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OpenCape Update - First Stretch Scheduled for Testing By the End of the Month
After six years in the making, the OpenCape network is soon to be delivering services. According to a Sandwich Wicked Local article, town selectmen were informed on December 6th that the Brockton-to-Plymouth stretch of the network will be activated before the end of 2012 for testing. We brought you detailed news of the $40 million project earlier this year.
Funded with a $32 million Broadband Technology Opportunity Program (BTOP) grant and $8 million from the state, county, and private venture firm CapeNet. According to the article, 200 miles of fiber are installed and 50 are in construction or are being leased. Construction was set back when Hurrican Sandy hit the east coast. Verizon NStar crews, working on the install, were all pulled and sent to New York and New Jersey.
The news from OpenCape Chief Executive Officer Dan Vortherms was welcome. The community has been waiting patiently to tap into the improved access, economic development, and cost savings. From the article:
Selectman Frank Pannorfi said broadband might service several initiatives the town has planned for some time; alluding perhaps to South Sandwich Village and its business potential.
“We’ve been waiting for this a long time,” Pannorfi said.
A much needed data center is just beginning construction. The data center and the network will belong to the non-profit OpenCape. The purpose of the middle-mile network is to "support the economic, educational, public safety and governmental needs of the region.
Boston vs. Verizon
A recent editorial in the Boston Globe caught my attention - Fiber-optic nerve. It seems that Boston is tired of waiting for private companies to build modern broadband networks in the city.
The editorial suggests that as Verizon has started building its FTTH FiOS in New York City, D.C., and some of the Boston suburbs, it may be a withholding the network from Boston due to the Mayor's efforts to change a state law that has exempted telecom companies from paying a number of taxes. Verizon denies any connection. From the editorial:
Menino is right to insist that telecommunication companies pay their fair share of taxes. In Boston, the exemption shifts more than $5 million a year onto the property tax bills of homeowners, say city officials. But tensions between Verizon and the mayor can be costly in many ways. City cable providers Comcast and RCN, for example, don’t offer the speedier fiber-optic connections into customers’ homes available from Verizon in 98 Massachusetts cities and towns. The new and faster broadband speeds - both downstream and upstream - offered by Verizon to Internet customers therefore remain beyond the reach of Bostonians, as do FiOS-related incentives on products such as mini netbooks and camcorders. Cable and Internet competition is alive and well in the suburbs, but flat in Boston.Verizon has previously threatened to withhold its investments in states that do not sufficiently deregulate -- after turning its back on the New England region by offloading its customers on the totally unprepared Fairpoint company, Verizon pushed franchise "reform" in Massachusetts. Franchise "reform" is when states agree to preempt local communities that selfishly want to regulate the quality of service offered by providers - things like requiring some local channels and thresholds for customer service. As Karl Bode noted in the link above:
While these bills are promoted as a magic elixir that will bring competition and lower TV prices to a region, when people go back to investigate whether these bills actually helped anybody (which is amusingly rare), data indicates that TV prices increased anyway and consumers got the short end of the stick.