Is this a T-Mobile priority coverage zone?

One of the “benefits” AT&T’s lobbying team claims will come with a merger between AT&T and T-Mobile is improved wireless service for rural America.

But an investigation into T-Mobile’s urban-focused coverage, and AT&T’s own recent rural past prove those claimed benefits simply don’t make any sense.

Although rural and small town America is increasingly aware of AT&T, that comes mostly from the company’s recent acquisitions, not from mass expansion projects to blanket rural America with AT&T iPhones.  AT&T has been on a shopping spree for smaller regional wireless carriers for the last five years, picking up resources through acquisition, not from independent investment.  But a buyout of T-Mobile will bring no new assets for AT&T’s presence in rural America.  It will simply reduce competition in larger communities the same way AT&T cut out competitors in rural markets.

Just ask customers of Dobson Cellular.  In 2007, AT&T bought the rural provider, doing business as Cellular One, for $2.8 billion dollars and converted customers to AT&T.  Dobson was the largest cell phone company around in Alaska and rural Michigan.  In fact, the company provided roaming capability to customers of AT&T and T-Mobile who ventured into the rural areas Dobson specialized in serving.

After the conversion, did service improve for the newly acquired AT&T customers?

“No way,” says ex-Cellular One customer Jim Duncan who lives in a former Dobson service area in Michigan. “AT&T ruined cell phone service when they got here with dropped calls and phantom busy signals, turning a friendly local-focused company into one where you are just an account number reaching some national call center.”

Acquired by AT&T in 2007

Duncan says AT&T never cared one bit about rural Michigan before buying Dobson, and in his view, still doesn’t.

“Smaller markets are an afterthought for AT&T and T-Mobile has zero impact (and customers) in my area, so I have no idea what great improvements a merger will bring to our part of Michigan that neither company paid much attention to,” Duncan says.

That same year, AT&T also grabbed spectrum worth $2.5 billion with its acquisition of Aloha Partners, which spent time at FCC auctions buying up 700Mhz spectrum and then eventually reselling it at a profit to wireless carriers.  AT&T didn’t just buy some of Aloha’s spectrum, it acquired the whole partnership.

Acquired by AT&T in 2008.

In April 2008, Edge Wireless customers in southern Oregon, northern California, southeastern Idaho and Jackson, Wyoming discovered they were well on their way to becoming AT&T customers, too.  AT&T acquired Edge and rebranded it AT&T. That hardly represents investment and dedicated expansion into rural Rocky Mountain states — AT&T simply bought up another company that did.

Also in 2008, AT&T snapped up Centennial Communications, a considerable-sized regional player in the central United States.  Centennial delivered service in less urban areas in Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan in the north, and Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi in the south.  One million customers, Centennial’s spectrum and name all became part of AT&T.  Did service improve for Centennial customers with that merger?

“Overall, it stayed the same when it was Centennial and switched to AT&T,” says our reader Kevin, who now lives in Ft. Wayne, Ind.  “We did get access to the iPhone, but along with it came AT&T’s infamous dropped calls and lousy customer service.”

Acquired by AT&T in late 2008.

Kevin switched to Verizon Wireless earlier this year.

“If I was the FCC, I wouldn’t approve this merger because it promises nothing for rural America or anyone else,” says Kevin. “AT&T had a presence in Indiana before they bought Centennial, so all the deal did was reduce competition in this state.”

Centennial’s service areas were not exactly among T-Mobile’s priority coverage areas, either.

Acquired by AT&T in 2011?

“T-Who?,” Kevin asks.  “We’re aware of them now, but I don’t know anyone who has service with them.”

The real unanswered question is what AT&T is doing with all of the rural spectrum it already owns, controls, or has acquired.  How will an acquisition of an urban-focused carrier help deliver improved service in the rural markets both companies have traditionally ignored?

Answer: It won’t.

[flv width=”480″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WANE Ft Wayne Centennial Joins ATT 10-09 and 02-10.flv[/flv]

WANE-TV in Ft. Wayne, Ind., covered the merger of Centennial and AT&T back in 2009 and early 2010.  Fort Wayne was the home of a major regional office for Centennial.  (4 minutes)

The People’s Republic of China will become the world leader in fiber optic network deployment by 2016, with more than 50 percent of all fiber subscribers worldwide residing in the country, according to a new report from research firm Ovum.

The unprecedented growth in fiber networks comes through a combination of government incentives, including subsidies and private-public partnerships, and cooperating Internet Service Providers, who want to reach more customers.

In fact, with the Chinese government aggressively pursuing and monitoring broadband upgrades, China will rapidly exceed broadband deployments found in other countries in Asia, including Korea and Japan.  That could allow China to become the global leader in broadband before the end of the decade.

China Telecom is one of the providers that is moving the country towards dominance in fiber deployments, on track to pass 26 million homes with fiber networks this year.

Through the company’s “Broadband China — Fiber Cities” project, China Telecom should pass 100 million homes with fiber broadband access by 2015, with the help of contractors like Alcatel-Lucent.

In smaller cities and rural areas, combination fiber and copper networks plan to deliver temporary speed upgrades with technology similar to AT&T U-verse. But China sees such upgrades as interim, until additional fiber networks can be constructed.

The upgrades are a win-win for China and its citizens.  China’s telecommunications companies are enjoying new revenue opportunities for their wired networks, Chinese citizens will eventually obtain some of the fastest broadband speeds on the planet, and the Chinese government wins an advanced telecommunications network on which it plans to continue growing the country’s digital economy and helping spur additional manufacturing and export opportunities.

So far, China’s large expanse and large rural, often poor population found further inland are not inhibiting China’s infrastructure development plans.

“You cannot become one of the world’s most powerful nations if you can’t deliver basic services to your own citizens,” says Wu Dan, a development coordinator for the Chinese government.  “With clean water, good roads, reliable power, and advanced telecommunications, China’s western cities will grow and become as important as coastal cities in China’s progress.  Internet access is a part of that progress.”

Despite a soft launch weeks earlier, Time Warner Cable officially began selling faster broadband packages in San Antonio Tuesday.

Made possible by DOCSIS 3 upgrades (and not by “Time Warner’s fiber optic network” to quote one San Antonio news outlet), the cable company will now sell 30/5Mbps service for $20 above the current price of Standard Service.  Customers looking for more speed can spend a lot more to get it — $99.95 a month buys you 50/5Mbps service, although the sting seems less if you bundle all of your Time Warner services through their $199 Signature Home package, which includes digital cable, broadband, and phone service.  Signature Home includes 50/5Mbps as part of the package.

About 70 percent of the San Antonio market can get the new speeds immediately.  The rest will be upgraded by September.

The upgrades are seen with some amusement by customers of GVTC, a former telephone cooperative that today provides fiber to the home service in parts of the Texas Hill Country and other rural areas to the north of San Antonio.  They recently received speed upgrades from 40Mbps to 80Mbps downstream and 20Mbps upstream as part of a comparably-priced triple play package.  GVTC’s truly fiber optic system was built to accommodate broadband usage growth.

“Consumers obviously enjoy streaming video and downloading HD movies, but these applications use a lot of bandwidth and can slow down other Internet devices in your household,” CEO Ritchie Sorrells said. “The reality is bandwidth consumption will continue to increase. We’re once again ahead of the curve with our 80 Mbps connection, and this tier will be popular with the growing number of households that realize they have a need for speed.”

One thing GVTC customers don’t need and won’t get is the kind of consumption billing Time Warner Cable is reconsidering for their customers in San Antonio and the rest of the country.

The Rochester, Minn. Amateur Radio Club spent months documenting potential interference from another problem technology: Broadband Over Power Lines.

Back in 2004, the Federal Communications Commission was looking for ways to expand broadband competition.  Borrowing from a mild success story in Europe, the Washington regulator, with the help of a well-financed lobbying campaign, approved new technology that would deliver broadband service over power lines, known as BPL.  The promises were great — fast access over an extensive, already-wired network that reached virtually every home in the country.  Glossy brochures promising a new generation of broadband and new competition were sent to every member of Congress.  Dollar-a-holler groups like the New Millennium Research Council produced “research reports” claiming the technology would advent a broadband revolution.  Some investors used to sleepy returns from utility companies dreamed about the promise of a rich new revenue stream pitching broadband service.

But there was a slight problem.  The technology worked better on paper than it did in real life.  Even more importantly, it carried more baggage than USAir.  Delivering wideband broadband signals over unshielded power cables never designed to carry radio frequencies meant interference — a lot of it, to any radio band the broadband signal occupied.  That meant a horrible listening experience on AM, and practically no listening at all over the shortwave bands, designated for military communications, international broadcasters, and the amateur radio community.

The FCC approved and supported the technology anyway, promising filters and other mitigation for those impacted by interference — a notion scoffed at by the American Radio Relay League, a group representing amateur radio operators.

So why don’t we have that third choice for broadband today?  BPL technology buried itself as its woeful performance could never match the high-flying marketing promises found in the brochure.

Fast forward to 2011 and manufacturers of satellite navigation devices, popularly known as GPS units, are terrified America is about to embark on another dreadful mistake.

LightSquared, a new entrant in the telecommunications marketplace, is constructing a nationwide 4G wireless broadband network with traditional ground-based antenna towers supplemented with a satellite system providing coverage in rural areas.  The company’s new network will occupy a frequency band just adjacent to that used by global positioning satellites, the backbone of the GPS system that some LightSquared critics contend will be crippled if the company’s 4G network is ever switched on.

[flv width=”640″ height=”388″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/LightSquared Intro.flv[/flv]

LightSquared released this promotional video talking up their future network.  (2 minutes)

Early interference tests conducted by a federal working group show those critics may be right.  Because satellite signals are so weak, manufacturers like Tom-Tom and Garmin must create highly sensitive GPS receivers to handle the faint signals.  Because these units are not always selective enough to reject adjacent signal interference, a neighboring transmitter delivering a much more powerful signal — such as that from LightSquared — could overwhelm them.

Independent testing found serious interference problems even for professional grade GPS units used by civil aviation, ships, and emergency responders.  A sampling:

• GM’s OnStar system received significant interference, making it difficult to identify the location of crashed vehicles and disrupting turn-by-turn directions and other navigation services;
• In recent tests in New Mexico, LightSquared caused GPS receivers used by nearby police, fire and ambulance crews to lose reception;
• John Deere’s agricultural equipment incorporating GPS technology failed to receive signals during the LightSquared testing;
• Both the Coast Guard and NASA reported significant interference to their GPS receivers;
• The Federal Aviation Administration reports their GPS receivers completely failed while the tests were conducted.

The red box identifies the spectrum assigned to LightSquared. Its immediate neighbors are faint signals from communications satellites. (click to enlarge)

With complaints like that coming after a small-scale test, the thought of 40,000 ground-based LightSquared towers obliterating the nation’s access to GPS is more than just a little concerning to users and manufacturers.

“LightSquared’s network could cause devastating interference to all different kinds of GPS receivers,” Jim Kirkland, vice president and general counsel of Trimble Navigation Ltd., told the Washington Post.  Trimble manufactures GPS devices.

The Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics advised the FAA its own independent tests of the LightSquared system found the consequences of turning this 4G wireless service on would be cataclysmic for GPS signals, making most satellite navigation equipment completely useless in most major metropolitan areas.

LightSquared executive vice president Jeffrey Carlisle told the Post he remained confident that the two systems could co-exist, even admitting he expected to find interference issues.  Carlisle says the real question is how to mitigate it.

This is not the first time interference issues have come before the FCC.  Nearby spectrum neighbors often don’t get along, especially when one licensed user relies on weak signals from space and the other utilizes more powerful ground-based transmitters.  The Commission has even fielded complaints over garage door openers interfering with certain military radios.

LightSquared’s network concept isn’t by itself the problem.  XM Radio manages to operate its mix of satellite-delivered radio and 900 ground-based repeater transmitters without creating interference for other users.

Deere Companies produced this diagram showing a comparison of the respective power levels of LightSquared signals vs. satellite navigation signals.

Unfortunately for LightSquared, it has several problems to contend with, the most significant being its “zoning problem.”  The souped-up 4G network is simply not in character for the spectrum neighborhood it calls home.  It’s a McMansion being built in a neighborhood of cottages.  LightSquared’s neighbors are low powered satellite signals in the 1-2Ghz range, including those from the satellites which provide GPS.  In certain cases, receiver equipment can be designed to reject the adjacent interference a network like LightSquared could create, but with millions of existing GPS units already in use, that may prove impractical.

LightSquared has tried to rope off its channel space as much as possible, trading spectrum with other nearby users to create a nearly contiguous 20Mhz slice it can dedicate to its signals, in hopes of reducing interference.  But the recent tests suggest this may not be enough.  General Motors suggested LightSquared needs to find a better neighborhood — one more suited to the kind of signal it wants to offer.  That could come from a spectrum trade or a frequency reallocation by the FCC.

The FCC is taking a “wait and see” approach so far, claiming further tests are needed.  But the agency earlier pledged it would not allow LightSquared to operate its network if it created major interference problems for other spectrum users.  Some GPS manufacturers think that commitment is too vague, because “major interference” is in the eye of the beholder.

Those concerns may be warranted, considering the FCC earlier found its way clear to ignore the documented interference Broadband Over Power Lines created over both the AM and shortwave radio dial.  Even after a blizzard of lobbying and campaign contributions won support for BPL in Washington, the ultimately inferior product that resulted couldn’t win the support of the group that ultimately mattered most — paying customers.

[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Bloomberg Ahuja Says LightSquared to Finish 4G Network Before 2016 6-11-11.flv[/flv]

Sanjiv Ahuja, chief executive officer of LightSquared, talks about the company’s efforts to build a wireless broadband network as other spectrum users challenge the company’s potential to create interference.  (7 minutes)

The U.S. Cattlemen’s Association this week took some time out to go all out for AT&T’s proposed merger with T-Mobile.  In addition to successfully navigating the FCC’s arcane comment filing system to submit their comments in favor of the merger, the group also penned a lengthy, favorable guest blog for Washington, D.C. inside-the-beltway-favorite, The Hill newspaper:

The expansion of next-generation wireless broadband envisioned by the T-Mobile and AT&T merger, for example, is critical for the next stage of rural America’s evolution and success. It will allow ranchers, farmers, and all rural residents who have been traditionally underserved to finally gain access to the best that mobile broadband has to offer, including faster and more reliable connections. We strongly encourage the Federal Communications Commission to support these developments as an investment in both the current and future generations of agricultural producers and small communities across rural America.

The cattlemen’s group has had a lot to say about telecommunications issues, especially mergers and acquisitions.  It was cited by Verizon as a supporter of its merger with Alltel in 2008, signed a joint letter in 2008 from industry-connected Connected Nation for a broadband plan compatible with the interests of the nation’s largest cable and phone companies, wrote a letter to the FCC opposing Net Neutrality in 2009, and submitted two pages of comments in May favoring the merger between AT&T and T-Mobile.

Apparently there is plenty of free time on the ranch to ponder billion dollar telecommunications mergers.

The argument from the group is that permitting mergers and blocking open net policies like Net Neutrality will convince carriers to provide enhanced service in rural areas where cattle ranches predominate.  But facts in evidence illustrate how wrong-headed that argument is:

• Verizon’s merger with Alltel has done nothing to bring its LTE network to rural America.  Verizon is focusing LTE upgrades on the markets where it makes the most business sense, and that does not include rural Texas or Oklahoma;
• The National Broadband Plan has directed stimulus funding for rural projects that are most likely to reach their ranch members — wireless ISPs and rural DSL.  The cattlemen’s group has nothing to say about either provider;
• Net Neutrality and the policies of an open and free Internet have no real impact on rural broadband deployment.  The same companies refusing to provide service yesterday are still refusing to provide service today, and that includes completely exempted wireless providers;
• T-Mobile’s urban-suburban focus is a mainstay of its business plan.  T-Mobile has never prioritized rural America as a viable service area, relying on roaming agreements to fill in service gaps.  Combining its urban-focused wireless infrastructure with AT&T will add nothing to the rural wireless experience.

The Washington Post finds financial connections between AT&T and the cattlemen group.

Advocating for a merger with T-Mobile makes about as much sense as the group advocating for a T-Mobile merger with Leap Wireless’ Cricket or MetroPCS.  All have a record of indifference about providing service in rural areas themselves.

So why does the group persist in fronting for AT&T’s public policy agenda?  Cecilia Kang at the Washington Post tweeted the obvious answer — they receive support from AT&T.

The piece for The Hill was penned by Jess Peterson, the cattlemen group’s executive vice president.  But Peterson has a second career: president of Washington, D.C.-based Western Skies Strategies, a lobbying firm that promises “success and profitability to our valued clients every time.”

The concept of dollar-a-holler public advocacy is not new, but AT&T is the Master of the Astroturf Universe.  The Center for Responsive Politics notes that from 1989 to 2010, no single company spent more on campaign contributions than AT&T.  Since 2008, more than $1.25 million has been “donated” to politically-connected charities and those willing to lend their name and reputation to back the company’s public policy agenda.

Facts have a hard time penetrating piles of cash, but here are some anyway:

1. T-Mobile’s combination with AT&T may create additional capacity for the combined company, but almost entirely in urban and suburban areas that will do nothing to help rural wireless.
2. No telecommunications company has a track record of providing service in areas unprofitable to serve or fail return on investment demands.  No merger will change that.
3. Promises for network upgrades already committed in long-range business plans do not sweeten a bitter deal for Americans concerned about competition in the wireless marketplace.
4. T-Mobile’s track record as being the most market-disruptive in pricing and innovation will be eliminated in a merger with America’s lowest rated wireless carrier.
5. Any excitement for rural wireless broadband from AT&T is tempered when would-be customers realize the company enforces a 2GB usage cap with an overlimit fee on their smartphone data plans — an Internet Overcharging scheme more punishing than either Verizon or Sprint.