Get out your tiny violins.  Telephone and cable companies that have ignored your neighborhood for years are decrying attempts by the federal government to fund projects that would finally extend broadband service to rural America.  Companies ranging from tiny Eagle Communications in Kansas, to major regional telephone companies like FairPoint Communications and Windstream, are upset that new providers are on the way to deliver broadband service to bypassed homes or communities stuck in their broadband slow lane.

The Associated Press reports coast-to-coast complaints from incumbents who have refused to deliver service or force customers to accept 1-3Mbps speeds indefinitely.

From the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Great Plains, some local phone and cable companies fear they will have to compete with government-subsidized broadband systems, paid for largely with stimulus dollars. If these taxpayer-funded networks siphon off customers with lower prices, private companies warn that they could be less likely to upgrade their own lines, endangering jobs and undermining the goals of the stimulus plan.

That’s rich coming from some providers who threaten to refuse to upgrade lines they’ve never upgraded, endanger employees they’ve long since cut, and threaten their quest for monopoly profits serving rural Americans larger carriers are rapidly abandoning.

Anemic Broadband Is Not in Kansas Anymore

Kansas-based Eagle Communications provides cable and wireless broadband service to more than a dozen small towns in the state.  For more populated areas, it’s cable broadband service.  For the rural parts of its service areas, Eagle relegates everyone to a slower speed, more expensive wireless network.

The company is upset to learn about additional expansion forthcoming from Rural Telephone Company, a cooperative which recently won a $101 million stimulus grant to construct a fiber optic system to expand service.  With the grant, the co-op phone company will move beyond its currently constrained DSL broadband network into areas even Eagle’s rural wireless signal won’t reach.

Rural Telephone Company says their broadband grant will provide service “in an area 99.5 percent unserved/underserved and provide a rural infrastructure required for economic stability, education and health care.”

Eagle says it’s unfair competition.

“It is extremely unfair that the government comes in and uses big government money to harm existing private businesses,” Gary Shorman, president of Eagle Communications, told the AP.  “This hurts our company.”

“It’s a little disappointing that companies that aren’t adequately serving these areas are trying to undercut those of us who are trying to step in and get the service where it’s needed,” says Lawrence Strickling, head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the arm of the Commerce Department handing out much of the stimulus money.

The $101 million Kansas project, for instance, will bring connection speeds of up to 1 gigabit to businesses and up to 100 megabits to as many as 23,000 homes. While the network will cover the population center of Hays, where both Rural Telephone and Eagle Communications already offer broadband, that accounts for just eight of the 4,600 square miles to be reached. Much of the area has no broadband at all, says Larry Sevier, Rural Telephone’s chief executive.

The goal is to “close the digital divide between Hays and the outlying areas,” says Jonathan Adelstein, head of the Rural Utilities Service, which awarded the money.

For rural Kansans choosing between Eagle’s wireless service or Rural Telephone’s current maximum 1.5Mbps DSL service for those outside of the Hays city limits, the definition of “high speed service” maxes out at an anemic 3Mbps:

Eagle Communications Wireless Network Pricing – Hays, Kansas

• Eagle 256/256 $34.95 /per month
• Eagle 768/512 $37.95 /per month
• Eagle 1.0/384 $44.95 /per month
• Eagle 2/512 $54.95 /per month
• Eagle 3/512 $59.95 /per month

Rural Telephone Company Pricing for Outside the City Limits – Hays, Kansas

• Rural Telephone’s 1.5Mbps DSL — $29.95 per month
• Rural Telephone’s 512kbps DSL — $19.95 per month

Gone With the Windstream: Phone Company Says Broadband Stimulus Doesn’t Give a Damn About Their Georgia Business Model

Many of the projects seeking funding don’t actually want to get into the Internet Service Provider business, preferring to construct fiber-based networks available equally to all-comers at wholesale pricing.  Sure they’ll wire government buildings, schools, and libraries as a public service, but their real goal is to make available super high speed networks that incumbent providers haven’t, under the theory a rising tide lifts all boats.  They even invite existing ISP’s to hop on board, buying access to deliver improved service to their existing customers.

But because some providers don’t own or control the infrastructure outright, they’re not interested.

One such project is the North Georgia Network Cooperative, created from a consortium of private business advocates, a state university, and two power company co-ops.

North Georgia sees broadband as a major economic stimulant… if they actually had it.  Large parts of the region don’t, so the Cooperative applied for and won a $33.5 million NTIA grant to construct a 260-mile fiber ring running through 12 counties in the state.  The network will easily deliver connections upwards of 10Gbps for institutions and broadband speeds far faster than incumbent DSL provider Windstream currently provides across the region.

Windstream’s DSL packages look better than many other independent phone companies, at least based on their website.  Windstream offers 3, 6, and 12 Mbps DSL packages across northwestern Georgia,  but that doesn’t mean you can actually obtain service at those speeds.  Stop the Cap! reader Frederick, who tipped us off to this story, notes that he can’t obtain more than 1.5Mbps DSL service from his home in Dalton, Georgia because the phone lines in his area won’t support faster speeds.

“I’m actually less than a mile from my area’s central office, but because the phone lines in my area are deteriorated, they had to lock my speed in at 1.5Mbps — anything faster causes the modem to reset,” Frederick writes.  “Windstream does the same thing to my cousin in Lafayette, who was offered 6Mbps service but can only get 3Mbps in reality.”

Frederick says most people in the community don’t really care where the faster broadband comes from — just that it comes.

“If Windstream, who incidentally also applied for government money, could do it there would have never been a need to go around them in the first place,” he says. “Hell, the ironic part is the Cooperative will sell wholesale access to Windstream to use as it sees fit, but because Windstream doesn’t own it they’re pouting, refusing to participate.”

Windstream says it has already invested $5 million in network upgrades covering northern Georgia over the last three years and the Cooperative’s stimulus grant undermines the economics of that investment.  Michael Rhoda, Windstream’s vice president of government affairs told AP Windstream now has to share rural customers with a government-funded competitor.  Windstream wants that funding limited strictly to those areas where broadband service is uneconomic to provide.  To underline that point, the company has applied for $238 million in stimulus funding to reach the “last 11 percent” who don’t have broadband in Windstream’s service areas.

Maine’s Three Ring Binder Project Snaps Shut on FairPoint’s Monopoly Fingers

More often than not, independent efforts to launch improved broadband service in a region come after years of dealing with an intransigent provider comfortable moving at a snail’s pace to improve service.  Financially-troubled FairPoint Communications has been struggling to meet Maine’s broadband needs since the company took over service from Verizon two years ago.  The state government, university, and smaller telecommunications companies decided they could do better — applying for, and winning a $25.4 million dollar grant to construct three fiber rings across the state.

FairPoint insists the project duplicates the company’s own efforts to improve connectivity in Maine and has appealed to lawmakers to stop the project.  But FairPoint recently called a truce when it reached a deal to charge users of the new network a usage fee, with FairPoint getting a large share of the proceeds to expand its own broadband efforts.

[FairPoint’s financial problems have left the company] unable to bring broadband to wide swaths of rural Maine, says Dwight Allison, chief executive of Maine Fiber Co., which was created to build and operate the stimulus-funded network. The project, he says, represents a serious competitive threat to a company that “feels its monopoly is being attacked.”

Of course nothing precludes FairPoint from getting access to the new fiber network at the same wholesale pricing other providers will pay, but the company so far doesn’t seem interested.

Various talking points designed to derail the project are debunked by the Maine Fiber Company:

• Fiction: It’s government-run broadband.
• Fact: Three Ring Binder will be owned and operated by Maine Fiber Company, a private company based in Maine. MRC is unaffiliated with any telecom carrier to ensure fair and equal access to the system for all competitors.

• Fiction: This project will create unfair competition for private providers.
• Fact: MFC will be a wholesale provider of dark fiber, and its customers will be Internet Service providers, wireless carriers, and telephone companies. MFC will not provide “lit” service in competition with private broadband carriers. MFC is required to provide service on an open access and non-discriminatory basis. All carriers in Maine will be able to use the network to serve their customers in Maine, resulting in robust competition for the benefit of Maine consumers.

• Fiction: This project duplicates service FairPoint already provides.
• Fact: Prior to receiving a federal stimulus grant, the project was carefully reviewed by the National Telecommunications Information Agency (NTIA) of the US Department of Commerce to determine whether there was overlap with existing carriers. NTIA determined that TRB would substantially improve access to high-speed Internet access in rural Maine. If material duplication had been discovered, TRB would not have been funded. TRB will offer a mid-mile, dark fiber service that is fundamentally different from what currently exists in rural Maine. In fact, carriers seeking to obtain dark fiber service along the TRB route have routinely been denied access by incumbent fiber providers.

When your corporate message has to pass through a media filter, your talking points can get lost along the way.  Comcast has decided to cut out the middleman by launching a new right-wing, pro-corporate cable network that seeks to co-opt the tea party movement for its own agenda.

Rightnetwork, launching this summer, seeks to reach “Americans who are looking for content that reflects and reinforces their perspective and worldview,” according to its promotional material.  Featured prominently in the network’s promotional materials are tea party events and those that promote a pro-corporate agenda.  The network’s on-air talent is embedded in the national tea party tour that has been making its way across the country, which gives you a sense of where the network’s early emphasis will lie.

Comcast sheds any pretense of staying above the political fray and jumps in with both feet to deliver its business agenda to viewers.

“The lineup focuses on entertainment with Pro-America, Pro-Business, Pro-Military sensibilities — compelling content that inspires action, invites a response, and influences the national conversation,” says the network’s promotional “lookbook.”

“We’re creating a welcome place for millions and millions of Americans who’ve been looking for an entertainment network and media channel that reflects their point-of-view. Rightnetwork will be the perfect platform to entertain, inform and connect with the American majority about what’s right in the world,” says Ed Snider, chairman of Comcast-Spectacor.

Reviewing promotional clips for the network’s planned shows, something else is readily apparent — wedding a corporate agenda with a political movement in hopes of currying favor with those that might return the favor one day.

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One of the network’s most prominent planned shows is “Running,” which is little more than a political infomercial for Republican/tea party candidates.  One of the first targets Comcast-Spectacor has in mind is Rep. Henry Waxman (D-California).  Waxman is characterized as “infesting” his Congressional seat in the program.

Waxman, coincidentally, is also a big political foe of Comcast, favoring Net Neutrality and deeply concerned about media concentration issues, something the proposed Comcast-NBC merger would exacerbate.  Rightnetwork has effectively provided millions of dollars in free publicity to Ari David, Waxman’s opponent.  Should David win the seat, he will have Comcast to thank for helping make it possible.

Running‘s featured candidates:

• Ari David, Republican running against Henry Waxman who writes: “Capitalism is under attack from the progressive left.”
• Chris Simcox, Republican who ran against John McCain in the primary, who he called: “a sinister element, a progressive socialist masquerading as the leader and conscience of the Reagan Republican Party.”  Wants to promote free enterprise in a “post-McCain era.”
• Clint Didier, a Republican running against Sen. Patty Murray in Washington.  He uses his Rightnetwork coverage as a campaign ad on his website.
• Donna Campbell, a Republican running for a Texas congressional seat on the platform of deregulating business.
• Republican Jim Gibbons, a vice president of Wells-Fargo Bank who is running for Congress in Iowa on a platform of deregulating business, even after the already-deregulated banking industry caused the Great Recession.
• Republican John Dennis, running against Nancy Pelosi in California, who showcased an anti-Net Neutrality ruling on his Facebook page with a fan base whose views were best summed up by one writer: “If a private internet service provider wants to restrict certain types of content or opinions moving across their wires, then that should be their prerogative.”  That shrugging off of censorship is ironic coming from a supporter of the “pro-Liberty Republican” candidate.

Anyone think there is a “yes” vote for Net Neutrality or oversight of the cable industry and big media mergers among this crowd?

This isn’t Comcast’s first effort to curry favor with conservatives, who seem most likely to support the cable company’s political agenda.  Last September, Comcast and AT&T sponsored a U.S. Chamber of Commerce forum keynoted by Fox News personality Glenn Beck.  The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, itself implicated in notorious astroturfing efforts, is a strong opponent of Net Neutrality and broadband oversight.

The worst part is saved for last.  Who pays for this pro-corporate hackery?  You do, as part of your monthly cable bill, whether you want the corporate point of view on your basic cable lineup or not.

That’s just one more reason why the Comcast-NBC merger is such a bad idea.  It places enormous resources at the disposal of a company that has no qualms about using them to advance its own political agenda at your expense.

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

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)

The former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission under President George W. Bush says the FCC doesn’t have as much authority over broadband as it might think, and cannot tell service providers not to implement policies designed to limit broadband consumption.

Kevin Martin, speaking last week in Seattle at the Mobile Broadband Breakfast told attendees he doubts the Commission has the authority under current law to implement the full scope of the National Broadband Plan, and probably cannot control what providers do with the marketing and pricing of their broadband services.

“The further it is pushed out the more difficult it is for the commission to address it,” Martin said. “The FCC’s core regulatory authority is on wireless and carriers, so its direct authority is less and less the further out you go.”

Martin is especially skeptical about controlling classic Internet Overcharging schemes like usage caps and usage-based billing.

Broadcast Engineering notes Martin doesn’t believe the Commission has any authority to stop the recent efforts of carriers and ISPs to introduce metered wired broadband, except in instances where price discrimination occurs.

Of course, Congress can grant additional authority to the Commission at any time, and with decisions looming in several broadband-related legal challenges in federal court, what authority the FCC believes it has today may not actually exist should court rulings find otherwise.  That could result in explicit increased authority granted by Congress.

Martin believes broadband improvement will ultimately come from increased deployment of fiber optics, which can also improve wireless network backhaul connections used in mobile broadband.