It’s time for every consumer across the country to help our friends in North Carolina, who are now facing the prospect of a Broadband Dark Age with the passage of a cable-industry-written bill designed to protect their monopoly prices and deliver America’s worst broadband experience.

The grand lie that is the Level Playing Field/Local Government Competition Bill (H.129) claims it will protect broadband competition in the state.  It will, if you are Time Warner Cable facing top-rated, super-fast service from community broadband networks that compete with them in communities like Salisbury and Wilson.

The power to protect North Carolina’s broadband future is now in the hands of Gov. Bev Purdue.

The North Carolina Senate abdicated their responsibility to serve the interests of state residents.  On Tuesday, they voted 39-10 for this consumer atrocity:

Ayes:	Senator(s): Allran; Apodaca; Atwater; Berger, D.; Berger, P.; Bingham; Blake; Blue; Brock; Brown; Brunstetter; Clary; Daniel; Davis; East; Forrester; Garrou; Goolsby; Gunn; Harrington; Hartsell; Hise; Hunt; Jackson; Jenkins; Jones; McKissick; Nesbitt; Pate; Preston; Rabon; Rouzer; Rucho; Soucek; Stein; Stevens; Tillman; Tucker; Walters
Noes:	Senator(s): Dannelly; Graham; Kinnaird; Mansfield; Meredith; Newton; Purcell; Robinson; Vaughan; White

Yesterday, the House added insult to injury voting 84-32 for the bill custom written by and for Time Warner Cable:

	Democrat	Republican
Ayes:	Representative(s): Adams; Brisson; Carney; Crawford; Earle; Hamilton; Hill; McLawhorn; Michaux; Mobley; Moore, R.; Owens; Parmon; Pierce; Spear; Wainwright; Warren, E.; Wilkins; Wray	Representative(s): Avila; Barnhart; Blackwell; Blust; Boles; Bradley; Brawley; Brown, L.; Brown, R.; Brubaker; Burr; Cleveland; Collins; Cook; Daughtry; Dixon; Dockham; Dollar; Faircloth; Folwell; Frye; Gillespie; Guice; Hager; Hastings; Hilton; Hollo; Holloway; Horn; Howard; Hurley; Iler; Ingle; Johnson; Jones; Jordan; Justice; Langdon; LaRoque; Lewis; McComas; McCormick; McElraft; McGee; McGrady; Mills; Moffitt; Moore, T.; Murry; Pridgen; Randleman; Rhyne; Sager; Samuelson; Sanderson; Setzer; Shepard; Stam; Starnes; Steen; Stevens; Stone; Torbett; Warren, H.; West
Noes:	Representative(s): Alexander, K.; Alexander, M.; Bordsen; Brandon; Bryant; Cotham; Faison; Farmer-Butterfield; Fisher; Floyd; Gill; Glazier; Goodman; Graham; Hackney; Haire; Hall; Harrison; Insko; Jackson; Jeffus; Keever; Lucas; Luebke; Martin; McGuirt; Parfitt; Rapp; Ross; Tolson; Weiss; Womble

Not a single Republican in the House stood up for you.

Several legislators that still remember they represent the interests of voters and not out of state big cable and phone companies were appalled.

Rep. Bill Faison (D-Caswell, Orange), who has been a champion of better broadband across North Carolina, reminded the Assembly the bill should have been named the Time Warner Cable Anti-Competition Bill, written by a New York City-based company that will prevent cities from using their collective buying authority to provide themselves (finally) with the broadband service the private sector has steadfastly refused to deliver.

Faison noted Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt made $27 million in compensation last year — the same as the entire cost of Wilson’s GreenLight fiber-to-the-home cable system.

Faison openly pondered what the cable company has been paying to employ the six full time lobbyists who have been trolling the halls of the state legislature for months, and exactly how much next year’s rate increase will be to pay for their services.

Even the former chairman of the state Republican party called H.129 an enormously arrogant piece of legislation.

Another hero for consumers, Rep. Paul Luebke (D-Durham), noted the bill’s immediate impact will be to keep rural North Carolina a broadband desert.  Luebke called H.129 a bad bill that denies service even to communities where no broadband service exists.

But Rep. Marilyn Avila (R-Time Warner Cable) wanted to ensure no one could say there was a broadband problem in North Carolina, so she supported an amendment that allows areas to be declared served if even a single home has broadband service in a particular census block.  That provision delivers beneficial protection to CenturyLink, who can spend their time, money, and attention on a merger with Qwest, the last remaining independent Baby Bell.  While they focus on making themselves bigger through mergers and acquisitions, the phone company faces no competitive pressure to expand service in rural North Carolina, and will face no meaningful competition for the indefinite future.

While Gov. Purdue’s office has made noises about vetoing this bad legislation, it is essential that we let the governor know we need an absolute commitment on her part to veto H.129.  We’ve seen how Big Telecom plays their dirty pool, so we cannot afford to sit back and allow their lobbyists to wear the governor down.

When Time Warner Cable tried to slap an Internet Overcharging scheme on consumers in New York, North Carolina, and Texas in 2009, Stop the Cap! made a commitment to join forces with all of the impacted communities to present a united consumer front against provider abuses.  H.129 qualifies.  That’s why we urge everyone to contact Gov. Purdue and let her know she must veto H.129, an anti-consumer, anti-broadband bill.

Please call -and- e-mail her office:

• E-Mail: [email protected]
• Phone: +1 919 733 2391

 

Minor Correction Made 5/6 – 5pm ET: We made an error referring to a census tract instead of a census block in the original piece.  One of our readers dropped us a note correcting us, which we are happy to do.  A “tract” actually has many “blocks” in it.

Obtaining broadband in rural America can be a real challenge, but few rise to the occasion more than Stop the Cap! reader Paul, who lives in Blaine, Tenn.  Paul so wanted broadband service, he was willing to pay for his own telephone poles and equipment to get Frontier Communications to provide him with DSL service, even though he technically lives in AT&T territory.

Paul’s saga, documented on his blog, began in 2009, when his satellite fraudband provider Optistreams could no longer manage reliable uploading of images and maps for his employer, despite the fact he was paying nearly $150 a month for the service.  Satellite providers are having a tough time providing customers access to an increasingly multimedia rich Internet.  With low usage caps and ridiculously low speeds, most satellite customers we’ve heard from report their experiences to be frustrating, at best.  For Paul, in rural Grainger County, it had become intolerable. Verizon, the best possible wireless option, delivered one bar to the farm country Paul lives in — unsuitable for wireless data service.

Paul called his local phone company, AT&T, and inquired about when the company would extend its DSL service to his part of Blaine.

AT&T answered Paul succinctly:  “[We will] never provide DSL within 20 miles of your location.”

Paul’s property is situated right on the boundary between AT&T and Frontier Communications’ service areas.  AT&T provides service at Paul’s home, but Frontier Communications’ territory starts just 1,400 feet away, on the other end of his property.  In-between is a telecommunications no-man’s land.

Paul pondered emigrating his service from the Republic of AT&T to the Fiefdom of Frontier, which does offer DSL nearby.

AT&T told Paul he could leave them anytime he liked, taking his broadband business to Frontier.  Besides, nothing precluded him from doing that with or without AT&T’s consent, informed AT&T’s Eastern District Counsel.

Declaring allegiance to Frontier would be no easy matter, however.  Would Frontier allow him to settle down as their broadband customer?

“After a bunch of arguing with Frontier District Manager Mike Bird he sent District Engineer John Simpson out to my home,” Paul says.  “Simpson informed me that I was in AT&T territory and that ended all conversations.  I stated that AT&T had advised they had no problem and further there was no government regulation.  Didn’t matter I was told, that was that.”

Few, if any phone companies will agree to trespass on another provider’s turf, except under the most special circumstances.

Paul contacted Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) to escalate the matter, and followed up with an official complaint to the Federal Communications Commission.

Federal agencies like the FCC become particularly responsive when a United States Senator is involved in monitoring the dispute.  AT&T responded to the complaint telling the Commission Paul had effectively fled their service area and was now a customer of Frontier Communications.  Frontier ignored the FCC initially, and instead sent Paul a letter affirming they would be willing to provide him with DSL, but at a “go away” installation price of $10,000.

When providers confront unprofitable customers difficult to serve, it is often easier to give them a sky high installation price with the hope it will discourage them from pursuing the matter.  Frontier claimed the costs of running infrastructure to reach Paul would amount to $9,977.44 — check or money order, please.

From Gregg Sayre, Frontier’s Eastern Region Associate General Counsel:

“As you know, you are in the service territory of AT&T.  AT&T is correct that we legally can provide service to you outside of our local service territory.  Unfortunately, the cost of serving you… if fully absorbed by Frontier, would overshadow the potential profits.  …In this case it does not make economic sense for us to undertake a line extension at our expense into AT&T’s service territory to reach your location, and the law does not require us to do so.”

“I countered with the fact that we would run the poles along the roadway and they could pay our pole attachment agreement.  They balked,” Paul writes.  “We, in turn, stated we would bring our own infrastructure to them underground and across a friend’s farm and did such for a quarter of the price.  This included running our own network interface at their pole and our house.”

In the end, Paul paid out of pocket for 1,600 feet of direct burial cable running across two farms and a county road.  He assumes responsibility of his cable, Frontier is responsible for the network from their pole back to the central office.

After the robust investment in time, money, and energy, what Paul ended up with wasn’t worth a dollar:

That’s worse than most satellite providers.

In fact, Paul has documented much of the time he is without any service at all — offline at least 38 of the last 50 days.

“Our average speed until they installed a new D-SLAM was 92kbps down and 125kbps up,” Paul writes.  It wasn’t just a problem for him.  Among Frontier’s loyal subjects already a part of their service area, customers also reported similar slow speeds.  Paul organized a door-to-door campaign to bring a united front of complaints to company officials.

Paul notes the local Frontier technicians have been responsive and understanding, but Frontier officials higher up are simply dragging their feet on needed upgrades.  Finally, $200 in service credits later, Frontier is promising to install a fiber cable to reduce the distance between the central office and the more distant points in the exchange where Paul and his neighbors live.  While that might help bring Paul’s speeds up, Frontier is notorious for overselling their network, leaving customers in large regions with slow service at peak usage times.  This has particularly been a problem in nearby West Virginia.

Paul says Frontier is largely unresponsive to individual complaints.

“I racked up well over 170 repair tickets in six months,” Paul shares.  “I organized my rural area and we hammered their call center. Did that do anything? Well, I can’t honestly say it did.”

With Frontier, it takes media exposure and embarrassment or the work of individual employees willing to persistently push higher-ups to authorize real solutions to customer problems, not temporary Band-Aids.

Broadband over a telephone network that is decades old requires substantial investments to function well.  In rural areas where customers have few choices, phone companies delivering service on the cheap too often leave paying customers with a quality of service highly lacking.

Federal Communications Chairman Julius Genachowski is racking up those frequent flier miles as he travels from one telecom industry trade show to another.  In addition to less-than-thrilling appearances at industry events run by the wireless industry and broadcasters, the chairman is now scheduled to be the headline act at the cable industry trade show to be held June 15 in Chicago.

Instead of devoting time and attention to provider profiteering and the ongoing concentration of the wireless marketplace, Genachowski will be shaking hands with big cable executives, sharing the stage with former FCC chairman Michael Powell, who now runs the National Cable and Telecommunications Association.  (Powell is a classic example of Revolving Door Syndrome: Start a career in public service and finish it using your government connections to cash in with a six figure salary working for the industry you used to oversee.)

While the current FCC chairman gets to bloat his expense account, his performance on behalf of the American people leaves plenty to be desired:

1. His vision of our broadband future is all talk and little action, with National Broadband Plan goals seen as increasingly anemic when contrasted with broadband development abroad;
2. Genachowski has caved on important consumer protections for broadband consumers, most notably with a very-industry-friendly Net Neutrality policy that won him little thanks (Verizon sued anyway);
3. His “white space” broadband plan to carve up UHF broadcast spectrum for mobile broadband comes poorly conceived, infuriating broadcasters who promise to spend millions in a lobbying death match;

At the NCTA convention, Genachowski is likely to deal with the hot potato retransmission consent issue — the one that pits you in the middle of million-dollar squabbles over what pay TV provider gets to carry what networks (and how much you will pay for them).  Also on the agenda: CableCARD 2: Electric Boogaloo, also known as AllVid, the almost certainly Dead on Arrival replacement for the first generation CableCARD set top box replacement that practically nob0dy uses.

Although Google loves AllVid, the powerful entertainment and cable industry is less impressed.  The Motion Picture Association of America considers it a piracy gateway because it lacks sufficient copyright protection mechanisms, and the cable industry has always been wary of standardized set top equipment that could tie down on-demand programming, signal theft protection, and future innovations.

Genachowski is sure to get a warmer reception at the cable show than he got from broadcasters earlier this month, who were downright hostile over his proposal to carve up the UHF TV dial (channels 14-51), selling off “extra” channels for wireless broadband.

The National Association of Broadcasters is starting to get a little worried, not feeling the love the Commission has bestowed on big cable and phone companies who got their lobbying wish-lists largely granted.  Instead, a year after being dragged into an expensive digital TV conversion, the FCC is back for more from television broadcasters, taking back perhaps a dozen or more channels for “white space broadband,” a vaguely-explained plan to enhance the amount of space available for wireless data.

Unfortunately, with thousands of television stations, the FCC will have to find enough channels for everyone to share without interfering with each other.  The FCC still hasn’t released a definitive plan about how to accomplish this, and with big wireless interests suggesting TV stations should slash their transmitter power and share the same or adjacent channels, a lot of stations fear they will be crammed together like a Japanese train at rush hour.

But the wireless industry wants it, even if it drives some stations in densely populated areas off the air completely.  In many other areas, especially in the northeast and southern California, stations might have to cut their signal coverage areas to avoid interfering with stations sharing the same channel in an adjacent city.  Rural residents relying on over the air television could be out of luck, even with a rooftop antenna.

In a bidding war, who would likely win the spectrum up for sale?  AT&T, Verizon, and perhaps some large cable companies looking for enhanced wireless services to sell.  No wonder the NAB is worried.  The FCC could favor selling spectrum out from under your local stations and sell it to their biggest competitors in the pay television business.

Consumers should be concerned as well.  Should today’s biggest wireless carriers scoop up “white space” frequencies, it will do nothing to bring enhanced competition or lower prices.  It will just lock up even more spectrum for a wireless industry that threatens to become a duopoly.

Instead of flying all over the country to attend trade shows and shake hands with industry leaders, Chairman Genachowski should be spending more of his time looking for creative, effective solutions to enhance competition and protect consumers, not simply throw them under the bus for the benefit of a handful of industry players already too large for the common good.

 

Verizon Communications formally closed its acquisition of Alltel in January 2009, but some former customers are only now feeling the impact as they transition to… AT&T.

That’s right, AT&T.

Although Verizon acquired the bulk of Alltel’s national customer base, the federal government ordered Verizon to sell off its future Alltel customers in communities where the company would likely be the overwhelmingly dominant player.  Verizon sold off most of these orphaned customers, numbering over a million, especially in the Mountain Time Zone, to AT&T.

The transition from Alltel to AT&T would be a bumpy one because the two companies use different wireless technologies, meaning every customer would have to be provided with a new phone.  Alltel’s customers remaining with Verizon didn’t experience this, because both companies use CDMA technology.

AT&T agreed, as part of the deal, to supply every one of its new postpaid/contract Alltel customers with brand new GSM phones (although AT&T was unwilling to provide free advanced smartphones like Apple’s iPhone).  Prepaid customers were less lucky — they only received discounts off new phones.

Stop the Cap! has talked with more than a dozen affected customers in Arizona, New Mexico, Michigan, Utah, Wyoming, Iowa and Colorado about their experiences as they transition to AT&T service.  With AT&T now proposing to merge with T-Mobile, which could also mean some new phones for T-Mobile customers, we wanted to learn what customers thought about being moved from one carrier to another, what their experience was before the transition and after, and whether they intend to stay with AT&T.

Our panel included a young man from Utah who used his phone at home and outside of the state as he performed mission work for the Mormon Church in rural Florida.  We also spoke with a retired couple living in Arizona who chose Alltel because of their unlimited calling circle option to stay in touch with friends and family in Minnesota.  Also participating: a travel agent in Michigan, a realtor in New Mexico, a self-employed contractor in Colorado, a farmer in Iowa, and several others who shared their stories with us in e-mail.  By mutual agreement, we’re keeping their last names private because some have pending disputes with AT&T.

Breaking the News: Alltel Sells Out Their Customers to Verizon

When Karen, a realtor from New Mexico first heard word that Alltel was selling out to Verizon, she wasn’t sure exactly what that meant.  There was considerable confusion in her part of southern New Mexico mostly because the local media does a poor job of covering telecommunications stories.

“In New Mexico, everything in the media is centered around what is going on in Albuquerque and everything else is given little attention, except in the local newspaper,” Karen says.  “But whether you are in Las Cruces or Roswell, the quality of the story depends on the quality of the poorly paid reporter.”

Karen was not worried about the sale at first, because she was aware Verizon had a good reputation for cell phone service.  She had originally selected Alltel because they had good rates and friendly customer service.

“If I ever had a problem with my phone, Alltel would always fix it, even if it was out of warranty,” Karen explains.  “That meant a lot to me because they didn’t have to do that, but it was why I always renewed my contract.”

Heath, who runs a home-based contracting business in southern Colorado, didn’t like what he was hearing from the start.  Neither did Marion and Will, a retired couple living outside of Phoenix.

“We had our dealings with Verizon back in Minnesota when we lived there and we never liked them because they cost too much,” Will says.  “Alltel was a great choice for us because they had a calling circle plan that let you make unlimited calls to certain numbers, and we talked with our daughter back in Minnesota daily using our cell phone.”

Confusion about the deal only got worse when Alltel (and in some cases Verizon) notified our panel members they would not be Verizon customers after all — they were being sold off to another cell phone company.

Alltel -> Verizon -> AT&T -> Frustration

Micah, our reader in Utah first contacted us more than a year ago to express his confusion about why he was not only losing his Alltel account, but now he was somehow ending up as a customer of AT&T, a carrier he definitely wants nothing to do with.

“I figured I could at least live with Verizon because they are everywhere, but as I started performing my mission work for the church in rural central Florida, I learned from my parents I was actually going to end up a customer of AT&T, something I definitely never wanted,” Micah says.  “AT&T is terrible in Utah and worse here — nobody wants AT&T unless you are in Orlando or Daytona Beach.”

“At first we thought, cool, new phones for everyone,” Shanie told Stop the Cap! from her home in Muskegon, Mich. “AT&T has been promising major expansion of service here in western Michigan since they notified us they were taking over for Alltel, but then we started learning the details.”

While Shanie’s family of four would be given four new phones, their choices of new phones were limited, although AT&T called them “comparable.”  Many of AT&T’s smartphones were not covered, even if families already owned smartphones purchased from Alltel.

“We also discovered if you wanted one of these advanced phones, it meant a new two-year contract with AT&T, effectively forcing us to stay with them longer,” Shanie says.

Jed, a farmer outside of Sioux City, Iowa says AT&T did a poor job keeping him informed.  Jed stopped receiving all communication from Alltel (other than a bill) and never heard a word from AT&T.  Instead, one of his neighbors warned him that his Alltel phone was going to quit working by the middle of May.  Jed was upset because the deadline for him to choose a new free phone had passed and he never had the opportunity to make a choice, never having been notified about any of the changes.

“The newspaper might have said something about it, but we don’t get the paper here and nobody has much time to spend watching television,” Jed shared.  “We would have thought AT&T would have notified us, but they apparently forgot we were here.”

Last week, a new phone arrived from AT&T in the mail, unsolicited.

“What a way of doing business — we thought at first it was some sort of fraudulent purchase and we almost didn’t accept it from the driver,” Jed said.

AT&T has been sending out new phones all month to customers across several states, encouraging them to call and activate them on AT&T’s network.  Once customers do that, their old Alltel phones will quit working.  That was a problem for Shanie’s daughter at college in Grand Rapids.  When mom activated her phone, the primary one on the account, her daughter’s Alltel phone stopped working.

“AT&T has you call a toll-free number to activate the phone, but first they require y0u to accept the terms and conditions for doing business with AT&T, which can include contract extensions for some people,” Shanie said.  “I had no idea activating my phone would end service on all of the other Alltel phones on the account.”

Alltel customers in these states had new AT&T phones shipped to them on this schedule.  The second date refers to the service transition cutoff date:

Arizona	January 27, 2011	February 10, 2011
Southern New Mexico	February 7-8, 2011	March 2-3, 2011
Michigan and Montana	February 16-21, 2011	April 6-12, 2011
Colorado, Northern New Mexico	February 23-28, 2011	April 13-18, 2011
Iowa and South Dakota	March 4-14, 2011	April 19-28, 2011
North Dakota	March 15-21, 2011	April 29-May 5, 2011
Utah and Wyoming	April 1-6, 2011	May 9-12, 2011

Bailing Out for Alternatives

Jody, a soon-to-be-ex AT&T customer in New Mexico, says there was plenty of fine print to wade through when he prepared for the switch from Alltel, and he didn’t like what he saw.

“AT&T is very tricky about how they handle customers who want to depart Alltel and avoid becoming an AT&T customer,” Jody says.  “You cannot cancel your Alltel contract and avoid an early termination fee, but you can cancel AT&T within 30 days of switching and escape a hefty exit fee.”

Indeed, AT&T’s transition website says Alltel customers who want to switch providers will face an early exit penalty as long as their Alltel phones remain active.  Those who switch and activate their new AT&T phones get a 30 day window to drop AT&T and avoid an ETF:

If, after moving to AT&T service, you choose to discontinue your AT&T service, you will have a 30-day period to opt out of your AT&T contract without an ETF. After that 30-day period, standard AT&T terms apply including any applicable ETF.

Jody got his new phone and promptly canceled his AT&T service.  He switched to CellularOne, a company with a legacy name but a very local network.  It has its own cell towers only in northern Arizona and parts of New Mexico.  For everywhere else, it depends on a roaming agreement with… AT&T.

Jody’s CellularOne plan still offers completely unlimited calling, texting, and data for around $80 a month, and that includes AT&T’s nationwide network.

“CellularOne offers a much better deal than AT&T, but you can only choose from three lower end smartphones — no iPhone to be had here,” Jody says.

Heath in Colorado wants out of AT&T as well.

“They drop calls all the time and their network strength is awful in my neighborhood, and I depend on my cell phone and don’t have a landline,” Heath says.  “I don’t know why we had to be stuck with AT&T who apparently de-commissioned Alltel’s towers, which used to deliver a rock solid signal here.”

But not everyone is heading for other carriers.  Sam in Farmington, New Mexico says AT&T is bringing 3G to his community and mobile broadband speeds have been much faster than what Alltel used to deliver.

“AT&T’s data plans are overpriced, but if you can hang onto your existing Alltel plan but use it on AT&T’s network, it’s not so bad,” Sam says.  “Unfortunately, you cannot upgrade to an iPhone and keep Alltel’s plans — you have to pick one of AT&T’s.”

The Future for T-Mobile Customers

Although T-Mobile shares the same GSM network technology AT&T uses, the two companies have different frequency allocations for their respective networks.  T-Mobile customers seeking access to AT&T’s network will probably need new phones to access it. While AT&T claims T-Mobile’s own largely urban network will supplement AT&T’s own coverage, customers may need new equipment for that to be true as well, unless AT&T co-locates their own cell antennas on T-Mobile towers.

Former Alltel customers tell Stop the Cap! AT&T didn’t offer the latest and most popular phones for their swap, and some customers too far away from an AT&T store had to get a new phone without being able to try it.  AT&T allowed customers to exchange phones within 30 days, which helped some of our readers, but most felt the entire idea of being forced to switch to AT&T an inconvenience.  Most were also disturbed that one of the competitors in their area was disappearing, and considering Alltel served largely small cities and rural areas, there was already a lack of choice for most.  In total, three of our readers are staying with AT&T, two left for CellularOne, one chose to switch to a prepaid plan, and the rest went with Verizon after all.  If Alltel were still around, every customer we talked with for this piece would have stayed with them.

While America’s heartland is being wired for 3Mbps DSL service, residents in Pakistan are getting ready for speeds up to 50Mbps thanks to a major broadband expansion in the country.

Pakistan’s PTCL, the country’s state-controlled phone company, is working on a major upgrade to bonded VDSL2, the next generation of DSL, which can deliver more than five times the top speed of the country’s highest level of service, at a construction cost of just $200-300 per home passed.

PTCL, the largest broadband provider in Pakistan, has plans to complete the project in selected cities by the second quarter of the year, and then expand the service further out into more rural regions.

“PTCL is the first service provider worldwide to deploy a commercial VDSL2 bonding solution that aims at doubling the bandwidths provided to its existing customers,” PTCL President and CEO Walid Irshaid said.

Ishaid’s company chose VDSL2 over fiber to the home primarily because of cost.  With fiber installs now running around twice as expensive as a DSL upgrade, a developing country like Pakistan couldn’t justify the higher price.  VDSL is expected to be an important part of broadband expansion in the developing world, particularly in Africa, southeastern Europe, and central Asia.

Alcatel-Lucent, which is supplying equipment to deploy bonded VDSL2 service, says it has customers in western and central Europe as well.  Several providers are interested in VDSL2 technology because it could serve as a platform to deliver broadband, video, and phone service, much like AT&T’s U-verse.  Most Europeans get their broadband from DSL-equipped phone lines.

Pakistan hopes to eventually sell packages of service well beyond today’s maximum speed of 10Mbps, at a significantly lower cost.

Currently, Pakistan sells broadband ranging from a basic 256kbps connection (1GB limit) for around $3.50 a month, a popular 4Mbps unlimited package for around $24 a month, and 10Mbps service for a super pricey $119 a month.  With the upgrades, PTCL can either raise speeds, reduce prices, or a combination of both.  Outside of the 256kbps service, all other broadband packages from the company offer unlimited use.