Residents in mountainous western North Carolina have been frustrated by broadband availability maps from the Federal Communications Commission that suggest broadband service is plentiful and fast. But on the ground, customers trying to sign up for Internet access the FCC says is readily available is anything but.

The FCC’s National Broadband Map has been repeatedly criticized by broadband advocates for relying on voluntary data supplied by Internet Service Providers — data that has often proved incomplete, exaggerated, or just plain inaccurate.

Wally Bowen, executive director of Asheville’s Mountain Area Information Network (MAIN), wants to show the FCC its broadband map is out of touch with the real world. MAIN has announced a new website that will let western North Carolina residents test and report the real broadband speeds they are getting from providers to the FCC. If no broadband service is available at all, residents can report that as well.

“Based on our experience, we believe the FCC is underestimating the scope of this problem,” said Bowen, an advocate for Internet access in rural areas. “The FCC’s estimate is based primarily on data provided by the cable and telephone companies.”

With a growing amount of federal money available to wire unserved areas, phone and cable companies may have a vested interest exaggerating their coverage areas and Internet speeds to stop would-be competitors from entering their territories and building new networks. New providers could find a very enthusiastic customer base of more than 48,000 aggravated residents in 16 counties in western North Carolina that have no broadband options at all.

“This new website empowers citizens to compare their real-life experience with the FCC data, but more importantly, it dissects the broadband problem, provides ideas for solving it, and shows citizens how to add their voices to the policy debate,” said Bowen.

Bowen believes profit-minded private companies are unlikely to ever be enthusiastic about wiring rural communities when larger profits can be earned in larger cities.

“Solving this problem isn’t rocket science,” said Bowen. “We’ve seen this movie before. Seventy-five years ago, for-profit electric utilities left rural America in the dark, so Congress passed the Rural Electrification Act and allowed local communities to solve the problem themselves by creating nonprofit electric cooperatives.”

But federal funds are off-limits if another provider already claims to offer service in an area, no matter how poorly they deliver it. Many large cable and phone companies have also worked to ban community-owned broadband networks from ever getting off the ground with the passage of corporate-sponsored bills passed by state legislatures. That leaves rural residents waiting endlessly for the telephone company to get around to providing some level of broadband service.

Problems with Frontier Communications’ DSL in the region tells the story:

Paul Manogue lives in an area considered “served” by Frontier Communications. The phone company sold him 3Mbps service, but after installation, Manogue found Frontier locked down his DSL modem to 1.5Mbps, the fastest speed his telephone line could comfortably handle. Today, Manogue pays $60.98 for 1.5Mbps service that has since further degraded. Today his top speed is 1Mbps or less, even though his monthly bill remains the same. His broadband connection does not come close to the 4/1Mbps minimum speed the FCC expects from today’s rural broadband networks.

“We have been bluntly told [by Frontier] that the level of service we receive is what we pay for,” Manogue told MAIN. Manogue has no other options.

Bill Duffell of Burningtown thinks Frontier broke its promise to deliver broadband where Verizon, his old provider, refused. He is still waiting, along with a number of other residents, for even basic DSL.

“Frontier promised to bring high-speed Internet access to remote areas of western North Carolina within three years,” he said. “They have not done this and now tell me there are no plans to bring high-speed Internet to the area. Internet access via satellite costs me $129.99 per month with Exede/WildBlue and is weather dependent.”

Allen in Madison County says Frontier delivered tolerable service until six months ago, when his speeds began to drop.

“The breaking point was when I was going to upload a 30 minutes video and found out it was going to take over 13 hours to upload.” Allen says. “I called Frontier and they [told me I was] ‘in a high volume area.'”

Anyone considering launching a competitive broadband service to improve the online experience of Manogue, Duffell, Allen and others will not qualify for any federal assistance because Frontier, the incumbent provider, already provides DSL broadband. Frontier also receives significant aid from the Connect America Fund — up to $775 to extend broadband to each individual home or business it earlier deemed unprofitable to serve. Each additional connection risks slowing down every other connection in the immediate area if Frontier does not maintain regular upgrades.

Two of the largest phone companies in the country — AT&T and Verizon — have both refused CAF money altogether. AT&T sees a bigger financial opportunity disbanding their wired telecommunications networks in rural America and forcing customers to switch to more costly (and much more profitable) wireless data services.

“The refusal of Connect America funding by the big carriers, plus their plans to abandon their wired networks in rural areas, is a policy earthquake that’s been ignored by corporate media,” Bowen said.

Stop the Cap! reader Paul writes to share his dilemma with AT&T U-verse:

I have had AT&T U-verse broadband for three years and although the company has a 250GB usage cap, they have a completely dysfunctional measurement tool. It has never worked. AT&T tells me I should not be concerned about my Internet use for billing purposes. It seems pretty clear to me AT&T’s -only- interest in capping usage is, in fact, for billing purposes. If you ask customer service about why AT&T caps wired usage, they claim it provides a better user experience for everyone. But nowhere does AT&T ask customers to consider what they are doing with their Internet accounts. If this was really about congestion, why not ask customers to conserve broadband resources?

With AT&T, one of the largest phone companies in the country, it was never about congestion and still is not. This is about money, pure and simple. Their usage meters don’t work right, their billing penalty is a huge $10 fee for 50GB of usage (why not $0.20 per gigabyte?), and their service has tons of capacity once it gets onto their fiber network at the link up the street. Who are they kidding?

The Man from A.L.E.C. represents premiere members Time Warner Cable and AT&T.

The News & Observer has printed a rebuttal to a guest editorial from Christopher Mitchell and Todd O’Boyle accusing the two of misleading readers about the true state of North Carolina’s broadband.

The author, John Stephenson, is director of the Communications and Technology Task Force at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Considering North Carolina’s largest broadband providers — AT&T and Time Warner Cable — are both card-carrying members of ALEC, his response mouths their words.

Nearly 300 million Americans have access to at least one and, in most cases, two or three broadband providers. Moreover, wireless and satellite providers continue to invest in 4G wireless technology and new satellites that can now offer speeds rivaling wired broadband.

By contrast, government-owned broadband has demonstrated mixed results at best and abject failure at worst. Cities’ attempts to build and operate their own broadband networks have been marked by poor results, huge debts and accounting gimmicks that threaten taxpayers.

In North Carolina, broadband “consultants” persuaded cities like Salisbury and Mooresville to ignore basic economics and to compete against private providers. But the broadband networks recorded deficits and were forced to tap other sources of financing. Despite these losses, as many as three dozen North Carolina cities appeared ready to go down the same dangerous path.

Stephenson’s rebuttal regurgitates the usual Time Warner Cable and AT&T talking points — the same ones used to convince North Carolina legislators to ban community broadband (with contributions to their campaign coffers stapled to the back).

Fact: North Carolinians typically have at most two choices for broadband, the telephone and cable company. Only a few cities were lucky enough to construct community-owned alternatives before the hammer fell in the General Assembly. Stephenson’s alternatives include satellite broadband, which delivers slow speeds and a paltry usage allowance or wireless 4G broadband that will set you back a fortune. North Carolina’s largest providers AT&T and Verizon Wireless sell service with a starting monthly cap of 1GB. Anything more costs more. These are hardly comparable choices to wired broadband.

Fact: Community broadband in cities like Wilson and Salisbury dramatically outperform Time Warner Cable and AT&T and deliver a fair deal instead of temporary promotions and endless rate hikes from the cable/telco bully boys. Stephenson uses the case of Mooresville to trash community broadband, which is a weak example. That city bought a decrepit cable system from bankrupt Adelphia Cable and had to spend a fortune to rebuild it. It’s now on track to deliver for local residents. Those communities would have been better off with a fiber to the home system, but the rebuilt cable system still delivers more competition than Time Warner and AT&T ever gave one-another.

Stephenson also ignores the debts the cable and phone companies piled up when they first built their networks. It is the cost of getting into the telecommunications business. Cable companies needed 10, 20, or even 30 years to pay off construction costs. Community providers got into telecommunications with the knowledge it would take time to pay back the initial debt, but they hope to do it without gouging customers.

ALEC routinely pits community providers against private ones as “government funded unfair broadband competition.” But the group ignores the fact cities like Charlotte have doled out tax incentives and other goodies to Time Warner Cable for building its new headquarters there. AT&T is not doing too bad either, securing statewide video franchising and effective permission to drop its ugly U-verse cabinets on public easements all over the state.

The fact is, the only disruptive force in North Carolina’s broadband market comes from community-owned providers trying to break up the comfortable telco-cable duopoly that charges nearly the same prices for the same yesteryear service. That’s a story The Man from A.L.E.C. cannot afford to tell you.

The Kentucky Resources Council is appealing to Kentucky residents and elected officials to stop AT&T’s plan to abandon rural landline service in the state with the passage of a bill now before Kentucky lawmakers the company effectively wrote itself.

Tom FitzGerald, director of the non-profit group, has been bringing attention to AT&T’s agenda in the Kentucky media and through the organization’s website.

FitzGerald explains AT&T’s long term agenda is deregulation and eventual abdication of its basic responsibility to provide affordable, essential basic telephone service to every resident in the state who wants it.

In 2006, AT&T won deregulation of all services other than basic telephone service. The company promptly raised prices after the deregulation became law. Now the company is back asking the government to walk away from its oversight of basic telephone service. But even more concerning, in FitzGerald’s view, is that AT&T is prepared to walk away from their rural customers in the process:

In requiring that access to basic telephone service continue to be regulated, the General Assembly recognized that stand-alone basic telephone service is, for many Kentuckians, an essential service.

AT&T may believe, as it told the Federal Communications Commission in 2009, that “plain-old telephone service” is a “relic of a bygone era,” yet basic reliable wireline local exchange telephone service remains a lifeline for those who use it to convey medical monitoring information, for smoke and security alarms, and for voice service.

Basic local service is more than just “voice” service — it includes, by state law, reliable unlimited local exchange calling, 911 service, directory and operator assistance, and the ability to connect with other carriers.

AT&T is circulating a proposed bill that would deregulate basic local telephone services in the service areas of AT&T, Windstream and Cincinnati Bell in Kentucky. What would the bill do?

Unless you currently live in a household with fewer than 5,000 housing units in the telephone exchange, you will no longer be guaranteed access to basic local service as a stand-alone option.

For those smaller exchanges, AT&T could immediately cease providing the service if it offers an “alternative voice service.” Or, it could petition the state Public Service Commission to be relieved of the obligation by meeting certain criteria regarding other providers of voice service in the area. No new houses built in the service areas would have a right to a landline offering basic phone services on a stand-alone basis.

There is nothing in the draft bill that would require AT&T to seek PSC approval prior to ending the stand-alone landline phone service in exchanges where it or another provider offers wireless alternative voice service.

In addition, there is no requirement that AT&T demonstrate that the wireless service is of comparable reliability and consistent signal quality.

Deregulating basic local phone service based on the mere existence of a wireless “alternative voice service” provider that can be an affiliate, does not assure access for all customers to voice and other basic exchange services that are functionally equivalent, competitively priced and comparable to the currently regulated landline basic telephone services.

FitzGerald

AT&T’s characterization of its proposed legislation is that it will help shepherd in the transformation of the company’s old telephone network to a new modern network that can deliver broadband, telephone and television service. But AT&T’s network upgrades are reserved for urban areas only. Should AT&T have its way, it can simply abandon wired service in rural areas and tell those customers to purchase AT&T wireless phone service instead, at significantly higher prices and with no guarantee of service quality or reliability.

Customers in rural areas who have cellphones can already share stories about poor reception, dead spots, and garbled phone calls. Should AT&T win approval of its deregulation bill in Kentucky, rural residents may find that cellphone their only link to 911 and the outside world. FitzGerald wonders if that is sufficient for rural Kentucky.

“Before an telephone company is relieved of the obligation to offer reliable stand-alone basic service under regulations that guarantee nondiscriminatory access, the PSC must be empowered to determine whether there is sufficient competition in the provision of the full array of reliable basic phone services from other carriers on a stand-alone basis,” FitzGerald writes.

“It must also ensure that it will remain available to low-and fixed-income Kentuckians and those more costly to serve because of their location. Ending the obligation in Kentucky, without an assurance that comparable services will be available in a deregulated marketplace for those who are most in need of and least able to afford such services, is not in the public’s interest.”

A big 40oz can of Hype from the Washington Post.

Conservative bloggers are calling it socialized “Obama-Wi-Fi,” broadband advocates claim it represents salvation from high-priced wireless service plans, and the media echo chamber is amplifying reports that the federal government in on the verge of launching a nationwide free Wi-Fi network.

Sorry folks, it is not to be.

An article in Sunday’s Washington Post originally titled, “FCC Proposes Large Public WiFi Networks” got the ball rolling, and almost 3,000 reader comments later, a full-scale debate about the merits of government-supplied Wi-Fi Internet access is underway.

Cecilia Kang and her headline writer mislead readers with statements like these:

The federal government wants to create super WiFi networks across the nation, so powerful and broad in reach that consumers could use them to make calls or surf the Internet without paying a cellphone bill every month.

[…] If all goes as planned, free access to the Web would be available in just about every metropolitan area and in many rural areas.

There is nothing new about the FCC’s effort to set aside unlicensed spectrum for so-called “white space” Wi-Fi. As the spectrum wars continue, wireless companies like Verizon and AT&T are pushing proposals to further shrink the number of channels on the UHF television band and repurpose them for expanded cellular data networks. That newly available spectrum would be secured through an FCC auction. FCC chairman Julius Genachowski wants to set aside some of that available spectrum for unlicensed use, including the next generation of Wi-Fi, which will greatly extend its range and speed.

There is no proposal on the table for the government to fund or create a free, national Wi-Fi network as an alternative to paid commercial services. At issue is simply how 120MHz of newly-available television spectrum would be made available to new users. Republicans and large wireless companies like Verizon and AT&T are demanding the vast majority of that spectrum be auctioned off. AT&T and Verizon would like to expand their spectrum holdings, and a straight “highest bidder wins” auction guarantees the vast majority of it will be divided by those two companies. Many Democrats and broadband advocates want a portion of that spectrum set aside to sell to AT&T and Verizon’s competitors — current and future — to promote competition. They also support set-asides that make frequencies available for unlicensed uses like Wi-Fi.

Genachowski’s proposal could potentially spur private companies or communities to build community-wide Wi-Fi networks operated on unlicensed frequencies. With more robust signals, such high speed wireless networks could be less costly to construct and serve a much wider geographic area.

The potential for competition from the public or private sector is what bothers companies like AT&T and Verizon. Both argue that since they had to pay for their spectrum, allowing other users access to free spectrum would be unfair, both to themselves and to the government’s effort to earn as much as possible from the auction. AT&T has been the more aggressive of the two companies, repeatedly attempting to insert language into legislation curtailing the FCC’s ability to set aside a significant amount of spectrum for unlicensed use. While AT&T’s lobbyists do not go as far as to advocate banning such networks, the technical conditions they demand would make them untenable. AT&T and others also demand the FCC must close down unlicensed networks if they create “harmful interference,” which is open to interpretation.

Helping the wireless companies in the campaign against the next generation of Wi-Fi are hardware manufacturers like Cisco, which has been trying to deep six the proposal for at least two years. Why? Because Cisco’s vision of wireless networking, and the products it has manufactured to date, are not in sync with the kind of longer distance Wi-Fi networks the FCC envisions. Cisco faces overhauling products that were designed under the premise Wi-Fi would remain a limited-range, mostly indoor service for consumers and businesses.

The threat to incumbent Internet Service Providers is clear enough. If a new version of Wi-Fi launched that could blanket entire neighborhoods, communities, non-profits, or even loosely-knit groups of altruistic individuals could launch free Wi-Fi services sharing their Internet connection with others. If the technology allowed users to seamlessly hand off wireless connections from one free Wi-Fi hotspot to another, much like cell sites do today, customers might downgrade their wireless data plans with big telecom companies. Machine-to-machine networking could also rely on Wi-Fi instead of commercial wireless data plans. It could threaten billions in potential revenue.

Stopping these networks is a priority for corporate interests with profits at stake. But one thing they do not have to worry about, at least for now, is the federal government getting into the wireless Internet business.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Washington Post FCC offers path to free Internet access 2-4-13.flv[/flv]

After the original story ran in the Post, Cecilia Kang participated in this interview which clarified what the FCC is actually proposing. This video explains what spectrum allocation and unlicensed spectrum is all about. Kang clarifies her article, explaining private companies and/or communities will have to decide what to do with the unlicensed spectrum. The federal government is only facilitating the space and has no plans to run a national network itself. (5 minutes)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/tech-telecom-giants-take-sides-as-fcc-proposes-large-public-wifi-networks/2013/02/03/eb27d3e0-698b-11e2-ada3-d86a4806d5ee_story.html