Can we have 90 seconds of your time, please?

Christopher Mitchell at Community Broadband Networks has put together some compelling evidence about how some of the most advanced broadband networks in the country are being built by and for the communities they ultimately serve.

You may think the best broadband around can be found in the biggest cities in America, but you’d be wrong.

“It may surprise people that these cities in Virginia, Tennessee, and Louisiana have faster and lower cost access to the Internet than anyone in San Francisco, Seattle, or any other major city,” says Christopher Mitchell, Director of ILSR’s Telecommunications as Commons Initiative. “These publicly owned networks have each created hundreds of jobs and saved millions of dollars.”

The fact is, public broadband is convincing some of the country’s biggest tech companies, including Amazon.com, to locate enormous distribution centers right in the middle of fiber-plentiful cities like Chattanooga, and that means job growth — a lot of it.

Unfortunately, too often today’s “broadband innovation” comes only from how to extract more money for less service from some of America’s top providers. Usage caps, overcrowded networks, and speed constraints conspire to help America lose the global speed race.  But some communities are fighting the good fight themselves, even as big phone and cable companies like AT&T, Time Warner Cable, Comcast, and CenturyLink are trying to smash those networks through special interest corporate welfare legislation.

Mitchell and his team have assembled the facts: BVU Authority’s OptiNet in Bristol, Virginia; EPB Fiber in Chattanooga, Tennessee; and LUS Fiber in Lafayette, Louisiana — all built by publicly-owned utilities, demonstrate the public sector can deliver effective, innovative service at prices consumers can afford.  Better yet, they’re doing it in places big telecommunications companies decided were unworthy of getting world-class service.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Community Broadband.flv[/flv]

Watch this video and learn why community broadband networks represent America’s most innovative broadband, and then learn more about how you can get involved and support better broadband in your community.  (2 minutes)

Verizon Wireless’ answer for rural America’s broadband troubles goes live across the country today, offering the broadband deprived the opportunity of getting wireless service at almost twice the price of conventional DSL, with a 10GB monthly usage allowance.

HomeFusion Broadband uses Verizon’s LTE network to deliver service to homes and businesses within range of Verizon’s 4G network.  For rural America, the speeds Verizon is capable of delivering offer a significant improvement over rural DSL.  Verizon promises 5-12Mbps down and 2-5Mbps up, depending on how many users are sharing the cell tower and how strong a signal one receives.

“HomeFusion Broadband is another example of Verizon Wireless’ commitment to providing our customers with the most innovative products and services,” said Tami Erwin, vice president and chief marketing officer, Verizon Wireless. “With HomeFusion Broadband, customers across the United States, in towns large and small, will have the chance to link devices to the Internet and take advantage of the speed, coverage and connectivity offered by our 4G LTE network.”

Whether they can afford it may be another matter.

Verizon Wireless charges a one-time equipment fee of $199.99, which includes professional installation of the required cylindrical outdoor antenna and router that allows customers to share the wireless connection with other devices inside the home.

Monthly service fees start at $60 a month and include 10GB of monthly usage. If you need more data, you will pay a significant amount to get it — up to $120 a month for 30GB of usage.  As a tease, customers get 50 percent more data allowance for the first two full billing cycles of service.  If you become accustomed to using that extra allowance, it could be very costly once the first two months are up.  Overlimit fees run $10/GB.

Verizon claims two-thirds of the country is now covered by their 4G LTE network, including the regions Verizon sold off to companies like FairPoint and Frontier Communications.  Those independent phone companies will soon have Verizon as a broadband competitor in states like West Virginia, Vermont, Ohio, and Maine. If customers value speed over everything else, Verizon could be a formidable competitor over traditional rural DSL, which often operates at speeds of 1-3Mbps, as long as customers steer clear of allowance-eating online video.

Verizon has positioned HomeFusion as a rural broadband solution, and earlier pricing and policy changes make it clear Verizon is downplaying its traditional DSL service.  In April, Verizon announced it would no longer sell standalone DSL service to customers without voice phone lines, or to those who live in areas also wired for the company’s fiber optic network FiOS.

Comcast’s national low-income Internet service, Internet Essentials, is getting an upgrade.

Out of more than 14 million Comcast broadband customers, fewer than 50,000 families managed to qualify and successfully obtain the $9.95/mo low-speed Internet service. On Tuesday, Comcast announced it was relaxing some of the program’s requirements to include more families and has also doubled the service’s speeds to 3Mbps for downloads and 768kbps for uploads.

Susan Jin Davis, vice president of Comcast’s Strategic Services explained the changes on the company’s blog:

[…] When we first started out, Internet Essentials was offered to families with children eligible to receive “free” school lunches under the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). Today, we have officially extended the program to include families with children eligible to receive “reduced” price lunches too. This change adds about 300,000 households in our service area who can now apply for the program — bringing our estimated total to about 2.3 million eligible families.

[…] Second, we doubled the speed of the broadband connection provided with Internet Essentials. It now comes with up to 3 Mbps downstream and up to 768 Kbps upstream, which makes the online experience even better than it was before. The increase is available now and we notified customers by email that the only thing they need to do is reboot their modems in order to immediately get the new speeds.

Third, as we announced in January, we have streamlined the application process by providing an instant approval process for all students attending schools with the highest percentage of NSLP participation, including Provision 2 schools.

Comcast’s Internet Essentials program was launched as part of an agreement with the Federal Communications Commission to win approval of the cable operator’s merger with NBC-Universal.  Comcast also committed to an expansion of its broadband service in rural areas.  The company says it expanded its service area by 199,876 additional homes in 33 rural communities.

Schuyler County

The fastest thing in Schuyler County, N.Y., isn’t broadband — it’s the Watkins Glen International speedway.

County officials hope to change that, voting unanimously this month to approve an agreement with the Southern Tier Network to bring a regional fiber optic system into the county.

The not-for-profit local development corporation established to build and manage the regional fiber network doesn’t sit well with some county residents, however, including one retired Verizon employee who dismissed the project.

Odessa resident Karen Radenberg called fiber optics technology “old school” and said no private company will connect to the fiber network to expand broadband service.

Radenberg urged the county to consider that communications companies have now moved on to using 4G wireless technology instead of fiber.

“That’s ridiculous,” countered Legislature Chairman Dennis Fagan (R-Tyrone).

Fagan

Fagan pointed to nearby Ontario County’s fiber middle-mile and institutional network which has signed companies, including Verizon, as customers.  Verizon reportedly uses the Ontario County network to deliver backhaul connectivity to its cell tower network in the area.  Ontario County is served by several different landline companies including Frontier Communications, Verizon, and Windstream.  Time Warner Cable is the dominant cable provider, but large sections of the county are deemed too rural for cable television service.

Fagan said the new fiber network will improve the chances private companies will expand broadband across the county, but also help deliver an important upgrade to the region’s emergency responder communications system.  The extremely hilly terrain across much of the southern tier creates problems because of signal gaps.  The new fiber network will allow the county to build radio repeaters into areas where the existing network of microwave communications towers cannot reach.

Schuyler County currently has no plans to sell Internet connectivity to the public, but hopes existing private cable and phone companies — including Time Warner Cable and Verizon Communications — will consider utilizing the network to expand service.  Neither company has shown much interest expanding service to new areas recently, most likely because expansion costs will not be recouped fast enough.

If the county network reduces the cost to expand service, more homes and businesses may now fall within a “Return on Investment” formula that could mean the difference between broadband and dial-up.

She’s back and wants to “set the record straight.”

T-Mobile’s familiar ad star is dropping her amazing pink dresses like these 2024 short pink prom dresses for some get-tough biker leather in a new series of commercials for the wireless carrier.

Canadian actress-model Carly Foulkes has appeared in “approachable”-wear designed by Debra LeClair since 2010, mostly chiding competitors like AT&T for tricky fees and “gotchas” that T-Mobile doesn’t charge. Typically amused by the antics of other wireless carriers, she promised relief for customers switching to T-Mobile’s value-oriented wireless plans.

Nearly a year after the failed merger-buyout by AT&T was first announced, T-Mobile this week unveils a “brand refresh” that promises wireless customers it is back in the fight for their business.  Traditionally, T-Mobile has positioned itself as a low-cost, value-oriented provider.  Often, the company’s service plans and pricing have forced other wireless carriers to follow suit.  AT&T’s buyout of T-Mobile would have eliminated that aggressive pricing.

T-Mobile will spend millions on the new ad campaign.

In the first ad in the series, Foulkes metaphorically tears up T-Mobile’s image over the past year, perceived as supine as the company waited to be absorbed into AT&T’s empire.  Ripping through her closet, Foulkes emerges in black leather and hops on board a motorcycle, demanding that visitors test-drive T-Mobile’s 4G network speeds against AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon.

Before her biker phase

T-Mobile’s year-long courting by AT&T cost the company plenty.

At last 802,000 contract customers fled T-Mobile for the competition, many for Sprint and Verizon, some only to avoid dealing with AT&T.

Others left because T-Mobile is the last major carrier still not offering Apple’s popular iPhone.  

The company promises to invest at least $200 million in advertising its comeback and is keeping Foulkes front and center.  In fact, outside of Verizon’s “Can You Hear Me Now” campaign which ran for a decade, ending last April, no spokescharacter has proved as recognizable as Foulkes.

The motorcycle theme will focus viewers on T-Mobile’s 4G network speeds.  Customers perceived that T-Mobile stopped upgrading and expanding its network while it pursued a merger with AT&T.

T-Mobile continues to claim it operates the nation’s largest 4G network, operating with HSPA+ technology.

T-Mobile’s “4G” network does deliver speed improvements over 3G, but some have dubbed HSPA+ “3.5G,” because resulting speeds usually cannot compete with 4G LTE technology.

T-Mobile plans to spend $1.4 billion to build its own LTE network to launch in 2013.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/T-Mobile Relaunch Ad.flv[/flv]

T-Mobile’s “brand refresh” starts with this ad, “No More Mr. Nice Girl.”  (1 minute)