Bell Labs, a division of Alcatel-Lucent, has found a way to extract more speed over aging copper wire most phone companies still rely on to deliver service.  Its latest achievement, in the lab anyway, proved those wires could accommodate 300Mbps downstream speeds, at least if you were within 400 meters (that’s just over 1,300 feet) from phone company facilities.  Further on, the company was able to achieve 100Mbps speeds over a distance of one kilometer (0.62 miles).

Stop the Cap! reader Jeff writes wondering what impact such improvements have when they are measured in distances more commonly associated with a sprinting event.  Phone companies are well aware of the limitations of their legacy networks.  Some, like Verizon, decided the network designed more than a century ago was destined for the scrap heap.  They began to deploy fiber-optic based networks instead.  Others are trying to extract as much as they can from copper, as cheap as they can for as long as they can.

The problem with copper wiring is that the longer the distance, the slower the data speed those lines will support.  Interference or crosstalk from neighboring cables crammed together into a bundle can also create major problems, especially at longer distances.

Bell Labs says it has devised a way around the crosstalk problem with the testing of its “DSL Phantom Mode” solution:

At its core, DSL Phantom Mode involves the creation of a virtual or “phantom” channel that supplements the two physical wires that are the standard configuration for copper transmission lines. Bell Labs’ innovation and the source of DSL Phantom Mode’s dramatic increase in transmission capacity lies in its application of analogue phantom mode technology in combination with industry-standard techniques: vectoring that eliminates interference or “crosstalk” between copper wires, and bonding that makes it possible to take individual lines and aggregate them.

In the eyes of Alcatel-Lucent, Bell Labs has found an answer to the dilemma of what role phone companies can play in a 100Mbps broadband future.

“We often think of the role innovation plays in generating technologies of the future, but DSL Phantom Mode is a prime example of the role innovation can play in creating a future for existing solutions and injecting them with a new source of value,” said Gee Rittenhouse, head of Research for Bell Labs. “What makes DSL Phantom Mode such an important breakthrough is that it combines cutting edge technology with an attractive business model that will open up entirely new commercial opportunities for service providers, enabling them in particular, to offer the latest broadband IP-based services using existing network infrastructure.”

Before getting too excited, remember these demonstration tests occurred in a laboratory environment.  No squirrels chewed up the cables. No water leaking into cracks in the cable’s insulation or a connection box caused issues.  No aging splices of corroded copper wiring up on poles since the late 1960s were found.  Your home’s own phone wiring was also never part of the equation.

Distance is still a considerable limiting factor in DSL deployments.  Most of the benefits of this research will go to companies like AT&T, which uses a hybrid fiber-copper wire network in its U-verse areas.  The fiber cuts down the distance from a phone company office to a neighborhood.  Once in your neighborhood, traditional copper wires run the rest of the way, right up into your home.  If AT&T can leverage additional speed from its weakest link — the copper-based phone line — it may be able to use the additional bandwidth to boost broadband speed or accommodate more concurrent applications they cannot support today.

For phone companies still dependent on long distances of copper wiring, the expense of bootstrapping Alexander Graham Bell’s century-old network begins to look silly.

Sometimes it’s better to build anew instead of repeatedly trying to fix the old.  And many are doing exactly that.

Hundreds of small independent telecoms, broadband service providers, municipalities and cable television companies have brought gigabit-enabled, all-fiber service to a total of more than 1.4 million North American homes – about a quarter of all fiber to the home connections on the continent – according to the Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) Council.

The FTTH Council noted in a recent study more than 65 percent of small independent telephone companies that have not upgraded to FTTH said they would very likely do so in the future, with another 11 percent saying they were somewhat likely. More than 85 percent of those that have already deployed FTTH said they would be adding more direct fiber connections going forward.

Surprisingly most of this expansion outside of Verizon’s FiOS service comes from small family-owned companies, cooperatives, and the remaining independent phone companies not snapped up by Frontier, Windstream, and CenturyLink.

“To continue to meet the rapidly growing bandwidth requirements for emerging applications and services, these companies know that they have to ‘future-proof’ their networks by running fiber all the way to the premises – and that’s why we are seeing all this activity,” says Joe Savage, President of the FTTH Council.

“In many cases, these small telephone companies are longtime family-owned businesses that are deeply involved in local affairs and are responsive to their community needs for faster broadband as a key to future economic development,” said Mike Render, president of RVA LLC and the author of the study. “That’s why so many of these companies are looking to get into FTTH or expand their deployments,” he said.

Endangered Species: The AT&T Printed White Pages Directory

A plan approved this week by the Kentucky Public Service Commission will allow AT&T Kentucky to cease universal distribution of White Pages telephone directories in the Louisville area saving the company hundreds of thousands of dollars in printing and distribution costs it does not plan to pass along to customers.

Customers in Jefferson and Oldham counties will receive directories only if they request them from AT&T Kentucky. Customers in the other 75 counties served by AT&T Kentucky will, for now, continue to receive printed directories that combine White Pages with Yellow Pages.

“They will be publicizing that and how to do that to all the customers. It’s not just people who receive their phone service from AT&T Kentucky, but those who get it for example from the local cable company, because they’ve been getting the AT&T Kentucky White Pages as well,” PSC spokesperson Andrew Melnykovich told WFPL Public Radio in Louisville.

AT&T Kentucky will make the contents of the directory available on the Internet (at RealPagesLive), while existing and new customers who request a printed directory will receive one at no charge.  Yellow Pages, which contain business listings, will continue to be dropped on the doorstep of every Louisville customer.

AT&T Kentucky is the second phone company in Kentucky to move away from printed White Pages.  Last April, Cincinnati Bell, which serves northern Kentucky, dropped universal distribution of its White Pages.

AT&T says the printed directories are less valuable to customers who often turn to the web to look up telephone listings.  They also believe the move away from printed directories will protect the environment and provide significant savings to the company.  AT&T has been getting permission to stop printing White Pages in several states where it provides service.

Unfortunately for customers, none of that savings will appear on your AT&T bill.  The company does not plan any rate decrease to share the savings with ratepayers.

The PSC has told AT&T to collect and report customer complaints about the discontinued printed directories, as well as how many residents request them from AT&T,  and forward the details to the agency for review.

How would you like to open your AT&T bill and discover you were overcharged more than $1,000?

An AT&T-admitted “computer glitch” is routinely overbilling customers in Tennessee several hundred dollars a month for charges that are supposed to be included in their service plan at no additional cost.

One Clarksville woman has been getting bills nearing $1,000 a month every month since January, and AT&T is well aware of its mistake, crediting her bill each times she calls.

But Belinda Horton wonders what happens to other customers, especially the poor and elderly, who may not be up to scrutinizing their phone bills every month and aggressively pursuing credits from the phone company.

“This is crazy. This keeps happening over and over,” Horton told WSMV-TV in Nashville. “When I got the next bill, it was $921.”

Now she’s fed up.

“At this point, they can correct my bill, and then they can just keep AT&T,” said Horton. “Everyone needs to check their bills.”

[flv width=”480″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WSMV Nashville Customer’s Phone Bill Severely Overcharged 4-12-10.flv[/flv]

WSMV-TV in Nashville tells the story of Belinda Horton, a resident of Clarksville who is routinely overbilled by AT&T up to $1,000 every month since January.  She isn’t alone.  (3 minutes)

Phillip "The only New Deal my cable company brought to the table was a $150 monthly broadband bill for exactly the same level of service I had when paying $50" Dampier

Joe, a regular Stop the Cap! reader noticed the National Review this morning published another one of their “in the pocket of big telecom” editorials proclaiming Net Neutrality is “anti-consumer.”  Right into the first paragraph, it was clear the editors either fundamentally misunderstand the reality of today’s broadband industry or honestly didn’t care as long as it suited their business-friendly agenda.

Readers, you need not go along with the charade.  While the publishers of National Review can probably afford to buy their way around anything the phone and cable industry can dream up, you probably cannot.  What those opposed to Net Neutrality frame as “freedom from government intrusion” is in reality an attempt to keep your broadband provider from screwing around with your connection in hopes of charging you more for the same service you used to have.

Turn on your TV these days and within minutes you are likely to see several commercials from your local cable, satellite, or telecommunications company trying to convince you that their cable, DSL, or mobile broadband services are superior to those of their competitors. That’s because the market for broadband service is robustly competitive: If service providers didn’t advertise, they would lose business.

Actually, most of the advertising I see on my television comes from free ad inserts Time Warner Cable hands themselves during ad breaks on national cable channels.  My local phone company, Frontier Communications, hasn’t advertised on television for quite awhile.  The mobile broadband advertising I see fights over coverage and who has the coolest new device.  They aren’t advertising on price because they almost all charge exactly the same $60 for 5 GB of usage per month.

None of this represents “robust competition” when one of the players on the wired side is absent from the airwaves and the wireless folks have convenient cartel-like pricing for wireless broadband.

They would also lose business if they did something that made their customers unhappy, such as slowing or blocking the delivery of popular content over the Internet. Or they might gain customers if they created a model that, for a fee, guaranteed uninterrupted high-speed access to certain services, such as telemedicine, video conferencing, or some other use of the Internet we have yet to imagine. This competition directs broadband toward its most efficient uses. It is pro-consumer in that it allows for the proliferation of choices and pressures companies to offer a variety of pricing options.

Of course, the editors who wrote this did not have to fight back a 300 percent rate increase with an Internet Overcharging scheme that would have limited broadband access in at least five cities to start.  Let’s test their theory by asking a few questions.  First, did anyone ask for this kind of pricing to begin with?  Answer: No.  Second, did the plan make customers unhappy?  Answer: Emphatically yes.  Third, upon hearing from customers that they did not want this kind of pricing, did they discard the plan?  Answer: Not on your life.  Fourth, did it take two members of Congress to drive the company to finally pull back their plan?  Answer: You bet.

Now ask the same types of questions about slowing down your web connection to make room for the neighbor up the street willing to pay more to get more while you enjoy less for the same price you’ve always paid.

Lesson learned: when you effectively have a duopoly or monopoly in your market, you don’t have to listen to customers — they have to listen to you.  Indeed, even where competition exists, there is every indication the competitors would themselves increase prices or limit service to rake in additional revenue.  That happens routinely even in more competitive industries like the airlines — something you realize when you try and check bags and are asked for a credit card.  In Canadian broadband, foreshadowing a non-Net Neutral USA, when one player limits usage and throttles connections, the competitor more often than not joins in.

The other fallacy raised in this useless editorial is that Net Neutrality somehow bars companies from offering all of those wonderful innovative Internet applications.  It’s a common talking point straight out of the industry’s playbook.  Nothing precludes the broadband industry from expanding and improving their networks to offer all of these services.  Under Net Neutrality, they simply wouldn’t be allowed to do it on the backs of their other Internet customers, whose connections are automatically impeded to make room for that “innovation.”  The saddest part is that the only innovation at work here is price-gouging customers instead of upgrading networks.

It would be a huge mistake to impose by fiat a single business model on the carrier side of the Internet.

Tell that to AT&T and Verizon who have exactly the same pricing in their business model for mobile broadband service.  Is it a huge mistake for them?

Specifically, they want the government to prohibit broadband providers (such as Comcast) from discriminating against content providers (such as Google) by, for instance, charging them different rates for different levels of network service. They argue that, in the absence of such regulation, broadband providers can act as self-appointed censors, slowing down or blocking content they don’t like. Keep in mind that in no instance has this actually happened. So far, broadband providers have acted only to slow down noisome bandwidth hogs in order to manage traffic and ensure a high quality of service for the majority of their customers. Net-neutrality proponents counter that other customers — those unhappy about the slowdowns — lack meaningful options; that is, that the market for broadband service is not sufficiently competitive.

It is -shocking- the government would want to make sure broadband providers don’t block or discriminate against other people’s content.  We can’t have that!

The National Review needs to consider studying up on history.  The cable industry, for example, is notorious for blocking competitor access to its content.  To this day, the industry is fighting to keep the cable networks they own off competitors’ lineups.  The same company that provides your broadband service wants to make sure their telephone competitor cannot show a regional sports channel they own.  At least one broadband provider in the United States tried to block competing Voice Over IP phone companies from being used on their broadband service.  The same “blocking” mentality popped up in Canada where a broadband provider purposely blocked a website critical of that company.  Want access to cable programming online but don’t have a cable-TV package?  Good luck.  TV Everywhere projects are specifically designed to block non-cable TV customers from accessing that programming online.

National Review‘s afterthought admission that providers like Comcast were diddling with customers’ Internet speeds is waved away as somehow the fault of bandwidth piggies, another common meme in the talking points packet provided by the broadband industry.  Never mind the company had effectively spied on customers to determine what they were doing with their connections, that they first denied reports they were throttling, effectively throttled everyone — piggies or not — and then quickly stopped when the FCC protested.  If Comcast wasn’t doing anything wrong, why not inform customers first?  After all, the “majority of customers” would want throttling to preserve their “high quality of service,” right?

Of course they don’t, and when customers found out the company charging them good money to provide a service was also trying to systematically reduce its value with speed throttles, they howled in protest.  Who knows what online application would fall next to the throttle?

This would effectively mean applying to broadband providers the rules designed for landline telephone companies in the 1930s. We know Obama wants to emulate FDR, but this is getting ridiculous.

Oh now see how they tried to be funny with the slap against Obama and FDR?  The National Review would have been the magazine defending the railroad robber barons and utility trusts — unregulated monopolies — back during FDR’s day.  They’d be just as wrong then as they are now.  The only New Deal my cable company brought to the table was a $150 monthly broadband bill for exactly the same level of service I had when paying $50.

The current regulatory framework for broadband was constructed by Michael Powell’s Republican-majority FCC, classifying broadband as an “information service.”  It was bureaucratic incompetence because it relied on vaporware authority that a court found, to nobody’s surprise, didn’t exist.  The court does recognize the FCC’s authority to regulate “telecommunications services,” so by simply reclassifying broadband as such, the basic question of authority is solved.  The National Review pretends this will automatically mean 1930s-like regulations as applied to copper wire-phone companies, but that’s not true.  The National Review simply doesn’t want the FCC to have any authority in the first place.

But the FCC’s authority to reclassify broadband to suit its desires is also open to legal challenge. As a result, we are sure to hear louder calls for Congress to regulate the Internet or to grant the FCC the explicit authority to do so. These calls should be ignored. The Internet has thrived in the absence of homogenizing federal regulations, and this organic development should be allowed to continue so long as competition can act as a check on anti-consumer practices.

The calls to enshrine Net Neutrality, stop Internet Overcharging, and force open broadband markets and expand service all do not come in a vacuum.  They are ideas born from past provider abuses that have demanded consumer protections in response.  Who would have dreamed up Net Neutrality if AT&T’s Ed Whitacre didn’t insist Internet traffic could not use his pipes for free.  What about when the industry started toying with developing premium tiers of service that relied on slowing down the connections of their other paying customers.  Why worry about forcing markets open to additional competition?  Oh yeah, because of statements like those from Landel Hobbs (Time Warner Cable COO) who told investors Time Warner Cable could use its market position in broadband to jack up prices whenever they chose.  And they did.

The National Review‘s “hands off” attitude is the same one they’ve had towards banks, and now every American is paying for that mistake.  Let’s not repeat it.

Besides, as it stands these companies compete vigorously against one another in a way that is beneficial to consumers. If one of them makes an unpopular business decision, its customers can go elsewhere. If, however, an unelected FCC chairman dictates uniformity in the services these companies provide, then there is nowhere Americans can turn for innovations the government may have strangled in the cradle.

Where exactly do consumers in rural areas go for alternative broadband when their monopoly phone company provider limits their service or charges them confiscatory pricing?  Where do residents go when both providers limit service?

Consumers have far more power to deal with the “unelected FCC Chairman” than dealing with intransigent phone and cable companies.  Elections every few years have consequences.  There are no elections for Comcast, Verizon, Cox or AT&T.  They’re effectively Providers-for-Life in the communities they serve.

The National Review has little to fear from a broadband dark ages where innovation disappears.  Somehow, an industry that rakes in billions in revenue every year will manage to get by living under basic guidelines that require them to earn their money fairly and spend some of those profits to keep up with very profitable demand.  They’ll sue anyway, of course.  But that could buy us enough time to spur additional competitive choices in a duopolistic market for broadband, helping put to work those free market principles of fierce competition the National Review believes in.

[Article Correction 4/15/2010: The original piece laid blame for the classification of broadband as an “information service” on former FCC Chairman Kevin Martin.  In fact, the classification was made by former FCC Chairman Michael Powell, who served during the first term of the Bush Administration.  We regret the error.]

FCC Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

America’s broadband blueprint could wither on the vine of good intentions if some of America’s largest telecommunications companies prevail in efforts to derail the parts they dislike.  This morning, Reuters reports Julius Genachowski, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, and his circle of advisers are weighing options to try and keep the Obama Administration’s broadband policies on track.

They have their work cut out for them.

Net Neutrality vs. Restraint of Trade

In January, the Federal District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia gave a hostile reception to the Commission’s argument it had the authority to order Comcast to stop throttling the speeds of their broadband customers.  Although Comcast complied, they also filed suit claiming the FCC overstepped its boundaries when it interfered with the company’s business practices.

A favorable court ruling for Comcast could create major problems for the Obama Administration’s Net Neutrality plans and broadband industry oversight in general.

Those monitoring the DC Circuit suspect the court will find for Comcast, but to what degree is unknown.  A narrow ruling could simply find the FCC erred in how it censured Comcast.  A broader ruling could require the Commission to seek more explicit authority from Congress to oversee broadband.  A sweeping ruling could wipe away the Commission’s ability to involve itself in broadband oversight, period.

Plan B: Regulate Broadband Under Existing Telephone Rules

One way around a court ruling unfavorable to Commission oversight powers would be to regulate broadband services under the existing rules governing phone service.  The most controversial aspect of those rules are found in “common carrier” provisions — including those that could potentially force open the broadband networks offered by cable and telephone companies to third party competitors.

While telephone companies have grudgingly accepted their more regulated status under the Commission’s regulatory service model, broadening it to also cover broadband will start World War III, according to Susan Crawford, former special assistant to President Barack Obama for science, technology, and innovation policy.

With billions in profits at stake, large telecommunications companies from AT&T and Verizon on the telephone side to Comcast and Time Warner Cable on the cable side would likely file lawsuits demanding such regulatory policies be deemed unconstitutional or also exceed Commission authority.

One warning sign that Obama’s FCC is not the same as the one in place under President Bush arrived in last week’s approval of a merger between Skyterra, a satellite company planning a nationwide 4G mobile network, and private capital equity firm Harbinger.  The FCC included provisions in the approval permitting the agency to review any plans by SkyTerra to lease or provide wholesale access of its spectrum to AT&T Mobility or Verizon Wireless.  In effect, the Commission can veto moves by the two mega-carriers to become even larger through SkyTerra.

AT&T and Verizon Wireless called the FCC’s approval terms “flawed” and “manifestly unwise and potentially unlawful.”

Congressional Action: Reopening the Telecommunications Act of 1996

The presidential signing ceremony for the 1996 Telecommunications Act

Another possible option for the FCC is to seek expanded authority with the passage of new telecommunications laws enacted in Congress.  The last wholesale review of telecom policy was during the second term of the Clinton Administration.  The 1996 Telecommunications Act was a gift to the industry, delivering sweeping deregulation, allowing increased consolidation and reduced oversight.

Opening the door to a 2010 Telecom Act would bring millions of dollars in lobbying by large players to preserve, protect, or expand their positions in the marketplace.  Many providers still favor telecommunications reform that would further deregulate their businesses.

Amit Schejter, professor of telecommunications policy at Penn State University, told Reuters he doesn’t believe Congress can pass such legislation at this time, especially with a divided, partisan Congress.

Not everyone is concerned that the FCC’s position between a rock and a hard place is all that unusual.  The last administration’s FCC rarely tangled with the telecommunications industry.  That Chairman Genachowski may be leading the Commission in a different direction is welcome news for some.

“The only reason this looks new and shocking is that for so long the FCC hasn’t made a decision opposed by a major company,” Ben Scott, policy director for Free Press told the Washington Post. “The FCC has spars with companies on a regular basis and this is good news.”