Category Archives: Internet Speed

French FttH

gauthey_tate_voisin-ratelle.jpg In the U.S., it’s difficult for a municipality to put up a wireless Internet service even if it’s a disaster zone and the telco hasn’t gotten its POTS service back up, because the duopoly doesn’t want the competition. Meanwhile, in France:
Municipalities, cities, states, territories and regions are driving the French municipal (wireless and wired) broadband uptake as newly authorized by law. A new article of French “code général des communications” passed in June 2004 (law ref code is L-1425-1) gives these public entities the following rights :
  1. build, subsidize and develop “passive” telecom infrastructure and provide/transfer them to carriers or independent local users.
  2. build open networks on a given territory and provide/transfer them to a territorial carrier.
  3. operate open telecommunications networks in respect of regulations.
  4. provide telecommunications services to end users.

— Municipal broadband in France, by Esme Vos, MuniWireless, at 7:42 PM on September 5, 2005

The municipality does have to demonstrate that there isn’t already a similar service, but given the “open networks” aspect, that shouldn’t be difficult. Could this have something to do with why France is ahead of the U.S. in Internet connectivity and speed?

Apparently so:

Nowadays there are over a hundred projects, small and big. One famous one One famous one is the plan to do FttH in Hauts-de-Seine, the department chaired by Mr Sarkozy until he became President. Sarkozy was the man personally proprosing the FttH roll out in Hauts de Seine.

— Some French muni BB inspiration to Maybe Rep’s Boucher & Upton? Dirk H. van der Woude, Interesting People, 5 August 2007

He points out that picture FCC Commisioner Tate and ARCEP Commissioner Gauthey have met, as in the picture. Perhaps soon we’ll get a U.S. president who might be influenced by French president Sarkozy on this subject.

-jsq

Internet Radio: DRM Air

wexelblat.jpg Previously we saw a last-minute reprieve for Internet Radio. I read SoundExchange’s press release, but I didn’t catch this:
Under the new proposal, to be implemented by remand to the CRJs, SoundExchange has offered to cap the $500 per channel minimum fee at $50,000 per year for webcasters who agree to provide more detailed reporting of the music that they play and work to stop users from engaging in “streamripping” ­ turning Internet radio performances into a digital music library.

— SoundExchange Confirms Minimum Fee Offer: Reminds Commercial Webcasters of Obligations to Pay New Royalty Rates, Press Release, SoundExchange, 13 July 2007

Alan Wexelblat explains that part about “streamripping”:
So it’s that simple. Become our agents in preventing people from recording Web radio streams or face the financial axe.

— When is a Reprieve Not a Reprieve, by Alan Wexelblat , Copyfight, July 19, 2007

Continue reading →

TV4U? Not Me!

soglin.gif Franchise reform, if you don’t have enough supporters, apparently you can just write their names in anyway:
At a Capitol press conference, several others leading the fight against the bill — including former Madison Mayor Paul Soglin and communications professor Cynthia Laitman — said their names also falsely showed up as supporters of the deregulation bill on petitions given lawmakers by TV4Us, the private group leading the ad and public relations push for the bill.

“I don’t know how it happened,” said Soglin, who said he has pushed for tight municipal controls and consumer protections over the cable TV industry since 1971. “AT&T gets very confused.”

— Legislators seek probe of misuse of names, By Steven Walters, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, WEDNESDAY, July 11, 2007, 11:15 a.m.

How confused? Continue reading →

Broadband Produces Employment

crandall.jpg
lehr.jpg
Litan.jpg
Many have assumed that broadband is good for the economy; now here’s a study with rivets:
More specifically, for every one percentage point increase in broadband penetration in a state, employment is projected to increase by 0.2 to 0.3 percent per year.

— The Effects of Broadband Deployment on Output and Employment: A Cross-sectional Analysis of U.S. Data, By Robert Crandall, William Lehr and Robert Litan, Brookings Institution, 2007

Of course, this is like saying every state in medieval Germany that had a printing press produced employment in the printing industry. There are economic and social effects far beyond mere employment. What should be done?

The paper has a few recommendations:

The surest route to lower prices is provided by increasing competition in the delivery of broadband services.
Continue reading →

A FiOS Way

thomas_t.jpg Verizon has a policy blog. It’s been around for most of a year now:
I’ll leave clever humor comparing this blog’s name with the terminology for amphibious offspring to others, yet in one sense the comparison is appropriate. “PoliBlog” is very much a site in its infancy, and none of us here at Verizon is sure how it will evolve. But evolve it will.

The intent of PoliBlog is to present perspectives on issues of importance that intersect public policy, politics, markets, and business in the broadband world. That’s a big pool to swim in, and it reflects the constantly changing world we live in.

—, Welcome Aboard, by Tom Tauke, PolicyBlog, October 02, 2006

I have to give them points for seeing it as an emergent communication method including their point of view, rather than just dictating talking points.So far, they seem to be sticking to that. And they’re getting some interesting comments, pro and con. But let’s look outside their blog box a bit. Continue reading →

FTC: What, Me Worry?

majoras.jpg The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) says there’s no need for net neutrality:
FTC Chairwoman Deborah Platt Majoras said that without evidence of “market failure or demonstrated consumer harm, policy makers should be particularly hesitant to enact new regulation in this area.”
So in a “market” where the average customer has at most two choices, we’re supposed to wait for a market failure? Continue reading →

USA Yesterday

turtles.jpg The net in the U.S. is so slow even the mainstream media have finally noticed:
The USA trails other industrialized nations in high-speed Internet access and may never catch up unless quick action is taken by public-policymakers, a report commissioned by the Communications Workers of America warns.

The median U.S. download speed now is 1.97 megabits per second — a fraction of the 61 megabits per second enjoyed by consumers in Japan, says the report released Monday. Other speedy countries include South Korea (median 45 megabits), France (17 megabits) and Canada (7 megabits).

“We have pathetic speeds compared to the rest of the world,” CWA President Larry Cohen says. “People don’t pay attention to the fact that the country that started the commercial Internet is falling woefully behind.”

— U.S. Net access not all that speedy, By Leslie Cauley, USA TODAY, posted 25 June, updated 26 June 2007

Of course, we’re not going to get internationally competitive speeds until there are some serious structural changes in the ISP “marketplace”, producing more competition somehow. And broadband isn’t the point; Internet access is. Plus speed alone is trivial; without choice and participation it’s nothing. But speed helps draw in participants, and once we’re online, speeds lets us do more things. So it’s good that USA Today is paying attention; maybe its readers will, too. Then maybe they’ll ask for something better than two turtles.

-jsq

Giant Beasts Gently Swatting

gz.jpg Susan Crawford pithily describes the current Internet access market:
The duopoly is something like Shamu and Godzilla on hire for televised wrestling – giant beasts gently swatting at one another for the cameras. They aren’t competing, these giants. There is a clear failure in the market for highspeed internet access in this country.

— Moving Slowly in the Fast Lane by Susan Crawford, Susan Crawford blog, Tue 19 Jun 2007 10:29 PM EDT

What is to be done? Continue reading →

Monopoly Municipal Internet

fiberoptic.jpg Monopolies sometimes come in small sizes:
Seven years ago, the neighborhood’s homeowners association, set up by the developer Van Metre Homes, inked an exclusive deal with OpenBand, a small Dulles firm, to provide Internet, cable and phone service to all 1,100 homes. Residents say they are now locked into an expensive, decades-long contract for second-rate services.

Erika Hodell-Cotti, who lives on Sunstone Court, says she cannot work from home because her Internet connection frequently fizzles out. The teenagers who live next door play online Xbox games at friends’ houses where speeds are faster. Dozens of neighbors have installed satellite dishes on their roofs and backyard decks, fed up with cable channels that sometimes dissolve into snowy static.

In Suburbs, Locked Into a High-Tech Lure, Fiber-Optic Service Disappoints Many, but Contracts Span Decades, By Kim Hart, Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, May 21, 2007; Page A01

The problem appears to be that the provider used a single technology and now has no incentive to upgrade. I suppose this is another example of how what Internet participants actually want is the Internet, not a specific delivery technology. A better contract, requiring the provider to at least keep up with prevailing standards, would have helped a lot.

-jsq

Slow and Expensive U.S.

Larry Cohen, President, CWA Speed is trivial, but you’d think we could do better than this:
The average broadband download speed in the US is only 1.9 megabits per second, compared to 61 Mbps in Japan, 45 Mbps in South Korea, 18 Mbps in Sweden, 17 Mpbs in France, and 7 Mbps in Canada, according to the Communication Workers of America.

— US high-speed Internet is slow, Submitted by Canada IFP, Press Esc, on Sun, 2007-05-20

And as we’ve seen, that list of countries could soon include Hong Kong and India, because they’re taking the problem seriously. More interesting was this was said to. Continue reading →