Verizon Communications will bring fiber and enhanced DSL broadband service to an additional 32,000 New Yorkers in the Hudson Valley, Long Island, and upstate as part of a multi-million dollar agreement with the New York Public Service Commission.

When combined with an earlier agreement, Verizon has committed to bringing rural broadband service to more than 47,000 households in its landline service area, with the state contributing $71 million in subsidies and Verizon spending $36 million of its own money.

By the end of this year, Verizon expects to introduce high-speed fiber to the home internet service to 7,000 new locations on Long Island and 4,000 in the Hudson Valley and upstate regions.

“The joint proposal strikes the appropriate balance for consumers, Verizon and its employees,” said PSC Chairman John Rhodes. “The joint proposal builds upon and expands important customer protections previously approved by the Commission and it requires Verizon to expand its fiber network and invest in its copper network, both of which will result service improvements.”

The broadband expansion agreement will include copper reliability improvements in the New York City area, where FiOS is still not available to every home and business in the city. It also includes a commitment to provide fiber-to-the-neighborhood (FTTN) service in sparsely populated areas. This will allow Verizon to introduce or enhance DSL service capable of speeds of 10 Mbps or more.

Verizon has also committed to remove at least 64,000 duplicate utility poles over the next four years around the state. Utility companies have been criticized for installing new poles without removing damaged or deteriorating older poles.

For now, neither Verizon or the PSC is providing details about where broadband service will be introduced or improved.

The state has negotiated with Verizon for more than two years to get the company to improve its legacy landline and internet services, still important in New York. Verizon has complained that with most of its landline customers long gone, it didn’t make financial sense to invest heavily in older, existing copper wire technology. But Verizon suspended expansion of its fiber to the home network in upstate New York eight years ago, leaving many customers in limbo as landline service quality declined. There are still more than two million households and businesses in New York connected to Verizon’s copper wire network.

The state says the deal will “result in the availability of higher quality, more reliable landline telephone service to currently underserved communities and will increase Verizon’s competitive presence in several economically important telecommunications markets in New York.”

The upgrades will cover landline and broadband service improvements. Verizon has no plans to restart expansion of FiOS TV service.

The agreement was reached as the PSC continues to threaten Charter Communications with additional fines and Spectrum cable franchise revocation for failure to meet the terms of its 2016 merger agreement with Time Warner Cable.

While parts of rural Tennessee languish with little or no broadband service, the state’s electric cooperatives are jumping to deliver internet access over fiber optic cables after the governor eased restrictions written into state law on rural co-ops offering public broadband service.

After Gov. Bill Haslam (R) signed a bill in 2017 permitting not-for-profit electric co-ops to offer broadband service to their customer-members, at least seven of Tennessee’s 22 municipal co-ops almost immediately launched fiber to the home service projects that offer faster and more reliable service than many of the state’s phone companies that still offer DSL service (or nothing at all).

Offering broadband service is a win-win for small communities and the co-ops that serve them, because existing infrastructure already in place to provide electric service can be augmented with fiber optic cables to deliver phone, television, and internet service as well. Co-ops can also use the fiber infrastructure to manage smart electricity grids, which can better detect outages and offer useful power management tools.

Among some of the projects now underway:

• Tri-County Fiber Communications  of Lafayette, Tenn., serves more than 50,000 customers in rural Tennessee and Kentucky. Its fiber project will serve part of its current service area and is enrolling customers now who want to commit themselves as future customers and avoid a $1,500 installation fee.
• SVEConnect, providing electric service since 1939, will offer customers in seven counties starting internet speeds of 200 Mbps and up to 1 Gbps in 2018, along with phone and television service.
• Gibson Connect, operated by the Gibson Electric Membership Corporation, offers service to 39,000 homes and businesses in eight west Tennessee counties (Crockett, Dyer, Gibson, Haywood, Lake, Lauderdale, Obion and Madison) and four west Kentucky counties (Carlisle, Fulton, Graves and Hickman). Fiber broadband is planned to roll out gradually in many of these areas, and the co-op has already signed up 6,000 customers before service is even available. Gibson Connect will sell 100 Mbps internet for $49.95 and 1,000 Mbps service for $69.95 a month. Some customers in its service area are already served by other providers, but Gibson promises faster speeds, no data caps, and more affordable pricing.

The conservative and industry-backed groups that coordinated with the telecom industry to push Tennessee to pass restrictive laws effectively banning municipal or public broadband competition are grudgingly tolerating co-ops entering the broadband marketplace, as long as they only service areas where they won’t compete with an established phone or cable company. They also must remain within their electric service area.

Those opposed to public broadband claim the networks offer unfair competition because they often receive subsidies or grants. But many municipalities are doubly frustrated because the same companies that are lobbying to keep them out of the broadband business also refuse to provide service in their towns and villages. Many communities are too small or sparsely populated to provide enough Return On Investment (ROI) to entice those providers to expand, they add.

In areas where residents are quick to complain about government spending, many are strongly in favor of broadband development. Local officials have been told by frustrated residents, “if you do not provide the service, nobody else will.”

Despite the flourishing of fiber-fast broadband in areas served by co-ops, other parts of Tennessee remain broadband dead zones because the current state law continues to frustrate local communities trying to build financially feasible broadband projects that have a chance of breaking even. Tennessee’s Rep. Marsha Blackburn, who is running for a Senate seat this year, is notoriously one of the country’s biggest allies of AT&T, Comcast, and other telecom companies and favors keeping public broadband in shackles. She is also among the top recipients of campaign contributions from the telecom industry.

The newest cities getting Charter/Spectrum’s gigabit service.

With the latest additions to the list of Charter Communications’ gigabit-capable cities last week, Spectrum’s gigabit internet service is now available to more than 27 million homes, more than half of its 41-state footprint.

The latest cities to receive gigabit upgrades include Charleston, S.C., Bowling Green, Ky., Cleveland and Toledo, Ohio, Erie, Pa., Orlando, Fla. Hartford, Conn., and Springfield, Mass.

Spectrum is calling the occasion “the summer of gig,” with the promise of another wave of newly upgraded cities by Labor Day.

In addition to the availability of gigabit service, which in reality offers speeds up to 940/35 Mbps, customers should see Standard speeds in many of these locations increased to 200/10 Mbps and the introduction of an improved Ultra speed tier of 400/20 Mbps. Some cities have not yet received a free upgrade to 200 Mbps service, but are expected to sometime over the summer.

Gigabit pricing varies, depending on market, with new Spectrum customers paying $104.99/month for the first year. If you already subscribe to Spectrum service, the rate is $114.99 for Spectrum TV customers and $124.99 a month for non-Spectrum TV customers. There is also a mandatory $199 installation fee which cannot be waived.

This company-supplied video celebrates the arrival of gigabit internet for more than four million additional Spectrum customers. (1:10)

AT&T quietly changed their home internet plans this week, dramatically boosting speeds for some of their lower-priced offerings in areas served by fiber, while boosting gigabit pricing by $10 a month in some instances.

Last week, AT&T was selling 5, 50, 100, and 1000 Mbps plans in AT&T Fiber areas. This week, customers can choose 5, 100, 300, or 1000 Mbps. Existing customers will likely have to switch plans to get the speed upgrades.

Prices shown reflect a bundled discount in the Chicago area. Prices vary in different service areas and are higher for broadband-only service. Basic 5 Mbps pricing can range from $30-60 a month depending on area and available discounts.

If you are a new AT&T customer, the company is offering a $50 Reward Card rebate (expires 7/31/2018) and a free Smart Wi-Fi Extender (new or existing customers switching to gigabit service only) (expires 6/28/2018). Here are some other important terms and conditions to be aware of:

• There is a 1 TB data cap on all plans except Gigabit Internet 1,000, which is unlimited. But you can avoid the cap for $30 extra a month (not worth it) or by maintaining a bundle of TV and internet service on a combined bill.
• All internet offers require a 12 month agreement ($180 pro-rated early termination fee applies).
• Prices reflect bundled service combining internet with at least one other AT&T product (TV/AT&T Phone/Wireless).

Charter Communications is abandoning any pretense of data caps on its internet service by decommissioning its internet usage measurement tool for residential subscribers effective this July.

Company officials began notifying customers in billing statements that the usage measurement tool will be dropped effective next month. Charter Communications markets Spectrum internet service as free of any data caps, and a usage measurement system only confused customers about whether their internet usage was truly unlimited.

Originally introduced by Time Warner Cable in late 2009 and gradually made available to customers nationwide, the usage measurement tool reported monthly data usage for customers as part of Time Warner Cable’s original 2008 market test of data caps in Beaumont, Tex.

Customers were offered a Lite Tier with a 5 GB monthly cap or 40 GB of usage for the company’s Turbo Tier. Overlimit fees were $1/GB.

The company attempted to expand its data cap trial in the spring of 2009 to customers in Austin and San Antonio, Tex., Rochester, N.Y., and the Triad region of North Carolina. A major backlash, organized in part by Stop the Cap!, resulted in those market trials being abandoned within two weeks of being announced.

Time Warner Cable never attempted to impose compulsory data caps again after its disastrous 2009 trial and Charter Communications quietly abandoned its own frequently unenforced usage caps in 2015, shortly before bidding to acquire Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks.

By ditching the usage measurement tool, Spectrum will retire the last remaining elements of Time Warner Cable’s legacy of dabbling with usage caps and further monetizing internet usage.

Charter is also forbidden from imposing data caps for up to seven years as a result of deal conditions imposed by regulators in return for approval of its merger with TWC and BH.