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Content tagged with "symmetry"
SandyNet Now Offering Gigabit FTTH in Oregon
Back in September, SandyNet announced that its FTTH gigabit network was officially up and running. The utility will continue to expand and eventually bring the network to all 4,000 households. Light Reading recently spoke with Joe Knapp, Sandy's IT Director and general manager of the broadband utility about the new offering. With a population of 10,000, Sandy is in Oregon between Portland and Mount Hood.
The network is completely underground. Sandy is one of many communities that have developed smart conduit policies, reducing the cost and preparing the environment for deployment over a period of years.
You can listen to our discussion with Knapp on Sandy's conduit policy in Episode 17 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. We also spoke with City Manager Scott Lazenby about Sandy's conduit policies during Episode 48.
Like many other communities we study, Sandy invested in connectivity out of necessity. Knapp told Light Reading:
"We started out because we couldn't get a DSL line at city hall," says Joe Knapp, IT director for the City of Sandy and general manager of SandyNet. The utility first built a 900MHz wireless network, then WiFi, then a wireless mesh network to connect residents to broadband, he says. "That became so popular that we took about 40% of the market with wireless, but that was a hard thing to sustain."
The journey to FTTH was not an easy one:
"We started to realize that a lot of communities are doing this," Knapp says. "It took three years of beating my head against the wall to finally get it to happen."
Gigabit speeds are something to boast about, but Knapp says SandyNet will not go to extremes to push them:
"As a muni network, we view this as trying to benefit the community. I tell them to try the 100-Meg service first -- we're actually not pushing the gig that hard."
Community Broadband Media Roundup - December 12, 2014
This week in Community Broadband networks... partnerships, cooperatives, and going-it-alone. For a background in muni networks, check out this recent article from FiscalNote. The article highlights Kansas and Utah's fight for improving beyond the minimum speeds.
Speaking of minimum, the FCC announced its new "rock bottom" for regulated broadband speeds. Ars Technica's Jon Brodkin reports that despite AT&T, Verizon, and the National Cable and Telecom Association's protests, ISPs that use government subsidies to build rural broadband networks must provide speeds of at least 10 Mbps for downloads.
Rural Americans should not be left behind those who live in big cities, the FCC announcement today said. "According to recent data, 99 percent of Americans living in urban areas have access to fixed broadband speeds of 10/1, which can accommodate more modern applications and uses. Moreover, the vast majority of urban households are able to subscribe to even faster service," the FCC said.
The FCC plans to offer nearly $1.8 billion a year to carriers willing to expand service to 5 million rural Americans.
This is a step in the right direction, but we are alarmed to see a download:upload ratio of 10:1. People in rural areas need to upload as well as download - our comments to the FCC strongly recommended raising the upstream threshold as well and we are very disappointed to see that remain a pathetic 1 Mbps.
And, from TechDirt's own "who can you trust if you can't trust the phone company department," Karl Bode found that a study by the AT&T-funded Progressive Policy Institute concluded that if Title II regulations were passed, the nation would be "awash in $15 billion in various new Federal and State taxes and fees. Bode writes that the study cherry-picked and conflated data:
Comcast Seeks "True Gig" Trademark for a Network Incapable of Offering a True Gig
In a world yearning for a gigabit Internet connection, what do you do if your legacy cable network cannot offer it? If you are Comcast, you seek a trademark for the term "True Gig." (More coverage from Ars Technica on this.)
Comcast's cable network may soon (testing in 2015?) be capable of offering a downstream gigabit but will not be able to come close to a gigabit in the upstream direction. Nonetheless, apparently it is planning to advertise its service as a "True Gig," likely in competition with Google in Provo since it plans to swap the Chattanooga territory to Charter as part of the Time Warner Cable merger plan. (Comcast is certainly not fleeing that market with its tail between its legs for having been spanked so badly by the city's municipal network).
Lest we forget, the Comcast network is shared among many users; its ability to actually deliver a gig is dependent on whether your neighbors are using their connections. So unlike a gigabit on a fiber network, the Comcast "True Gig" will likely be an inferior experience to a modern fiber network.
Google, of course, actually offers a gigabit in both directions. The same is true of Chattanooga and most municipal gigabit offers - symmetrical because who wants to wait hours to upload to the cloud if you can download in seconds?
And in case you forgot, the "True Gig" is coming from the same company that has taken credit for all fiber deployments announced in 2014 - on the thin premise that everything happening after Comcast announced its proposed takeover of Time Warner Cable was caused by the proposed takeover.
To recap... Comcast does not yet offer a gigabit service but has tried to take credit for most of the communities that either have a gig or could soon get it. They are technically incapable of offering an actual symmetrical gigabit. And to the extent they may offer a gigabit in only one direction, it will be shared among hundreds of homes and generally inferior to a downstream gig delivered by a fiber network.
Rockport Builds Maine’s First Municipal Network
Rockport, a coastal town of just 3,300, became a statewide leader last month by launching Maine’s first municipal broadband network. Offering symmetrical gigabit speeds to businesses and residents, Rockport’s network is a carrier-neutral dark fiber system, with local private provider GWI offering retail services.
The reach of the network is limited, as it consists of only 1.2 miles of fiber. While only about 70 homes and businesses currently have the option to purchase a connection, GWI offers symmetrical gigabit per second internet access for just $69 per month and the city has left the option open to expand the network in the future.
As noted in a Bloomberg View article on the network, it massively outpaces the only broadband competitor in Rockport, Time Warner Cable. Time Warner also offers a $70 service package, but its download speeds are 20 times slower and its upload speeds 200 times slower.
The network was the product of a partnership between the town board, GWI, the University of Maine system, and Maine Media Workshops + College. Maine Media is a nonprofit college with 1,500 students learning photography, videography, and other digital media skills, and has a large economic footprint in such a small town.
Students’ coursework requires the storing and sharing of massive files, something that was previously difficult or impossible to accomplish given limited network capacity. Town officials are hoping that the new network will not only allow students to learn more easily, but enable them and others to establish small businesses in town.
U.S. Senator Angus King, a vocal champion of broadband access, was among the officials on hand last week for the official unveiling ceremony. Speaking to the need for greater internet access, Senator King stated:
“In my opinion it’s exactly like water, it’s exactly like electricity, it is a public utility that is necessary in order for our economy and our country to flourish…We want to work where we live, rather than live where we work."
Get a Gig in Oklahoma: Rural Cooperative Deploying FTTH in Northeast Corner of the State
The Northeast Oklahoma Electric Cooperative, serving a five county rural region, plans to begin offering gigabit service in its territory by the end of 2014. The cooperative has formed Bolt Fiber Optic Services to offer connectivity to approximately 32,000 homes and businesses.
According to Light Reading, the infrastructure is funded with a $90 million loan from the Rural Utilities Service. Sheila Allgood, manager of Bolt, notes that the entity is separate, but "profit or loss will go back to the co-op." Bolt will offer triple-play packages with a third party contracted to offer the VoIP services.
The project also includes a data center, already under construction, that will house network equipment and provide collocation services.
From the cooperative's newsletter announcing the project in December 2013:
The initial phase of the project will deliver fiber in areas of the largest population density (14-20 homes per mile) with subsequent phases eventually working their way into more remote, outlying areas. “We anticipate that the first phase of the project should be available to roughly one-third of Northeast Oklahoma Electric Co- operative’s membership,” explained Due. “A significant number of businesses and community institutions in our area would also be connected during this phase.”
The cooperative lists monthly residential prices as 20 Mbps for $49.99 per month, 50 Mbps for $63.99 per month, 100 Mbps for $83.99 per month, and 1 Gbps for $249.99 per month. All speeds are symmetrical. Bolt is asking interested customers to sign up with a $100 installation fee.
Project completion is scheduled for April 2017.
The Cooperative has produced a short promotional video to get the word out:
Peering: Then and Now on Community Broadband Bits Podcast #96
This week we are welcoming Scott Bradner, a long time doer, writer, and thinker on Internet matters. Thanks to a listener request, we had already recorded an interview last week discussing peering before the news broke that the FCC would be allowing paid prioritization peering arrangements, which many have said represents the end of network neutrality. We talked prior to the announcement of the FCC's upcoming rules so we do not discuss them directly.
We explain what "peering" is and why it is essential to the Internet. It gets a little technical but we try to bring it back with simple examples.
Our take on the Comcast-Netflix deal may surprise some listeners because the arrangement is not as far from the tradition of paid interconnection arrangement as some strong supporters of network neutrality maintain. However, we are explicit in noting that monopoly providers like Comcast may abuse their market power to shake down companies like Netflix. That is worrisome but may best be dealt with using other means aside from changing the way peering has historically worked.
We end the show discussing the consolidation of ISPs and the role of symmetry in peering.
Scott recommended these two columns and I strongly encourage readers/listeners to read Barbara van Schewick's post on the subject.
Read the transcript from this discussion here.
We want your feedback and suggestions for the show - please e-mail us or leave a comment below. Also, feel free to suggest other guests, topics, or questions you want us to address.
This show is 20 minutes long and can be played below on this page or via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed.
Listen to previous episodes here. You can can download this Mp3 file directly from here.
Find more episodes in our podcast index.
Thanks to Valley Lodge for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is "Sweet Elizabeth."
CenturyLink Seeks Apartment Buildings for Gigabit in Portland
In the wake of Google's announcement that Portland could be one of the next communities for the Google Fiber network, CenturyLink is circulating an offer to select apartment buildings to apply for CenturyLink fiber.
This appears to be more than the standard fiber-to-the-press-release responses we often see from the big telephone companies that prefer to lobby, litigate, and lie rather than invest in next-generation networks. CenturyLink notes it has the "ability to do approximately 15 total" apartment buildings.
The promotional sheet claims CenturyLink will offer speeds "up to" 1 Gig for $79.95/month for 12 months. 100 Mbps runs $49.95 and 40 Mbps is $29.95 - each for 12 months. No mention of upload speeds but CenturyLink has demonstrated a real aversion to symmetry so users can expect far slower upstream than what modern municipal networks and Google fiber deliver.
The standard operating procedure in apartment buildings will be for CenturyLink to try to lock up the internal wiring to buildings and deny it to competitors. FCC rules make exclusive agreements with landlords unenforceable, but there are a host of tricks that incumbents use to prevent any competition and landlords getting a kickback often have little reason to encourage competition.
The CenturyLink copy notes that its fiber optic GPON option is "up to" more than 92 percent energy efficient than cable modem Internet access. I have to wonder how it compares to DSL energy efficiency and whether that number holds up better than the "up to" 12 Mbps claims they make on DSL circuits that seldom peak at 5 Mbps.
At any rate, it is more than we can expect in the many communities CenturyLink is serving where there the local government have done nothing to spur competition by investing in publicly owned assets that could form a municipal network or be used to entice independent service providers to enter the market. In particular, I would be curious where else CenturyLink is rolling out fiber to buildings without any upfront charges.
The promotional sheet claims CenturyLink will offer speeds "up to" 1 Gig for $79.95/month for 12 months. 100 Mbps runs $49.95 and 40 Mbps is $29.95 - each for 12 months. No mention of upload speeds but CenturyLink has demonstrated a real aversion to symmetry so users can expect far slower upstream than what modern municipal networks and Google fiber deliver.
The standard operating procedure in apartment buildings will be for CenturyLink to try to lock up the internal wiring to buildings and deny it to competitors. FCC rules make exclusive agreements with landlords unenforceable, but there are a host of tricks that incumbents use to prevent any competition and landlords getting a kickback often have little reason to encourage competition.
The CenturyLink copy notes that its fiber optic GPON option is "up to" more than 92 percent energy efficient than cable modem Internet access. I have to wonder how it compares to DSL energy efficiency and whether that number holds up better than the "up to" 12 Mbps claims they make on DSL circuits that seldom peak at 5 Mbps.
At any rate, it is more than we can expect in the many communities CenturyLink is serving where there the local government have done nothing to spur competition by investing in publicly owned assets that could form a municipal network or be used to entice independent service providers to enter the market. In particular, I would be curious where else CenturyLink is rolling out fiber to buildings without any upfront charges.
Being a Gig City: It's All About the Upload
This is the second in a series of posts examining a premier Gigabit Community - Wilson, North Carolina. The first post is available here.
It's all about the Upload. If you are the owner of a small engineering business with dense blueprints to send to your European clients, or a specialized country doctor who depends on the quick transmission of x-rays, a digital film effects company, a photographer or a local broadcaster, your ability to upload your dense information to your colleagues, clients, and residents means business. For Gig City, Wilson in North Carolina, offering gigabit upload speeds to its community is essential to ensure local businesses thrive.
According to a recent Speed.Net report, upload speeds in the United States compared to the rest of the world are dismal. If you live in Hong Kong (60 Mbps), Singapore (47Mbps) and South Korea (44Mbps), you are in the drivers' seat with the fastest upload speeds in a world where time wasted means money. If you are in the U.S., as of February 2014, you're in the slow lane. We rank 41st at 6.69 Mbps. But not if you live in Wilson. With access to Greenlight's gigabit residential upload speeds, living in Wilson means being competitive and working easily with the world's top achievers.
The owners of Wilson-based Exodus FX know this. Digital artists Brad Kalinoski and Tinatsu Wallace found Wilson in their nearly impossible search for small-town affordability but world-class broadband infrastructure. Two years ago, they started a small growing boutique that caters to the visual effects needs of global film and television production companies. When their broadband rates in West Virginia skyrocketed despite the local broadband infrastructure seriously underperforming, the company's survival depended on relocating.
"We had to choose an area that could offer a low cost of doing business, while delivering an infrastructure better than that of other states and countries," wrote Mr. Kalinoski, a three-time, award nominee for his special effects contributions to Black Swan and LOST, the Final Season.
"We had to choose an area that could offer a low cost of doing business, while delivering an infrastructure better than that of other states and countries," wrote Mr. Kalinoski, a three-time, award nominee for his special effects contributions to Black Swan and LOST, the Final Season.Being a Gig City: Incubating Small Businesses
This is the first in a series of posts examining a premier Gigabit Community - Wilson, North Carolina.
According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, 85% of all jobs originate from companies with fewer than 30 employees, and 87% of businesses which started through business incubators have succeeded after five years. So Wilson, North Carolina, focused its "Greenlight" gigabit beam on its local business incubator, the Upper Coastal Plan Business Development Center. "Greenlight is driven by three guiding principles," said Will Aycock, the network's General Manager. "Supporting the economic health of the community, improving the delivery of city services, and enhancing the quality of life for the citizens of Wilson." Providing access to symmetrical gigabit speeds has allowed the community's small business incubator to take its services to the next level, to give budding entrepreneurs access to the future today and in a uniquely affordable way.
According to Greg Goddard, Executive Director of the Upper Coastal Plain Council of Government, access to gigabit speeds has meant "Taking our incubation to the next level." Historically their business incubator has attracted "low tech" entrepreneurs: consultants, counselors, state associations, childcare and healthcare providers, people who need work space after normal office hours, even Chic Fil-A administrators, for employee training. The incubator provides a full suite of services including a receptionist, copy and fax machines, phones, 24 hour secure entry, kitchen, meeting rooms, training classes, access to experts, parking, and now, symmetrical gigabit speeds, all for an affordable price. "An 8' by 8' cubicle with those full-suite services leases at $275/month," he said. The goal is to stimulate budding internet-age businesses.
And it has, even for young entrepreneurs elsewhere in the state. For a tech entrepreneur like Dan Holt from Wake Forest, renting space at this Wilson-based incubator lets him be part of the future, and to experience the possible which is impossible at his home in Wake Forest only 30 miles away. Dan is a self-described techie for a local Raleigh defense subcontractor but he likes to be known as founder of the Wake Forest Fiber Optic Initiative.
And it has, even for young entrepreneurs elsewhere in the state. For a tech entrepreneur like Dan Holt from Wake Forest, renting space at this Wilson-based incubator lets him be part of the future, and to experience the possible which is impossible at his home in Wake Forest only 30 miles away. Dan is a self-described techie for a local Raleigh defense subcontractor but he likes to be known as founder of the Wake Forest Fiber Optic Initiative.Rates Approved for Opelika Community Fiber Network
We have followed happenings in Opelika, Alabama, for three years as the community investigated the benefits of a fiber network. They contended with a Charter misinformation campaign and voted yes on a referendum. Construction began in 2012, Opelika Power Services (OPS) tested the network, and recently the Opelika City Council approved proposed rates.
OANow.com now reports that the FTTH network and smart grid project is ever-so-close to offering triple play services to the city's 28,000 residents and local businesses.
OPS offers three standard bundled plans, but customers can also customize. All three include voice:
- Essential - $99.95 - 75 channels, 10/5 Mbps data
- Choice - $139.95 - 132 HD & SD channels, 30/30 Mbps data
- Ultra - $154.95 - 207 HD & SD channels, 30/30 Mbps data
Data offerings for customized plans range from 10/5 Mbps for $34.95 to 1 Gbps symmetrical for $499.95.