The FCC today voted unanimously to begin writing a formal Net Neutrality policy to govern broadband services across the United States.  Three Democratic commissioners voted yes and applauded the concept of Net Neutrality.  The two Republican commissioners also voted to move the process forward, but signaled they would likely oppose the final draft of the rules.

Support for Net Neutrality, which would prohibit providers from slowing down, blocking, or charging higher pricing for favored access to web content, was spearheaded by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.

Genachowski said the rules were needed to protect consumers from abusive behavior by telecommunications companies that might seek to block or restrict access to broadband content, including telephone and video services.

“Internet users should always have the final say about their online service, whether it’s the software, applications or services they choose, or the networks and hardware they use to the connect to the Internet,” Genachowski said.

Other Democratic commissioners agreed with Genachowski.  Commissioner Michael Copps stated it was important to hear from everyone about the proposed rules.

“We need to recognize that the gatekeepers of today may not be the gatekeepers of tomorrow,” Copps said.

John McCain

Many Republicans were unconvinced of the need to establish Net Neutrality as formal policy.

“I do not share the majority’s view that the Internet is showing breaks and cracks, nor do I believe that the government is the best tool to fix it,” Republican commissioner Robert McDowell said.

“These new rules should rightly be viewed by consumers suspiciously as another government power grab over a private service provided by private companies in a competitive marketplace,” Sen. John McCain wrote in an opinion piece published by The Washington Times.

McCain compared Net Neutrality with the federal bailout of Wall Street and the American auto industry.

Under the draft proposed rules, subject to reasonable network management, a provider of broadband Internet access service:

1. would not be allowed to prevent any of its users from sending or receiving the lawful content of the user’s choice over the Internet;
2. would not be allowed to prevent any of its users from running the lawful applications or using the lawful services of the user’s choice;
3. would not be allowed to prevent any of its users from connecting to and using on its network the user’s choice of lawful devices that do not harm the network;
4. would not be allowed to deprive any of its users of the user’s entitlement to competition among network providers, application providers, service providers, and content providers;
5. would be required to treat lawful content, applications, and services in a nondiscriminatory manner; and
6. would be required to disclose such information concerning network management and other practices as is reasonably required for users and content, application, and service providers to enjoy the protections specified in this rulemaking.

The draft rules make clear that providers would also be permitted to address harmful traffic and traffic unwanted by users, such as spam, and prevent both the transfer of unlawful content, such as child pornography, and the unlawful transfer of content, such as a transfer that would infringe copyright.

Today’s vote marks only a beginning of the process to begin writing the formal policy of Net Neutrality governing Internet use in the United States.  As with the ponderous debate on health care reform, what ends up defining “Net Neutrality” will be open to interpretation, and a barrage of lobbyists and arm twisting from politicians will be part of what comes next.

On the eve of the historic vote, Verizon Communications seemed to join Google in affirming some of the basic principles of Net Neutrality.

However, the devil is in the details, as is always the case in telecommunications policy.

Verizon supports its own interpretation of Net Neutrality, which is wrapped in a concept they call “innovation without permission,” which is code language for a deregulatory open free-market environment.  It broadly accepts the concept that telecommunications companies should not interfere with legal content, but the company doesn’t want a whole barrage of new regulations to specifically define what would constitute “interference.”  Verizon believes onerous rules would stifle investment, and that existing rules already in place at the FCC are sufficient protection.

Things get downright dicey when Verizon spells out its “network management” principles, warning the FCC overly specific rules in this area could have unintended consequences.

Broadband network providers should have the flexibility to manage their networks to deal with issues like traffic congestion, spam, “malware” and denial of service attacks, as well as other threats that may emerge in the future–so long as they do it reasonably, consistent with their customers’ preferences, and don’t unreasonably discriminate in ways that either harm users or are anti-competitive. They should also be free to offer managed network services, such as IP television.

It is in this area where very specific rules are appropriate to write, because what one company defines as appropriate “network management,” could be discriminatory against selected content those providers seek to “manage.”

No broadband user has ever objected to network management that controls spam, “malware,” denial of service attacks, and other like-minded traffic.  In fact, most consumers wish more could be done to control these things.  Nothing in the current framework of telecommunications regulations or in those proposed have ever sought to impede this type of management.

No consumer minds having access to additional content, such as IP television.  But consumers do object when such content is used as an excuse to ram through Internet Overcharging schemes limiting broadband usage or imposing higher fees for using the types of services companies like Verizon now advocate.  “The broadband sky is falling” rhetoric about “exafloods,” overloaded “Internet brownouts,” and other such scaremongering nonsense often comes from the same providers that now want to provide IP television.  What they provide with their left hand, they want to limit with their right.

It’s anti-competitive, because the same companies with an interest in selling these pay television services (FiOS, cable television, fiber-telephone U-verse, etc.) also provide the broadband service that companies like Netflix and Hulu use to indirectly challenge their video business models.

Another concern is “traffic congestion” management, which all too often has meant speed throttles selectively imposed on “offending” applications, particularly peer to peer traffic.  There is good traffic management, such as routing equipment that provides even delivery of services like streaming video and Voice Over IP telephone calls, which rapidly deteriorate on loaded down networks, and then there is bad traffic management which selectively slows down the speed of whatever the provider deems to be of “lower priority.”  Allowing the customer to make the decision about which traffic gets priority is one thing.  Allowing a provider to do it without the consent of the customer is quite another.

Too often, the “unintended consequences” Verizon and Google speak about in the joint statement go to the provider’s favor, not to the consumer.  Overly broad, non-specific language opens loopholes through which providers will eagerly leap through.

Verizon also advocates transparency — “All providers of broadband access, services and applications should provide their customers with clear information about their offerings.”

Disclosure alone doesn’t suffice for consumers, particularly if there are few competitive places to take your business if you disagree with company policies.  Those rules should include realistic speed information (marketing stating “up to 10Mbps” that in reality only delivers 3Mbps would be one example).  It should not simply be an escape clause for providers to abuse their customers with throttled, slow service, and give them the excuse that “we disclosed it.”

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Federal Communications Commission Open Meeting

October 22, 2009

112 minutes

(Warning: Loud audio)

Phil Kerpen (left) waits his turn while Glenn Beck explains the Marxism connection in Net Neutrality

Glenn Beck, who is America’s biggest argument for mental health parity in health care reform, has turned his paranoid ravings to the subject of Net Neutrality, suggesting the whole concept is one giant government conspiracy to take over the Internet.  To prove the point, he brings on Phil Kerpen, policy director and master astroturfer for “Americans for Prosperity,” which should really be called “Telecom Companies for Prosperity.”

Glenn Beck believes there is a conspiracy by Obama Administration officials, working with “Marxists and Maoists,” to secretly gain control of the Internet through the implementation of Net Neutrality, and to prove it, he brings on a guy whose paycheck depends on the corporate contributions from big telecommunications companies that want him to pretend he represents actual consumers.  The real conspiracy was sitting just six feet away from Glenn, but he missed it because he was too busy rearranging pictures of Mao Tse-Tung and others on his magnetized chalkboard.

Drawing chalk lines and stacking and re-stacking pictures like some sort of deranged episode of The Hollywood Squares doesn’t actually prove a conspiracy, but I’ll take Mao Tse-Tung in the center square to block!

In a remarkably fact free ten minutes, Glenn’s photo album of the guilty got star billing, as he labeled those who personally crossed swords with Beck or Fox News as “Marxists.”  Van Jones, who founded Color of Change, the organization that coordinated an effort to strip Beck of virtually all of his mainstream paid advertisers after Beck accused President Obama of being racist against white America is there.  Rahm Emanuel and Anita Dunn, both of whom referred to Fox News as an arm of the Republican Party are there (Emanuel “is just evil, not a Marxist” according to Beck, while Dunn is a “Maoist.”)  Robert McChesney, who co-founded Free Press, one of many public interest groups fighting for Net Neutrality is there as well.  He’s the ‘real string puller and master conspirator’ here, according to Beck and Kerpen.

At times, this theater of the absurd left Kerpen with an odd look on his face, reduced to simply looking up at Beck, who spent large amounts of two segments on the all-important issue of moving and labeling pictures of his personal enemies around like a 14 year old throwing a temper tantrum.  It’s hard to argue Americans for Prosperity represents the sane position on Net Neutrality after Kerpen’s ten minute Beck Affirmation Session.

[flv width=”640″ height=”480″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Glenn Beck Ravings of Net Neutrality Part One 10-20-09.flv[/flv]

Part one of Glenn Beck’s rant on Net Neutrality with Americans for Prosperity’s Phil Kerpen on October 20th (6 Minutes)

When dealing with people not entirely there, sometimes it is safer to just humor them while you seek a graceful exit.  But Kerpen played along with Beck’s label gun, and as we’ve seen all year, co-opted the paranoia among some conservatives that Net Neutrality, the Fairness Doctrine, and President Barack Obama are all conspiring to silence Glenn, right wing talk radio, and sooner or later all dissent.

Beck opens the discussion by fundamentally misunderstanding the very definition of Net Neutrality.

“Net neutrality. This is that everybody should have free Internet, right?,” Beck asks Kerpen.

“Well, essentially. You know, they dress it up the way they dress up a lot of their things. They turn it upside-down by saying that evil corporations, phone and cable corporations are going to block what we can do block or we can say,” Kerpen responds.

In fact, Net Neutrality has nothing to do with giving away free access to the Internet.  It is about preserving the free exchange of ideas that would allow Glenn, and anyone else, to talk about whatever they want online without fear a broadband provider would interfere with their content, slow access to it, block it, or charge extra to make sure it gets through to people at reasonable speeds.

Beck tried to conflate Net Neutrality with a government plan to give away access to everyone at taxpayer expense.

“I don’t remember anybody saying in the 1930s that everybody had a right to radio and we gave away free radios for the government. And I don’t remember anybody in the ’50s everybody deserved a free television, but that’s where we’re headed now. So that neutrality – I want to get to that later on in the week,” Beck said.

Perhaps Beck will educate himself on Net Neutrality by that time.

Kerpen knows better, but he’s paid to distort the issue.  Stop the Cap! consumers encountered Americans for Prosperity in North Carolina this past summer who were duped to show up to support state measures restricting municipal broadband projects in the state.  They thought they were there to support a-la-carte cable programming options and to oppose Obama Administration “emergency powers” to control the Internet.  Upon learning the true nature of the legislation at hand, a number of them ended up on our side.  They hate big telephone and cable monopolies too.

Americans for Prosperity is largely funded by corporate interests, which makes it unsurprising they would echo their talking points.

Kerpen’s fear factory that Net Neutrality represents a way for government to demand balance on websites is laughable, but then we know better.  For a crowd that already believes in the basic construct of Glenn Beck’s world view, it’s entirely believable.  That’s a shame, because it is Net Neutrality that ultimately will protect their access to Glenn’s online content without blockades or extortionist pricing from broadband providers.

[flv width=”640″ height=”480″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Glenn Beck Ravings of Net Neutrality Part Two 10-20-09.flv[/flv]

Part two of Glenn Beck’s rant on Net Neutrality with Americans for Prosperity’s Phil Kerpen on October 20th (5 Minutes)

This newspaper ad is running across West Virginia opposing the sale of the state's phone business to Frontier Communications

Opposition to the sale of Verizon’s landline business to Frontier Communications in 13 states continues to increase, particularly in Ohio and West Virginia, where several employee unions have argued the deal represents a win for Wall Street and company executives, but a raw deal for millions of consumers.

The Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, who also warned state regulators in New England about the consequences of approving the sale of Verizon’s operations in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont to FairPoint Communications, continue to warn consumers and state officials that a similar deal between Verizon and Frontier Communications could spell major problems for telephone customers.  They call on state officials to reject the deal and force Verizon to invest some of their substantial profits earned in these communities into providing better service instead of dumping customers overboard.

The CWA says the sale would put $3.3 billion dollars into Verizon’s coffers — tax free — and leave Frontier buried in debt, which could impact both new and existing Frontier Communications customers, including hundreds of thousands of those in Rochester, New York, Frontier’s biggest service area.

“Verizon Communications has been divesting assets to smaller, less stable corporations in order to reap large, tax-free, profits,” CWA International Representative Elaine Harris said. “Verizon proposes to repeat that formula, and its disastrous effects, with the sale of all of its wireline operations here in West Virginia to Frontier.”

The CWA considers the transaction based primarily on corporate greed, not the best interests of phone customers.

“The only winner in all of these deals has been Verizon Communications and especially Verizon’s corporate executives,” Harris said. Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg is the highest paid executive in the telecom industry, with $24.31 million dollars in annual compensation from Verizon.

“His salary could have funded the entire network of senior services in West Virginia last year and he still would have had $8 million in his pocket,” Harris said.

The deal will leave Frontier Corporation with a total of $8 billion dollars in debt. “The West Virginia consumers will experience the effects of converting more than 617,000 aging access lines to a smaller, debt-ridden company,” Harris said. “The public will be forced to pick up the pieces if Frontier follows Verizon’s other buyers and files for bankruptcy.”

“We’ve closely watched the failures of the companies that purchased Verizon’s assets and we don’t need a crystal ball to figure out what will happen if Verizon tries the same scheme in West Virginia. There’s absolutely no reason to gamble West Virginia’s telecommunication’s future just to increase Verizon’s bottom line,” Harris added.

The CWA is running radio ads across the state of West Virginia opposing the deal.

Audio Clip: Communications Workers of America Radio Ad (1 minute)
You must remain on this page to hear the clip, or you can download the clip and listen later.

Verizon spokesman Harry Mitchell said Verizon wants to sell its access lines so the company can focus on its wireless and broadband business. Mitchell told The Charleston Gazette the union has opposed the deal from day one.

“They’re spending their members’ dues on advertising in an effort to cloud the issue,” he said.

Frontier Communications has protested accusations that their purchase of Verizon assets will result in the same kinds of colossal failures impacting other Verizon sell-offs.  Company officials claim Frontier already has a successful customer support operation in DeLand, Florida, and billing and operating systems in place.

In West Virginia, those existing operations serve 144,000 Frontier customers.  If the deal is approved, Frontier will take on the responsibility of serving 1.3 million landlines across the southeastern U.S. alone.

The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, integrally involved in fighting the FairPoint transaction in New England, says the Frontier deal is reminiscent of what happened with FairPoint:

Regulators in the 14 states where Verizon now proposes to sell its landlines to Frontier face an almost identical situation as New England regulators did last year. Frontier Communications is proposing to buy Verizon’s entire wire line operation in West Virginia – as well as Verizon’s scattered landlines across 13 other states – in a similarly structured deal.

In both cases, Verizon chose a much smaller company in order to take advantage of an obscure tax loophole. With the Frontier sale, Verizon will avoid paying any taxes on the $3.3 billion it will receive from Frontier. Frontier will have to cope with three times more employees, three times more access lines and a 75 percent increase in its debt from $4.5 to $8 billion.

Verizon has a very poor track record in these sales. Verizon sold its Hawaii operations to Hawaiian Telcom in 2005 and it filed for bankruptcy. Customers, service and employees have suffered as a result.

Frontier – just like FairPoint – is a making promises that it may not be able to meet. Like FairPoint, state regulators are being asked to approve a deal where a small company will attempt to simultaneously run a much larger operation, pay off billions of dollars more in debt, integrate Verizon’s computer systems and spend more money to expand broadband.

In the end Verizon will profit but consumers, workers and communities are put at real risk.

Expanding broadband access is an especially critical factor for all rural areas. But Frontier has failed to make any specific commitments, set any timeline or offer a plan for its broadband buildout.

Union leaders believe that states shouldn’t risk their telecommunications’ future just so Verizon can fatten its bottom line. Regulators shouldn’t approve this sale because the risks are too great. Instead, our legislators, regulators and the Governor should require Verizon to meet its service responsibilities. Verizon shouldn’t be allowed to walk away with $3.3 billion tax free, and leave the fate of its customers in the hands of a company with a lot less resources. If Frontier should falter, customers and the public would be required to pick up the pieces – not Verizon!

The track record for Verizon spinoffs has hardly been one of success.

FairPoint Communications, the company to which Verizon sold its Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont operations in 2008, is foundering as it tries to integrate operations and is choking on the debt it incurred to finance the transaction Since the deal was announced, FairPoint’s stock price has declined by about 95%, and the company has been forced to suspend dividend payments.

Hawaiian Telecom, the company to which Verizon sold its Hawaii operations in 2005, filed for bankruptcy. Verizon sold its 715,000 access lines in Hawaii. Since then, Hawaiian Telcom has experienced significant transition issues that resulted in major financial and customer service problems. In three years, the company lost 21% of its customers. In December 2008, Hawaiian Telcom filed for bankruptcy.

The yellow pages company that Verizon spun off also filed for bankruptcy. In November 2006, Verizon spun off its yellow pages directory business to Verizon shareholders, loading the new company, Idearc, with about $9.5 billion in debt and extracting a cool $9 billion in cash and debt reduction. Last year, interest payments alone on Idearc’s debt accounted for almost one-quarter of its total revenues! Representing something of a Verizon failing company “hat trick,” Idearc filed for bankruptcy in March 2009.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WSAZ Huntington Frontier CWA Fight 10-14-09.flv[/flv]

WSAZ-TV Huntington, West Virginia reported on the growing opposition to the Frontier sale by employee groups on October 14th. (3 minutes)

In Washington State, IBEW Local 89, outside Seattle, says the sale could cripple one of America’s most tech-savvy regions.

“We’ve always been a leader in communications in this part of the country,” said Ray Egelhoff, business manager of IBEW Local 89. “If this happens, we’re afraid businesses won’t move in, and some may even move out.”

Egelhoff, along with more than 1,500 Verizon workers who may become Frontier employees, deluged officials with letters and e-mails expressing their concerns. More than 500 have gone out so far to senators, house members, governors and business leaders. The workers worry Frontier —at about the a third the size of Verizon—won’t be able to absorb the huge Verizon assets, won’t be able to keep customers happy and, eventually, will have to shed staff.

Robert Erickson, International Representative in the IBEW’s Telecommunications Department said, “The deal poses risks to consumers and employees. Frontier is making all kinds of promises about synergy and how they’ll expand broadband. FairPoint Communications made the same grand claims and now they can’t meet their commitments and fulfill the promises they made. It’s clear that Frontier will be in a similar situation and not have the resources to fulfill the commitments they are making.”

Consumer groups are also raising objections to the sale.

The National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates urged the Federal Communications Commission, which is reviewing the proposed transaction, to reject the deal.

“The merger proposed by Frontier and Verizon is not in the public interest,” said David Springe, president of the consumer advocate group. “The failure of the companies to offer adequate consumer benefits or protections puts customers at risk of being served by a company without enough financial strength to make necessary improvements to local telephone facilities and widen the deployment of broadband access.”

Free Press, a nonpartisan group that works to reform the media, also raised concerns about the sale in a filing with the FCC. Free Press cited Verizon’s sale of lines in New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont to FairPoint, which subsequently acquired substantial debt, was unable to accommodate the increased service area, and is now on the edge of bankruptcy.

“This trend has the potential to leave rural areas with ill-equipped companies offering inadequate service at high prices,” says the Free Press report. “This is in direct contrast to the stated intent of Congress and the Obama Administration to foster universal broadband to all Americans.”

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WCHS Charleston Verizon Sale Fight 10-14-09.flv[/flv]

WCHS-TV in Charleston, WV talked with the CWA and company officials about the sale of Verizon operations to Frontier Communications. (1 minute)

John Badal, CEO of Sacred Wind Communications

NBC Universal and American Express today announced Sacred Wind Communications (Albuquerque, N.M.) as the winner and most inspiring small business in the “Shine A Light” program, determined by public vote.

Sacred Wind Communications will receive $50,000 in grant money and $50,000 in marketing support from American Express, and will be featured on MSNBC’s small business show, “Your Business.”

John Badal, described by the Shine A Light Foundation as an entrepreneur, founded Sacred Wind to provide service across the largely ignored Navajo Reservation in New Mexico.  Fewer than 40% of the homes had access to even basic telephone service, provided by Qwest on what the foundation describes as a “dilapidated telephone system.”

Badal, along with a few others, thought Qwest’s turtle-like-speed to provide basic telephone service was not acceptable.

Badal should know — he was the former president of Qwest New Mexico from 2000-2004, overseeing that phone network.

During his involvement with Qwest, the frustration to wire the economically challenged Native American community in his area was daunting.  He told Fierce Broadband Wireless that laying copper cable throughout a rugged, rural desert area to reach a small number of customers who couldn’t afford to pay much for service wasn’t economically feasible for Qwest.

In four years, Qwest only managed to bring phone service to 42 new customers–out of thousands. “It took us two years to get through the rights of way process. Six of those homes had moved by the time the process was completed. It would have taken 45 years to reach 70 percent of the homes in our territory,” Badal said. “We needed a different technology altogether. We needed to go wireless.”

Sacred Wind's service areas (click to enlarge)

Badal decided to build a for-profit telecommunications company with a business plan that would depend on funding from the government.

“The only way any company could hope to provide service to the Navajo Nation is with the help of the Federal Communications Commission’s Universal Services Fund,” Badal told New Mexico Business Weekly in 2005.

“We can make this affordable, where Qwest cannot,” says Badal, who expects half of the cost to be picked up by government funding. “That is a necessary part of this equation. Without that, the Navajo cannot be served.”

Virtually every American pays into the Universal Services Fund through a charge levied on telephone bills.  The funding underwrites the expense of providing rural America with access to basic telecommunications services.

In 2004, the same year Badal left Qwest, the company agreed to sell its telephone business on the Navajo Reservation to Badal’s new company.  Sacred Wind, which the company says “evokes a sense of connection between what we do – to send communications over the air – with a larger-than-life purpose for starting this business,” launched service two years later in 2006.

Sacred Wind uses recently developed wireless technology to provide phone service to 2,700+ customers, using both point-to-point wireless and fixed WiMAX to reach as many customers as possible in the sparsely populated desert region.  It’s a challenging proposition for any company, considering most of their service area has less than one home per square mile.  Even when finished constructing their network, Badal estimates there will only be two or three homes served per square mile.

One third of Sacred Wind’s customers live in Navajo or federal government sponsored public housing, another third live in small clusters of a half dozen homes separated by several miles, and the last third live at least a half mile from the nearest neighbor.  Most are economically disadvantaged and have household incomes below $15,000 a year — 57.9% living below the poverty level.  More than two-thirds of reservation homes have no telephone, with some driving up to 30 miles to reach the nearest pay phone.  Several lack access to electricity, which makes wireless phone service and broadband even more challenging.  Sacred Wind is exploring solar options to serve these unpowered homes.

The benefits achieved from Sacred Wind’s focus on their service area are obvious – they know the landscape, the culture, the economics, and the people.  The company will work on problems that a large multi-state carrier like Qwest would not.  Technicians trying to reach one customer five miles away from the nearest wireless base station could not get service until a technician experimented with bouncing the three gigahertz wireless signal off a granite cliff face to extend coverage, which worked.

A company specializing in providing service to rural Native Americans, that also has a non-profit arm dedicated to computer training, provides scholarships, and e-commerce opportunities for Native Americans, is a natural for recognition, and the public responded, calling Sacred Wind’s mission inspiring.

“It’s a real honor to be voted most inspiring small business in the Shine A Light program,” Badal said. “It’s so exciting and rewarding to start your own business and be able to make an impact on the community. Through the support we will receive from American Express as winner of this program, we will be able to further extend our commitment to serving the Navajo people with advanced technology and educational resources.”

Since August, people across the country have nominated thousands of small businesses for the “Shine A Light” program. Three finalists were ultimately selected with the help of host and entrepreneur Ellen DeGeneres, fashion designer and entrepreneur Diane von Furstenberg and MSNBC’s small business expert and host JJ Ramberg.

[flv width=”480″ height=”320”]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/sacred wind intro.flv[/flv]

A one minute introduction to Sacred Wind Communications

Sacred Wind Broadband Speed/Pricing

In addition to telephone service, Sacred Wind also provides Internet access to its customers, and here is where the story becomes considerably less inspiring.

Sacred Wind’s “broadband” service for most affordable tiers fails to qualify as “broadband” at all, using the FCC standard of 768kbps.  Pricing is exorbitant and speeds are slow.

It self-describes its dial-up option as “stable, fast, and affordable.”  The “affordable” claim may be true when comparing pricing with the first broadband tier that actually meets the minimum definition of broadband – $49.95 a month for 768kbps service.  Paying $79.95 a month will bring you their maximum speed offering — just 3Mbps.

The company also sells customers annual contracts to avoid the $99 installation and $65 equipment fees.

Still, for those who have never had telephone service, much less Internet access, it’s considered by many residents to be a good beginning.  The company is amenable to the idea of raising those speeds when technically and financially feasible.

[flv width=”480″ height=”320″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Fujitsu Sacred Wind.mp4[/flv]

Fujitsu showcases Sacred Wind Communications and how it approached the technological challenges involved in providing service to the Navajo Reservation [8 minutes]

Unfortunately, like its bigger telephone brethren, Sacred Wind is not entirely free from the telephone industry politics that often lobbies for anti-consumer policies.  A concerning document on Sacred Wind’s website promotes a questionable legislative agenda, including support of legislation that would permit providers to “create fair compensation in network use by identifying traffic on our networks,” which is a Net Neutrality no-no if it applies to their broadband network.  Another mysterious bullet point, not well explained, objects to “video programming and broadcasting practices that make it difficult to provide an affordable product to our customers.” That could apply to wireless frequency allocations or traffic on their broadband network — it’s not well defined.

While the FCC works on its goal of providing broadband access to underserved Americans, actual case studies illustrating “successes” like Sacred Wind that only manage to bring 3Mbps service to rural areas underline the need for Universal Services Fund reform.  Dedicating additional economic assistance to construct considerably more advanced networks to meet the needs of an increasingly high bandwidth Internet is essential to correct the urban-rural digital divide.  The original purpose of the USF to guarantee basic phone service in rural areas was a noble idea a decade ago, but that was then and this is now.

As the pile of money in the USF continues to grow from Voice Over IP and mobile phone surcharges, it was only a matter of time before waste, fraud, and abuse also turned up.  The administrators of the USF have often wasted considerable amounts of that money on questionable projects in decidedly un-rural areas.  Redirecting, reforming, and broadening USF resources to cover broadband deployment in areas like the Navajo Reservation may be one of the only ways to build sustainable and equitable broadband access networks that are scalable and affordable, even for the most financially-challenged communities.  Providing 256kbps service for $30 a month doesn’t come close to cutting it in poverty-stricken communities.

Additional video coverage of Sacred Wind can be found below the jump.

… Continue Reading

Mechanicsburg is located in Bland County, Virginia

Sunday was an exciting day for the nearly 200 residents of rural Mechanicsburg, a small community in southwest Virginia.  It was launch day for the community’s new wireless “broadband” service, which turned the community into one large hot-spot, bringing Internet access to the community at speeds beyond dial-up.

The service expands on a Wireless ISP (WISP) network already serving the nearby communities of Rocky Gap and Bastian, and was funded by a broadband grant, with assistance from Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Virginia).

Residents can subscribe to the service, transmitted from an antenna tower located in each community, or visit the local community center, which will have computers available for Internet use.

While the service represents an improvement over dial-up, it’s not exactly 21st century broadband.

The service, provided by Trificient Broadband Technologies, uses Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum technology in the unlicensed 900MHz, 2.4 and 5.8GHz bands (also used by consumer wireless phones and wireless routers).

Last fall, Trificient owner Jim Ingram told SWVA Today that he defined broadband at anything above 256kbps.  Bland County’s BCNet WISP service provides 512kbps service for $27.95 per month with an annual contract and $99 installation fee.  The Federal Communications Commission currently defines broadband service at speeds of 768kbps or faster.

Providing wireless Internet service in the hilly terrain of southwestern Virginia can be challenging.  The antennas delivering the service have been mounted on antenna towers to be above nearby obstructions, and Ingram told the newspaper every customer gets an on-site survey to determine whether they can receive the service.  If they are within 10 miles of the antenna and have a reasonably clear signal, a small antenna is mounted on the customer’s home and service can begin.

The company offers faster service for a higher price, assuming the customer is close enough to the transmitter to be able to obtain higher speeds.

For rural customers with no option for cable television or DSL service, wireless service at these speeds can provide basic connectivity for e-mail and web page access, but utilizing the Internet’s higher bandwidth services like video and other streaming media can prove challenging.

[flv width=”320″ height=”240″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WVVA Bluefield Mechanicsburg VA Gets Wireless Broadband 10-12-09.flv[/flv]

WVVA-TV Bluefield/Beckley, West Virginia covers the October 11th launch day in Mechanicsburg as wireless Internet service begins for nearly 200 residents in rural Virginia. [2 minutes]