Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam telegraphed his plans to dump rural landline service last summer.

You should believe Verizon Communications CEO Lowell McAdam when he says he intends to end wired telephone and broadband service for areas that are simply not economically feasible for fiber upgrades. McAdam’s grand plan is now coming true for customers in parts of Florida and on Fire Island, N.Y.

Last summer, Stop the Cap! covered McAdam’s comments to Wall Street investors (that are always the first to know) at the Guggenheim Securities Symposium:

“In […] areas that are more rural and more sparsely populated, we have got [a wireless 4G] LTE build that will handle all of those services and so we are going to cut the copper off there,” McAdam said. “We are going to do it over wireless. So I am going to be really shrinking the amount of copper we have out there and then I can focus the investment on that to improve the performance of it.”

The writing is already on the wall:

1. Verizon has been penalized and criticized in several states by public utility commissions for the ongoing degradation of its copper network. Verizon sees further investment in copper technology as throwing good money after bad, but spending millions on additional fiber upgrades isn’t appealing either. The result is deteriorating service. From downtown Manhattan to New Jersey to Maryland, D.C. and Virginia, Verizon’s service failures have left customers frustrated and sometimes waiting weeks or months for repair crews to turn up to restore basic phone service. Even more dangerous, Verizon was to blame for significant 911 network failures near the nation’s capital. Post Sandy, there are still sections of lower Manhattan without phone service nearly five months after the storm struck. Five months.
2. Verizon sold off telephone service in northern New England several years ago to FairPoint Communications, knowing full well Verizon never had an interest in upgrading any part of Vermont, New Hampshire or Maine to fiber service. In many smaller former GTE telephone areas too small to successfully argue a case for return on investment, Verizon decided selling those territories off was the best option. Hawaiian Telcom and Frontier Communications now own many of those former-Verizon territories.
3. Verizon has decreased marketing its wired DSL service and stopped selling it altogether to customers who want broadband-only service. That seems counter-intuitive for a company that recognizes future revenue possibilities come primarily from broadband and data services.

Traditionally, customers reporting trouble on a phone line get a visit from Verizon technicians who track the problem down and repair it. But Verizon no longer wants to spend money fixing copper wire-related problems. Customers reporting chronic phone static or outages are now being asked to abandon their traditional landline service instead:

• In areas where Verizon FiOS fiber is available, the company disconnects the customer from copper service and switches them to the FiOS fiber network. This also provides future marketing opportunities, pitching broadband and television service to accompany a customer’s home phone. 
• In areas where fiber upgrades are not forthcoming, the company now proposes to disconnect the customer in favor of Voice Link, a wireless home phone replacement. This also opens marketing opportunities for Verizon Wireless to pitch cell phones and wireless Internet service.

The end of an era.

Customers who live in Florida currently have a choice. During the trial, they can switch to Voice Link or keep their current landline service. On Fire Island, just south of Long Island, customers will not have that choice. Verizon is testing the will of New York regulators asked to allow the company to gradually abandon landline and wired Internet facilities on the island. Customers previously knocked out by Hurricane Sandy have no alternative — switch to a wireless option like Voice Link or lose  telephone service. As the network degrades further on the island, it is a safe bet more Fire Island residents will find themselves confronted with a wireless future courtesy of Voice Link.

Verizon is careful to note its Voice Link service comes at no additional cost to customers — their phone bills will remain the same, at least for now. But the transition includes several important caveats:

1. Voice Link is not subject to state or federal oversight or quality of service consumer protection laws that apply to traditional landline service;
2. The customer is responsible for providing an indoor space to mount the equipment (hardly unobtrusive, the receiver is eight inches tall) and provide electric power and AA batteries for battery backup;
3. Voice Link does not work with any data services including broadband or dial-up Internet, faxing, medical monitoring, alarm systems, etc. You will be pitched an expensive Verizon Wireless data plan if you want Internet access;
4. During recent severe storms, copper landline networks often continued to work but cell phone service failed over wide areas because of call congestion and  long-term power outages. Similar failures will leave Voice Link non-operational;
5. Voice Link customers lose DSL service and may have little chance of getting it back once they switch.

Verizon’s solution for Fire Island represents the long-term vision of McAdam coming to fruition. Complaining customers have not been able to persuade the company to abandon its plan, but New York State regulators might, if the issue gets enough attention.

In states with less aggressive regulators, Verizon could implement its Fire Island strategy nearly at-will, especially in rural service areas. Verizon’s plan differs little from that of AT&T, another major service provider seeking permission from regulators to abandon rural landline networks. AT&T is betting the Federal Communications Commission will approve AT&T’s “network transition plan” for all of its rural customers. Verizon is starting smaller, gradually implementing its transition under the radar of many state and federal officials.

AT&T wants to wind down its own rural landline network.

So why adopt Voice Link — a wireless solution, when copper wire network repairs remain a viable option?

The reasons are simple:

1. Voice Link is cheaper to run and maintain as a wireless service and uses existing Verizon Wireless cell towers;
2. Verizon can further cut their unionized workforce that maintains the company’s landline network;
3. Wireless products escape regulatory oversight;
4. The company can push customers to wireless data products that cost far more than wired DSL broadband service;
5. Verizon doesn’t have to upgrade the rest of their network to fiber.

Customers in Verizon service areas should appeal to regulators and their elected officials to stop the abandonment of wired infrastructure. Verizon argues maintaining its network doesn’t make sense when customers are fleeing their landlines. But rural customers are not disconnecting broadband service that travels across the same network. Even basic DSL is coveted in rural Verizon territories where Internet access remains unavailable. Just about everyone wants the option of FiOS fiber, perhaps the most coveted network upgrade around until Google announced its gigabit fiber project in Kansas City.

Nobody wants Verizon or AT&T to keep up its copper wire facilities indefinitely. But a better solution would be a regulatory mandate that requires Verizon and AT&T to gradually replace antiquated and failing copper infrastructure with fiber wherever possible. It is more than possible to do this on Fire Island. Verizon’s service area in Florida is hardly rural either. Verizon Florida (formerly GTE Telephone) serves Tampa-St. Petersburg east to Lake Wales, a major metropolitan region in central Florida.

What is best for shareholders should not be the final determining factor for an important utility service. If customers prefer the option of Voice Link for home phone service, there is nothing wrong with that. But wireless service as the only option customers have for broadband service? Not at Verizon Wireless’ prices.

The city of Olathe, Kansas will be the next home for Google Fiber, according to an announcement published yesterday on the Google Fiber Blog.

The Olathe City Council unanimously approved an agreement to wire the city for the benefit of its 127,000 residents, located 20 miles southwest of Kansas City.

This is the first expansion of Google Fiber outside of the immediate Kansas City area, but unlikely to be the last.

Rich Greenfield from BTIG Research predicts Google will likely announce a second major city for its fiber network sometime this year. Olathe doesn’t qualify at that city because it technically within the greater Kansas City metropolitan area.

The agreement with the Olathe City Council also includes permission to build a city-wide Wi-Fi network.

Google noted the city’s willingness to cut red tape and to ease the introduction of the service were partly determining factors. Google earlier cited the importance of having a smooth working relationship with utility companies and local government officials that make fiber installation a lot easier.

Comcast will be Google’s largest competitor in the city.

“We think that fiber and widespread Internet access will help to create jobs, grow local businesses, and make Olathe even stronger as it grows,” said Rachel Hack, community manager for Google Fiber. “We still have a lot of planning and engineering work to do before we’re ready to bring fiber to Olathe. Once we get those processes underway, we’ll be able to announce more about pre-registration and construction timing.”

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KCTV Kansas City Olathe OKs Google Fiber Deal 3-19-13.mp4[/flv]

KCTV in Kansas City reports the Olathe City Council unanimously approved the entry of Google Fiber into the community of 127,000.  (2 minutes)

[flv width=”640″ height=”382″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KMBC Kansas City Olathe OKs Google Fiber deal 3-20-13.flv[/flv]

KMBC in Kansas City notes Olathe is Kansas’ fastest growing city, but Google’s decision is leaving residents of larger cities like Overland Park feeling left out. But Olathe already has a lot of pre-existing fiber installed independent of Google, making it easier to provide service.  (2 minutes)

Find the Frontier Fiber

After spending tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer money to wire more than 500 miles of fiber broadband cable in public buildings across West Virginia, Frontier is allegedly withholding detailed engineering maps detailing the new fiber network from its competitors.

The Charleston Gazette’s Eric Eyre has kept a close watch on broadband stimulus funding in West Virginia, and the circus of controversy surrounding how the money has been spent.

But now that Frontier’s taxpayer-funded institutional fiber network has been built, efforts to install Internet connections to end users has become complicated… unless you choose Frontier Communications as your vendor.

State Broadband Deployment Council member Jim Martin from Citynet has been a vocal critic of the broadband spending priorities in West Virginia for several years. He’s particularly irritated taxpayer funds have been effectively diverted to Frontier to build a modern fiber network that mostly benefits Frontier and its shareholders. Now his company wants to see if it can use the new fiber network to connect more West Virginians to fiber Internet service, but Martin claims he has been given the runaround by Frontier, state officials, and a broadband council that includes a Frontier executive as a member.

“A number of providers have inquired about where that fiber is located so they can expand broadband to customers,” Martin told the Gazette. “The engineering maps are important so they will know exactly where the fiber is connected, and so they can tap it.”

Only Martin cannot get the detailed engineering maps he needs. Eyre describes the high-tech equivalent of “button, button, who’s got the button?”

Martin started asking about the maps eight months ago. State officials overseeing the broadband expansion project promised to check into his request, but they haven’t released the engineering maps.

On Wednesday, Frontier executive Dana Waldo, who also serves on the Broadband Deployment Council, told Martin to request the maps from the state “broadband grant implementation team,” which heads the broadband expansion project.

“Those are requests that have to go to the implementation team,” said Waldo, who heads Frontier’s West Virginia operations. “It provides for a consistent process.”

However, Gale Given, who serves on the project team and heads the state’s Office of Technology, referred Martin to Frontier.

“If you need detailed engineering maps,” Given said, “it’s my understanding the [broadband project] team is not going to produce those.”

Given noted that less-detailed maps are available on the state’s broadband project website.

“If you need a specific area,” she said, “tell us the specific area you need.”

Martin says the maps on the website mentioned are hand-drawn Google Maps, unsuitable to work with because they lack detail.

New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced this week New York State will award $25 million in funding to expand high-speed Internet access in rural upstate and underserved urban areas of New York through the Connect NY Broadband Grant Program. This award brings the total amount of funding awarded for broadband projects during Governor Cuomo’s administration to more than $56 million, the largest statewide broadband funding commitment in the nation.

Unlike many broadband grant programs, New York is primarily targeting last-mile projects that make all the difference for New Yorkers that cannot get broadband service at any price. The federal government and some states have focused instead on funding institutional or “middle-mile” networks that ordinary consumers and businesses cannot access. The Connect NY Broadband Project specifically sought projects that will get residents broadband service as quickly as possible.

Pat Pryor is chair of the Tompkins County Legislature’s Special Committee on Broadband, which is fighting for better service in the Southern Tier of New York. Pryor says the grant will make a real difference because Verizon and Time Warner Cable have refused to expand service where they consider it unprofitable. She told the Innovation Trail the funding will help a wireless ISP in her county that specializes in serving rural areas bypassed by cable and DSL.  (1 minute)
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“Through the Connect NY program, we are bringing high-speed Internet access to all corners of New York State,” Cuomo said. “The projects receiving these grants represent the very best proposals with the most potential to benefit statewide economic and community development efforts. These funds will strengthen New York’s broadband capacity and encourage sustainable adoption of broadband service in unserved and underserved communities, counties and regions across the state.”

Cuomo

Altogether, about 6,000 square miles of new infrastructure will offer high-speed Internet service to 153,000 New York households, 8,000 businesses, and 400 community anchor institutions – many without any means to access the Internet. The projects will also create 1,400 new jobs.

The funding comes as a relief to New York residents who have gone without service for years, denied access to earlier grants in part because incumbent providers inaccurately claimed, through national broadband maps, they already offered full broadband coverage in many New York counties that actually don’t have service.

Tompkins County is a case in point. Verizon and Time Warner Cable, the dominant providers, volunteered incorrectly that almost the entire county was well-served with broadband. That proved frustrating to county legislator Pat Pryor.

“It matters, because a lot of times [the maps are] what grant funding is predicated on,” Pryor told the Innovation Trail. “[Funders say] If you don’t have any unserved areas, why would you need a grant? We’re almost 100 percent covered, why would we need any money?”

Claire Perez has spent more than a year fighting for broadband for her neighborhood in West Dryden, which is just over 1/2-mile from the nearest Time Warner Cable customer. She talked with the Innovation Trail last March about her plight. Despite endless rounds of petitioning the cable operator to extend service, the company would only quote “go-away” prices ranging from $23,000-54,000 to wire her neighborhood and home. Perez, and others like her, may be among the biggest beneficiaries of the broadband expansion program if they are near a Time Warner Cable service area. (3 minutes)
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The specifics:

$24,010 The Smithville Project
This project with Haefele TV Inc. will serve the Southern Tier region. The Smithville project will build fiber optic cable utilizing existing infrastructure. The network will pass 350 homes and provide broadband service with speeds of 7 Mbps download and 1.5 Mbps upload to approximately 100 new subscribers.

$114,015 Ovid and Romulus Broadband Project
This project with Trumansburg Telephone Company will serve the Finger Lakes region. The Ovid and Romulus Broadband Project will provide broadband to unserved areas in company territory in the towns of Ovid and Romulus. This project will enable 110 customers in this area that have no availability to any type of broadband services to obtain high-speed Internet service. The project will also offer discounts on subscription fees, free training and email addresses.

$200,000 Connect Thurman White Space Project
This project with Warren County Economic Development Corporation will serve the Capital District region. Through a public/private partnership, the Thurman White Space project will provide broadband access to 89 households in the northeast area of the Town of Thurman. The Town of Thurman will also offer economically disadvantaged residents access to public computers and enhanced digital literacy training.

$557,000 Essex County Broadband Service Expansion
This project will serve the North Country region. The Essex County Broadband Service Expansion project will provide high-speed broadband service to households that do not have access within the Towns of Jay and Wilmington, passing 1,900 households. The project will also provide digital video services and potentially a competitive telephone service.

$558,940 Otsego County Wireless Network
This project with the County of Otsego IDA will serve the Mohawk Valley region. The Otsego County Wireless Network will partner with a last-mile provider to leverage a county-wide, open access fiber backbone to deploy last-mile, wireless broadband to 24 towns, 9 villages and 1 city in Otsego County, serving approximately 28,000 households, 4,500 businesses and 300 community anchor institution locations. The wireless network will also be made available to any viable organization or service provider that wishes to use it.

$572,000 Hamilton and Herkimer Counties Broadband
The Broadband 1 project with Newport Telephone Company is a multi-region project serving the North Country and Mohawk Valley regions. The project will leverage existing infrastructure to provide broadband service to 230 residents, businesses and community anchor institutions in Hamilton and Herkimer Counties. The project will also enhance emergency services for both counties.

$672,452 Southern Tier Broadband
This project with the Southern Tier West Development Foundation will serve the Western region. The project will expand access to broadband service and increase broadband speeds through a WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) system to towns and villages in the counties of Chautauqua, Allegany, Cattaraugus, and Erie County, passing more than 41,000 households. The project will also partner with local medical clinics to enhance electronic medical records and upgrade hardware and software at libraries in Chautauqua, Cattaraugus, Allegany, Steuben, and Chemung Counties.

$800,000 Allegany County Broadband
This project with Allegany County will serve the Western New York region. The Allegany County Broadband project will create a county-wide platform for providing access to an existing network, delivering broadband to 28 local communities and 17,440 households in Allegany County that are currently without broadband service.

$976,426 Lyon Mountain Broadband
This project with Slic Network Solutions will serve the North Country region. The Lyon Mountain Broadband Project will provide high-speed, low-cost broadband service in the Community of Lyon Mountain to 527 households, utilizing fiber-to-the-home technology. In addition this network will also deliver telephone service, IPTV service, and advance business services over the fiber.

$1,012,366 Bellmont North Next Generation Broadband
This project with Slic Network Solutions will serve the North Country region. The Bellmont North Next Generation Broadband project will provide high-speed, low-cost broadband service in the Adirondack Park to the northern end of the Town of Bellmont. This service will be delivered utilizing 25.3 miles of fiber to the home and wireless technology to connect 124 households. The network will also allow for the delivery of telephone service, IPTV service, and advance business services over the fiber.

$1,636,346 Connect NYC
This project with the New York City Economic Development Corporation will serve the New York City region. By conducting a competition to fund fiber build out to small and medium businesses and in collaboration with private sector Internet Service Providers, the Connect NYC Project will be used to extend the fiber infrastructure available to commercial and industrial businesses in New York City.

$1,800,000 MTC Broadband Buildout
The MARK Project Inc. will serve municipalities in the Capital District, Mohawk Valley and the Southern Tier. The project will deliver telecommunications services, including broadband, voice and video services, to 900 residents, businesses, and anchor institutions within the unserved areas of the towns of Conesville, Gilboa, Halcott, Middletown, and Roxbury. The project will also offer broadband connectivity to community anchor institutions within the service area free of charge.

$1,999,584 Parish Broadband
This project with New Visions Communications will serve the Central New York region. The project will utilize existing infrastructure to provide high-speed internet, VoIP and cable television to the Town of Parish, where 72% of the population does not have access to broadband, VoIP or landline cable television. The project will also create 20 construction jobs and 6 permanent jobs.

$2,042,177 Connecting the Capital Region
Hudson Valley Wireless will provide high-speed fixed wireless broadband access to nearly 40,000 households and 2,000 businesses that currently do not have access in Washington and Rensselaer Counties. In addition, the network will enhance public safety operations in the region by enabling redundancy of public safety communications and by allowing municipalities to use a portion of the bandwidth at no cost.

$2,162,656 Schroon Lake Next Generation Broadband
This project with Slic Network Solutions will serve the North Country region. Slic Networks Solutions will provide high-speed, low-cost broadband service to 457 households in the unserved areas of the Town of Schroon and the Town of North Hudson. This service will be delivered utilizing fiber to the home technology. Slic will also provide wireless hot spots for frequently visited public locations including the public beach in Schroon Lake.

$2,216,000 Tompkins and Cayuga Counties Last Mile Coverage
This project with Clarity Connect Inc. is a multi-region project serving the Central New York and Southern Tier regions. This project leverages existing tower infrastructure to provide broadband services to the unserved portions of the Towns of Ulysses, Enfield, Newfield, Danby, Groton, Lansing, Ledyard, Genoa, Venice, Scipio, Niles, Sempronius, and Summerhill in Cayuga and Tompkins County. The project will also upgrade DSL services increasing existing speeds.

$2,407,049 Yates County Open Access Fiber Network
This project with Yates County will serve the Finger Lakes region. The Open Access Fiber Network will build and operate a fiber-optic ring with spurs to remote areas within the County of Yates. This network will serve as a backbone foundation for the development of community-based broadband initiatives. The open access fiber network will be 68 miles long, passing 10,400 households and available for use within each town it routes through.

$5,266,979 Statewide Broadband Expansion
The Statewide Broadband Expansion Project is a statewide project serving 9 regions. Time Warner Cable will deploy robust high-speed Internet service to 4,114 households in the Capital, Central, Finger Lakes, Mid-Hudson, Mohawk Valley, NYC, North Country, Southern Tier and Western regions of New York State. The project will also provide residents with access to digital TV, telephone services and security services.

Mayor Guest

Despite protests from major technology companies, consumers, and local communities across Georgia, the House Energy, Utilities and Telecommunications Committee passed a slightly-revised HB 282, a bill that would largely ban communities from building their own networks to deliver 21st century broadband service. The bill has been moved out of the Rules Committee and will be debated on the House floor Thursday. Readers can find and contact their state representative (preferably leaving a phone message opposing HB 282) through this website. Do it this afternoon!

Last Thursday, community leaders appeared in Atlanta to oppose the corporate welfare protectionism that HB 282 represents.

“Let’s talk about economic development,” said Elberton Mayor Larry Guest. “Georgia should be promoting a pro-business, inclusive approach to broadband deployment, especially in rural areas of the state,” he said. “Competition ensures market-based pricing and faster delivery of state-of-the-art services. We have to do everything we can to attract jobs. If we don’t do that, business will not select rural Georgia. High speed access is essential to us.”

Mark Creekmore depends on his Internet connection in his Dawsonville home as part of his job and Windstream has let him down for at least three years. He pays for 12Mbps service and regularly receives around 600kbps service after 3pm because Windstream has hopelessly oversold its DSL service.

“No one should have to pay for Internet speeds they are not receiving and be told that because they live in a rural area, getting them fixed is just not a priority,” Creekmore complains. “That’s like saying: ‘Because you live in the sticks, you do not deserve what the city folks deserve despite the fact that you pay the same money for service that they do.'”

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WGCL Atlanta New Bill Hinders Broadband 2-26-13.mp4[/flv]

WGCL, the CBS station in Atlanta, is asking tough questions about HB 282 and exactly who it will benefit. Some suspect the bill will protect Windstream from having to upgrade its broadband services, something essential to Dawsonville resident Mark Creekmore, who has to turn customers away because Windstream’s DSL service is so poor in his area.  (3 minutes)

Creekmore is incensed Windstream is behind a push to pass HB 282, which bill supporters claim will “stimulate investment in rural broadband,” at the same time the phone company leaves him and others with substandard speeds and service.

“I do not think it is ethical for companies like Windstream, already benefiting from taxpayer dollars, to back a bill that will keep municipalities from offering their residents something better,” said Creekmore.

Creekmore opposes government waste, but is not opposed to local communities stepping up when telecommunications companies have let their customers down.

Despite claims HB 282 will promote rural broadband expansion, Windstream’s CEO Jeff Gardner told investors the opposite Feb. 19 in a conference call.

“We will finish most of our broadband stimulus initiatives which expands our addressability to roughly 75,000 new households,” said Gardner. “As we exit 2013, we will see capital spending related to these projects decrease substantially.”

Windstream’s broadband problems are not limited to rural Georgia. In rural Missouri, Windstream’s DSL service has performed so poorly in certain communities local businesses have had to shut down operations for the day when kids are out on “snow days” because service deteriorates to the point it becomes unusable.

Thomasville, Ga., runs a public fiber to the home network that delivers the speeds it advertises.

“Windstream has made it clear that they have no plans to invest in areas where they don’t feel they can be profitable,” said Piedmont Area Chamber of Commerce president Scott Combs.

Because rural broadband problems remain so pervasive, a group of technology companies including Google and Alcatel-Lucent sent a letter to the chairman of the Georgia House Energy, Utilities and Telecommunications Committee protesting the bill:

The private sector alone cannot enable the United States to take full advantage of the opportunities that advanced communications networks can create in virtually every area of life. As a result, federal and state efforts are taking place across the Nation, including Georgia, to deploy both private and public broadband infrastructure to stimulate and support economic development and job creation, especially in economically distressed areas. HB 282 would prevent public broadband providers from building the sorely needed advanced broadband infrastructure that will stimulate local businesses development, foster work force retraining, and boost employment in economically underachieving areas.

Thus far, the only response has been to slightly ease the language in the bill, now defining suitable broadband at 3Mbps service, up from 1.5Mbps. Communities with municipally owned utilities would also be exempt from the prohibition on selling telecom services. But that is hardly enough.

“Three megabits is not adequate to do functions in a modern telecommunications world,” said Thomasville mayor Max Beverly.

Thomasville has its own public broadband network and the difference between it and providers like Windstream are quickly apparent.

While Windstream sells rural Georgians service at 12Mbps but actually delivers less than 1Mbps, Thomasville residents are excited about forthcoming upgrades to 20Mbps service that actually means 20Mbps service. Thomasville’s fiber network has proved so financially successful, the community eliminated its local property tax. If HB 282 passes, other communities will find constructing such networks nearly impossible.

Democracy Now! featured Chris Mitchell and Catharine Rice on March 4, who talked about how large telecom companies are lobbying to ban community-owned broadband networks, including those in Georgia. AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and others are having success in the southeastern United States with the help of Republican state lawmakers and conservative groups with ties to the Koch Brothers. (10 minutes)