrade is just the first spark of a whole new world of entertainment and offerings to come. We’re building the network of the future and our customers are at the very heart of it.”

Shaw also plans to introduce new equipment options, including a new box that will allow customers to access files stored on personal computers on their television set.  Shaw’s efforts suggest the company recognizes customers are increasingly interested in accessing multimedia content with their broadband connections.  Unfortunately, the company’s usage caps preclude customers from doing more than dabbling.

“It’s a PR effort made for the Canadian government and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission,” offers Peek.  “This summer they will be in Ottawa promoting their new broadband speeds as evidence the Canadian ISPs are not the backwater players they’ve always been, all while hoping their usage-based billing schemes will get a pass.”

Peek suggests broadband speed is not Canada’s biggest broadband challenge — the usage caps are.

“If you asked most Canadians if they would prefer 10Mbps service with no cap or 20Mbps service with caps starting at 40GB per month, people will take the slower speed,” Peek says.  “Shaw doesn’t seem to understand that basic message.”

Shaw's usage billing shark is still circling western Canada. The company may have increased speeds, but their 100GB usage cap on the Extreme tier remains.

Shaw’s listening tour across western Canada brought “summaries” from company officials that are being criticized by several Shaw customers who were at the meetings.

“I was at one of the Calgary meetings and the “summary” that showed up after the fact was the work of one of Shaw’s marketing hacks,” says Steve, a Stop the Cap! reader.  “The one thing they left out of the summary is the fact we do not want these caps and that they are not justified by the facts.”

Steve claims Shaw left customer demands for the end of usage caps out of their summaries, even though many customers brought up how much they hated usage-based billing and caps.  But there was plenty of room for customers who asked, “why should low usage customers pay for usage,” something Shaw’s customers in fact don’t do.  Another frequent meme from Shaw — “[customers] rejected the idea of subsidizing high bandwidth consumers.”

“That’s Shaw propaganda designed to fix a pre-determined conclusion around their distorted facts,” Steve says.  “The company presented charts and graphs with their world view and asked customers to comment on them in a focus group-like setting.  If you didn’t know those ‘facts’ were actually company ‘positions,’ you end up debating their numbers on their terms.”

Steve thinks Shaw’s version of “fair” is unique to Canada and would never be accepted in the United States.

“When you have media types parroting Shaw’s claim that practically nobody exceeds their usage limits, it quickly allows the cable company to claim heavy users are abusing the system, necessitating the caps,” Steve says.  “Now that Netflix is here, we’re all going to be heavy users now.”

Marie from Burnaby, B.C. confirmed Shaw’s new Extreme speeds were active as of this evening, noting speed test results of 20Mbps downstream and just over 2Mbps upstream once she reset her cable modem.  But she considers it of little value because of the usage cap.

“This will help our family when we’re all sharing the connection after school and at night, but since the 100GB cap remains unchanged, those faster speeds invite more usage, which will also eventually bring a higher bill,” she writes.

Some AT&T customers unhappy about the company’s forthcoming implementation of usage caps are being offered an uncapped alternative from Comcast — Business Class service.

More than a few customers facing AT&T’s imminent 150/250GB usage caps who live in a Comcast service area are informally being pitched cap-free Business Class service as an alternative.  Jim, a Stop the Cap! reader near Chicago, tells us Comcast sales representatives are rushing to sign up customers coming back to the cable company.  Although he is not served by U-verse, he points us to messages on AT&T’s own message boards from customers sharing their experiences as they pull the plug on the phone company.

“Comcast is offering us unlimited access at 12/2Mbps speeds for $59.95 per month, which is more expensive than the company’s residential broadband service, but potentially cheaper than getting a bill from AT&T with overlimit fees on it,” Jim says.

For now, Jim is heading back to Comcast residential service because he doesn’t use more than the cable company’s current limit – 250GB per month.  But he appreciates there is an alternative service available that comes without a usage limit, something he’ll keep in mind for the future.

“I feel sorry for AT&T customers stuck with them as their only broadband provider, and I think customers should continue to call and complain about the unjustified limits,” Jim offers.  “The best way AT&T customers can tell the company it has gone too far is to take their business somewhere else.”

Comcast does not normally market business products to residential customers, but many sales representatives will offer the service if a consumer expresses concern about the residential service’s usage limit.

Commercial providers and their pals in the legislature will go to any length — even lie — to protect their cozy duopoly, charging high rates for poor quality service.

That fact of life has been proven once again in the state of Tennessee, where an effort to expand EPB Fiber — a community owned fiber network — to nearby communities outside of Chattanooga, was killed thanks to a lobbying blitzkrieg by Big Telecom interests.

The “Broadband Infrastructure for Regional Economic Development Act of 2011,” supported by chief sponsor House Majority Leader Gerald McCormick, (R-Chattanooga), is dead after telecom industry lobbyists unleashed a full court press to stop the legislation from passing into Tennessee law.

The bill would have permitted EPB and five other municipal electric services that have or are developing broadband infrastructure to expand service up to 30 miles outside of their service area, where appropriate, to meet the needs of businesses or consumers.

With the legislation, EPB could bring its 1 gigabit fiber broadband service to Bradley County, home to a future Amazon.com distribution center.  Amazon already operates a huge warehouse in Hamilton County, where it was able to obtain EPB’s super-fast broadband service.  According to Harold DePriest, EPB President and CEO, Chattanooga’s fiber network is helping sell the city as a high-tech mecca for business, where broadband connectivity is never a problem.

DePriest says EPB’s network has been a proven job-creator, and Amazon.com’s ongoing expansion in the region is just one example.

Chattanooga residents and businesses now have the fastest broadband service in the southern United States, at prices often far less than what the competition charges.  Expanding EPB’s success to other parts of Tennessee represents a major threat to the likes of Comcast and AT&T, the state’s dominant telecom companies.

EPB provides municipal power, broadband, television, and telephone service for residents in Chattanooga, Tennessee

Lobbyists fought the bill off with some whopper tall tales about the “horrors” of community broadband.

Some Republican lawmakers friendly to Comcast and AT&T’s point of view have bent their philosophical positions on government and regulation into logic pretzels.  One has even called for EPB to be regulated by Tennessee’s Regulatory Authority, a body many state Republicans feel is about as helpful as a tax increase.

Despite that, there was Rep. Curry Todd (R-Collierville) at a recent hearing telling fellow lawmakers EPB and other community providers should be regulated by the TRA to protect ratepayers from the “loss of tremendous amounts of money coming out of taxpayers’ pockets.”

Does Todd think Comcast and AT&T should also be regulated?  Of course not.  Nobody should protect consumers from AT&T’s and Comcast’s relentless rate hikes.  Todd cannot even get his facts straight.

After 19 months, EPB has 25,500 customers — far ahead of its projections, and is well ahead of its financial plan, according to DePriest.  So much for being a “financial failure.”

Rep. Curry Todd has trouble with the facts, but has no problem counting campaign contributions amounting to more than $12,000 from Comcast, AT&T, the state cable lobby and other telecom companies

On cue, the same cable industry that tried to sue EPB Fiber out of existence is now comparing the Chattanooga fiber network to Memphis Networx, a disastrous effort by that city to build a public-private wholesale fiber optic network only business and institutions could directly access.  It’s hard to earn critical revenue from consumers when you run a wholesale network.  Even harder when you build it just before the dot.com crash.

EPB sells its service directly to business and consumers, so it gets to keep the revenue it earns, paying back bondholders and delivering earning power.

Stop the Cap! reader John Lenoir notes some of the local tea party groups are also being encouraged to oppose EPB’s efforts to expand.

“Just as Americans for (Corporate) Prosperity is lying about North Carolina’s community broadband, these corporate front groups are also engaged in demagoguery over EPB in Tennessee,” Lenoir says.  “In addition to the usual claims EPB represents ‘socialism,’ the locals are also being told EPB wants to use their fiber network to run smart meters, which some of these people suspect are spying on them or will tell people when they can and can’t use their electric appliances.”

Lenoir in unimpressed with the telecom industry arguments.

“AT&T’s opposition is downright laughable, considering this company raised its rates on U-verse and will slap usage limits on every broadband customer in a few weeks,” Lenoir adds.  “We thank God EPB is here because it means we can tell AT&T to stick their usage limits and Comcast can take their overpriced (and usage limited) broadband somewhere else.”

Lenoir thinks EPB should embarrass both AT&T and Comcast, but since neither company feels any shame in his view, it’s more about business reality.

“Why do business with AT&T or Comcast and their gouging ways when you can sign up for something far better and support the local community,” Lenoir asks.

AT&T spokesman Chris Walker complains that the phone company is somehow faced with an unlevel playing field in Tennessee, despite the legislature’s repeated acquiescence to nearly every AT&T-sponsored deregulatory initiative brought before it.  The company wants a “level playing-field” statute like the very-provider-friendly (it should be — it was written by them) one currently before the North Carolina state Senate.

Comcast questions whether anyone needs 1 gigabit service, but the cable company’s Chattanooga vice president and general manager Jim Weigert told the Times Free Press it could deliver 1 gigabit service… to business customers… assuming any asked.

DePriest questions that, noting Comcast tops out its broadband service at 105Mbps, and only for downstream speeds.  Comcast upload speeds top out at 5Mbps.  EPB can deliver the same upstream and downstream speeds to customers and do it today.