Believe it or not, Google Fiber has not always been headline news in Kansas City. Outside of a few stories in early spring about zoning and installation matters, local media (particularly television) has mostly given back page treatment to Google’s new fiber network since the city was first chosen in March, 2011.

That all changed last Thursday when television, radio, and newspaper reporters flooded a converted yoga studio in midtown Kansas City to attend Google Fiber’s unveiling. Many stations aired live reports on-site and devoted time during their afternoon and evening newscasts to explain what the service is all about, starting with what it will cost — $70 a month for 1Gbps service (or paying a flat $300 for 5/1Mbps service for the next seven years). Adding television brings the final price to $120 a month. Google considers landline phone service a dead-end business, and won’t bundle a telephone option, but customers can use Google Voice to make and receive most calls for free.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KMBC Kansas City Google announces details of Google Fiber service 7-26-12.flv[/flv]

KMBC reports on the introduction of Google Fiber, what it will cost Kansas City residents, what it means for the city as whole, and when and how service will be installed.  (3 minutes)

Kansas City, Mo., Mayor Sly James said Google Fiber was more of an opportunity than a gift for Kansas City.

“We now have an opportunity to take a giant step and if we don’t it’s all on us,” James said.

KCUR Radio in Kansas City explores some of the public policy and institutional changes Google Fiber can bring the area with the advent of gigabit broadband. Mike Burke, Missouri co-chair, and Dr. Ray Daniels, Kansas co-chair of the Mayors’ Bistate Innovation Team talks about what changes Google Fiber could bring to health care, education, government, and more.  The Mayors’ Bistate Innovation Team recently released a report titled “Playing to Win in America’s Digital Crossroads,” a playbook for capitalizing on ultra-high-speed fiber in Kansas City, Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri. (Some of the specific details discussed in the program turned out to be outdated after last Thursday’s announcement introducing the service.)  (June 6, 2012) (52 minutes)
You must remain on this page to hear the clip, or you can download the clip and listen later.

Some in the media seemed disappointed Google spent a considerable amount of time selling the entertainment-oriented element of its service — namely the television lineup and the equipment that comes with it, and less on the educational and transformational nature of gigabit broadband. But many in the audience didn’t need an explanation of what 1,000/1,000Mbps service will mean for them.

Reviewing the coverage shows a predictable response:

• Those under 30 want it today and won’t think twice about paying $70 to get it;
• Those running businesses that depend on the web also want it, and are slightly perturbed Google will only sell to residential customers at first;
• Families with young children want the service because they feel it will be a game-changer for their children’s education and future career;
• Income-challenged residents are concerned about the cost, but are happy to discover Google has an affordable option for them to participate in the wired world;
• Older residents seem preoccupied with the price and consider the television lineup even more important than broadband speed;
• Schools, libraries, health care, and non-profit groups are thrilled with the prospect of getting free or deeply discounted service;
• Incumbent providers are putting on a brave face, relying on what they feel is excellent customer service, local ties to the communities they service, and a current customer base that may be reluctant to switch.

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Google Fiber has arrived in Kansas City, and neighborhoods will compete to see who gets the gigabit broadband service first. KCTV in Kansas City reports. (3 minutes)

Google Fiber’s free 5/1Mbps service is another embarrassment to big cable companies like Comcast which offer less service for more money.

The Kansas City Star needlessly fretted about the remaining digital divide of Internet “have’s” and “have-not’s,” as Google launched a competition between neighborhoods to determine where to install the service first.

So far, many poorer urban core neighborhoods are expressing interest in Google fiber at a slower rate than middle- and higher-income neighborhoods.

It’s important now for efforts to reach out to help the lower-income neighborhoods rally so the access doesn’t become a new dividing line.

The newspaper is concerned by Google’s fiber map showing many minority, inner-city neighborhoods have yet to receive a single commitment from a resident willing to pre-register for the service. But Google is not running a competition to exclude anyone. It is surveying interest to ensure it has a working business model to sustain its fiber broadband operation. Overshadowed by the gigabit broadband announcement is the fact Google is also including a real solution for the income-challenged — an entry-level 5/1Mbps broadband option that will cost just $300 (payable in $25 installments) that guarantees service with no additional payment for seven years.

That is a broadband solution far superior to the afterthought programs on offer from Comcast and a handful of phone companies that only deliver a fraction of the speed, at a higher price, to those who meet a byzantine set of requirements. It is yet another embarrassment for Kabletown, which would not have even offered the service had the government not made it a condition for approving the mega-merger of NBC-Universal and Comcast.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KCTV Kansas City Neighborhoods Compete for Fiber 7-26-12.flv[/flv]

KCTV visits some of the neighborhoods competing to be the first to get Google Fiber. Reaction from residents varies from those willing to canvas neighborhoods to get people to pre-register to others who will consider switching providers only if the price is right.  (4 minutes)

One Star columnist likened Google Fiber to a public works project that threatened to go bad pitting neighborhoods against one-another, rich against poor:

The more educated, middle- to upper-income neighborhoods in southwest KC and in midtown were signing up for first crack at the service.

Meanwhile, the neighborhoods without as many computers and without the income to afford the $70 or $120 proposed monthly charges for Google Fiber were signing up at far slower rates.

None of that means Google Fiber won’t be a big success.

But let’s not pretend there won’t be winners and losers with this advance in technology.

If Google Fiber narrows that digital gap – and makes more information available more quickly to more people to help boost the economy of KC – that’s all for the good.

However, being able to hook up eight computers in a house so people can be more entertained doesn’t set my world on fire.

Let’s remember Google Fiber is intended to be a for-profit business run by a for-profit corporation. Star columnist Yael T. Abouhalkah might have been more comfortable had he advocated for a community-owned broadband solution committed to serving every neighborhood, everywhere. Google Fiber is not that, at least not now. The alternatives from AT&T and Time Warner Cable have not solved the digital divide either. Giving away effectively-free 5/1Mbps broadband for seven years might.

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Google’s Fiberhoods are likely to win fiber service for the more high-tech areas of Kansas City, among the first to pre-register. Google’s Kevin Lo explains those areas most committed to getting the service will also win free fiber connections for their neighborhood’s schools, health care facilities, and public safety buildings.  KCTV reports. (3 minutes)

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KCTV explores what Google Fiber could mean for local schools who can utilize the faster connections for distance and remote learning.  (3 minutes)

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WDAF Kansas City Customers Put Google Fiber to the Test 7-28-12.flv[/flv]

WDAF in Kansas City covers Google Fiber’s weekend “Open House,” inviting residents to experience what gigabit broadband is really like, and letting them see and sample the company’s broadband and television service.  (2 minutes)

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KSHB in Kansas City covers the reaction of local business owners elated and frustrated by the arrival of Google Fiber, which will open the door to new online innovation once Google begins selling to commercial customers (and if you are lucky enough to work in a Google Fiberhood.)  (2 minutes)

If you were or remain a customer of Verizon Wireless under either their America’s Choice I or America’s Choice II plans (unavailable to new customers), a class action settlement benefit should be arriving in your mailbox this week.

In July 2005, a lawsuit was brought against Verizon Wireless alleging the company improperly assessed roaming charges on customers. Cowit et al. v. Cellco Partnership d/b/a Verizon Wireless was filed in Hamilton County, Ohio. In eventually became a nationwide class action case.

The two sides reached a settlement for all America’s Choice customers, one that considerably benefits the plaintiff’s lawyers. They will receive attorney’s fees, costs and incentive awards not to exceed $6 million dollars. The original complainant, Barry Koblenz, will receive a check in the mail from Verizon Wireless for the princely sum of $50. Koblenz can also apply for an “incentive award” not to exceed $10,000. Other Class Representatives can apply for their own awards not to exceed $20,000 each.

What do customers get? Not much:

• Customers who did not submit a valid claim to participate in the action by the fall of 2011 will receive 25 additional calling minutes good on any Verizon Wireless plan when you exceed your current calling allowance. The minutes expire in one year.
• Customers who submitted a valid claim will receive a transferable long distance calling “card” worth up to 40 minutes of domestic long distance calling (or around 13 minutes of international calling) valid for 24 months.
• All affected customers enrolled in an unlimited calling plan will receive the long distance calling “card” as described above.

Google formally announced its new fiber to the home service to residents of Kansas City today with game-changing pricing for broadband and television service.

For $70 a month, Google will deliver consumers unlimited 1Gbps broadband service. For an additional $50 a month, customers can also receive a robust television package consisting of hundreds of digital HD channels, and throw in a free tablet (they call it ‘the remote control’), free router, free DVR with  hundreds of hours of storage, and access to Google’s cloud backup servers.

Google has also found a solution to affordable Internet for poorer residents. The company is promising free 5/1Mbps service for up to seven years if customers will pay a $300 installation charge, payable in $25 installments.

Customers who agree to sign up for multiple services and a service contract can waive the $300 installation charge.

Google’s new service will roll out to different areas of Kansas City. Google has split neighborhoods into “fiberhoods” that consist of around 800 homes. In a masterful public relations and public policy demonstration, Google intends to show up the cable and phone companies who have repeatedly declared customers have no interest in fiber-fast broadband speeds by asking would-be customers to pre-register for Google Fiber, which will cost $10. Those “fiberhoods” with the largest number of pre-registrations will be the first to get Google’s new fiber service. At least 80 families (around 10%) of each “fiberhood” will have to be willing to sign up for Google to activate the service in each neighborhood.

Google hopes consumers will evangelize the possibilities of fiber broadband with friends and neighbors nearby and get them on board. If the telecom industry’s predictions of lukewarm interest are true, then Google won’t collect many $10 registrations and will not be able to publicize the number of customers who want nothing more to do with incumbent cable and phone companies. If Google is correct, they will have successfully proven America’s phone and cable companies have been dramatically overcharging Americans for service and large numbers are clamoring for a better choice.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Google Fiber In Kansas City 7-26-12.flv[/flv]

Google’s formal introduction of Google Fiber in Kansas City this morning. Presentation begins at around the five minute mark.  (1 hour, 6 minutes)

Google has the goods to entice technology fanatics. Those signing up for television service will find Google has moved way beyond the traditional cable set top box that still won’t reliably record your favorite shows. Google will supply customers with:

• a free Nexus 7 tablet that will come pre-programmed to function as a remote control (but can be used for other things);
• a Bluetooth-based traditional remote;
• a combination set top box and DVR system that can record up to 500 hours of programming;
• a Wi-Fi enabled Gigabit router;
• an iOS (Android coming, of course) app that will let viewers manage everything over their tablet or mobile phone;
• a 2TB storage locker;
• a free terabyte of Google Cloud storage

But Google’s current television lineup does omit many popular cable networks, either in an effort to control programming costs or because the company has not completed negotiations with every programmer they want on the lineup. Among the missing:

• ESPN and regional sports networks
• Disney networks
• Turner networks like TNT, TBS and Turner Classic Movies
• Rainbow Networks’ AMC
• Time Warner-owned channels like HBO, CNN and TruTV
• Fox-owned networks like Fox News Channel and Fox Business News

Time Warner Cable’s response to Google’s network seems to indicate, publicly at least, they are not that worried.

“Kansas City has been a highly competitive market for a long time and we take all competitors seriously,” said spokesman Justin Venech. “We have a robust and adaptable network, advanced products and services available today, and experienced local employees delivering local service. We are confident in our ability to compete.”

Time Warner Cable customers in Kansas City are ground zero for the cable operator’s retransmission consent battles with over-the-air stations that leave cable viewers without a full lineup of local channels.

Just hours after Time Warner customers got back two local stations owned by Hearst Corporation, Meredith Corporation’s KCTV and KSMO are preparing to pull the plug at midnight tonight.

“Please know that we have tried very hard to reach an agreement with Time Warner Cable, so that our viewers would not have to miss any of our stations’ around-the-clock reporting of news, politics, traffic, weather emergencies, public service announcements, and favorite local and national programming,” reads a statement from the two stations. “We are disappointed in the outcome of our negotiations especially since we have successfully reached agreements with every major cable and satellite company that recognizes our fair market value. The fact is that we are only asking Time Warner Cable for pennies a day from your cable bill for our programming.”

They did not elaborate on exactly how many pennies more a day they were asking to receive. Time Warner Cable suggested they wanted a 200% rate hike.

Should negotiations fail, viewers in Kansas City will lose their local CBS and CW affiliates. Time Warner Cable’s recent response to these disputes is to replace missing local stations with out-of-area stations, in this case most likely Nexstar’s WROC-TV in Rochester, N.Y., a CBS affiliate. Time Warner has not bothered to find a fill-in CW station to date.

But Nexstar last week sued Time Warner Cable in U.S. District Court in the northern district of Texas alleging copyright infringement and breach of contract for importing its TV stations without permission. Nexstar wants a temporary restraining order and damages. If the judge hearing the case issues the restraining order, Kansas City will have to do without a CBS station on Time Warner’s lineup until the dispute is settled.

So far this year, there have 69 instances of local stations withholding their signals from either a cable, phone, or satellite operator in disputes over retransmission rights fees.

In a hearing held yesterday in Washington, several senators attacked the disputes that deprive paying subscribers of broadcast stations.

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) wants to repeal the 1992 law that allows broadcasters to require pay television operators to get permission and, in an increasing number of cases, payment to carry local broadcast stations.

DeMint argues the law has outlived its usefulness.

But Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and others note the law also enacted several consumer protections and pro-competition policies that stopped programmers from withholding programming from competing pay television providers.

Kerry called demands to repeal the law altogether “radical” and suggested such moves could destroy local broadcasting. Cable operators want the power to negotiate contracts with out-of-area stations to leverage lower retransmission consent fees from broadcasters and provide customers with replacement stations when the two sides can’t or won’t agree to terms.

Broadcasters have suggested that could leave cable viewers with stations from distant cities, depriving viewers of important local news and emergency information.

For now, no action in Washington is anticipated. Broadcasters have leveraged their popularity to demand increasing payments for permission to carry their signals, and cable and other pay television operators, despite protests, usually agree to slightly lower fee increases and pass them right along to paying subscribers in the form of a rate increase.

Yesterday’s hearing, chaired by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), discussed changes in television technologies over the past two decades. It focused on examining the effectiveness of the Must-Carry law, a 1992 law currently in place for the cable industry. The Must-Carry law requires a variety of local broadcast stations to be viewed on pay-TV platforms. Today’s Must-Carry rights were enacted by Congress in the 1992 Cable Act, which the Supreme court upheld in 1997. Congress then found that cable systems have an “economic incentive” to alter their local broadcast signals and that, without Must-Carry rules, broadcasters’ viability is jeopardized.

Although Chairman Rockefeller sought to not have the hearing derailed by retransmission consent disputes, a significant portion of the hearing dealt with that specific issue.

Top cable and broadcasting executives, as well as law experts testify. Witnesses include Melinda Witmer from Time Warner Cable; Martin Franks of CBS; the National Association of Broadcasters’ Gordon Smith; Colleen Abdoulah from Wide Open West!; Gordon Smith from the American Cable Association; law professor and former Disney Washington executive Preston Padden; along with Mark Cooper from the Consumer Federation of America. Courtesy: C-SPAN (1 Hour, 41 Minutes)

A Short History of Wireless Cable

Spectrum offered Chicago competition to larger ON-TV, selling commercial-free movies and sports on scrambled UHF channel 66 (today WGBO-TV).

Long before many Americans had access to cable television, watching premium commercial-free entertainment in the 1970s was only possible in a handful of large cities, where television stations gave up a significant chunk of their broadcast day to services like ON-TV, Spectrum, SelecTV, Prism, Starcase, Preview, VEU, and SuperTV. For around $20 a month, subscribers received a decoder box to watch the encrypted UHF broadcast programming, which consisted of sports, popular movies and adult entertainment. The channels were relatively expensive to receive, suffered from the same reception problems other UHF stations often had in large metropolitan areas, and were frequently pirated by non-paying customers with modified decoder boxes.

With the spread of cable television into large cities, the single channel over-the-air services were doomed, and between 1983-1985,virtually all of their operations closed down, converting to all-free-viewing, usually as an independent or ethnic language television outlet.

But the desire for competition for cable television persisted, and in the mid-1980s the Federal Communications Commission allocated two blocks of frequencies for entertainment video delivery. The FCC earlier allocated part of this channel space to Instructional Television Fixed Services (ITFS) for programming from schools, hospitals, and religious groups, which could use the capacity to transmit programming to different buildings and potentially to viewers at home with the necessary equipment.

Home Box Office got its start broadcasting on microwave frequencies before moving to satellite.

In practice, ITFS channels allocated during the 1970s were underutilized, because running such an operation was often beyond the budgets and technical expertise of many educational institutions. Premium movie entertainment once again drove the technology forward. After signing off at the end of the school day, Home Box Office, Showtime, and The Movie Channel signed on, using microwave technology to distribute their services to area cable systems and some subscribers. As those premium services migrated to satellite distribution beginning in 1975, reallocation for a new kind of “wireless cable TV” became a reality.

Wireless cable (technically known as “multichannel multipoint distribution service”) began in earnest in the late 1980s and early 1990s, with a package of around 32 channels — typically over the air stations, popular cable networks, and one or two premium movie channels. Some operations in smaller cities sought to beam just a channel or two of premium movies or adult entertainment to paying subscribers, the latter at a substantial price premium. Installation costs paid by providers were more affordable than traditional cable television — around $350 for wireless vs. $1,000 for cable television. That made wireless attractive in rural areas where installation costs for cable television could run even higher.

However, it was not too long before wireless cable operators ran into problems with their business models. Obtaining affordable programming was always difficult. Some cable networks, then-owned by large cable systems, either refused to do business with their wireless competitors or charged discriminatory rates to carry their networks. By the time legislative relief arrived, the wireless industry realized they now had a capacity problem. As cable television systems were being upgraded in the 1990s, the number of channels cable customers received quickly grew to 60 or more (with many more to come with the advent of “digital cable”). Wireless cable was stuck with just 32 channels and a then-analog platform. Satellite television was also becoming a larger competitive threat in rural areas, with DirecTV and Dish delivering hundreds of channels.

American Telecasting gave up its wireless cable ventures, under such names as People’s Wireless TV and SuperView in 1997, selling out to companies including Sprint and BellSouth (today AT&T). BellSouth pulled the plug on the services in February, 2001.

Wireless providers simply could not compete with their smaller packages, and most closed down or sold their operations, often to phone companies. The few remaining systems, mostly in rural areas, have typically combined their wireless frequencies with satellite provider partners to deliver television, slow broadband, and IP-based telephone service.

Rebooting Wireless Cable for the 21st Century

By the early-2000’s the Federal Communications Commission proposed a new allocation for a “Multichannel Video and Data Distribution Service” (MVDDS). Designed to share the 12.2-12.7GHz band with Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS) services DirecTV and Dish, MVDDS was partly envisioned as a potential way to deliver local stations to satellite subscribers over ground-based transmitters. But things have evolved well beyond that concept, especially after both satellite providers began using “spot beams” to deliver local stations to different regions from their existing fleet of orbiting satellites.

MVDDS was ultimately opened up to be either a competing cable television-like service or for wireless broadband, or both. Michael Powell, then-chairman of the FCC during the first term of George W. Bush, said the technology was free to develop as providers saw fit:

What is MVDDS? The short answer is that we do not know.  Its name, Multichannel Video Distribution and Data Service, seems to suggest everything is possible – and perhaps it is.

But the service rules the Commission has adopted do not require MVDDS to provide any particular kind of service – it could be a multichannel video, or data, or digital radio service, or any other permutation on spectrum use.

The Commission was once in the business of requiring spectrum holders to provide a certain type of service.  That approach failed because government is a very bad predictor of technology and markets – both of which move a lot faster than government.  Over the past decade or so, the Commission has adopted more flexible service rules that bound a service based largely on interference limitations and its allocation (fixed or mobile, terrestrial or satellite).  In this Order, we follow that flexible model for MVDDS.

In 2004 and 2005, licenses to operate MVDDS services were opened up for auction, and a handful of companies won the bulk of them: MDS America, which built a 700-channel wireless cable system in the United Arab Emirates, DTV Norwich, an affiliate of cable operator Cablevision, and South.com, which is really satellite provider Dish Network. Another significant winner was Mr. Bruce E. Fox, who wants to partner with other providers to finance and operate MVDDS services.

Cablevision and Fox are the two most active license recipients at the moment.

A Look at Today’s MVDDS Wireless Players

Fox launched Go Long Wireless in Baltimore as a demonstration project. Go Long transmits its signal from the roof of the World Trade Center at the Baltimore Inner Harbor to the Emerging Technology Center, a business incubator site a few miles away. Fox believes the technology is especially suited to multi-dwelling units like apartment complexes and condos. He plans to work with other service providers who will market and bill the service under their own brand names. Fox does not seem to be interested in challenging the marketplace status quo. He does not believe in using MVDDS to provide television service, for example. In Fox’s view, the real money is in broadband and Voice over IP telephone service.

Cablevision’s involvement is more direct-to-consumer. Its Clearband service– now operating under the new brand ‘OMGFAST’ — is now selling up to 50/3Mbps wireless broadband service in the Deerfield Beach, Fla. area. The company has had nothing to say about whether this service is slated to expand, and if it does, Cablevision will not be permitted to operate it in areas where they already provide cable service, due to the FCC’s cross-ownership rules.

OMGFAST originally bundled voice service in its broadband packages, which it sold at different price points: 12Mbps for $39.95 a month, 25Mbps for $59.95 a month, and 50Mbps at $79.95. The company also tested a 50Mbps promotion priced at $29.95 a month for three months, $59.95 ongoing. Today it offers a better deal: $29.95 a month for 50Mbps service as an ongoing rate. (Expect to pay $10 a month more for mandatory equipment rental, and $14.95 a month if you also want voice service.)

[flv width=”640″ height=”450″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Clearband FAST 50 Mbps Internet.flv[/flv]

Here is a promotional video explaining how Clearband (now OMGFAST) wireless broadband works. (3 minutes)

MVDDS currently delivers broadband with similar constraints cable systems operate under — namely, download speeds are much faster than upload speeds. That is because upstream bandwidth relies on another transmission technology, often WiMAX, in the 3.65 GHz or 5 GHz bands.

The wireless technology is also very “line of sight,” meaning the tower must be within six miles of the subscriber and not blocked by any obstructions. Hills, buildings, even heavy foliage can all block MVDDS signals the same way satellite signals can be blocked (they share the same frequencies).

Most customers end up with an antenna that very much resembles a traditional satellite dish from DirecTV or Dish, mounted on a roof. To maximize available bandwidth, MVDDS uses a configuration similar to cellular systems, with up to 900Mbps of total bandwidth available to each 90-degree narrow beam sector.

Cablevision has MVDDS licenses to serve most large cities in the United States.

The question is, how will license holders ultimately use the technology. Although originally proposed as a competitor to traditional cable or satellite TV, deregulation has left the fate of MVDDS in the hands of the operators.

Some are considering not selling the service to consumers at all, but rather making a market out of providing backhaul connectivity for cell towers. Dish may be interested in using its licenses to offer customers a triple play package of broadband and phone service with its satellite TV package. Nobody seems particularly interested in providing television service over MVDDS, primarily because programmers’ demands for higher carriage payments would cut into revenue.

Even Cablevision isn’t completely sure what it wants to do. Although it currently is trialing broadband and phone service in Florida, the company earlier petitioned the FCC for increased power to establish a more suitable wireless backhaul service it can sell to mobile phone companies.

For the moment, reviews seem relatively positive for the Florida market test. Of course, as more customers pile on a wireless service, the less speed becomes available to each customer. OMGFAST does not appear to be currently concerned, noting it has no usage caps on its service.

Want to know which provider may be coming to your area? See below the jump for a list of the top-three bid winners and the cities they are now licensed to serve, in order of market size.

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