Werner

Cable operators are getting ready for competition from Google and other fiber providers with an upgrade to the cable broadband standard DOCSIS that will support up to 10/1Gbps service.

Comcast chief technology officer Tony Werner told attendees at the Washington, D.C. Cable Show that DOCSIS 3.1 will deliver about a 50% improvement in spectrum efficiency.

The new standard relies on orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM), a standard already used by the wireless industry to get tighter performance from existing wireless spectrum.

The cable industry’s weakness remains its broadband upstream capacity. Standards originally developed for cable broadband assume users will download far more content than upload, so the focus has always been on download speeds. Upload speeds have been anemic in comparison. Until recently, cable technicians worried they would have to dedicate considerably more bandwidth for faster upstream speeds, but with improved standards, that may no longer be true.

Time Warner Cable’s chief technology officer Mike LaJoie is convinced his company will not have to widen upstream bandwidth. Time Warner has been among the stingiest providers of broadband speed upgrades,  still offering residential customers in most service areas a maximum of 50/5Mbps service, even as Comcast has upgraded to 305Mbps in certain markets, mostly in the northeast. This week Comcast demonstrated 3Gbps broadband, primarily to prove the cable broadband platform will be able to compete with fiber technology.

LaJoie

The first trials of the new broadband standard are anticipated in 2014, with modems for sale later that year or early 2015. Comcast is expected to begin buying and deploying DOCSIS 3.1-capable modems “when it makes financial sense.”

Major speed increases will require cable companies to accelerate the transition to all-digital video platforms to free up available cable spectrum. The faster the offered speeds, the more channels must be dedicated to providing broadband. Operators don’t see a space crunch anytime soon, especially if they move towards an all-IP platform that would support all services through a giant broadband pipe.

Cox Cable, for example, is planning to move more of its analog channels to digital to free up capacity for faster broadband speeds.

But exactly when consumers will be able to use the faster speeds possible from DOCSIS 3.1 is up to your provider.

Time Warner Cable is not convinced customers even need or want 100Mbps speed, so expect some cable companies to not even attempt gigabit broadband for years to come.

LaJoie dismissed triple digit megabit speeds as a novelty that is not “very deeply penetrated” in the marketplace — marketspeak for “not attracting many customers.”

“There has not been a demonstrated appetite for it,” LaJoie said.

Powell

You and I may think America can do better providing fast and inexpensive broadband service. But a former chairman of the FCC now representing industry interests waved shiny keys of distraction to explain away why cable companies are still delivering Internet speeds slower than those found in Romania, Latvia, South Korea and Japan.

Michael Powell, the poster child of D.C.’s “revolving door” problem gave a well-compensated, rousing (yet fact-lacking) defense of an industry he was supposed to oversee in the public interest as the Bush Administration’s FCC chairman from 2001-2005.

“America is home to the world’s very best Internet companies,” said Michael Powell, chief executive of the National Cable and Telecommunications Assn. at the annual Cable Show in Washington, D.C. “We have worked hard to reach everyone, and now offer service to 93% of American homes. Despite our success, many people like to denigrate U.S. broadband by painting false comparisons to other countries. There are some nations doing very well, but it is foolish to compare countries like Latvia and France to the United States of America.”

Powell’s response is hardly a fact-filled defense for cable company broadband that still delivers slow speeds at high prices. Instead of attempting to call the statistics inaccurate, he tried to explain away the discrepancy by complaining people are ignoring the size of the country and its population.

In denial

Powell’s arguments might have some merit if the cable industry did not make a point of bypassing vast rural areas that do not meet Return on Investment tests. It is difficult to claim cable companies cannot deliver comparatively fast service in rural Iowa when they don’t offer any service at all.

The People’s Republic of China’s population is far larger than our own and is now a vital market for fiber optics manufacturers and suppliers. While some of America’s cable industry CEOs repeatedly argue America does not need fiber broadband or gigabit broadband speeds, the Chinese government has insisted that every new housing development be pre-wired with fiber that will easily and inexpensively supply those speeds in the near future.

Powell is correct to say speeds are improving in the United States, but there is growing evidence they are improving even faster overseas, especially in countries that are basing their primary telecommunication infrastructure on fiber optics, which can support enormously fast Internet speeds. As those fiber networks are lit, America will fall even faster in broadband rankings as long as cable operators continue to insist there is no demand or interest in the next generation of high-speed service. At the prices they charge, they may just prove their own “no demand”-argument, at least in this country.

Powell himself helped lay the foundation for America’s broadband duopoly by deregulating the industry with one hand while ignoring the need for competitive checks and balances with the other. At the end of Powell’s tenure, his greatest achievement was constructing an industry-friendly personal resumé to win lucrative employment as a telecommunications lobbyist.

Who better to speak with “authority” on telecommunications matters than a well-connected former FCC chairman that does the industry’s bidding? The NCTA hired him to deliver just the kind of defense cable operators hope Americans will believe.

Those that are aware of what broadband is like abroad don’t.

Still waiting for Verizon FiOS in New York City? Are you annoyed that your neighbors have impressive broadband speeds from an all-fiber network while you suffer with DSL or cable broadband from Time Warner or Cablevision? Your landlord may be the problem.

While cities upstate clamor for Verizon’s fiber upgrades, FiOS has gone unappreciated and unwanted by more than 40 building owners either blocking the company from entering their properties or ignoring repeated letters from Verizon requesting permission to begin upgrades. In many instances, Verizon has tried to make contact since 2010 with no success. Some building owners want extra compensation (sometimes to the extreme) before they will grant permission. Others don’t want the phone company performing work inside their buildings, period.

Now Verizon is appealing to the New York State Public Service Commission to ask for their intervention.

Verizon has the right to install cable television facilities, regardless of the landlord’s objections, under Section 228 of the New York Public Service Law, which states: “No landlord shall interfere with the installation of cable television facilities upon his property or premises ….”

Verizon has promised it will bear the full cost of the installation of its equipment, wiring, and other facilities to offer the service, as well as indemnify the landlord for any damage caused by the installation work.

In April, Verizon was criticized by New York City public advocate Bill de Blasio for falling behind schedule providing access to FiOS in low-income communities.

“Five years into one of the biggest franchise agreements issued by the city, roughly half of homes still have no access to fiber network connections—most of them concentrated in low-income areas like Upper Manhattan, the South Bronx, Western Queens and Central Brooklyn,” said de Blasio.

The public advocate added:

Under Verizon’s 2008 franchise agreement, all New York City residents are supposed to have access to fiber optic networks by June 2014. As a benchmark, the contract required the company to reach more than three-quarters of City residents by the end of 2012, but according to data released through the New York State Office of Information Technology Services, only half of New York City’s 3.4 million housing units had access to fiber broadband services at year’s end—putting the company far behind schedule. Brooklyn and the Bronx lagged furthest behind, with only 40 percent and 46 percent of household having access to fiber, respectively.

de Blasio

Verizon and the Bloomberg Administration dispute de Blasio’s findings, noting fiber upgrades often depend on surrounding infrastructure. Where overhead wiring predominates, Verizon FiOS is available nearly everywhere in New York City. In other areas, Verizon says it is meeting its obligations and points to landlord impediments for slowing down FiOS expansion.

But de Blasio’s maps of FiOS availability do depict a pattern of preference for FiOS service in areas where higher income residents live. In areas where average annual income is below $20,000 annually, there are obvious service gaps. Neighborhoods like Washington Heights, High Bridge, Astoria, Woodside, Bedford-Stuyvesant and Bushwick have been largely excluded from FiOS to date, according to de Blasio.

Verizon’s franchise agreement with the city only requires the company to make service available to buildings, not necessarily within them. A landlord can delay Verizon’s entry into a building or the company could choose to prioritize some buildings over others for service.

With large sections of New York covered by multiple dwelling units like apartments and condos, some could find themselves without FiOS service for several years, particularly if a property owner decides to make life difficult for the phone company.

Among the latest who have:

On May 24, Verizon notified the PSC the following property owners had complied with their request to conduct a site survey inside their buildings and were requested to be dropped from the list republished above:

• Sama Los Tres LLC – c/o Metropolitan Realty Group
• Lenoxville Associates – c/o Metropolitan Realty Group
• 2816 Roebling Avenue LLC
• East Village Gardens
• 194 Bleecker Street Owners Corp.
• US Manhattan II Housing Corp.
• 40 Renwick Street LLC

“I will be dead in the ground before Verizon gets around to restoring my phone line, and I have been their customer for 72 years,” says Irene, 95, one irate now-ex Verizon customer in New Jersey.

She, like many others, lost her Verizon landline during Hurricane Sandy and has waited for its return ever since.

“She has the patience of a saint, but if Verizon was in charge of admitting people beyond the Pearly Gates, there would be a line stretching endlessly across the heavenly clouds,” shares Irene’s daughter Agnes.

Irene and her late husband had their telephone hooked up by Verizon’s predecessor three days before Pearl Harbor. For the non-history initiated, that was Dec. 4, 1941.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt called Dec. 7, 1941 a Day of Infamy. Irene’s family calls Oct. 29, 2012 “The Day After Infamy” after Hurricane Sandy slammed ashore in the northeast and wiped out phone service up and down the tri-state coastal area. She is still waiting for her dial tone to return on her 1972 rotary dial phone.

“Everyday I pick it up just to see if there is anyone there, and of course there isn’t,” Irene tells Stop the Cap! “I used to worry about the cat knocking the phone receiver on the floor, but it does not make much difference anymore.”

Irene cannot understand why Verizon is allowed to get away with such shoddy service.

“Just a few years ago, if your phone was out for three days you would have a supervisor apologizing and sending repairmen out even if their supper was waiting on the table getting cold,” Irene remembers. “Those days are over I suppose.”

Irene lives with her daughter in a home that escaped the worst of the storm, but unfortunately her phone service was not so lucky. Verizon has not provided fiber optics in her part of New Jersey yet either, so FiOS is not an option.

“You call Verizon and they are very apologetic on the phone and keep writing up service calls, but unfortunately nobody ever comes and nobody will tell us anything,” Agnes said. “We even tried praying, but Verizon answers to a different God.”

Irene’s great-grandchildren visit with cell phones in hand and cannot understand why Irene still bothers with her home phone, and the family purchased her a cell phone for Christmas to use in the interim but Irene has thrown it in a drawer.

“My phone has been with me since Richard Nixon was in the White House and it is all I have ever needed or wanted,” Irene says. “Agnes will answer the cell phone and hand it to me but the sound on it is terrible, like everyone is in the shower when they are calling.”

Agnes also dials outgoing calls for Irene, and her grandchildren helped her compose the e-mail sent to Stop the Cap! asking if we could help.

“My kids told me Verizon has installed these wireless boxes and screwing them into the wall and I don’t want that,” Irene insisted. “I just want them to fix the phone line and leave it be.”

Irene adds she has paid The Phone Company more than her fair share during the last seven decades.

But during a recent emergency family meeting, a decision was made to deal with a half-year of the “Verizon Problem” once and for all. After corresponding with us, they are signing up for Comcast phone service instead.

“The man at Comcast said I could keep my current phone and I don’t have to have an ugly box screwed into my wall, which suits me fine, but they should know I don’t care for their prices or all of that nonsense they put on the television.”

Comcast installed the family’s phone service yesterday and all is well, at least until the cat knocked the phone off the hook again.

Irene asked her last name be omitted for privacy.

One of the chairs of the North Carolina House Finance Committee abruptly resigned his chairmanship on the House floor Wednesday, submitting a letter read aloud in the chamber that accused fellow Republican House Speaker Thom Tillis (R-Mecklenburg) of having an unexplained business relationship with Time Warner Cable.

Rep. Robert Brawley (R-Iredell) wrote Tillis burst into his office demanding to know about a bill Brawley introduced that would have weakened the 2011 law Tillis strongly supported that severely restricted publicly owned broadband networks in the state.

“You slamming my office door shut, standing in front of me and stating that you have a business relationship with Time Warner and wanting to know what the bill was about,” Brawley wrote in his resignation letter. “You and I both know the bill stifles the competition with MI Connections in Mooresville. MI Connections is being operated just as any other free enterprise system and should be allowed to do so without the restrictions placed on them by the proponents of Time Warner.”

Tillis’ office described the resignation of Brawley’s chairmanship as “a mutual decision.”

Tillis was honored in 2011 as ALEC’s “Legislator of the Year” and received an undisclosed cash reward. Time Warner Cable is a corporate member of ALEC.

House Bill 557, introduced by Brawley, would have permitted an exception under state law for the community-owned MI Connection cable system to expand its area of service to include economic development sites, public safety facilities, governmental facilities, and schools and colleges located in and near the city of Statesville. It would also allow the provider to extend service based on the approval of the Board of County Commissioners and, with respect to schools, the Iredell County School Board.

The bill died in the Committee on Government earlier this month.

MI Connection is the publicly owned and operated cable and Internet system serving the towns of Mooresville, Davidson and Cornelius in the counties of Mecklenburg and Iredell. It was originally a former Adelphia-owned cable system that fell into disrepair before it was sold in a bankruptcy proceeding. MI Connection has proved financially challenging to the local communities it serves because the antiquated cable system required significant and costly upgrades, faces fierce competition from AT&T and Time Warner Cable, and lacks the technological advantage fiber to the home offers other public networks like Greenlight in Wilson and Fibrant in Salisbury. Despite the challenges, MI Connection has successfully upgraded its broadband infrastructure with the fastest speeds available in the area — up to 60/10Mbps.

Tillis helped shepherd into law the 2011 bill that Time Warner Cable helped write and sponsor designed to stop public networks like MI Connection from expanding and new public networks ever seeing the light of day. The legislation places strict limits on public broadband network deployment and financing. The bill Brawley introduced would have chipped away at the law’s limits on network expansion. Brawley’s letter suggests Tillis had direct involvement stopping his bill from getting further consideration.

Brawley

Both Brawley and Tillis represent portions of the MI Connection service area.

Time Warner Cable has a long history pushing for community broadband bans in North Carolina, but the bills never became law when the legislature was still in the hands of Democrats. But in late 2010, Republicans took control of the state house for the first time in more than a century. Time Warner Cable’s fortunes brightened considerably under Republicans like Rep. Marilyn Avila (R-Wake). Avila willingly met with Time Warner Cable’s top lobbyist to coordinate movement on the community broadband ban legislation she introduced and after it became law was honored by the state cable lobby at a retreat in Asheville.

Tillis, who became speaker of the house in 2011 under the new GOP majority, received $37,000 in telecom contributions in 2010–2011 (despite running unopposed in 2010), which is more than any other state lawmaker and significantly more than the $4,250 he received 2006–2008 combined. AT&T, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon each gave Tillis $1,000 in early-mid January, just before he was sworn in as speaker on January 26. Tillis was in a key position to make sure the anti-competitive bill moved along the legislative pipeline.

Last summer, Time Warner Cable returned the favor inviting Tillis to serve a prominent role at a media event inaugurating its Wi-Fi network in time for last year’s Democratic National Convention, held at the Time Warner Cable Arena.

Despite all that, newspapers in the state are having trouble determining exactly what ties Tillis has to Time Warner Cable. The Raleigh News & Observer noted, “It’s unclear what relationship Tillis might have to Time Warner. His financial disclosure lists no connection.”

The Greensboro News & Record published a non-denial denial from Tillis spokesman Jordan Shaw: “Shaw said he doesn’t know of any business relationship between Tillis and Time Warner.” The paper added, “a regional Time-Warner spokesman said Tillis has no ties to the company.”

“Not knowing” is not a total denial and a legislator need not have direct ties to a company to be influenced by their agenda through lobbyists like the North Carolina Cable Telecommunications Association, the statewide cable trade association that includes Time Warner Cable as its largest member. Then there are third-party groups.

A May 7 editorial in the News & Observer pointed out Tillis does have close ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a group financed in part by Time Warner Cable and cited by CEO Glenn Britt as a useful asset to the cable operator because it was “particularly focused on telecom matters.” The commentary, “ALEC’s Guy is Thom Tillis,” reminded readers Tillis wasn’t just a casual member of the corporate-funded group, he’s a national board member. In fact, Stop the Cap! has learned he was ALEC’s 2011 Legislator of the Year. On hand at the 2011 New Orleans ALEC event to applaud Tillis were more than two dozen fellow North Carolina Republican legislators, including Reps. Marilyn Avila and Julia Howard.

Among the model, corporate ghost-written bills ALEC maintains in its extensive database is one that restricts or bans publicly owned broadband networks, similar to what passed in North Carolina in 2011.

The fortunes of ALEC (and the corporations that underwrite its operations) have continued to improve in North Carolina this year. The News & Observer notes:

ALEC, as it’s known, has provided language for bills that [have been] used this session in North Carolina, ranging from creating an independent board to take charter school governance away from the State Board of Education to protecting a Philadelphia-based company from lawsuits involving asbestos exposure to installing an anti-union amendment in the state constitution. Closer to home, the Civitas Institute, a conservative group, used ALEC literature in an indoctrination…er, training…session for freshman lawmakers.

“I wish you’d turn the camera off now because I am going to get up and leave if you don’t,” said Rep. Julia Howard

Uncovering the corporate influence and pay to play politics pervasive in North Carolina’s legislature on broadband matters has proved historically scandalous for members and ex-members alike, as Stop the Cap! has reported for more than four years:

• In 2009, Rep. Ty Harrell (D-Wake) ran away from his own bill to ban community broadband after he admitted he ran into a hornet’s nest of controversy over the legislation, which was introduced because Time Warner approached him and asked for it. Later that same year he ran into another hornet’s nest over allegations of misused campaign funds and resigned his office;
• In 2010, Sen. David Hoyle admitted he introduced a community broadband ban in the North Carolina Senate that the cable industry wrote with his help. When asked about criticism that he was “carrying water” for the cable companies, Hoyle replied, “I’ve carried more water than Gunga Din for the business community – the people who pay the taxes.” He decided not to run for re-election;
• In 2011, life became uncomfortable for Rep. Julia Howard (R-Davie, Iredell), who became so upset over scrutiny she received from Raleigh’s NBC affiliate over the bill to ban community broadband, she threatened to flee the interview if the cameras were not shut off.

Tillis is following in others’ footsteps and is suspected of having even bigger political ambitions for 2014 — challenging the U.S. Senate seat now held by Democrat Kay Hagan.

The News & Observer thinks Tillis is forgetting about the people who elected him to office:

For North Carolinians of any political philosophy, however, the larger concern here is that laws are being written by those outside the state with only an ideological interest. ALEC, except for advancing its agenda, likely could care less about issues specific to North Carolina, things of intense, day-to-day concern to North Carolinians.

And not only are bills being influenced by ALEC, the speaker of the House is on the group’s board.

Thom Tillis and his Republican mates on Jones Street weren’t elected to march to orders issued by some national organization. Perhaps if they kept their eyes and ears open for constituents, their legislative agenda might be more about them and less about doing ALEC’s bidding.

Brawley himself is not free from controversy. In addition to attending the aforementioned ALEC event in New Orleans with Tillis, Avila, and Howard, earlier this year Brawley introduced House Bill 640, legislation that would roll back ethics reforms and allow lobbyists to once again give gifts to state lawmakers without any public disclosure.

Brawley told WRAL-TV that required ethics classes on gifts and disclosure requirements “are useless for anyone without internal ethics anyway. They only tell you the law. They do not guarantee integrity. What makes you think a person without ethics is going to obey a law anyway?”

The laws were enacted after a major 2006 scandal involving then-House Speaker Jim Black.

Corrections: In the original article, we mistakenly identified the News & Observer as a Charlotte newspaper. It is actually published in Raleigh. We also wrote that House Bill 557 died without being assigned to any committee for consideration. We received word the bill was actually referred to the Committee on Government on Apr. 4, 2013 where no further action was apparently taken. We regret the errors.