Cisco 3945 router

The saga of West Virginia’s use of $126.3 million in federal stimulus funds to build better broadband is coming under increasing scrutiny this week as the state’s legislative auditor demanded to know who approved the controversial purchase of $24 million for Internet routers many institutional users say are incompatible or too costly to run.

Aaron Allred has given Homeland Security director Jimmy Gianato, administering the broadband project, until Dec. 21 to provide answers.

More than 1,000 Cisco routers valued at $22,600 each were purchased with taxpayer funds for “community anchor institutions” including schools, public safety, and library users. Why those specific routers were chosen and who approved the purchase have gone unanswered. The Charleston Gazette reports just one router model was considered — one designed for hundreds of concurrent users, despite the fact many rural libraries and other institutions maintain as few as three computer terminals. The auditor also wanted to know why they were purchased all at once, forcing the state to store them for an extended period.

“How come representatives of WVNET [the state’s Internet services agency] were not consulted?” the auditor asked. “How come the Cisco 3945 routers were not right-sized for the areas they were to be installed? Who made the suggestion to buy one size, and who made the decision?”

The auditor also wanted to know why the state appears to be vastly exceeding its budget to upgrade a wireless emergency communications network. The state is on track to spend $50 million for an upgrade it budgeted $30 million to complete.

The newspaper continued to receive word the costly routers are being rejected by a growing number of institutions.

• The West Virginia State Police can’t use 70 routers assigned to detachments because the devices aren’t compatible with the agency’s voicemail system;
• More than 160 libraries have declined to hook up the routers to a new high-speed fiber-optic network because the state Library Commission can’t afford to pay for faster Internet service;
• An additional 175 routers remained boxed up in storage – more than two years after they were purchased.

The state is hurrying to spend the remaining grant funds available to it before the federal government’s Jan. 31 deadline. One state official planned to appeal to the federal government for an extension, blaming the impact of storm damage from Hurricane Sandy.

The taxpayers of Ohio spent $13 million to fund a new 100 gigabit institutional fiber network average Ohio residents cannot access.

The upgraded Ohio Academic Resources Network (OARnet) delivers 10 times the speed of its immediate predecessor and is the first statewide network to achieve 100Gbps.

Gov. John Kasich was on hand to light the network, telling attendees at the ribbon-cutting ceremony it will provide research opportunities and help some of the state’s largest corporations manage manufacturing, data mining and analytics, alternative energy development, consumer products and medicine. He, among others, downplayed the fact the network offers little to average businesses and consumers in Ohio who helped pay for it. Large businesses can sign agreements with educational institutions around the state to gain access to the super-speed network.

While institutional broadband networks for education and research are important, and there is nothing inherently wrong with OARnet or its mission, it does very little to solve Ohio’s stubbornly poor broadband landscape, especially in rural areas.

Advocacy groups affiliated with AT&T are back asking for more regulatory relief in return for promising a better broadband future for Ohio.

Ohio ranked a dismal 39th in TechNet’s broadband rankings published this month. Ohio’s Republican-dominated state government has been willing to devote state’s resources to enhance institutional broadband, but relies almost entirely on the private sector for broadband expansion to small businesses and residential customers.

TechNet notes Ohio has a history of cutting deals with providers like AT&T, among others, for “alternative” regulatory arrangements to encourage broadband expansion in exchange for approval of telecom company mergers.

The results have been meager in rural areas of the state. Despite provider promises to do more, fewer than 2% of Ohio residents have access to fiber broadband, and many smaller communities are forced to use slow speed DSL from AT&T, if they can get the service at all. AT&T has some more bad news for rural Ohio. The company’s idea of improvement is to dismantle its rural wired network and force customers to use AT&T’s expensive, bottom-rated wireless service, complete with extremely low usage caps.

As part of that process, AT&T and their friends and partners are back with more promises.

This time, it comes from research-for-hire reports like, “Incentive to Invest in Ohio Broadband & The Carrier of Last Resort Obligation,” which argues if Ohio releases AT&T from its obligation to provide phone service, investors will magically pour money into the state on broadband improvements. Just like last time. Only it never really happened for wired broadband customers.

The “report” was paid for by “Technology for Ohio’s Tomorrow,” a non-profit organization that claims it “advocates for public policies that inspire and encourage innovation in technology while informing and educating technology consumers about legislative and regulatory issues that impact their lives.”

While those things may be true, even more insight can be gleaned from who actually operates the group.

Stop the Cap! learned:

• Technology for Ohio’s Tomorrow is the Ohio project of Midwest Consumers for Choice and Competition;
• Midwest Consumers for Choice and Competition is also related to Mobile Consumers for Choice and Competition;
• Mobile Consumers for Choice and Competition is a registered lobbying group in the state of Wisconsin, doing business as Wired Wisconsin;
• Wired Wisconsin’s chief partner and benefactor? AT&T It’s chief lobbyist and executive director? Thad Nation;
• Nation has run a whole assortment of “consumer” groups out of his lobbying firm Nation Consulting, including: Illinois Technology Partnership, TV4Us, and Technology for Ohio’s Tomorrow. His work coincides closely with AT&T’s corporate agenda. When AT&T wanted statewide franchising of U-verse, TV4Us arrived on scene advocating exactly that. When AT&T wants to promote deregulation of its wired and wireless efforts and win government assistance with no strings attached, Wired Wisconsin, the Illinois Technology Partnership and Technology for Ohio’s Tomorrow were ready to go to bat for AT&T.
• AT&T’s core involvement in all of these groups goes undisclosed.

Nation calls it an “advocacy agenda,” (we call it Astroturf backed by bought-and-paid for research) and Nation’s firm claims to specialize in it:

At Nation Consulting, Nation focuses on assisting corporate clients with strategic planning in government and public relations, and managing crisis communications.

Our team has worked on the “inside” of the offices of Governors, Congressional members, and state agencies. We’ve worked at every level of government, and we have the relationships necessary to help you navigate state and federal bureaucracies to accomplish your goals. We know how government works – and we know what government can do for you.

Getting government officials or bodies to do what you want isn’t easy. Government is inherently a slow, bureaucratic entity. When you want elected or appointed officials to change policy, you need a comprehensive plan – and the resources, relationships and quick-thinking to implement that plan.

We come to you with decades of experience in advocacy, moving legislators and engaging state agency leaders to action. Let us help you build and drive an aggressive advocacy agenda.

Regardless of your industry, the internet has a role to play in achieving your public relations goals – and we have the experience and the expertise to implement a plan suited to your needs. Whether you need to effectively use social networking sites, manage a blog, conduct email campaigns or use Web 2.0 tools, Nation Consulting can help you maximize your online presence in a way that is both cost-effective and beneficial to your business or organization.

Fuhr

Joseph P. Fuhr Jr. is a real helper. An economics professor at Widener University and a researcher for the Coalition for the New Economy, Fuhr spent time pondering America’s current debt crisis and impending “fiscal cliff” and has come up with some ideas on how to solve it, starting with ending support for community-owned broadband networks. He shared his findings in a guest column printed the Tallahassee Democrat.

“Generally, [these networks] add to the debt load of the municipality that runs them, a burden that certainly has come true in Florida,” Fuhr warns.

Ask most people where the government spends too much and many will suggest corporate welfare, the military, Medicare/Medicaid, or outdated government programs that have outlived their usefulness. Professor Fuhr thinks the gristle that must go comes from about 100 “government-owned broadband networks,” which he labels as “GONs.”

Perhaps that acronym is partly wishful thinking, because Fuhr does not see much use for municipal or public utility broadband, even in areas still waiting for large phone and cable companies to provide the service.

“Of course, not all Floridians are fortunate, not all have access to high-speed broadband, and they should,” writes Fuhr, despite the fact commiserating with the broadband-less does nothing to extend the service to those still using dial-up connections. “However, this service is one that the private sector is able and willing to provide given the correct incentives.”

Incentives. Like taxpayer-funded tax breaks, grants, and rebates?

Fuhr has no problem advocating for taxpayer-funded incentives for private corporate broadband providers, but he opposes directly funding an independent, community-owned broadband service. But it really should not come as a surprise. Fuhr’s sudden interest in cutting public broadband to save us from falling off the fiscal cliff is not really by random chance.

Although readers of the Democrat will probably never learn the “Coalition for the New Economy” is actually a front group largely funded by AT&T, Time Warner Cable, and other telecom industry players that have to compete with community broadband providers, our readers now do.

Ford, Jr. (D-The Green Room)

Harold Ford, Jr., a former Democratic congressman from Tennessee and John Sununu, former governor of New Hampshire, are unhappy with an Op-Ed piece written by David Cay Johnston in the New York Times that calls out the telecom industry for high prices and and an uncompetitive marketplace.

Ford, who can usually be found in the green room of various cable news networks waiting to deliver his pro-industry messages on behalf of front groups like Broadband for America, says that 93 percent of Americans are happy as can be with their broadband Internet service.

Sununu joined Ford in some less-than-factual arguments about the state of American broadband:

Second, nearly 90 percent of all Americans can choose from two or more wireline competitors and at least three wireless broadband providers, most of whom now provide some of the fastest 4G LTE broadband networks in the world. Meanwhile, new fiber optic, satellite and wireless choices keep emerging.

Third, during the past four years, broadband providers invested $250 billion in the nation’s broadband infrastructure, while other industries sat on their cash.

Fourth, unlike many other consumer products, the monthly prices for broadband Internet have remained relatively constant, while average speeds have increased by 900 percent or more. Free-standing broadband service is now routinely available for $20 to $30 a month.

That is playing fast and loose with the truth. In reality:

• Most Americans have one cable and one phone company to choose from, not “two or more.” Wireless broadband providers offer service with a cap so low, it can almost never provide a suitable replacement for wired broadband service. Although AT&T and Verizon Wireless have growing 4G LTE networks, neither carrier has provided universal access to LTE speeds. T-Mobile and Sprint are only getting started. The fiber optic choices that are emerging these days are primarily from community-owned providers Ford’s industry friends vehemently oppose. AT&T does not offer fiber to the home service and Verizon effectively suspended expansion of its FiOS fiber network several years ago.  Wireless choices are now shrinking because of mergers and acquisitions and satellite broadband remains a painful experience regardless of the provider;
• Most that the investment made in “broadband” is focused on expanding wireless 4G service. That investment allowed both AT&T and Verizon to pay Uncle Sam dramatically lower tax bills — AT&T even collected a refund. Home broadband expansion has been far less expansive;
• Monthly broadband bills have not remained constant — they are rising, and more rapidly than ever. Speeds enjoyed by average customers have not increased by 900 percent, only some top speeds that are priced well out of range for most Americans. The price both quote for free-standing broadband is for “lite” service, often so slow it no longer even qualifies as “broadband.” Often, that budget service also comes with usage caps, sometimes as low as 5GB per month.

Sununu and Ford close:

Fortunately, very few policy makers in either party have endorsed the kind of heavy-handed regulations that Mr. Johnston’s arguments seem to imply — regulations that would only stifle investment and truly put America at risk of falling behind.

America has already fallen behind, and will remain in decline as long as regulators and Congress listen to a handful of telecommunications companies speaking from their sock puppet front groups and handing out campaign contributions to elected officials to keep things exactly as they are today.

In spring of this year, rural Canadian access to the Inukshuk Wireless system was terminated, forcing many to usage-capped wireless plans from companies like Rogers Communications that cost a lot more.

Kevin, a Stop the Cap! reader dropped us a line this week to remind Canadians they don’t have to pay Bell, Rogers or Telus big dollars for a small wireless usage allowance.

“After a bit of shopping, I signed up for WIND Wireless and it has been a positive experience,” Kevin writes. “Their customers service is leaps and bounds better than the big three and I get 10GB of usage for $35 a month.”

Once Kevin exhausts his usage allowance, he keeps right on browsing because Wind does not charge overlimit fees — they throttle speeds downwards, but not to the punishing dial-up-like speeds of most other providers.

“I’ve streamed music and video after I’ve hit 10GB,” Kevin writes, although he admits YouTube can be a bit problematic with buffering issues at the slower speeds.

Kevin says if he stuck with Rogers he would be paying them around $195 a month for the same usage he pays $35 for with WIND.

“Who cares about the speed of Rogers’ LTE network when you pay that much,” Kevin adds.

WIND Mobile is one of a handful of upstart independent cell phone providers challenging the dominance of incumbent telecommunications companies that have set the standards for high Canadian broadband pricing and low usage caps. Kevin wishes more Canadians would consider switching away from dominant providers to send them a message they have to compete with lower prices and better service.