A scheme to impose usage limits and speed throttles on Telekom Malaysia’s broadband customers was beaten back just a day after the plan was announced.

Malaysia’s largest telecommunications company announced the limitations at the same time in introduced new speed tiers and new pricing for them.

Customers were not pleased when they discovered TM’s UniFi broadband service came with high prices and usage caps:

TM UniFi Broadband Packages

• 5/5Mbps Service RM149/$46.73 now capped at 60GB per month.
• 10/10Mbps Service RM199/$62.41 now capped at 90GB per month.
• 20/20Mbps Service RM249/$78.09 now capped at 120GB per month.

In comparison, residents in nearby Singapore can buy 100Mbps service, with no limit, for RM200/$62.73 per month.

Those who exceed the limits would find their speeds throttled to about 10 percent of the speed they purchased, for the rest of the month.

Telekom Malaysia CEO Datuk Zamzamzairani Mohd Isa said the measures were part of its Fair Usage Policy.

“This policy is a standard industry practice to ensure that all subscribers get to enjoy the same web surfing quality,” he said.

Only it’s not standard industry practice, despite that often-heard excuse.  In countries where usage limits are common, those limits are being eased or discontinued as broadband expansion and competition drives the unpopular usage limits out of the market.

Malaysians weren’t willing to wait.

The social media firestorm of protest that followed the announcement forced the company to back down just one day after announcing the Internet Overcharging scheme.

An announcement on Twitter, noting customer feedback, stated “no volume cap 4 all #unifi packages 4 now.”  The company did say it would continue to “reserve the right to enforce a download limit to ensure all UniFi subscribers receive equal service quality,” but that type of language has been standard in service provider agreements for years.

Company officials told The Malaysian Insider customers “may abuse” the service, which is why they wanted the cap.

But customers feel they deserve value for money — the price being charged can be considered high for many countries in Asia even without the cap.

The Star newspaper notes:

With the latest announcement by Telekom Malaysia, many people are rejoicing. Among them is communications consultant Justin Then, who said he’s happy to note that Telekom Malaysia listens to consumers.

“Capping our high speed Internet access doesn’t make sense, if the Government wants Malaysians to seek out knowledge and be innovative,” he said.

A Twitter user, who asked to be identified only as Flo, said she’s glad Telekom Malaysia has decided not to employ the cap for now.

“We are paying a premium for technology that offers super high bandwidth, so a daily cap shouldn’t be applied. There’s no value in that; we would be better off with regular broadband,” she said.

One caveat.  As has been the case with a handful of U.S. providers seeking to monetize your broadband usage, rescinding usage caps today doesn’t guarantee they won’t be back tomorrow.  Indeed, TM has yet to remove them from their website, instead inserting in the fine print, “The monthly download volume policy will not be implemented until further notice.”

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Malaysia Telekom UniFi Promotional Video.flv[/flv]

TM’s slick promotional video unveiling the faster UniFi broadband packages asks y0u to “imagine.”  We did… imagining how in the world we can accomplish all of the things they show in the video with the company’s proposed arbitrary usage limits and speed throttles.  Imagine actually getting the service you paid to receive without a provider imagining how much use = “abuse.”  (6 minutes)

Karl Bode over at Broadband Reports offers an additional detail on Frontier’s Internet Overcharging experiment which is now being tested in Minnesota:

Late last week, someone familiar with business operations at Frontier Communications indicated to Broadband Reports that the company was going to begin testing a new capping scheme for heavy users. “Just wanted to let you know that Frontier is sending out letters to the top 50 bandwidth users in Mound Minnesota,” said the individual.

The city of Mound, a suburb located 19 miles to the west of Minneapolis/St. Paul, is home to 9,800 residents.  Mound is the birthplace of the Tonka truck, named after Lake Minnetonka, which surrounds Mound.  Residents of Hennepin County have watched their local phone company change hands several times over the years from Contel to GTE of Minnesota to Verizon to Citizens Telecommunications Company of Minnesota, which does business as Frontier Communications. Frontier has served this part of Minnesota since the end of August, 2000.

For a community aggressively pursuing a downtown revitalization and redevelopment program designed to make the community attractive to new residents and businesses, news that the local DSL provider is now going to limit broadband usage and overcharge those who exceed their arbitrary limits is not good.

Among city officials, Mayor Mark Hanus and councilman David Osmek are both Frontier broadband customers.  The city is proud to stream its regular city council meetings online, something Frontier DSL customers will now have to avoid if they want to preserve as much of their 5GB monthly usage allowance as possible.

Action Alert and Alternatives for Mound, Minnesota

For Mound residents who do not want to be forced to limit their broadband activities to the ridiculously low 5GB allowance Frontier is now enforcing, we recommend these actions:

1) Call Frontier Communications at 1-800-921-8101 and tell them you will not keep your Frontier broadband service with a usage cap and you are prepared to take your business elsewhere immediately if they do not rescind their “experiment.”  If they attempt to charge you an early termination fee or cancellation fee if you do decide to cancel, let us know through the Contact link at the top of the page or in the comments attached to this article.

2) Contact your local media — the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the Lakeshore Weekly News, The Laker, local news radio and television stations and let them know you think they should be covering this story and its potential impact on the local economy in Mound.

3) Your best alternative broadband provider is cable operator Mediacom which does not have a usage limitation on their broadband accounts.  Their speeds and pricing are also much better, based on Frontier’s advertised pricing of  “as low as” $49.99 a month for Frontier High-Speed Internet Max 3Mbps service or “prices starting at” $39.99 a month for Frontier High-Speed Internet Lite 768kps service.

Mediacom offers 3, 12 and 20Mbps broadband service in Mound.  Here are the details:

For New Mediacom customers:

Mediacom offers soon-to-be-ex Frontier customers free standard installation and a 12-month introductory offer for 12/1Mbps service for $49.95 a month.  Telephone service is also available through Mediacom with a bundled service discount.  Customers looking for a budget broadband alternative can sign up for 3Mbps service for $29.95 a month if they also take digital cable or digital phone.  For customers looking for the highest speeds, Mediacom offers 20/2Mbps service for $59.95 a month if you also get digital cable or phone service.

For Current Mediacom Non-Broadband customers:

If you have cable from Mediacom but use Frontier for broadband, you can switch to Mediacom cable modem service and obtain special discounts.  Add Mediacom’s 12/1Mbps service to your existing cable TV account for $19.95 a month for 12 months, or 20/2Mbps service for $59.95 a month for 12 months.  Installation is done by the customer.

Questions about Mediacom service in Mound can be directed to 1-800-332-0245.  Mediacom’s local offices in and around Mound are at:

Waseca	1504 2nd St SE Waseca, MN 56093	800-332-0245	8:00AM TO 5:00PM / MONDAY – FRIDAY / (CLOSED EVERY WEDNESDAY 9-10AM)
Mound	2381 Wilshire Blvd Mound, MN 55364	800-332-0245	8:00AM to 5:00PM / Monday – Friday (Closed 12 – 1PM Daily & Every Wednesday 9-10AM)
Chanhassen	1670 Lake Drive West Chanhassen, MN 55317	800-332-0245	8:00AM to 5:00PM Monday-Friday *Closed Noon – 1:00PM (Closed Every Wednesday 9-10AM)

4) Customers who are absolutely stuck with Frontier broadband who anticipate approaching or exceeding the 100/250GB usage levels should explore a business broadband account with Frontier.  Although pricing may vary from city to city, residents of Rochester who confronted the original effort to impose a 5GB usage cap in western New York found business account DSL service was not much more expensive than residential service, and carried no usage limitations.  Pricing is likely to be less than the punitive rates Frontier wants to charge residential customers for exceeding their allowances.

Frontier Communications has quietly begun testing an Internet Overcharging scheme in Minnesota designed to charge confiscatory prices to residents who exceed the company’s usage allowances, demanding customers pay up to $249.99 a month to keep their broadband service running.

Stop the Cap! has learned Frontier has begun measuring customers’ broadband usage, and for those in Minnesota who exceed 100GB of usage during a month, Frontier is dispatching e-mail messages telling them they’ll have to agree to pay more — much more — or their service will be cut off in 15 days.

Two e-mail messages are being sent to customers who break the 100 and 250GB usage barriers.  Both reference Frontier’s 5GB usage allowance that Stop the Cap! has strongly and repeatedly criticized the company for implementing in the first place.  Using that usage allowance as a baseline, Frontier calls out its customers using more demanding they switch to a higher priced service plan if they want to continue service with the company.

• For those achieving 100GB of usage, the new monthly rate is $99.99 per month
• For those achieving 250GB of usage, the new monthly rate is an incredible $249.99 per month

Sources tell Stop the Cap! the Internet Overcharging scheme Frontier is running is an experiment to gauge customer reaction.  If the furious customer e-mail reaching us is any indication, it’s another public relations disaster for Frontier Communications.  One customer didn’t even realize there was a 5GB usage allowance to begin with, much less a vastly higher new monthly price if he wants to stay with Frontier DSL.  He’s not.

Ironically, the experimental pricing plan comes at a time when Frontier is still trying to get state regulators to approve its deal with Verizon to assume control of landline and broadband service in several states.  Residents in West Virginia and a dozen other states might be a bit concerned that their unlimited Verizon DSL broadband service, often the only service provider available, could be replaced with a company that is willing to punish its customers with $250 in monthly charges once a customer hits 250GB in usage.  Even worse, Frontier takes the overlimit penalty concept to a whole new level, telling customers that new high price represents their new monthly rate plan, not just a temporary penalty.

To add insult to injury, Frontier continues to mislead its customers about the experimental pricing on its own website.  As of this writing, Frontier’s Acceptable Use Policy still states:

Customers may not resell High Speed Internet Access Service (“Service”) without a legal and written agency agreement with Frontier. Customers may not retransmit the Service or make the Service available to anyone outside the premises (i.e., wi-fi or other methods of networking). Customers may not use the Service to host any type of commercial server. Customers must comply with all Frontier network, bandwidth, data storage and usage limitations. Frontier may suspend, terminate or apply additional charges to the Service if such usage exceeds a reasonable amount of usage. A reasonable amount of usage is defined as 5GB combined upload and download consumption during the course of a 30-day billing period. The Company has made no decision about potential charges for monthly usage in excess of 5GB.

For customers receiving Frontier’s Scare-o-Gram, it sure sounds like they made up their minds… to charge a lot more for the exact same level of service.

For state regulators, watching Frontier charge ludicrous pricing for broadband service that would make most providers blush should be more than enough evidence that approving Frontier’s plans to take over Internet and landline service in their state is not in the best interests of consumers.  For many, it saddles them with a broadband provider that can charge these kinds of prices knowing full well many customers have nowhere else to go.

Copy of E-Mail Sent to Minnesota Customers Exceeding 100 GB of usage a month [emphasis in bold is ours]:

Dear [Customer]:

Frontier is focused on providing the best possible internet experience across our entire customer base.  We bring you a quality service at a fair price, dependent upon an average monthly bandwidth usage of 5GB.  Over the past months, your account is in violation of our Residential Internet Acceptable Use Policy.

Our policy states that Frontier reserves the right to suspend, terminate or apply additional charges to the Service if such usage exceeds a reasonable amount of usage. A reasonable amount of usage is defined as 5GB combined upload and download consumption during the course of a 30-day billing period.

We realize there are times when our customers use the internet for services such as video and music downloads, however your specific usage has consistently exceeded 100GB over a 30 day period.

We would like to provide you with the option of keeping your Frontier internet service at a monthly rate of $99.99 which is reflective of your average monthly usage.  Please call us within 7 days of the date of this email at 1-877-273-0489 Monday – Friday, 8AM – 5PM CST to review your options.  If you do not wish to switch to this new rate plan, you can have your service disconnected.  If we do not hear from you within 15 days, your internet service will be automatically disconnected.

We continue to manage our network to ensure all of our customers have equal access to the internet and the ability to enjoy all of its available content, at our committed level of service quality.

Sincerely,

Frontier Communications

Copy of E-Mail Sent to Minnesota Customers Exceeding 250 GB of usage a month [emphasis in bold is ours]:

Dear [Customer]:

Frontier is focused on providing the best possible internet experience across our entire customer base.  We bring you a quality service at a fair price, dependent upon an average monthly bandwidth usage of 5GB.  Over the past months, your account is in violation of our Residential Internet Acceptable Use Policy.

Our policy states that Frontier reserves the right to suspend, terminate or apply additional charges to the Service if such usage exceeds a reasonable amount of usage. A reasonable amount of usage is defined as 5GB combined upload and download consumption during the course of a 30-day billing period.

We realize there are times when our customers use the internet for services such as video and music downloads, however your specific usage has consistently exceeded 250GB over a 30 day period.

We would like to provide you with the option of keeping your Frontier internet service at a monthly rate of $249.99 which is reflective of your average monthly usage.  Please call us within 7 days of the date of this email at 1-877-273-0489 Monday – Friday, 8AM – 5PM CST to review your options.  If you do not wish to switch to this new rate plan, you can have your service disconnected.  If we do not hear from you within 15 days, your internet service will be automatically disconnected.

We continue to manage our network to ensure all of our customers have equal access to the internet and the ability to enjoy all of its available content, at our committed level of service quality.

Sincerely,

Frontier Communications

“It’s FairPoint Communications all over again,” writes Stop the Cap! reader Jenna who is mad as hell with Verizon Communications who first locked her out of her e-mail account, and then accidentally deleted it, along with all of her e-mail, in preparation for the handover to Frontier Communications.

Jenna is referring to similar debacles which caused billing and service nightmares for residents in northern New England who lost their Internet access for days, along with e-mail accounts, followed by months of inaccurate bills when FairPoint moved away from Verizon’s internal systems.

Her problems started the last weekend of March, when Verizon notified Jenna and other Fort Wayne, Indiana residents who use Verizon Yahoo! e-mail service that they would have to take steps to convert their e-mail accounts.

Verizon Yahoo!: Service No Longer Available in Some Areas

Starting March 27, 2010, Verizon Yahoo! for Broadband will be discontinued in the following areas:

AZ, ID, IL, IN, MI, NV, NC (except Knotts Island), OH, OR, SC, Crows-Hermatite (VA), WA, WI, and the following communities in California that border AZ, NV and OR–Big River, Blythe, Coleville, Crescent City, Desert Center, Eagle Mountain, Earp, Felicity, Fort Dick, Gasquet, Klamath, Kneeland, Markleeville, Merced, Needles, Orick, Parker Dam, Ripley, Smith River, Topaz, Trinidad, Vidal and Winterhaven.

These changes will not impact your Verizon Internet service access plan or pricing, and your Verizon.net email primary and sub-account User names and passwords will stay the same.

“They told us we would have to use this service called Verizon TrueSwitch in order to convert our e-mail box and that all of our contacts and existing e-mail would be transferred from the old Yahoo! webmail account to the new Verizon one,” Jenna writes.

But her experience with Verizon TrueSwitch turned into a TrueNightmare when attempts to use the service resulted in error messages.

“First it popped up with ‘unable to authenticate’ error messages, and then we were locked out of our Yahoo! e-mail account.  The Verizon e-mail account worked, but was empty,” she writes. “I tried to use Verizon’s ‘in-home agent’ online support but it suddenly told me it was ‘only available to Verizon customers.’  Apparently they can’t wait to get rid of us.”

Jenna then did what most customers of a phone company might do — she picked up her phone and called customer service.

“That was the second nightmare — I waited on hold 49 minutes the first time before a representative came on the line, sneezed, and then disconnected me.  The second call was a real marathon — over two hours on hold waiting for someone to help me,” Jenna notes.

When a representative did finally speak to Jenna, she apologized for the delay and candidly admitted their call center was swamped with calls regarding the e-mail conversion.

“When she thought she put me on hold, I was able to overhear her talking with someone else about getting word from a supervisor that the problem was somewhere on their end, and she felt bad because she had spent a good part of the morning blaming TrueSwitch, which I later found out was not even owned by Verizon — it’s a service sold by Esaya, a private third-party company,” Jenna says.

Jenna was transferred to a supervisor when attempts to correct her e-mail account lockout were not working.

“The guy they transferred me to wouldn’t listen to me and kept telling me he knew what the problem was, claiming I had ‘sub-accounts’ and they were messing up their systems,” said Jenna. “But Mr. Expert ended up permanently deleting the account, along with all of my e-mail, contacts, and everything else Verizon claimed I was able to store online.  Years of e-mail and contacts — gone.”

Jenna was right when she noted Verizon’s call centers were jammed with customers experiencing similar problems.

Verizon’s own customer support forum is hot with angry customers who are going through the same thing:

• Verizon/Yahoo! ‘Devilish Switch’
• Verizon Sold Everything to Frontier
• I’m Not Able to Receive E-Mail
• New Set-Up
• Verizon E-Mail Has Been Down for a Week

Verizon spokesman Harry Mitchell acknowledged the significant e-mail conversion issues were partly in preparation for the pending transition some customers face to Frontier Communications.

“The systems realignment will facilitate the closing of the transaction with Frontier, which we expect at the end of the second quarter, subject to conditions including regulatory approval,” Mitchell told the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette.

Mitchell released a statement to the paper regarding the problems:

“In advance of a planned systems conversion over the weekend of March 27-28, Verizon online users who maintain e-mail accounts with Yahoo were notified that a customer-initiated service change would be required following the systems conversion in order to maintain their e-mail service,” he said in an e-mail.

“Customers were given instructions to use a ‘Trueswitch’ service to migrate their existing e-mail and contact information from Verizon Yahoo to Verizon servers in order to maintain e-mail access. Some customers have experienced difficulty when trying to initiate the service change. We’re working to address this as quickly as possible with those customers.”

Mitchell stressed that customers should make sure they validate their passwords in both the Verizon.net e-mail system and the Verizon Yahoo e-mail system. And they should “take extra care to write down those passwords so that, if they want to migrate their old e-mail and contact information, it will go smoothly through the Trueswitch process.”

Unfortunately, that won’t help Jenna.

A supervisor contacted her this week to apologize for the problems and the loss of her e-mail, which may not be gone for good if Verizon and Yahoo! can figure out a way to get the deleted account back, but for Jenna the damage has been done.

“I have read Stop the Cap! since 2008 and followed the misadventures of FairPoint Communications and the endless promises from Frontier they won’t repeat the mistakes the others have made, but it’s a case of ‘here we go again,’ and Frontier isn’t even in the picture yet,” she says.  “Verizon clearly can’t wait to get rid of us and Frontier will probably make us wish we had Verizon back, which should tell you the people of Fort Wayne now live on the corner of Rock Avenue and Hard Place.”

Jesse and his nearby neighbors on the west side of Milton are frustrated.  They live just 20 minutes away from Burlington, the largest city in the state of Vermont.  Despite the proximity to a city with nearly 40,000 residents, there is no cell phone coverage in western Milton, no cable television service, and no DSL service from FairPoint Communications.  For this part of Milton, it’s living living in 1990, where dial-up service was one’s gateway to the Internet.

Jesse and his immediate neighbors haven’t given up searching for broadband service options, but they face a united front of intransigent operators who refuse to make the investment to extend service down his well-populated street.

“After many calls to Comcast, they eventually sent us an estimate for over $17,000 to bring service to us, despite being less than a mile from their nearest station,” Jesse tells Vermont Public Radio.  “They also made it very clear that there was no plan at any point in the future, 2010 or beyond, to come here unless we paid them the money.”

Jesse and his neighbors want to give Comcast money, but not $17,000.

For at least 15 percent of Vermonters, Jesse’s story is their story.  Broadband simply remains elusive and out of reach.

Three years ago, Vermont’s Republican governor Jim Douglas announced the state would achieve 100 percent broadband coverage by 2010, making Vermont the nation’s first “e-State.”

Vermont Public Radio reviewed the progress Vermont is making towards becoming America’s first e-State. (January 20, 2010) (30 minutes)
You must remain on this page to hear the clip, or you can download the clip and listen later.

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In June 2007 the state passed Act 79, legislation that established the Vermont Telecommunications Authority to facilitate the establishment and delivery of mobile phone and Internet access infrastructure and services for residents and businesses throughout Vermont.

The VTA, under the early leadership of Bill Shuttleworth, a former Verizon Communications senior manager, launched a modest broadband grant program to incrementally expand broadband access, often through existing service providers who agreed to use the money to extend service to unserved neighborhoods.

The Authority also acts as a clearinghouse for coordinating information about broadband projects across the state, although it doesn’t have any authority over those projects.  Lately, the VTA has been backing Google’s “Think Big With a Gig” Initiative, except it promotes the state as a great choice for fiber, not just one or two communities within Vermont.

[flv width=”480″ height=”290″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Google Fiber Vermont 3-22-10.mp4[/flv]

Vermont used this video to promote their bid to become a Google Fiber state.  (2 minutes)

Some of the most dramatic expansion plans come from the East Central Vermont Community Fiber Network.  ECFiber, a group of 22 local municipalities, in partnership with ValleyNet, a Vermont non-profit organization, is planning to implement a high-capacity fiber-optic network capable of serving 100% of homes and businesses in participating towns with Internet, telephone and cable television service.  In 2008, the group coalesced around a proposal to construct a major fiber-to-the-home project to extend broadband across areas that often don’t even have slower speed DSL.

The ECFiber project brought communities together to provide the kind of broadband service private companies refused to provide. Vermont Public Radio explores the project and the enthusiasm of residents hopeful they will finally be able to get broadband service. (March 8, 2008) (24 minutes)
You must remain on this page to hear the clip, or you can download the clip and listen later.

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The Vermont towns, which together number roughly 55,000 residents, decided to build their own network after FairPoint Communications and local cable companies refused to extend the reach of their services.  Providers claim expanding service is not financially viable.  For residents like sheep farmer Marian White, interviewed by The Wall Street Journal, that means another year of paying $60 a month for satellite fraudband, the speed and consumption-limited satellite Internet service.

White calls the satellite service unreliable, especially in winter when snow accumulates on the dish.  Unlike many broadband users who vegetate for hours browsing the web, White actually gets an exercise routine while trying to get her satellite service to work.

“I open a window and I take a pan of water and, a cup at a time, I launch warm water at the satellite dish until I have melted all the snow off the dish,” Ms. White says. “It works.”

Other residents treat accessing the Internet the same way rural Americans plan a trip into town to buy supplies.

Kathi Terami from Tunbridge makes a list of things to do online and then, once a week, travels into town to visit the local public library which has a high speed connection.  Terami downloads Sesame Street podcasts for her children, watches YouTube links sent by her sister, and tries to download whatever she thinks she might want to see or use over the coming week.

A fiber to the home network like ECFiber would change everything for small town Vermonters.  The implications are enormous according to project manager Tim Nulty.

“People are truly afraid their communities are going to die if they aren’t on the communications medium that drives the country culturally and economically,” he says. “It’s one of the most intensely felt political issues in Vermont after health care.”

Despite the plan’s good intentions, one obstacle after another has prevented ECFiber from making much headway:

• The VTA rejected the proposal in 2008, calling it unfeasible;
• Plans over the summer and fall of 2008 to approach big national investment banks ran head-on into the sub-prime mortgage collapse, which caused banks to stop lending;
• An alternative plan to build the network with public debt financing, using smaller investors, collapsed along with Lehman Brothers on September 14, 2008;
• An attempt by Senator Pat Leahy (D-Vermont) to insert federal loan guarantees into the stimulus bill in February 2009 was thwarted by partisan wrangling;
• Attempts to secure federal broadband grant stimulus funding has been rejected by the Commerce Department;
• Opposition to the plan and objections over its funding come from incumbent providers like FairPoint, who claim the project is unnecessary because they will provide service in those areas… eventually.

For the indefinite future, it appears Ms. White will continue to throw warm cups of water out the window on cold winter mornings.

Vermont Edition takes a comprehensive look at where the state stands in broadband and wireless deployment. (April 8, 2009) (46 minutes)
You must remain on this page to hear the clip, or you can download the clip and listen later.

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For every Tunbridge resident with a story about life without broadband, there are many more across Vermont living with hit or miss Internet access.

Take Marie from Middlesex.

“I am in Middlesex, about a half-mile off Route 2, and five minutes from the Capitol Building. Yet up until just recently, we had no sign of high-speed Internet. I understand that my neighbors just received DSL a few weeks ago, but when I call FairPoint, they tell me it’s still not available at my house, which is a few hundred yards up the hill. Hopefully, they’re wrong and I’ll see DSL soon,” she says.

Marie is pining for yesterday’s broadband technology — FairPoint’s 1.5Mbps basic DSL service, now considered below the proposed minimum speeds to qualify for “broadband” in the National Broadband Plan.  For Marie, it’s better than nothing.

Geryll in Goshen also lacks DSL and probably wouldn’t want it from FairPoint anyway.

“We have barely reliable landline service. A tech is at my house at least three times per year. I was told the lines are so old they are decaying. Using dial-up is impossible. I use satellite which is very expensive and is in my opinion only one step up from dial-up. I am limited to downloads and penalized if I reach my daily limit,” he says.

Many Vermonters acknowledge Douglas’ planned 100-percent-broadband-coverage-by-2010 won’t come close to achievement and many are highly skeptical they will ever see the day where every resident who wants broadband service can get it.

Chip in Cabot is among them, jaded after six years of arguments with FairPoint Communications and its predecessor Verizon about obtaining access to DSL.  It took a cooperative FairPoint engineer outside of the business office to finally get Chip service.  His neighbors were not so lucky, most emphatically rejected for DSL service from an intransigent FairPoint:

“I laughed when Governor Douglas announced his e-State goal “by 2010” three years ago. Now I’m thinking I should have made some bets on this claim. It took years of legal battles and a zoning variance to obtain partial cell coverage here in Cabot. Large parts of the town still do not have any cell coverage. Governor Douglas can perhaps be forgiven – he has no technical knowledge, and as a politician would be expected to be wildly optimistic about such “e-State” claims. The Vermont Telecommunications Authority and the Department of Public Service should know better however. We’re talking about rural areas where there is no financial incentive to provide either DSL or cell service. It will take a huge amount of money to provide service to those remaining parts of the state. I’m not optimistic.”

[flv width=”512″ height=”308″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Wall Street Journal Vermont Broadband Problems 03-02-09.flv[/flv]

The Wall Street Journal chronicled the challenges Vermonters face when broadband is unavailable to them.  ECFiber may solve these problems.  Some of the stories in our article are reflected in this well-done video.  (3/2/2009 — 4 Minutes)