While larger cities like Virginia Beach and Richmond have enjoyed broadband service for years, residents in the western half of the state often are not so lucky. The region is home to some serious broadband black holes, where residents have no access to Internet service beyond dial-up, satellite, or borrowing a friend’s expensive DSL connection in town.

Like West Virginia to the northwest, much of this part of the state suffers with very low speed DSL, occasional wireless Internet, and a handful of cable companies trying to provide access. In addition to the rural character of the region, landline networks have deteriorated over the years and large phone companies have focused their efforts on network improvements further east.

Now a series of government-funded broadband expansion projects, regional and local broadband and telephone co-ops, and local providers are working together to expand modern broadband into areas that have never had access before.

The Virginia Tech Foundation and the Mid-Atlantic Broadband Cooperative are now working to expand a fiber broadband middle-mile network from Bedford to Blacksburg — the areas surrounding Roanoke that have suffered with difficult Internet access for years.

Among the first clients is PemTel, a telephone cooperative in Pembroke. PemTel still speaks of DSL as a “new technology” in the area, and has speeds that reflect that:

PemTel started with an original plan offering just 256kbps — speed that does not even qualify as “broadband.” But increasing capacity is opening the door for Pembroke residents to get speeds that can at least manage today’s web pages. Customers are also glad to see the back of satellite “broadband” which severely limited usage.

With fiber middle mile networks now stringing through southern Virginia, local providers can access backbone capacity at lower prices, which can, in turn, deliver substantial broadband capacity to new high tech businesses setting up in the area.

[flv width=”512″ height=”308″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WDBJ Roanoke Fiber Through New River Valley 6-11-12.mp4[/flv]

The New River Valley in Virginia is building a multi-county fiber network to act like an interstate highway system for broadband.  WDBJ reports. (2 minutes)

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WSLS in Roanoke explores a new fiber network going in from Blacksburg to Bedford, Va., and what it could mean for broadband-deprived residents.  (2 minutes)

The AARP was surprised to learn Idaho was considering loosening the rules imposed on the state’s phone companies to complete repairs on out of service landlines within 24 hours. The organization, which represents the elderly, says the new rules are a serious threat to older Idahoans who are the least likely to have a cell phone and require landlines in case of an emergency.

The Idaho Public Utilities Commission is considering relaxing regulations governing service outages at the behest of CenturyLink and Frontier Communications, two of the state’s largest phone companies. Both phone companies argue that consumers have cell phone alternatives and do not need rapid repair of landline service. The companies also do not want to face penalties from regulators over incomplete or delayed repairs to out of service landlines.

CenturyLink claims the declining number of landline customers justifies the reduced regulations on the state’s phone companies.

But the AARP argued otherwise in opposing comments filed last week:

• Give telephone companies twice as long to repair outages (from 24 hours to 48 hours), and even more time if they occur over the weekend.  Opposing the change, AARP reminds the PUC of the importance of landlines to the elderly, and the fact that home and health emergencies also occur over the weekend.
• Remove any penalties to telephone companies for not restoring service within the allotted period of time.  Currently if service is not restored within the repair interval, customers can receive a one month service credit.  AARP says removing the penalty leaves little incentive for timely repairs and erodes consumer protections.
• Lower benchmark for fixing outages. Currently, at least 90% of service outage reports must be fixed, the proposed changes would lower that to 80%.  AARP says the lower benchmark could mean more consumers going without crucial service for a longer period of time.

Other claims made by CenturyLink – such as the assertion that its ability to deploy broadband suffers because its personnel are unreasonably diverted to repair work – are unproven and largely irrelevant to its obligation to maintain reliable telephone services, says AARP.

The elderly advocacy group argues the little known case is one more example of the need for Idaho to establish a Utility Consumer Advocate Office to ensure residential consumers are represented in complex regulatory matters.  Idaho is the only state in the West without such an office and one of a handful nationwide.

Pendleton County, W.V.

Pendleton County, W.V. residents are frustrated by another landline service outage afflicting Frontier Communications in the eastern panhandle region of the state.

The latest disruption began early Friday morning, leaving limited phone service throughout the county, with customers unable to dial any number that was not within the local 249 exchange.

Customers found cell phone service spotty, as it traditionally always is in the county, leaving some with no way to communicate and frayed nerves.

WHSV-TV reports Rosa Propst was extremely upset by the outage which dragged on for nearly two days. Propst’s father was hospitalized in another county and medical personnel could not reach her to report her father’s deteriorating medical condition.

Her ill father was also upset because he could not reach his daughter — or just about anyone else in Pendleton County over the weekend.

“I would have held Frontier responsible for not giving us an emergency services line where we could get to a hospital or call the hospital,” Propst told the station.

Frontier eventually found the problem — a series of fiber cuts over the length of 1,000 feet of cable. A Frontier spokesperson said the company had to replace about 7,000 feet of cable and had to find workers willing to climb 40 foot telephone poles in what was characterized as a rugged area.

Customers complained this was not the first significant outage for Frontier customers in the area.

The company eventually repaired service early Sunday morning.

Frontier has been accused of lacking network redundancy, letting phone companies bypass damaged lines by switching to backup infrastructure.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WHSV Harrisonburg Customers in Pendleton County Frustrated Over Limited Phone Service 6-10-12.flv[/flv]

WHSV first reported the major service outage to viewers during the weekend local news, noting customers between Brandywine and Sugar Grove had lost landline service. (2 minutes)

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WHSV Harrisonburg Family in Pendleton County Frustrated Over Phone Service 6-12-12.flv[/flv]

 In this second report, WHSV talks with the Propst family about the human impact extended service outages can have on customers.  (2 minutes)

Broadband Backwater: Don't let AT&T and ALEC keep South Carolina broadband down.

AT&T and the corporate-funded front group American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) are making progress banning community broadband in South Carolina with the second reading of H.3508, the AT&T Profit Protection Act.

This bill has been debated in the state legislature since early last year, and despite protestations from local community leaders in broadband-impoverished areas of the state, AT&T’s money and lobbyists can buy a lot of support.  South Carolina cannot afford to have its broadband options limited. It remains among the worst states in the country for broadband adoption, with just a tad over half of all households hooked up to the Internet. The rest either cannot afford the prices incumbent providers charge, or in many cases, nobody is willing to provide the service.

With the passage of H.3508, South Carolina’s broadband future will effectively be left in the hands of Time Warner Cable, which has some presence in larger cities, and the former BellSouth, which is now AT&T. But unless you live in greater Charleston, Columbia, or Greenville, AT&T’s investment in your future has been limited to smatterings of slow speed DSL.

Despite claims that the “private sector” will provide, South Carolina remains a broadband afterthought for telecommunications companies in the state, especially outside of major cities. H.3508 stops communities from electing to drain the broadband backwater they are forced to endure and build better service other companies simply won’t provide.

You can’t discourage investment from providers who won’t invest in South Carolina’s broadband in the first place.

Use this tool to find your state senator and take a few minutes to call their office and let them know you oppose H.3508 and what it represents — broadband stagnation and corporate protectionism. Let them know you want broadband decisions for your community made in your community, not by a lobbyist for AT&T or the cable industry. Ask why any legislator would want to support a measure that would allow an out of state corporation to dictate what South Carolina can do about its own telecommunications future.

Ask them to stand up for you as a constituent and do the right thing.  AT&T, a multi-billion dollar corporation does not need their help. Broadband in South Carolina does!

AT&T seems to have suddenly discovered it has millions of rural customers who are making due with the company’s poorly-rated, slow speed DSL service AT&T pondered selling off to somebody else.

In a sudden turnaround, CEO Randall Stephenson has decided it might be better to upgrade the company’s service instead of ditching it altogether.

Stephenson’s apparent decision not to jettison rural AT&T landlines on the open market may have more to do with the current regulatory climate than what’s best for shareholders in the short term. AT&T may also find few buyers for the millions of rural landlines the company has no plans to upgrade to its U-verse fiber to the neighborhood platform. The most likely would-be buyers are preoccupied with their current operations:

• Frontier Communications, which purchased rural assets from Verizon Communications, is facing an enormous debt payment in 2013 and a declining stock price;
• FairPoint Communications, which owns former Verizon landlines in northern New England, is still trying to make its business plan work after an earlier bankruptcy filing;
• CenturyLink is still attempting to absorb former-Baby Bell Qwest into its network;
• Windstream may be too small to buy the millions of customers in multiple states AT&T seemed to no longer want until recently.

Stephenson told investors at a Sanford C. Bernstein conference that the company is now considering keeping its rural customers and upgrading DSL technology to better serve them.

A DSLAM reduces the amount of speed-slowing traditional copper phone wiring between the telephone company's "central office" (CO) and your home's DSL modem.

With 15 million AT&T customers having no prospect of getting AT&T’s U-verse service, and 5 million without any AT&T broadband options at all, Stephenson says investment in Internet Protocol Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexers, better-known as IP DSLAMs, could extend service and also improve speeds for existing DSL customers, and not cost the company a fortune.

Stephenson noted the cost of the equipment needed to extend service has dropped considerably, in part because demand for DSL has been in decline as customers seek faster broadband, often from cable operators. The two largest phone companies in the country — AT&T and Verizon — had also shown little interest in further expanding their DSL networks.

For a reasonable investment on service upgrades, AT&T could bring speeds of 10Mbps or more to certain customers who now live with 6Mbps or less.

The challenge AT&T faces is reducing the amount of legacy copper telephone wiring between the phone company’s switching office and the customer. Customers who live more than 10,000 feet from a central office make due with very slow DSL speeds. Replacing some of that copper wiring with fiber optics can dramatically increase speeds.

AT&T U-verse works on a similar concept, except AT&T’s most advanced service needs as little copper phone wiring as possible. AT&T’s newest proposal for its rural customers would represent a middle ground — extending fiber to a handful of DSLAMs at distant points from the central exchange, with copper phone wiring carrying the signal the rest of the way to the subscriber’s home. This would open the door to DSL for customers who could not purchase the service before. It would also boost speeds for existing customers.

The decision marks a departure from AT&T’s interest in “solving” the rural broadband problem with heavily usage-limited wireless Internet access over its 4G network. Verizon Wireless is currently testing its own wireless broadband service designed for home users, but it costs $60 and only provides 10GB per month of usage.

While Stephenson has not backed away completely from selling off rural customers outside of U-verse service areas, he told investors he now has a more optimistic view of AT&T’s rural folk in light of marketplace changes.

“We are giving this a hard look,” Stephenson told investors on a recent JPMorgan conference call. Already-available DSLAM technology “brings broadband capability in a more cost-effective manner, with a better revenue profile than perhaps we would have thought two years ago.”