This article addresses why the Connect America Fund should be shut down and what steps can be taken to encourage competition in the market for wired and wireless broadband services. I’ve mentioned many times that I believe our current government is simply clueless. Unfortunately, I’ve come to realize that it’s simply far worse than that. [...]
Tales from the Towers, Chapter 44: Why the Connect America Fund should abolished
April 30, 2013 by 5 Comments
Provo, Utah becomes third Google Fiber city
April 17, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Google has announced that it will be offering Google Fiber service in Provo, Utah, if the city council approves Google’s acquisition of iProvo (the fiber optic network built by the city 10 years ago). Google plans to upgrade and extend the network to every home in the city. Here’s what Google says: Provo started building [...]
Austin, Texas is the next Google fiber city
April 10, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Google Fiber has confirmed that Austin, Texas is the next city to get fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) service after the FTTH rollout in Kansas City. Google says: Our goal is to start connecting homes in Austin by mid-2014. Customers there will have a similar choice of products as our customers in Kansas City: Gigabit Internet or Gigabit Internet plus [...]
Tales from the Towers, Chapter 43: Galactus – Destroyer of Wired Worlds
March 26, 2013 by 2 Comments
I’ve seen projections in our industry range from “the WISP market is dying, we need to move to fiber” up to “new technologies in RF are going to make fiber the horse and buggy of bandwidth industry”. The truth is that the wireless industry is about to put the hurt on the Wired World and [...]
Georgia anti-municipal broadband bill goes down in defeat
March 8, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The State of Georgia House of Representatives voted down an anti-municipal broadband bill that would have prohibited municipalities from deploying broadband networks. The bill was sponsored by the usual coalition of telecom incumbents aided by their astroturf organisations, and supported by people who believe that cities should not spend money on critical broadband infrastructure, but [...]
Comcast’s rise coincides with decline in service
February 25, 2013 by Leave a Comment
In Corporate Tie Binds US to Slow Internet (Financial Times), Edward Luce makes the connection between Comcast’s near monopoly in American cities and its active lobbying efforts (not to mention its large campaign contributions to Obama), with the terrible state of broadband service in America: If Dwight Eisenhower had General Motors and George W. Bush had [...]
Anti-municipal broadband laws are like bubonic plague
February 21, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The bubonic plague (or Black Death) kept popping up in various European cities for hundreds of years. As soon as one city’s population would be decimated, the plague would die out only to reappear after a long hiatus. In the case of anti-municipal broadband bills, as soon as one would get defeated in a state [...]
Vint Cerf: there was more competition during the “dial up” days
January 9, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Vint Cerf spoke at the Computer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week and decried the lack of competition in the broadband market. He pointed out that today people have a choice between two to three broadband providers, in contrast to the days of dial up access when there were dozens to choose from: I [...]
Tales from the Towers, Chapter 42: Frustration, Thy Name is Backhaul Tech Support
January 3, 2013 by 4 Comments
I should have called this article, “How I spent my Christmas vacation developing an ulcer” (from the abominable state of backhaul tech support). I know, I know, WISPs never really get a vacation. I’m so paranoid about being out of touch that I took a satellite phone on a cruise and left the number with my [...]
Seattle plans fiber to the home pilot project
December 14, 2012 by Leave a Comment
The city of Seattle is planning to build a fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) pilot project that will use the excess capacity on the city-owned fiber network to bring high-speed broadband service to residents and businesses. This is not a plan to bring FTTh to the entire city. Seattle entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and Letter of [...]
