Facebook and Twitter have officially signed up for the Net Neutrality battle on the side of consumers demanding a free and open Internet.

Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter’s Evan Williams added their signatures to a letter expected to reach Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski this morning. The letter, signed by 24 high profile Internet executives, calls on the FCC to continue efforts to “begin a process to adopt rules that preserve an open Internet.”

Both companies have not been major players in the political debate surrounding Net Neutrality until now.

The correspondence comes after two weeks of sustained attacks on Net Neutrality from several dozen Republicans on Capitol Hill and intense lobbying from telecommunications companies to drop the issue.

One signer, Echostar CEO Charlie Ergen, is no stranger to pro-consumer telecommunications legislation.  Prior to the launch of DISH Network, Ergen sold satellite dish equipment to consumers and was an active participant in the battle to pass the 1992 Cable Act, which mandated fair and open access to cable programming networks making DirecTV and DISH Network possible.  Ergen’s company owns Sling Media, manufacturer of the Slingbox, a device that streams television programming over the Internet for private use.  The Slingbox has been banned from certain wireless mobile networks, a prohibition that would end should Net Neutrality rules take hold.

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This past summer of discontent with FairPoint was not limited to DSL service outages.  The troubled phone company serving Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, also annoyed fleeing customers with bills for service long since disconnected.

Nina Mazuzan in Burlington, Vermont was fed up with FairPoint and switched to Burlington Telecom, the municipally owned fiber to the home network serving the Burlington area.

But escaping FairPoint would not be easy.  More than four months after switching, the FairPoint bills kept rolling in, amounting to nearly $200.

“It’s incredibly frustrating,” Mazuzan told WPTZ News.  “It’s just such a waste of time — there’s no real face behind the voice,” she said.

Vermont regulators report Mazuzan is not alone.  The state continued investigating the company and monitoring its performance over the course of the summer.

Company officials told WPTZ, “FairPoint is working to fix its problems.”

[flv width=”480″ height=”360″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WPTZ Plattsburgh State Calls For Fairpoint Communications Investigation 7-14-09.flv[/flv]

WPTZ-TV Plattsburgh covered one Burlington, Vermont resident who experienced months of billing problems with FairPoint back in July. [1 minute]

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]

One of the major consequences of having insufficient experience and resources running a telecommunications network FairPoint inherited from Verizon is that when something goes wrong, it often turns into a catastrophic service failure that leaves people without service for days on end.

As we continue to watch the teetering FairPoint Communications lurch towards either a “white knight” rescue or bankruptcy court, ponder being one of 12,000 Vermont residents who suffered through a DSL service outage that lasted nearly a week this past June.

“The first day I was mad, the next day I was angry, the third day I was begging for Internet service so I could continue on with day to day activities of running a business,” said Bret Knapp, co-owner of Hilltop RV Center in New Haven.

Knapp relies on his FairPoint DSL service to stay in contact with his customers.

Knapp spent hours on the phone with FairPoint customer service representatives in Texas trying to resolve the problem to no avail.  At one point, after 50-60 calls, a FairPoint representative hung up on him.

Beth Fastiggi, a FairPoint spokeswoman agreed the problems were unacceptable.

“We are making significant progress; internally, we still have a lot of work to do,” she told WPTZ news.

The state telecommunications regulator in Vermont told the station complaints regarding FairPoint arrive daily from across the state.

[flv width=”480″ height=”360″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WPTZ Plattsburgh FairPoint Outage Affects 12,000 Vermonters 6-10-09 .flv[/flv]

WPTZ-TV Plattsburgh covers the FairPoint DSL outage that wiped out service for a week for 12,000 Vermont residents. [2 minutes]

Verizon’s ongoing effort to shed itself of legacy phone operations in smaller communities and states has triggered a wave of worker retirements, contributing to worker shortages in some regions.  In West Virginia in particular, Verizon’s plan to exit the entire state, leaving service in the hands of Frontier Communications, has many employees deciding the time to get out is now.  In August, Verizon was forced to bring in outside contractors to deal with repair work created by a storm-filled summer.  The decision met with strong opposition from the local Communications Workers of America Local 2001 union, which represents the remaining Verizon employees.

Verizon itself has been cost-cutting, and shed 7% of the workforce providing upkeep for the traditional phone network in just the past two years.  Many other employees are taking early retirement offers, or simply deciding to retire with their Verizon pension intact.

After the CWA Local 2001 unit ran an informational picket, the outside contractors were gone by September 19th.  The CWA has been negotiating with Verizon to create a Working Retiree program to provide staff support during difficult periods like those created from storm damage.

The CWA continues its strong opposition to Verizon exiting several states, selling its network to Frontier Communications.  The union believes the transaction will saddle those communities with a lower quality telecommunications future from a provider mired in the debt required to finance the transaction.

[flv width=”320″ height=”240″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WCHS Charleston CWA Protests Verizon Contractors 8-31-09.flv[/flv]

WCHS-TV in Charleston, West Virginia covered the CWA informational picketing in late August. [1 minute]