AT&T is a frequent backer of anti-community broadband initiatives, as are some of the nation’s biggest cable companies.

The Kansas Senate’s Commerce Committee has introduced a bill that would make it next to impossible to build publicly owned community broadband networks that could potentially compete against the state’s largest cable and phone companies.

Senate Bill 304 is the latest in a series of measures introduced in state legislatures across the country to limit or prohibit local communities from building better broadband networks that large commercial providers refuse to offer.

SB 304 is among the most protectionist around, going well beyond the model bill produced by the corporate-backed American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). At its heart, the bill bans just about any would-be competitor that works with, is run by, or backed by a local municipality:

Sec. 4. Except with regard to unserved areas, a municipality may not, directly or indirectly offer or provide to one or more subscribers, video, telecommunications or broadband service; or purchase, lease, construct, maintain or operate any facility for the purpose of enabling a private business or entity to offer, provide, carry, or deliver video, telecommunications or broadband service to one or more subscribers.

For purposes of this act, a municipality offers or provides video, telecommunications or broadband service if the municipality offers or provides the service:

• Directly or indirectly, including through an authority or instrumentality:
• Acting on behalf of the municipality; or for the benefit of the municipality;
• by itself;
• through a partnership, joint venture or other entity in which the municipality participates; or
• by contract, resale or otherwise.

Tribune, Kansas is the county seat of Greeley County.

This language effectively prohibits just about everything from municipally owned broadband networks, public-private partnerships, buying an existing cable or phone company to improve service, allowing municipal utilities to establish broadband through an independent authority, or even contracting with a private company to offer service where none exists.

The proposed legislation falls far short of its intended goals to:

• Ensure that video, telecommunications and broadband services are provided through fair competition;
• Provide the widest possible diversity of sources of information, news and entertainment to the general public;
• Encourage the development and widespread use of technological advances in providing video, telecommunications and broadband services at competitive rates and,
• Ensure that video, telecommunications and broadband services are each provided within a consistent, comprehensive and nondiscriminatory federal, state and local government framework.

Proponents claim the bill is open to allowing municipalities to build broadband services in “unserved areas.” But upon closer inspection, the bill’s definition of “unserved” is practically impossible to meet anywhere in Kansas:

“Unserved area” means one or more contiguous census blocks within the legal boundaries of a municipality seeking to provide the unserved area with video, telecommunications or broadband service, where at least nine out of 10 households lack access to facilities-based, terrestrial broadband service, either fixed or mobile, or satellite broadband service, at the minimum broadband transmission speed as defined by the FCC.

Even the FCC does not consider satellite broadband service when it draws maps where broadband is unavailable. But this Big Telecom-backed bill does. Even worse, it requires would-be providers to prove that 90 percent of customers within a “census block” don’t have access to either mobile or satellite broadband. Since satellite Internet access is available to anyone with a view of the southern sky, and the most likely unserved customers would be in rural areas, it would be next to impossible for any part of the notoriously flat and wide open state to qualify as “unserved.”

Each rectangle represents one “census block” within a larger “census tract” that partially covers Greeley County. Under the proposed legislation, a community provider would have to visit each census block to verify whether a private company is capable of providing broadband service, including satellite Internet access.

To illustrate, Stop the Cap! looked at Greeley County in western Kansas. The county’s total population? 1,247 — the smallest in the state. Assume Greeley County Broadband, a fictional municipal provider, wanted to launch fiber broadband service in the area. Under the proposed bill, the largest potential customer base is 1,247 — too small for most private providers. Still, if a private company decided to wire up the county, it could with few impediments, assuming investors were willing to wait for a return on their investment in the rural county. If SB 304 became law, a publicly owned broadband network would have to do much more before a single cable could be installed on a utility pole.

Census Block 958100-1-075, in downtown Tribune, has a population of 10.

To open for business, Greeley County Broadband would have to spend tens of thousands of dollars to independently verify its intended service area — the county — is unserved by any existing broadband technology, including satellite and mobile broadband. The authors of the bill intentionally make that difficult. Just one census tract in Greeley County (#9561), encompassing the county seat town of Tribune (pop. 741) has dozens of census blocks. Some are populated, others are not.

Greeley County Broadband now has several big problems. Under the language in the bill, a municipal provider must first define its service area entirely within its borders — in this case Greeley County — and base it on contiguous census blocks. That means if pockets of qualifying potential customers exist in a census block surrounded by non-qualifying census blocks, Greeley County Broadband cannot include them in its service area.

Census Block 958100-1-075 — essentially at the intersection of Broadway Ave. and West Harper St., right next to City Hall — has a population of 10. AT&T Mobility’s coverage maps show Tribune is covered by its 3G wireless data network (but not 4G). That census block, along with every other in the area, would be disqualified from getting municipal broadband the moment AT&T upgrades to 4G service, whether reception is great or not. It doesn’t matter that customers will have to pay around $60 for a handful of gigabytes a month.

But wait, Verizon Wireless declares it already provides 4G LTE service across Greeley County (and almost all Kansas). So Greeley County Broadband, among other would-be providers, are out of business before even launching. Assuming there was no 4G service, if just two of those ten residents had a clear view to any satellite broadband provider, Greeley County Broadband would not be permitted to provide anyone in the census block with service under the proposed law. Under these restrictions, no municipal provider could write a tenable business plan, starved of potential customers.

Kansans need to consider whether that is “fair competition” or corporate protectionism. Is it a level playing field to restrict one provider without restricting others? If competition promotes investment in technologically challenged rural Kansas, would not more competition from municipal providers force private companies to finally upgrade their networks to compete?

In fact, the bill introduced this week protects incumbent cable and phone companies from competition and upgrades by keeping out the only likely competition most Kansans will ever see beyond AT&T, Comcast, or CenturyLink’s comfortable duopoly – a municipal or community-owned broadband alternative. Providing the widest possible diversity is impossible in a bill that features the widest possible definition of conditions that will keep new entrants out of the market. Community-owned networks usually offer superior technology (often fiber optics) in communities that are usually trapped with the most basic, outdated services. While the Kansas legislature coddles AT&T, that same company wants to mothball its rural landline network pushing broadband-starved customers to prohibitively expensive, usage capped wireless broadband service indefinitely.

Seeing Big Red? The areas colored dark red represent the claimed coverage of Verizon Wireless’ 4G LTE network in Kansas. Under SB 304, these areas would be prohibited from having a community-owned broadband alternative.

Horse and buggy broadband in the slow lane.

One of Australia’s largest broadband suppliers has declared the country’s satellite solution for rural broadband hopelessly overloaded to the point of being “almost unusable” and has stopped selling access.

iiNet announced this week it would no longer sign up new customers of NBN Co’s rural satellite network because the service is oversold in their view.

“We could not continue to offer a service markedly below both our own and our customers’ expectations,”  iiNet’s chief executive Michael Malone said in a statement. “During occasional peak periods the service was so slow as to be almost unusable. As more people are added to the network, quality will only decline further. In the absence of any action by NBN Co to increase transmission capacity, I call on the rest of the industry to respect their existing customers and also cease sale.”

NBN Co, however, claimed it still had room for an extra 5,000 customers — mostly on its spot beam targeting central and western Australia. A spokesperson for the satellite venture did admit satellite beams covering NSW, Tasmania and Queensland were near capacity. NBN Co is investigating leasing more bandwidth on board the satellite, but cost concerns may make that impossible.

The venture claims 48,000 Australians can satisfactorily share the interim satellite broadband service, which is supposed to offer 6Mbps speed. But as Australians join others around the world favoring online video and video conferencing over services like Skype, those original estimates have to be scrapped. In the evenings, some customers report speeds drop below 56kbps or the service simply freezes up and stops working altogether. In response, NBN has adopted a strict monthly usage limit of 9GB and has told customers they will likely have to wait up to two years for a capacity increase.

The government is planning to launch two new custom-made satellites in 2015 to ease capacity concerns. NBN Co claims the two satellites will deliver 25/5Mbps service for 200,000 rural Australians, assuming usage estimates of today’s average broadband user.

Critics contend satellite broadband is not a good long-term solution except in the most rural of sparsely populated areas. Although providing wired service may be too costly, ground-based wireless services could be the most capable technology to contend with future demand and capacity concerns.

iiNet and other ISPs may already be headed in that direction. Some are advising customers to choose fixed wireless options from Australia’s cell phone providers, although those plans are heavily capped and very expensive.

Broadband availability has a direct impact on property sales in rural Australia. A couple that purchased a home in Mount Bruno, near Wangaratta in north-east Victoria discovered only after closing the deal that NBN Co would not sell them satellite broadband because the spot beam targeting Victoria was full.

The couple needs Internet access for work and their telephone line is unsuitable for ADSL. Mobile broadband in the Mount Bruno area is sub-par and expensive as well. As a result, the couple will have to rent office space in Glenrowan or Wangaratta that qualifies for wired broadband until at least 2015, when the next NBN satellite is launched.

iiNet regrets having to turn customers away.

“At its peak, we had 500 customers signing up every week for our NBN satellite services. There is clearly a significant demand for higher quality broadband in remote Australia, and we’re absolutely gutted that we’ve had to withdraw this crucial service from sale,” said Malone.

Are you getting the mobile broadband speeds your provider advertises for its whiz-bang 4G network? How do you know which carrier really delivers?

The Federal Communications Commission is hoping you can help them find out with a free Android app to be unveiled on Thursday.

The FCC has successfully used volunteer crowdsourcing before to keep wired Internet Service Providers honest through its “TestMyISP” speed measurement project for home broadband connections. When the first results were announced, an embarrassingly bad rating for Cablevision forced the cable company to quickly beef up its broadband infrastructure to match the speeds it promised customers.

Now the FCC’s new chairman Tom Wheeler hopes a similar effort will help the federal agency understand whether the promises wireless carriers make to customers are actually being kept.

With wireless broadband gaining in prominence, the FCC wants to do a better job monitoring a service most Americans use in some form while on-the-go. If providers like AT&T and Verizon Wireless are caught dramatically underperforming in coverage and speed, the agency may take that into account as part of its mission of regulatory oversight.

Consumers will also benefit from having an unbiased source that can offer regular analyses on the speed and performance of each carrier — useful information to have before being locked into a two-year contract.

Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint are among the carriers agreeing to take part in the speed test project.

The FCC Speed Test app will initially be available for Android smartphones. There are no details about the release date of an Apple iOS version of the app, but the FCC’s Mobile Broadband Speed Test home page shows links (not yet active) for both versions of the app.

Millenicom customers have had their ups and downs over the last two weeks coping with e-mail notifications they would lose, keep, and once again lose their unlimited wireless data plan.

Just a day after Millenicom heard that Sprint would allow them to continue selling Unlimited and Bring Your Own Device plans, the wireless carrier best known for its “unlimited for life” offer changed its mind:

We are very sorry to report that Sprint has reversed their decision from yesterday and terminated their agreement with the gateway for our Unlimited and BYOD accounts.

We are not certain how long until the accounts will be closed.

We will be shipping out Hotspot devices to those clients who had opted for that solution and BMI.net is ready to fulfill orders for those choosing to go with them.

We have attempted to keep you informed every step of the way and avoid any abrupt transition. We apologize that we weren’t able to come through.

Thank you for allowing us to be of service and please accept our sincere wish for your future success.

Dennis Castle
Owner

It is not the first time Millenicom has had problems with Sprint, which has proved to be a difficult carrier to deal with with respect to unlimited use plans.

Sprint’s decision is a major blow to rural Americans who lack access to cable or DSL broadband and are forced to consider satellite-delivered Internet access or pay even more for wireless data plans that come with puny usage caps, overlimit fees or speed throttles.

There are a few alternatives, but since these providers resell access to Sprint-owned networks, all are potentially vulnerable to Sprint’s evolving views on resellers:

Blue Mountain Internet (BMI) offers an “unlimited plan” that isn’t along with several usage allowance plans. BMI strongly recommends the use of their Mobile Broadband Optimizer software that compresses web traffic, dramatically improving speeds and reducing consumption:

Monthly Plans

• $39.99/Month – 1 Gig Data (** up to 3GB compressed) ($25/GB Overlimit Fee)
• $59.99/Month – 3 Gig Data (** up to 9GB compressed) ($20/GB Overlimit Fee)
• $79.99/Month – 5 Gig Data (** up to 15GB compressed) ($20/GB Overlimit Fee)
• $99.99/Month – 10 Gig Data (** Up to 45GB compressed) ($15/GB Overlimit Fee)

• $79.99/Month – Unlimited (Bring Your Own Device) – BYOD
• $99.99/Month – Unlimited Data (S Network) ***

There is a $100 maximum on overlimit fees, but BMI reserves the right to suspend accounts after running 3-5GB over a plan’s allowance to limit exposure to the penalty rate. The compression software is for Windows only and does not work with MIFI devices or with video/audio streaming. BMI warns its wireless service is not intended for video streaming. Customers are not allowed to host computer applications including continuous streaming video and webcam posts that broadcast more than 24 hours; automatic data feeds; automated continuous streaming machine-to-machine connections; or peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing.

EVDODepotUSA offers two truly unlimited use plans starting at $119 a month. The company is only contracted to offer access to Sprint’s woefully congested 3G network and the Clear 4G WiMAX network that typically does not offer much coverage in rural areas. LTE access is not currently available. There is a six month contract obligation, but the company also offers a 10-day free trial.

Their current plans:

Wireless ‘n Wifi offers two partly unlimited plans with no contract commitment. The company charges a refundable deposit on devices, but they become yours to keep after two years:

• Unlimited 4G Sprint/Clear WiMAX with 3G Fallback ($58.99) offers unlimited WiMAX service but has a 5GB cap on Sprint’s 3G network, the network rural customers will encounter the most. Total start-up fee is $194.93 which includes an activation fee, modem deposit (refunded upon modem return or after 24 months of service), the first month of service, and shipping for the wireless device.
• Unlimited 4G LTE with WiMAX and 3G Fallback ($79.99) offers unlimited Sprint 4G LTE and Sprint/Clear WiMAX service with a 35GB cap on Sprint’s 3G network. Customers can select a dual-band device that supports LTE and 3G service for $246.93 (includes activation fee, modem upcharge fee, first month of service, shipping, and refundable $100 modem deposit). Customers looking for access to LTE, 3G, and WiMAX can choose a tri-band device for $315.93 (includes activation fee, modem upcharge, first month of service, shipping and refundable deposit.) Keep in mind Sprint’s 4G LTE network is still very spotty.

Phillip “Every other 2008 spectrum bidder except U.S. Cellular has since sold its winnings to AT&T or Verizon Wireless or has never provided competitive service” Dampier

AT&T is unhappy with a proposal from a wireless competitor it originally tried to buy in 2011 that would offer smaller competitors a more realistic chance of winning favored 600MHz spectrum vacated by UHF television stations at a forthcoming FCC auction.

T-Mobile’s “Dynamic Market Rule” proposal would establish a cap on the amount of spectrum market leaders AT&T and Verizon Wireless, flush with financial resources for the auction, could win.

“Imposing modest constraints on excessive low-band spectrum aggregation will promote competition, increase consumer choice, encourage innovation, and accelerate broadband deployment,” T-Mobile offered in its proposal to the FCC.

Without some limits, wireless competitors Sprint and T-Mobile, among other smaller carriers, could find themselves outbid for the prime spectrum, well-suited for penetrating buildings and requiring a smaller network of cell towers to deliver blanket coverage.

In a public policy blog post today, AT&T argues T-Mobile is behind the times and its proposal is unfair and unworkable:

First, the purported advantage of low band spectrum – that it allows more coverage and better building penetration with fewer cell sites – has been overtaken by marketplace realities under which capacity not coverage drives network deployment.  Carriers deploying low band and high band spectrum alike must squeeze as many cell sites as they can into their networks to meet exploding demand for data services.  Second, to the extent this is less the case in rural areas, those areas are not spectrum-constrained and the lower cost of building out low band spectrum in such areas is offset by the higher cost of the spectrum itself.

[…] But this is not the only point that should concern policymakers.  Such caps will also suppress auction revenues, potentially to the point of auction failure, ultimately reducing the amount of spectrum freed up for mobile broadband use and undermining the auction’s ability to meet critical statutory goals.

[…] Even if T-Mobile’s proposal did not result in complete auction failure, its proposed caps would suppress auction revenues, reducing the amount of spectrum freed up for mobile broadband use as well as funds generated for FirstNet and to pay down the national debt.  That is because strict limits on participation by otherwise qualified bidders will make the auction less competitive and will yield less revenue.  Indeed, if T-Mobile’s proposed spectrum cap was strictly enforced, Verizon estimates it would be barred from bidding in 7 of the top 10 markets.  AT&T would face similar bidding limitations, as noted in our filing.

AT&T suggests the last major auction in 2008 attracted 214 qualified bidders and 101 bidders won licenses, including carriers of all sizes and new entrants.

But an analysis by Stop the Cap! shows the breakaway winners of the 2008 auction were none other than AT&T and Verizon Wireless, which paid a combined $16.3 billion of the total $19.592 billion raised. For that money, they acquired:

• Block A – Verizon Wireless and U.S. Cellular both bought 25 licenses each. In this block, Verizon targeted urban areas, while U.S. Cellular bought licenses primarily in the northern part of the U.S., where it provides regional cellular service. Cavalier Telephone and CenturyTel also bought 23 and 21 licenses, respectively. Cavalier Telephone is now wholly owned by Windstream, which does not provide cell service and was selling its 700MHz spectrum to none other than AT&T. So is CenturyLink (formerly CenturyTel).

• Block B – AT&T Mobility was the biggest buyer in the B block, with 227 licenses totaling $6.6 billion. U.S. Cellular and Verizon bought 127 and 77 licenses, respectively. AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless bought licenses around the country, while U.S. Cellular continued with its strategy to buy licenses in its home network northern regions.

• Block C – Of the 10 licenses in the C Block, Verizon Wireless bought the 7 that cover the contiguous 48 states (and Hawaii). Those seven licenses cost Verizon roughly $4.7 billion. Of the other three, Triad Communications — a wireless spectrum speculator — bought the two covering Alaska, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands through its Triad 700, LLC investor partnership, while Small Ventures USA, L.P. bought the one covering the Gulf of Mexico. Triad 700, LLC sold its spectrum last fall to AT&T while Small Ventures USA sold theirs to Verizon Wireless.

• Block E – EchoStar spent $711 million to buy 168 of the 176 available Block E licenses. This block, made up of unpaired spectrum, will likely be used to stream television shows. Qualcomm also bought 5 licenses. Neither company has used its spectrum to offer any services five years after the auction ended.

So much for improving the competitive landscape of wireless. Other than U.S. Cellular, which is rumored to be on AT&T and Verizon Wireless’ acquisitions wish list, every auction winner has either sold its spectrum to the wireless giants or has done nothing with it.

If “highest bidder wins”-rules apply at the forthcoming auction, expect more of the same.

AT&T and Verizon Wireless have significant financial resources to outbid Sprint, T-Mobile and smaller carriers and will likely win the bulk of the available spectrum whether they actually need it or not. Smaller victories may be won by smaller competitors, but only in rural areas and sections of the country disfavored by the largest two.