Don’t want blazing fast fiber optic broadband speeds?  Unhappy with fiber optic quality video and want to go back to putting a satellite dish on your roof?  If the answer to either question is “yes,” Frontier Communications has good news for you.

The phone company, which assumed control of a handful of communities formerly served by Verizon’s fiber-to-the-home FiOS network, has announced it will begin marketing DSL and satellite TV services to its fiber customers.

Frontier CEO Maggie Wilderotter told investors on a third quarter results conference call that FiOS broadband could be too expensive.

Wilderotter noted Verizon would not allow customers in a FiOS neighborhood to buy DSL service, which leaves budget-minded customers behind.

“Now, FiOS starts at like 50Mbps and it’s very expensive. It’s like $50 a month for a customer. So they left a whole host of customers behind from an affordability perspective who didn’t need that kind of capability on broadband.” Wilderotter explained. “We have just over the last 30 to 60 days opened up DSL in all of the FiOS markets to give the customer choice. So the customer can choose whether they want FiOS broadband or they want high-speed Internet service, typically, and in those markets we’re offering around 6 to 7Mbps.”

Time Warner Cable occasionally runs promotions helping customers break free from Frontier's multi-year service contracts.

Of course, Frontier FiOS starts at 15Mbps — not 50, and that costs $50 a month for standalone service.  For $99, ($89 in Verizon FiOS areas), customers can get broadband, cable TV and unlimited phone service.  Frontier’s “Turbo” DSL service is priced at $40 a month for up to 7.1Mbps service.

Wilderotter also noted their FiOS customers can also choose to skip fiber video and go with DirecTV.

“We think that customers should be able to choose what kind of video they want,” she said. “We have aggressive offers in the market for both DirecTV and for FiOS video, but in our vernacular, what we care about is keeping the customer, getting the customer to take more products and services from us and making sure the customer is happy with the choice.”

Wilderotter said Frontier is prepared to tolerate more congestion on its DSL circuits than Verizon permitted, which opens the door to potential traffic slow-downs down the road.

“We’ve opened up in many of these locations the opportunity to sell high-speed service up to 95% capacity on the equipment that we have out in the field. Verizon had set a parameter at 75%,” Wilderotter said.

The company continues to study whether Frontier FiOS is worth maintaining or expanding outside of the Verizon territories where it was originally constructed.

“We are still evaluating it from a financial perspective and a customer perspective, and from a cost perspective and a revenue perspective,” Wilderotter told investors. “In terms of what that does for us overall, what it does for churn, how much does it really cost to extend this capability in the markets that we’re in today — we think that analysis and evaluation will go on through the first quarter [of 2011] and then we’ll be able to make some [decisions] in terms of what we want to do with FiOS from an expansion perspective or a maintenance perspective.”

Frontier Communications CEO Maggie Wilderotter answered questions about broadband expansion and the impact of the fall elections on telecommunications policy in Washington. (11 minutes)
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Frontier's largely rural service areas provide a captive audience for the company's DSL broadband service.

In the near term Frontier has several plans to get more aggressive in the marketplace to meet its target goal of losing only 8 percent of their customers per year — a goal that illustrates legacy phone companies are still on a trajectory towards fewer and fewer customers:

1. Don Shassian, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Frontier reports expansion of DSL remains a top priority for Frontier.  The company is on track to deliver access to 300,000 additional homes by the end of the year.  Verizon delivered access to 64 percent of Frontier’s acquired territories.  Frontier wants to get that number up to 85 percent.  But part of that target is not just expanding service to unserved areas.  It’s also trying to win back customers lost to other providers through promotions and incentives.
2. Frontier plans to resume aggressive promotions in the coming weeks and months, including its “free Netbook” promotion, which provides a Netbook computer to new customers signing up for several packages of services, committing to remain with Frontier for at least two years.
3. Frontier intends to push “price protection agreements” on as many customers as possible.  Their “Peace of Mind” program locks customers into multi-year contracts with stiff cancellation penalties.  Wilderotter noted: “I think, as you know, in our legacy markets, 96% of all of our sales are on a price protection plan and we have close to 60% of our residential customers on a one-, two- or three-year price protection plans. That number is below 15% in the acquired markets. So we’re also driving for price protection plans with every sale that we’re doing in these new markets as well.”  Such contracts dramatically discourage a customer from disconnecting Frontier, because fees for doing so can exceed $300 in some cases.  Frontier has been heavily criticized by some customers and State Attorneys General for deceptive business practices regarding contracts.

Frontier continues to enjoy a lack of solid cable competition in its largely rural service areas.  Shassian reports Comcast competes with Frontier in only about 32% of homes in some areas, Time Warner Cable in about 23%, and Charter below 15%.  With reduced competition, Frontier often represents the only broadband option in town.

Frontier is also spending an increased amount of time coping with copper thefts, especially in West Virginia where the company is warning would-be thieves it will prosecute to the fullest extent of the law.

“Damage to our facilities can affect communications access in an emergency, increase company costs and consumer rates, and disrupt community phone and broadband connections,” said Lynne Monaco, Frontier’s Director of Security. “When network connections are severed by copper thieves, it endangers customers and emergency responders and poses significant risks of personal injury and property damage.”

Just last week, West Virginia state police solved another copper caper that disrupted service for some customers.

The Charleston Daily Mail reports:

Stephanie Burdette of Charleston was arrested in connection with a copper wire theft.

Trooper A.B. Ward from the South Charleston detachment went to the Fishers Branch area of Sissonville last Thursday afternoon when a Frontier worker discovered a section of the communications line missing. The worker found that 300-feet of the 400-pair line, valued at about $5,000, was missing, according to a complaint filed in Kanawha Magistrate Court.

A trooper who had worked on a similar investigation told Ward to check the home of Ervin “Tubby” Page, 49, where troopers had previously found evidence of wire burning. Ward went to Page’s home, described as a Goose Neck travel trailer parked next to the Guthrie Agricultural Center in Sissonville, and found three burn barrels about 50 feet in front of the trailer. One of them was on fire.

Page’s girlfriend Stephanie Marie Burdette, 25, of Cross Lanes, was at the scene when the trooper arrived. Ward spoke to her then checked out the barrels where he found aluminum wrap, which is used to cover the copper communications wiring, and pieces of copper cabling, the complaint said.

Frontier customers are encouraged to report any suspicious activity around telecommunications equipment and facilities by calling the company’s toll free security line 1-800-590-6605. Anyone witnessing a theft in progress should not confront the suspects but should immediately call 911 and then call Frontier. Vehicle and suspect descriptions are very useful. This is a community safety problem, and the cooperation of the public is critical.

[flv width=”500″ height=”395″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WOWK Charleston Copper Thieves 11-15-10.flv[/flv]

WOWK-TV in Charleston covers Frontier’s difficulties with copper wire thieves across the state of West Virginia.  (1 minute)

Frontier Communications is continuing to suffer service outages and problems across many of their respective service areas.  Some of the most serious continue in West Virginia, especially in the northern panhandle region where emergency response agencies continue to complain about sub-standard service from the phone company that took over Verizon phone lines this past summer.

Hancock County officials report their T1 line that connects emergency dispatchers with the county’s dispatch radio system was out of service again early Wednesday evening.  This Frontier-owned and maintained circuit has suffered repeated outages over the past year, and the latest outage comes after company officials promised to inspect the 12,000 foot line inch-by-inch.  Once again, the county’s emergency agency is relying on help from nearby counties and a backup radio system to communicate with at least some of the area’s police and fire departments.

Outages of 911 service are not just limited to West Virginia.  Illinois Valley (Oregon) Fire District Chief Harry Rich was forced to rely on amateur radio operators and extra staffing in county firehouses to cope with a 911 system failure caused by Frontier service problems in late September.  Rich called a public meeting in late October with Cave Junction Mayor Don Moore, Josephine County Sheriff Gil Gilbertson and Josephine County Commissioner Dave Toler to discuss the implications of Frontier’s outage and what steps the region needs to take to mitigate future outages.

In Greencastle, Indiana a Frontier phone outage disrupted service for DePauw University and the Putnam County Hospital Oct. 20.  In Meshoppen, Pennsylvania an outage caused by a downtown fire on Oct. 24 left 1,200 homes in the community without telephone service for most of the day.  Frontier has also suffered periodic copper wire thefts, particularly in the Appalachian region where illicit sales of copper can bring quick cash for those addicted to drugs.  In Eastern Kanawha County, West Virginia, some 100 customers lost service for at least a day after thieves yanked phone cables right off the poles.

Sandman

In Minster, Ohio village officials have hired a law firm to sue Frontier Communications over a wiring dispute.  Village officials accuse Frontier of being intransigent over the removal of telephone lines from poles to bury them underground.  Village Solicitor Jim Hearn told the local newspaper utility companies should be responsible for the costs of installing underground wiring.

In Wenatchee, a community in north-central Washington state, Frontier’s general manager is going all out to try and assuage customers Frontier will provide better service than Verizon.  Steve Sandman went as far as to hand out his direct number to the local media, inviting residents with service problems to call.  It’s (509) 662-9242.

Sandman promises other changes for his customers, according to The Wenatchee World:

Sandman said all Frontier technicians will be fully trained in the installation of phones, internet and TV. No more modems sent through the mail for the customer to install by themselves, he said.

“We’ll be there on the premises for complete installation,” he said. “And, if the customer needs it, we’ll provide some fundamental training on how to turn on the computer, hook up to the internet and get started using online services. Or give advice on how to use the TV remote.”

But all of these issues pale in comparison to the all-out battle forming in the state of West Virginia over broadband stimulus money awarded to help Frontier extend fiber broadband service to local government and community institutions.  One of their biggest competitors, Citynet, has launched a well-coordinated attack on what it calls “a flawed plan that does nothing to provide faster Internet speeds or lower the majority of Internet costs for West Virginians.”

Frontier will spend $40 million of federal broadband stimulus money on a network that will deliver fiber-fast speeds only to government, educational, and health care institutions.

Martin

James Martin II, president and CEO of Citynet argues Frontier is building a state of the art fiber network very few West Virginians will ever get to use, from which it will profit handsomely delivering service to government entities with which it already has contracts.  For the rest of West Virginian homes and businesses, Frontier will deliver outdated DSL service delivering an average of 3Mbps service at a time when adjacent states are enjoying service 2-4 times faster.

Citynet argues funding would be better spent on a middle mile, open fiber backbone available for use by all-comers.  Martin notes West Virginia is one of the few states in the northeast and mid-Atlantic region almost completely bypassed by the core Internet backbone.  The only exception is a fiber link connecting Pittsburgh with Columbus, Ohio, which briefly traverses the northern panhandle of West Virginia.  Citynet’s perspective is that West Virginia cannot improve its poor broadband standing — 48th in the nation, unless it has appropriate infrastructure to tap into for service.

As an example, Martin points to the community of Philippi, served by fiber to the home cable TV and broadband service.  The community’s fiber network is capable of Lamborghini speeds between homes within Philippi. But the community can only afford a single 45 megabit DS-3 connection to the outside world, provided by Citynet for just under $8,000 a month.  That line is shared among every broadband customer in Philippi trying to get out onto the Internet. The result is that Philippi residents can only buy a broadband account with speeds up to 2Mbps for $60 a month on that all-fiber network. That’s equivalent to being forced to drive that Lamborghini on a dirt road.

Martin says if the broadband stimulus money was spent on constructing a statewide open fiber backbone, they could sell the community a 1Gbps pipeline for around $3,000 a month.

Philippi's fiber optic broadband is not so fast, thanks to a bottleneck between the community and the rest of the Internet

“West Virginia is at a crossroads,” Martin said in a prepared statement. “We can build a ‘middle-mile’ solution for high-speed Internet infrastructure and create jobs, or we can stick with the status quo and watch West Virginia fall behind once again. The outcome will determine our state’s economic growth for years to come.”

The state, according to Martin, is reneging on its promise to build a broadband network that will deliver improved service to institutional users as well as at least 700,000 homes and 110,000 business in the state.

Instead, the project would only serve 1,000 “points of interest,” he said. The state’s plan would limit Internet speeds and make broadband service unaffordable, Martin argues.

“If the state were to build a true middle-mile solution, then businesses and residential Internet customers would see a significant reduction in price, as well as an increase in quality, capacity and speed,” Martin said. “Regretfully, the state chose to support a plan that relies on outdated telephone lines and a monopoly.”

Of course, Citynet does have a vested interest in the outcome of the project.  As a provider specializing in selling bulk broadband lines, they would be a prime beneficiary of a government-backed middle-mile broadband network.  Citynet’s argument that funding should be spent primarily on that network ignores the reality few new entrants are likely to enter West Virginia’s rural broadband market, with or without the benefit of a robust broadband backbone.  One of the biggest flaws of broadband stimulus spending is that much of the money will never directly provide “last mile” access to individual consumers and businesses that want broadband service where none is available.

Citynet needs to acknowledge much of West Virginia’s broadband is going to come from the phone company or a local municipality that elects to build its own network.  While cable companies deliver service in larger cities and suburban areas, large swaths of the state will never be wired for cable.  In fact, West Virginia is poorly covered even by wireless companies who see little benefit building extensive cell tower networks in the notoriously mountainous areas of the state that serve few residents.  The only existing rural telecommunications infrastructure universally available is copper telephone wires.  Like it or not, Frontier Communications will be the biggest provider of broadband in rural West Virginia.  A fiber backbone network alone delivers minor benefits to those residents who either cannot connect at any broadband speed, or are stuck with Frontier’s current 1-3Mbps DSL service.

Still, Citynet’s campaign is a useful reminder that too many broadband stimulus projects direct most of their money to networks ordinary consumers and businesses will never access.  And so long as local governments, schools, and hospitals “get theirs,” they have little interest in fighting to share those networks with consumers and for-profit businesses.

Citynet produced two radio ads criticizing West Virginia’s allocation of broadband stimulus money, and Jim Martin appeared on a local radio show to explain to West Virginia why this issue matters. (Ads from 11/2010 — Interview with Jim Martin: September 16, 2010) (18 minutes)
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Ultimately, Verizon may get the last word, even after they abandoned the state’s landline customers.  Charleston, the state capital, has been selected as one of the early communities to receive Verizon Wireless’ new 4G LTE wireless broadband network, according to WTRF-TV:

Verizon subscribers in Charleston with devices that are 4G compatible will see changes within the next six to seven weeks. The whole city is expected to be covered by the network by mid-2011, according to company officials. From there, it will be expanded to cover Huntington, Parkersburg, Wheeling, Weirton, Beckley, Clarksburg, Morgantown, Fairmont and Martinsburg by 2013.

The company also plans to expand coverage along the entire Interstate 79 corridor from Charleston to Clarksburg.

The decision to include Charleston among the 39 metropolitan areas where Verizon would deploy its 4G network left many analysts of the industry scratching their heads, although they noted in online posts that Rockefeller chairs the Senate committee that regulates the telecommunications industry.

Should West Virginians find Verizon Wireless a suitable replacement for their landlines, Frontier may have bought themselves a pig in the poke.

[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/West Virginia Frontier 11-4-10.flv[/flv]

WTOV-TV covers the emergency services outage in northwestern West Virginia in two reports, WBOY-TV covers the Citynet-Frontier controversy, and WTRF-TV covers the arrival of Verizon’s LTE upgrade, starting with Charleston.  (7 minutes)

Recently, the FCC issued a report claiming Americans are often only getting half the broadband speeds they are promised by providers.  KTVX-TV, the ABC station in Salt Lake City, recently investigated whether that held true for local residents.

The results?  Most Salt Lake City Internet users don’t always get a good deal from providers that often deliver inconsistent speeds, even on premium priced plans that can cost up to $130.

Ookla, which has been compiling speed test data as well, reports the United States was in 11th place globally when it comes to being honest about what broadband speeds providers actually deliver.  Don’t get too excited — we score 30th on the download speed index.  More than two dozen nations deliver faster service.

Which nation scores at the very top of the honesty chart?  The Republic of Moldova, a largely-Romanian speaking former Soviet Republic.  In fact, ISPs in Chişinău, the capital city, are too modest, claiming speeds lower than they actually provide customers.  The rest of the top-10 honesty ranking contains a number of countries in eastern Europe — countries that blow the United States out of the water when it comes to telling the truth about broadband speed:

1. Republic of Moldova, 109.21%
2. Russia, 98.65%
3. Slovakia, 98.64%
4. Lithuania, 97.97%
5. Ukraine, 97.58%
6. Hungary, 96.80%
7. Switzerland, 96.72%
8. Bulgaria, 95.96%
9. Latvia, 94.83%
10. Norway, 93.97%

Five states manage to score high marks on the honesty chart, most of which are served by Verizon.  We suspect FiOS may be a major factor in why these states lead the others:

1. Delaware, 100.85%
2. Massachusetts, 100.07%
3. Maryland, 99.56%
4. Rhode Island, 98.83 %
5. Virginia, 98.36 %

KTVX found that the area’s incumbent cable company Comcast did manage to deliver promised broadband speeds, often when most customers are not using the service.  Speeds were far lower in the evening — prime-time usage hours — sometimes as low as 3Mbps.

“Qwest’s DSL is best forgotten,” says Stop the Cap! reader Sangi, who writes from the city of Roy.  “It’s so bad a lot of us think of it as dial-up on caffeine.”

Sangi used to receive DSL service from the phone company, which is planning to merge with CenturyLink.

“When we moved closer to town, cable was an option and that made Qwest something we could live without,” Sangi says.  “They never came close to the speeds they marketed and when we complained, they claimed we wouldn’t notice the difference when browsing web pages and checking e-mail.”

“Apparently Qwest considers the Internet good for little else, at least how they deliver it,” he added.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KTVX Salt Lake City You Are Getting Half Your Promised Broadband Speed 10-22-10.flv[/flv]

KTVX-TV in Salt Lake City investigates broadband speed claims and finds residents don’t always get what they pay for.  (3 minutes)

EPB’s new 1Gbps municipal broadband service is causing some serious embarrassment to the telecom industry.  Since last week’s unveiling, several “dollar-a-holler” telecom-funded front groups and trade publications friendly to the industry have come forward to dismiss the service as “too expensive,” delivering speeds nobody wants, and out of touch with the market.

The “Information Technology and Innovation Federation,” which has historically supported the agenda of big telecom companies, has been particularly noisy in its condescending dismissal of the mega-speed service delivered in Chattanooga, Tenn.

Robert Atkinson, president of ITIF, undermines the very “innovation” their group is supposed to celebrate.  Because it doesn’t come from AT&T or Verizon, it’s not their kind of “innovation” at all.

“I can’t imagine a for-profit company doing what they are doing in Chattanooga, because it’s so far ahead of where the market is,” Atkinson told the New York Times.

“Chattanooga definitely is ahead of the curve,” Atkinson told the Times Free Press. “It’s like they are building a 16-lane highway when there is a demand for only four at this point. The private companies probably can’t afford to get that far ahead of the market.”

Bernie Arnason, formerly with Verizon and a cable industry trade association also dismissed EPB’s new service in his current role as managing editor for Telecompetitor, a telecom industry trade website:

Does anyone need that speed today? Will they in the next few years? The short answer is no. It’s kind of akin to people in the U.S. that buy a Ferrari or Lamborghini – all that power and speed, and nowhere to really use it. A more apropos question, is how many people can afford it – especially in a city the size of Chattanooga?

[…]Will there be a time when 1 Gb/s is an offer that is truly in demand? More than likely, although I still find it hard to imagine it being really necessary in a residential setting – I mean how many 3D movies can you watch at one time? Maybe a service that bursts to 1 Gb/s in times of need, but an always on symmetrical 1 Gb/s connection? Truth be told, no one really knows what the future holds, especially from a bandwidth demand perspective.

Arnason admits he doesn’t know what the future holds, but he and his industry friends have already made up their minds about what level of service and pricing is good enough for “a city the size of Chattanooga.”

Comcast’s Business Class broadband alternative is priced at around $370 a month and only provides 100/15Mbps service in some areas.  Atkinson and Arnason have no problems with that kind of innovation… the one that charges more and delivers less.

For groups like the ITIF, it’s hardly a surprise to see them mount a “nobody wants it or needs it”-dismissive posture towards fiber, because they represent the commercial providers who don’t have it.

Fiber Embargo

The Fiber-to-the-Home Council, perhaps the biggest promoter of fiber broadband delivered straight to customer homes, currently has 277 service provider members. With the exception of TDS Telecom, which owns and operates small phone companies serving a total of 1.1 million customers in 30 states, the FTTH Council’s American provider members are almost entirely family-run, independent, co-op, or municipally-owned.

Companies like American Samoa Telecommunications Authority, Hiawatha Broadband Communications, KanOkla Telephone Association Inc., and the Palmetto Rural Telephone Cooperative all belong.  AT&T, CenturyLink, Frontier, Verizon, and Windstream do not.  Neither do any large cable operators.

While not every member of the Council has deployed fiber to the home to its customers, many appreciate their future, and that of their communities, relies on a high-fiber diet.

EPB’s announcement of 1Gbps service was made possible because it operates its service over an entirely fiber optic network.  Company officials, when asked why they were introducing such a fast service in Chattanooga, answered simply, “because we can.”

The same question should have been directed to the city’s other providers, Comcast and AT&T.  Their answer would be “because we can’t… and won’t.”

Among large providers, only Verizon has the potential to deliver that level of service to its residential customers because it invested in fiber.  It was also punished by Wall Street for those investments, repeatedly criticized for spending too much money chasing longer term revenue.  Wall Street may have ultimately won that argument, because Verizon indefinitely suspended its FiOS expansion plans earlier this year, despite overwhelmingly positive reviews of the service.

So among these players, who are the real innovators?

The Phone Company: Holding On to Alexander Graham Bell for Dear Life

Last week, Frontier Communications told customers in western New York they don’t need FiOS-like broadband speeds delivered over fiber connections, so they’re not going to get them.  For Frontier, yesterday’s ADSL technology providing 1-3Mbps service in rural areas and somewhat faster speeds in urban ones is ‘more than enough.’

That “good enough for you” attitude is pervasive among many providers, especially large independent phone companies that are riding out their legacy copper wire networks as long as they’ll last.

What makes them different from locally-owned phone companies and co-ops that believe in fiber-t0-the-home?  Simply put, their business plans.

Companies like Frontier, FairPoint, Windstream, and CenturyLink all share one thing in common — their dependence on propping up their stock values with high dividend payouts and limited investments in network upgrades (capital expenditures):

Perhaps the most important metric for judging dividend sustainability, the payout compares how much money a company pays out in dividends to how much money it generates. A ratio that’s too high, say, above 80% of earnings, indicates the company may be stretching to make payouts it can’t afford.

Frontier’s payout ratio is 233%, which means the company pays out more than $2 in dividends for every $1 of earnings! But this ignores Frontier’s huge deferred tax benefit and the fact that depreciation and amortization exceed capital expenditures — the company’s actual free cash flow payout ratio is a much more manageable 73%. Dividend investors should ensure that benefit and Frontier’s cash-generating ability are sustainable.

In other words, Frontier’s balance sheet benefits from the ability to write off the declining value of much of its aging copper-wire network and from creative tax benefits that might be eliminated through legislative reform.

The nightmare scenario at Frontier is heavily investing in widespread network upgrades and improvements beyond DSL.  The company recently was forced to cut its $1 dividend payout to $0.75 to fund the recent acquisition of some Verizon landlines and for limited investment in DSL broadband expansion.

Frontier won’t seek to deploy fiber in a big way because it would be forced to take on more debt and potentially cut that dividend payout even further.  That’s something the company won’t risk, even if it means earning back customers who fled to cable competitors.  Long term investments in future proof fiber are not on the menu.  “That would be then and this is now,” demand shareholders insistent on short term results.

The broadband expansion Frontier has designed increases the amount of revenue it earns per customer while spending as little as possible to achieve it.  Slow speed, expensive DSL fits the bill nicely.

The story is largely the same among the other players.  One, FairPoint Communications, ended up in bankruptcy when it tried to integrate Verizon’s operations in northern New England and found it didn’t have the resources to pull it off, and delivered high speed broken promises, not broadband.

Meanwhile, many municipal providers, including EPB, are constructing fiber networks that deliver for their customers instead of focusing on dividend checks for shareholders.

Which is more innovative — mailing checks to shareholders or delivering world class broadband that doesn’t cost taxpayers a cent?

Cable: “People Don’t Realize the Days of Cable Company Upgrades are Basically Over”

While municipal providers like EPB appear in major national newspapers and on cable news breaking speed records and delivering service not seen elsewhere in the United States, the cable industry has a different story to share.

Kent

Suddenlink president and CEO Jerry Kent let the cat out of the bag when he told investors on CNBC that the days of cable companies spending capital on system upgrades are basically over.

“I think one of the things people don’t realize [relates to] the question of capital intensity and having to keep spending to keep up with capacity,” Kent said. “Those days are basically over, and you are seeing significant free cash flow generated from the cable operators as our capital expenditures continue to come down.”

Both cable and phone companies have called a technology truce in the broadband speed war.  Where phone companies rely on traditional DSL service to provide broadband, most cable companies raise their speeds one level higher and then vilify the competition with ads promoting cable’s speed advantages.  Phone companies blast cable for high priced broadband service they’re willing to sell for less, if you don’t need the fastest possible speeds.  But with the pervasiveness of service bundling, where consumers pay one price for phone, Internet, and television service, many customers don’t shop for individual services any longer.

With the advent of DOCSIS 3, the latest standard for cable broadband networks, many in the cable industry believe the days of investing in new infrastructure are over.  They believe their hybrid fiber-coaxial cable systems deliver everything broadband consumers will want and don’t see a need for fiber to the home service.

Their balance sheets prove it, as many of the nation’s largest cable companies reduce capital expenses and investments in system expansion.  Coming at the same time Internet usage is growing, the disparity between investment and demand on broadband network capacity sets the perfect stage for rate increases and other revenue enhancers like Internet Overcharging schemes.

Unfortunately for the cable industry, without a mass-conversion of cable-TV lineups to digital, which greatly increases available bandwidth for other services, their existing network infrastructure does not excuse required network upgrades.

EPB’s fiber optic system delivers significantly more capacity than any cable system, and with advances in laser technology, the expansion possibilities are almost endless.  EPB is also not constrained with the asynchronous broadband cable delivers — reasonably fast downstream speeds coupled with paltry upstream rates.  EPB delivers the same speed coming and going.  In fact, the biggest bottlenecks EPB customers are likely to face are those on the websites they visit.

EPB also delivered significant free speed upgrades to its customers earlier this year… and no broadband rate hike or usage limits.  In fact, EPB cut its price for 100Mbps service from $175 to $140.  Many cable companies are increasing broadband pricing, while major speed upgrades come to those who agree to pay plenty more to get them.

Which company has the kind of innovation you want — the one that delivers faster speeds for free or the one that experiments with usage limits and higher prices for what you already have?

No wonder Big Telecom is embarrassed.  They should be.

[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/EPB Interviews 9-20-10.flv[/flv]

EPB and Chattanooga city officials appeared in interviews on Bloomberg News and the Fox Business Channel.  CNET News also covered EPB’s 1Gbps service, introduced last week.  (12 minutes)