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. If you combine corruption, selfishness, ignorance, arrogance, cronyism, stupidity, and incompetence in one package, that would pretty much describe the bloated, bureaucratic mess that is the US Federal Government. I’m not saying that there aren’t good people in the government; but as a whole, it’s simply pathetic. And this starts at the top and weasels its way down to every penny given to almost every private company, courtesy of politicians and bureaucrats who are either paying off someone for getting elected or through the concept of the welfare state. This didn’t start 5 years ago but has been going on for at least 100 years or more. Most of us never saw it or even paid attention unless they gored our ox. At this point though, the WISP industry’s ox is not only getting gored, its remains are multiplying and being spread across the land.  I believe the other name for this is manure.

The amount of waste and inefficiency in the government is legendary. There isn’t a single program in the government that isn’t mismanaged or in debt for untold reasons. Most of them still leading back to our elected officials who themselves at the Senate and Congressional level can’t even keep their own unethical house in order.  So given the government’s track record, why in the world would anyone even think they can competently manage broadband grants?

The USF (Universal Service Fund) is a perfect example of corruption and incompetence. I can’t figure out what possible reason our representatives have to continue this legal embezzlement of money from consumers and businesses. It simply gets funneled to AT&T, Alltel, Verizon, CenturyTel, and tons of other companies that know how to game the government capitalistic welfare system. Now I find out that Carlos Slim is taking the biggest chunk of Obamaphone plan. It’s as bad as setting up an auction of the most desired frequencies for NLOS operation that only the very biggest companies could possibly pay for. That was simply a stupid idea the first time and since we now know that, it’s even more amazing they are repeating it.

Apparently Verizon and AT&T don’t have enough of a monopoly of the best frequencies in the RF band.  It wasn’t enough to prevent competitors from coming into the market the first time, now they just simply feel the need to finish off their competition at the expense of the American consumer.  How about this idea: Cancel the auction and make those frequencies unlicensed bands, so that small businesses and innovators can actually compete against them. Oh wait, I forgot to schedule my Congressmen a chartered flight to play golf in Puerto Rico to explain that to him. Apparently they can only understand that information on the 8^th hole under a Caribbean sun. I just can’t remember all the rules to influencing my politicians but when I do, I can move to the highest income zip code in the United States that just coincidentally lies in Washington DC area.

The FCC and the Connect America Fund are doing absolutely everything wrong that they possibly can to stop the creation of new businesses in the United States. Communications should be an area where innovation can thrive, not get stifled.  All this because the government thinks it’s smarter than the business community. It picks winners and losers and gives a bunch of money to specific companies to put their competitors out of business.  One problem is that smaller businesses can’t devote enough resources or have the experience to wade through the amount of paperwork needed to get a grant.   They are too busy doing their jobs which should be growing their business, not babysitting bureaucrats and politicians.  These people feel the need to simply justify their existence or spend all the money they were budgeted so that budget doesn’t get reduced next year.  Now toss in the biggest companies that not only have dedicated grant writers, but accountants and lawyers that can shred through a USF or CAF grant like I go through a plate of Raviolis.  I just can’t figure out what group of rocket scientists thinks this is a good idea.  It definitely shows the difference between the mentality of the average government worker or politician and a productive business owner in this country.  The desire to meddle in private industry must be a prerequisite to get a job with the government.

What is also evident is that the FCC didn’t learn from the boondoggle that was the USF and just shuffled the money over to CAF (Connect America Fund).  We don’t eliminate government bureaucrats; we just transfer them to other dysfunctional divisions.  I think the telecom industry threw a black-tie gala event when this happened in 2011 to celebrate the fact that there was a whole new program from which to suck money.  The bonus for CenturyLink and AT&T is that it is run by the same bureaucrats who gave them billions of dollars in the past.  They clearly know that they can manipulate government bureaucrats like mice in maze.  These would also be the same people who gave millions of dollars to companies in Arizona, Colorado, and Florida that were supposed to deploy a wireless backhaul and fiber system that either nobody can find or nobody uses.  Brilliant!

If the Connect America Fund just went away tomorrow, the only people who would miss it are the big telecom providers.  Just think, tens of millions of taxpayers would get an instant reduction in their cell phone and telephone bills, the big telecom companies would actually have to figure out how to run a business without government subsidies, and rural users wouldn’t have to live with outdated DSL service subsidized by the government.  Private investors also wouldn’t have to worry that the millions of dollars they invest in an area gets wiped out by their competitors who just got an ill-researched CAF grant.

I’m also thinking that maybe wireless manufacturers might actually want to invest in next-generation technologies if they know that they may have lots of potential customers, not just a few big telecom providers.  This increases their exposure to varying market forces like Dragon experienced when Clearwire stopped purchasing their equipment.  SkyPilot was also a victim of that when MetroFi went under.  But let’s keep recreating those market environments because the concept of diversification doesn’t have any value to a business.  Maybe we should force every politician and bureaucrats who doles out money to attend some class on the concept of capitalism or the free-market because they seem totally focused on destroying it.

More WISPs or ISPs would also enter the market very quickly if the playing field were fair.  Especially if they don’t have to compete against a government agency that used to think DSL was the future or that everyone needs fiber to their home because it’s so important to watch NetFlix in HD.  So the same people who can’t afford non-subsidized Internet are the same people who can afford 60” TV monitors to watch HD NetFlix.  The logic here is so stupid that if it wasn’t true, I would think it was funny.

This boondoggle of an agency is so bad, Comcast and Cox, two highly competitive cable companies in Arizona that wouldn’t share an Oasis if it was the only water in the desert, drafted a joint letter to the USF telling them to quit giving money to CenturyLink (formerly Qwest before CenturyLink figured out how to feed at the USF trough by buying small, rural companies).  The pointed out that it’s anti-business and makes it hard to compete against them.  They can’t justify investing in Arizona if CenturyLink is getting an unfair advantage.  You would think after this type of letter, the head of the FCC would get a clue; but no, it wouldn’t be the government way.  Hopefully the incoming FCC Chairman wakes up to the fact that they could save the taxpayers a whole bunch of money by doing the right and logical thing and closing down the Connect America Fund.  Of course, then the Chairman would have a smaller budget, less power, and all the things that are against a bureaucrat’s code of conduct.  They also wouldn’t be able to funnel money to companies that elected their boss; but if that ever stops, I’ll probably be shoveling snow out of my driveway in Arizona at that time.

To take this a little further, CenturyLink already has a huge monopoly in Arizona.  They get to write the rules if you want fiber into most areas since they are the only game in town.  For example, we just got a quote from them for a 1Gbps fiber circuit out to a WISP area that they cover which is about 20 miles from Tucson. They already have fiber all over the area and offer 20Mbps DSL on one side of the street and maybe 640K to 7Mbps, assuming it’s not raining in which case it just shuts off.  They charge $40 plus all the insane taxes the government can sneak by the clueless taxpayers for internet (yes I know, $19.95 per month for internet but only if you have the $25 phone service and even more taxes which totals into the $50 plus range).  However, the fiber is there and it’s all brand new.  We asked them for 2 quotes for fiber, 50Mbps and 1Gbps.  The 50Mbps circuit was about $2300 per month plus some taxes.  A little high but not unreasonable based on some other areas I’ve worked in.  Now sit down for this next one.  The 1Gbps circuit was $23,000 per month.  Thank you USF for investing a couple billion dollars in them over the last few years so that they could meet the criteria that, how did you put it in your goals:

“To promote the availability of quality services at just, reasonable, and affordable rates” or maybe this one, “To increase access to advanced telecommunications services throughout the nation”.

I’m still a little baffled on how $23K per month for a 1Gbps circuit falls under either one of those categories.  I’d almost rather be trying to do this in some third-world countries because at least I know which department officials I need to bribe to get a reasonable connection.  It’s far easier than trying to figure out how our government thinks this advances the needs of its citizens.  I do know CenturyLink is really happy and they aren’t the worst offenders.  AT&T and Verizon get even bigger leaches.

Since the USF was such a brilliant idea, our government in its infinite stupidity and perfectly represented by the FCC, decided to switch the fund from expanding phone service to expanding Internet.  Apparently by 2011, between cell phones, copper, fiber, and satellite, our citizens were now smart enough to get their own phone service.  So now they need help getting Internet service.  Apparently we needed faster Internet access to everyone’s house and dwelling because somehow that was added to the Constitution as a taxpayer-funded right.  I just didn’t get the memo.  Doesn’t matter that every library, school, McDonalds and Starbucks has free Internet access already and low-income taxpayers can get it for $10 a month from most providers.  It also doesn’t matter than anyone in our country can get a free cell phone with text messaging.  That program is so efficient, that some people even have 4 or 5 cell phones, regardless of need or income.  Oh wait, that’s only about $700 million wasted every year which is a pittance by government standards.  I won’t even get into the tens of millions of dollars CAF has already wasted and it’s only 2 years old.  But since CAF is now requiring fiber, we can waste money and grow inefficient companies faster.  That’s a great track record to build upon.

Now, let’s put this in perspective because common sense simply doesn’t exist within the government.  Right now we are losing jobs in this country at a rate of 5-1 over jobs created.  Regardless of what the unemployment figure is at, people are leaving the workforce, are underemployed, or are unemployed at a much higher rate than new jobs are being created.  There is also a couple trillion dollars or more being held back by businesses because of fear of the economy, taxes, and Obamacare costs.  The new “Connect America Fund” collects $4.5 billion dollars per year.  I say again, there are trillions waiting to be invested or spent which last time I checked, was significantly more than $4.5 billion.  I get that not all of that would be invested in telecom, but the current yearly spending level for the cellular and wired infrastructure far exceeds that amount anyway.  The only people who get hurt are the small ISPs that are far more efficient.  If someone in the Connect America Fund needs to see the math on that one, please let me know, I’ll be happy to whiteboard it for you.

Government programs like Solyndra, Fisker, A123, etc. show you that government is already the least efficient and most incompetent money manager on the planet.  So what would happen if the government –

• didn’t collect that $4.5B dollars,
• invest in outdated DSL service with companies such as AT&T and CenturyLink,
• let Comcast, Cox, and other cable companies compete fairly,
• let WISPs not worry about future fiber investments by competing government-funded entities?

More than likely, the telecom industry and Internet access would move forward much faster backed by much more than $4.5 billion.  Many jobs would be created and new companies started, and if fiber were the right answer, then it would get put in by private industry so fast, that moles would be running for cover.

However, fiber everywhere is not the right answer everywhere today and the Connect America Fund is totally the wrong answer.  And as I’ve argued before, the number of people who really need more than 10Mbps today is negligible.  There is simply no application for it.  HD video is less than 8Mbps.  Even if you are the Brady Bunch, it’s easy to push today’s wireless technologies in suburban environments to 20Mbs.  Since we can do that wirelessly now for 1/100 the cost of fiber, what possible reason do we have as a country to keep stealing money from one part of our economy to funnel to back the biggest players in the telecom industry?  Here is the reality, if they really are that good, why don’t they have fiber everywhere already?  Here is the answer, it doesn’t make economic sense.  That’s when the government steps in and says, “We know better than the private sector and pandering to our constituents is what we do best.”

Competing with cable and DSL providers is my favorite topic and $23K per month is a pretty good motivator to find an innovative solution.  If you can get bandwidth costs to about $5 per Mb per month and use some of the methods I’ve described to limit torrents, malware, and other useless bandwidth    applications, your cost of actual bandwidth per customer is about $1 per month.  That’s a profit margin of 95%. What other product can you possibly resell with those kinds of numbers?  Being an Internet provider is one of the most profitable businesses that anyone can have.  That alone should tell the government to get the heck out of the way and let the free enterprise take over.  We haven’t done such a great job as an industry with government intervention and localized monopolies, but new wireless technologies mean that twisted pair, cable, and fiber aren’t the only games in town any longer.  Verizon pretty much told you as much last quarter when they realized that their profitability is in cellular, not copper or fiber.  And if anyone doesn’t think there isn’t already enough fiber in the ground to meet the needs of most WISPs in suburban areas, pick pretty much any main street with a traffic light and start trenching with a pick-axe.  You will start hitting fiber pretty quickly.  You will also probably get arrested but hey, my point will have been made and that’s what’s important here.

Although it takes a little footwork, research, door knocking, hand-shaking, and you must have confidence in the wireless equipment you use, it isn’t very hard to extend backhaul across any city without local loop cable or a tower.  CenturyLink’s insane price quote had me spending a few days knocking on doors to find a way around them.  It paid off even though it may take 5-6 hops.  It also isn’t expensive since after several years, we know a 50Mbps Ubiquiti connection at up to 5-10 miles cost less than $200 and a 100Mbps with a Titanium Rocket is less than $600.  In my case, most of my hops are 1 mile or less which is even easier and cheaper.  I will be providing free Internet access to a couple small businesses, 3 homes, and a bird-feeder, but I got my backhaul to bypass CenturyLink.  In the future, I will upgrade to at least 24GHz which raises my cost to about $20-$25K.  Throw in my data center costs at about $2K-$4K per month and my ROI on avoiding a company that has clearly taken advantage of bureaucratic and political naiveté, and my ROI is less than a month and a half compared my original, government subsidized quote.

The sad part at this point is that CenturyLink isn’t even covert about destroying small businesses with the help of the inept FCC.  Last year they asked for $75 million to wipe out over tens of successful WISP operators under the pretense that the WISPS aren’t serving the community needs.  They even named the WISP companies by name, that’s how little respect they had for the bureaucrats to understand what they were attempting to do (or maybe the bureaucrats knew and just didn’t care).  There are so many things wrong with this proposal, I don’t even know where to start.  I’m just baffled as to why in the heck does a $40 billion dollar company need an extra $75 Million dollars to compete against other companies?  That alone should tell you that CenturyLink knows that their deployment strategy is inefficient and unprofitable so they wouldn’t invest their own money in it.  They want the taxpayer’s money since they know the bureaucrats managing it don’t know a flying donut about business or profitability.  The damage they do to competitors when the federal government intervenes along with the waste of taxpayer’s money is simply criminal.  What nobody ever talks about though, is the amount of money it takes to run an agency that spends this money.  With retirement benefits, lavish Vegas and Hawaii vacations (err, training conferences), and giving these bureaucrats private health care and retirement programs, all funded by taxpayers, it’s at least hundreds of millions of dollars.  Personally, I think the FCC should fire one bureaucrat for every net job that gets destroyed from their incompetence.  Then they might do their homework and see the damage their decisions make.

The other issue involves the complete lack of outrage and backlash to CenturyLink from the FCC when they were specifically told that this request for funding would do damage to or wipe out those companies.  That should have triggered an investigation into the program immediately.  It was obvious that this was just a continuation of CenturyLink’s modus operandi from the beginning.   Where else did it happen and which companies were damaged by it?  Unfortunately that would involve someone in the FCC actually doing the right thing for both businesses and taxpayers.  It was evident by the 700MHz auctions that the FCC doesn’t give a hoot about consumers, innovation, or small business in this country.  Fortunately for everyone, WISPA stepped in to help them do the right thing since CAF administrators are clearly incapable of understanding the damage they could have caused by awarding this grant.

Enough is enough.  Small businesses such as WISPS shouldn’t have to be vigilant on every grant submitted to the USF.  Big companies count on us not catching them sneaking proposals by while lazy or ignorant bureaucrats just rubber-stamp everything they do because it’s good for the country.  I’m going to tell you what I think is good for the country.  Close the Connect America Fund, fire everyone in that department, and quit stealing $2.50 from everyone American who wants to use the phone.  Quit selling the best frequencies to the biggest companies, this further inhibiting and crushing small business that employ the majority of people in this country.  Get out of the way of private industry and let them move forth with technology that can revolutionize internet access in this country.  Empower the wireless industry with bigger low-frequency bandwidth resources than the stinky little 6Mbps scraps the cell phone companies didn’t want, for good reason.  Do that and I guarantee that the private sector will expand and deliver the right services at the right prices for the consumer.  We may yet get a fair business market here in the US if all the WISPs stand up and say, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore”.

See http://www.fcc.gov/encyclopedia/connecting-america

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Previous article: Tales from the Towers, Chapter 43: Galactus – Destroyer of Wired Worlds

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Provo started building their own municipal network in 2004 because they decided that providing access to high speed connectivity was important to their community’s future. In 2011, they started looking for a partner that could acquire their network and deliver an affordable service for Provoans. We’re committed to keeping their vision alive, and, if the deal is approved and the acquisition closes, we’d offer our Free Internet service (5 Mbps speeds) to every home along the existing Provo network, for a $30 activation fee and no monthly charge for at least seven years. We would also offer Google Fiber Gigabit Internet—up to 100x faster Internet than today’s average broadband speeds—and the option for Google Fiber TV service with hundreds of your favorite channels. We’d also provide free Gigabit Internet service to 25 local public institutions like schools, hospitals and libraries.

This announcement comes only a week after Google announced its plans to bring 1 Gbps fiber to the home service to Austin, Texas.

The post Provo, Utah becomes third Google Fiber city appeared first on MuniWireless: WiFi, LTE, 4G.

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 our Google Fiber TV service with nearly 200 HD TV channels. We’re still working out pricing details, but we expect them to be roughly similar to Kansas City. Also, as in Kansas City, we’re going to offer customers a free Internet connection at 5 mbps for 7 years, provided they pay a one-time construction fee. We’re also planning to connect many public institutions as we build in Austin— schools, hospitals, community centers, etc. — at a gigabit for no charge.

Google charges $70 per month for 1 Gbps service (no TV) or $130 per month with TV.

Additional reading:

Why AT&T’s promise to bring 1 Gbps to Austin is mostly empty

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My newest model which I call, Galactus – Destroyer of Wired Worlds  (say it with a low grumble in your voice for more effect), is designed just for that battle.  The good part is that you can do it today and be ready for tomorrow.  And when tomorrow comes, or really 802.11ac, it will just drop right in and re-arm you for the next few years of wired and fiber battle.  However, the WISP paradigm and deployment mentality are going to have to change to take advantage of tomorrow’s technologies.

Galactus – Destroyer of Wired Worlds – Dun, Dun, Duuunnn (we really need another Fantastic Four movie, it’s been too long), is based on the concept of a short range, low-capex, very high-capacity model.  The kind of model that can laugh in the face of wired competition knowing that nothing they are working on is going to be as competitive from a cost/benefit standpoint, at least not for the real world that most of us have to live in.  Of course, you can thank the Federal Government and its brilliant taxing policies for some of that but hey, in the US, it works to your benefit if you only provide Internet and stay away from phone service.  The reality is that with Ooma, MagicJack, and everyone having a cell phone, the POTS phone industry is on the decline.  Also, to expand into a new area, I suggest that we do what we are best at, which is deliver bandwidth.

Galactus, Galactus, Galactus – takes the idea that we now have very high-capacity, low-cost backhaul options today along with some new frequencies to work with.  What’s great is that we have decent, low-cost 802.11n equipment that can build the basic Galactus model today. Ubiquiti adding DFS frequencies to their core radios, the Rocket M5, the Nanostation M5, and the Nanobridge M5, was a huge stepping stone towards the 802.11ac market and the beginning of the Galactus model (I’m out of text-based sound effects).  It’s kind of a cross between mesh and PTMP.  Mesh needed APs every few hundred feet.  PTMP systems are designed for ranges up to several miles.  Galactus assumes low-height (sub-15 metre) APs every square kilometer or so.  Towers can be used for backhaul to the APs or some other method depending on the deployment.

With a 5.8GHz AP and 36dBm output, then you can get some serious bandwidth to a CPE to at least 1Km or more, even with vegetation. What’s amazing is that with about 50m of tree at a 1Km distance, 5.8GHz has more throughput than 2.4GHz or 3.65GHz.  Pshaw you say?  The fact is that the higher EIRP of 5GHz along with wider channels, more than compensates for the higher frequency differential and the attenuation.

With Ubiquiti 802.11n equipment, you can get somewhere around 50-100Mbps at the AP depending on what 2×2 device you are using and 50-60Mbps at the client. However, when 802.11ac comes out and you upgrade the AP, you could be talking about an AP capable of 1Gbps or more. With that kind of speed, you can also get more users per AP, even without polling protocols. DSL becomes a fading memory and your lower Capex means that Cable and Fiber companies start getting marginalized to clients that think they really need 100Mbps and are willing to pay for it.

Clients want to think they are buying the fastest service for the least amount of money even though they don’t understand it.  The consumer ideal means more is better and too much is just right, especially if it’s the cheapest.  If their video streaming doesn’t buffer and their Internet connection works when some undereducated, over-plasticized celebrity tweets some brilliant words of intellectual wisdom like “I just bought a gorgeous Gucci purse that was so infabuliciuos, I had my poodles fur dyed to match it”, they are thrilled if they can look up the purse in 1.7 seconds.  Do that, save them a few bucks, and the customers will be tripping over themselves to bail on their current provider.  802.11ac lets you advertise numbers that will blow them away, especially in markets that only have DSL providers.

Now add in the execution of 802.11ac with its ability to use wider channels than 802.11n with faster processors.  Mix it with the increased spectral efficiency and 802.11ac can theoretically handle up to 1.7Gbps at the AP with channel widths up to 160MHz.  Yeah, I know some of you are already using your fingers to make the sign of the cross yelling, NO 40MHz CHANNELS, let alone 160MHz channels.  Ha, 40MHz is for little children and weaklings and to maintain 802.11n compatibility.  I’m saying put on your big boy pants.   Anything named after a planet eater isn’t going to use puny 40MHz channels, Galactus means big.  We are talking about 80Mhz channels at least.  80MHz channels means that with 4×4 MIMO, an 802.11ac AP can kick out over 1Gbps.  And an 80MHz channel is really less than 15% of the available bandwidth up in 5GHz.  I say “80MHZ CHANNELS FOR EVERYONE, ITS ON THE HOUSE” (c’mon, you knew antenna double entendre had to be coming J).

Ahh, but what good is it if we can’t get backhaul to the AP.  Seriously, that’s the argument you are going to use?  We are wireless guys.  If there is a vertical asset, we can exploit it.  However, since Galactus was designed to be dropped right behind the enemy lines of wired infrastructure, we also need to look at everything, including the Underground Railroad, such as metro Ethernet or local fiber.  With AirFiber, Radwin, Canopy 450 (the trick here is to use the AP on both sides with one in SM mode since the SM’s aren’t fast enough)  and some really cool equipment coming out from SAF, Trango, and Exalt, there are many ways to get backhaul to local APs for very little Capex.  Even if you start out using 5.8GHz 802.11n right now (which I’m doing), you know that 802.11ac is coming out to supplement it.  For short distances from the tower, 5.4GHz can be used, for longer distance, 5.8GHz.  Both can be set up with PTMP.  Add that to the FCC promising to open up another 195MHz of bandwidth with some of it possibly using UNI-II Upper rules that means even more long range backhaul capacity.  I’m hoping that whoever takes over for Julian continues this process in the FCC.  Personally, I think the first question from the Senate during the nomination hearings should be what phone carrier the nominee uses and are they happy with it so we know who they are steering the next cellular USF subsidy to.

Finding a vertical asset every square Km or so, depending on vegetation, lets you deploy a high-capacity system that puts a WISP head-to-head with wired infrastructure.  Even though you can do it, the next question is whether not it’s financially feasible.  Well, assuming you can keep the monthly cost at about 50 percent of the revenue per AP average, it’s a smart play.  As a WISP, you can always buy your way into a market, meaning being the lowest priced provider, so there is literally no excuse for not generating $1000 per month or more off any AP.  There are a large percentage of people that are very tired of cable and DSL bills going up constantly, plus they probably hate the taxes but they don’t want to go backwards in capacity.  With 802.11ac, you can advertise DOCSIS 3.0 cable speeds and fiber bandwidth numbers at DSL prices.

So what about the 5.8GHz deployments you already have in place with clients further out than 1Km?  802.11ac is going to be better but not that much better.  The fundamental problem is that 256QAM, the highest modulation rate of 802.11ac, needs a better s/n ratio than 64QAM 802.11n. The number jumps from about 22dBm to about 28dBm to get there.  Basically to get the higher speeds of 802.11ac, you are going to get half the distance.  Canopy 450 WISPs found that out quickly when trying to move over Canopy 100 series clients since they went from FSK to OFDM.  Physics are physics.  If you are using DFS frequencies, then your distance is even shorter because of EIRP limitations.  That is both bad and good.  The good part is that it means interference is down and the s/n ratio will be very high, a perfect environment for 802.11ac.

Who knows what will happen in the future?  If the FCC gets an additional 195MHz approved and at least 100MHz of it follows UNI-II Upper rules which gives us 53dBm to play with, then a 40MHz channel still yields over 300Mbps per AP and the distances go up.  You will just be upsizing the client antennas about 6dBi over what you used to use for 802.11N or Canopy 450 deployments.  The worst case that happens is that homeowners associations get a little bit upset when you are sticking 30dBi+ antennas on roofs.

Galactus is all about getting back into the suburban trenches with wireline providers.  It’s also about future proofing to match any future speed increases from wireline.  Although DSL is toast, Intel is pushing its new 1Gb cable upgrade over DOCSIS 3.0.  However, the old adage, “Speed, Distance”, Quality” which definitely applies to 802.11ac over 802.11n, also applies to cable.  Older cable and longer distances are going to mean that a lot of infrastructure has to be replaced to get 1Gbps on cable.  Since most cable companies haven’t even amortized the cost of upgrading to DOCSIS 3.0 yet, I suspect it will be a while.  Fiber proponents are still pushing for applications that have no value for at least 10 years and no money to pay for it.  If anyone can name a single application today that can’t run over 50Mbps from a house that will advance the digitial divide or productivity in this country today, I’ll publicly apologize for telling FTTH supporters that they need to find a better cause that doesn’t involve taxpayers money.  I argue that cheaper, faster internet at 20Mbps is far more important than a transport medium that can download a Peterbuilt when the only apps we have are Smart Cars.

In the meantime, 802.11ac puts the WISP operator in the game with cable providers and GALACTUS – DESTROYER OF WIRED WORLDS (TA DA) demonstrates one model of that implementation.  But don’t wait for 802.11ac, get started today with 802.11n and be ready for it when it gets here.  Your accountant will thank you.

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Previous article: Tales from the Towers, Chapter 42: Frustration, Thy Name is Backhaul Support

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While I am pleased to see that this odious bill has been defeated, it seems that these horrid things pop up again and again in places where the people have no business being proud about the sorry state of their broadband service, where clearly, the private sector is delivering low quality, expensive broadband because of lack of competition or in many cases, lack of a business model (low population density).

Nineteen other states in the US have passed laws that ban or hamper municipalities from building broadband networks, thanks to telecom and cable companies and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an organisation which provides templates for these harmful bills. For years, MuniWireless has written about and opposed these bills and after almost a decade of MuniWireless’s existence, these anti-muni broadband bills keep showing up in state legislatures.

I wrote about the four culprits to blame for this state of affairs in Anti-municipal broadband laws are like bubonic plague.  There’s another round coming to a statehouse next to you.

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If Dwight Eisenhower had General Motors and George W. Bush had Halliburton, Barack Obama arguably has Comcast. US presidents are often linked to one or two corporations that donate a lot of money to them and then benefit from their actions. Comcast, which is America’s largest cable television and internet provider and is a near monopoly in most of its largest cities, is no exception . . .

The FCC has been a good friend to Comcast and Time Warner Cable, the two largest cable providers that dominate US broadband. In contrast to the spread of electricity and telephones, where the US was far ahead of the rest of the world, Washington has abjured the same regulatory promotion for the internet. Through brilliantly effective lobbying, US cable companies have escaped the universal access and affordability clauses that were imposed on telecoms and electricity companies in earlier eras.

Obama is expected nominate the next FCC Chairman to replace Julius Genachowski within the next few weeks. We will see if he appoints someone friendly to the cable-telco duopoly or someone who will push for more competition in the market for broadband services. I am not optimistic.

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There are four culprits:

(1) Monopoly broadband providers (the incumbent telecom operators and cable companies): What else do you expect them to do? These are the originators of the Plague and will continue spreading the Plague unless extreme measures are taken to quarantine them.

(2) State legislators who believe that the public sector should not spend tax money on broadband infrastructure, but should instead shower such largesse on sports stadiums, sports teams and wealthy sports stars;

(3) Small local broadband operators who do not lobby their state legislatures to do two things: set up a competitive, low cost wholesale fiber broadband network and open it up to small players like themselves at reasonable prices. I have discovered that many of these small operators have swallowed the “free market/government out of everything” mantra without carefully thinking through exactly where government can be of great help and where it can’t; and

(4) The People: Yes, the mysteriously absent “People” who complain about the high price of DSL and cable Internet access but do nothing whatsoever to force their elected representatives to create a truly competitive broadband market. The same People would rather see sports stadiums subsidised by their precious tax monies. The same people veto government spending on fiber broadband infrastructure while paying exorbitant amounts of money to the cable and DSL incumbents.

I have been writing about anti-municipal broadband bills since at least 2004. Nine years later, they keep popping up, like the Black Death, even though I and a coalition of many other people have had a hand in defeating some of the worst ones.

Structural separation is the ONLY solution: an open fiber-based broadband infrastructure that is not owned by any of the incumbents, but owned by the public, maintained at the public expense, and leased wholesale to private companies that deliver wired and wireless broadband service to all. In areas where there are few people and no private company can hope to deliver wireless or wired broadband service without going bankrupt, government should step in to provide incentives to do so and help make the business of broadband viable.

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I have to tell you that in the 1990s there were 7 or 8,000 Internet service providers because the Internet was provided through dial-up. If you wanted to switch you just changed the telephone number you call. When broadband came along the number of choices you had telescoped down to one or two: either a telco or cable company or both, and so competition evaporated. There isn’t enough of it. Getting access to competition to discipline the market and give you choice is still an important consideration.

The culprit: a government that has miserably failed to enforce antitrust regulations. The laws are on the books, they’ve just not been enforced or updated to fit today’s conditions.

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Sure, I can tell you how the first Christmas call I got is from a customer with a new Kindle. Since her computer was wired directly to the CPE, she realized that she needed her wireless router. This would be the router sitting in the garage for the last 18 months, 9 months before we did our installation. So, that means the technician who installed the CPE antenna never even knew she had a wireless router and of course, she thinks he should magically know the security code. No, I’m not here to tell you stories about those kinds of calls since I can’t devote January to compiling them and many of you have your own list.

I’m here to tell you about data carriers who think that everyone above Level 1 tech support doesn’t need to give a flying donut about the customers. As they sit on Mount Data Center Olympus, they look upon us knaves as the ignorant masses who should accept the fact that our network is down until they feel like dealing with it. It’s simply inconceivable to them that they screwed up; it must be our fault. They think about us, the last mile data carriers that aren’t Cox, Time Warner, or CenturyLink the way the Goa’uld think about the Tau’ri (Stargate reference in that the Goa’uld think they are Gods and that the Tau’ri, the humans, are ignorant peons to be enslaved). Yeah, I’m a SciFi  geek.

I just spent 4 days working through a level of denial, stonewalling, outright incompetence, arrogance, and downright laziness with 3 out of the 4 companies I deal with. I’m not naming names because in my experience, they aren’t unique. Apparently the concept of customer support is totally foreign to some backhaul carriers. The lack of oversight on how their departments treat their customers is extremely evident because I’m thinking that if the CEO of any of these companies knew how bad it was, heads would be rolling. Of course, the culture of keeping customers with Level 1 technicians trained and boxed in so that it’s impossible to escalate a call (at least that’s what they tell the customers until you threaten all sorts of mean, nasty things) to the mysterious Gods of Networking is the fault of the CEOs. It’s not even remotely possible that level 2 staff made a mistake or even be bothered to check with the customer to see if a call should be closed (part 2 will cover this ingenious decision). If this were one company out of 4, okay, maybe it’s an anomaly. But it occurred with 3 out of 4. And the company that I exempted basically did their job, but I still had to initiate every single follow up call, 5 of them. They never called me back every hour (as they said they would every single time) for an update even though this outage was 5 hours past their SLA. However, when I did call, a technician answered and they then moved to get an update.

Since I was dealing with 2 separate outages, I’ll start with the first one which also took the longest to resolve. That’s because it’s harder to fight your reseller and their last-mile carrier simultaneously.  It’s kind of like having to climb over the barb-wire fence first just to get to the mine field. And while you are working your way through the mine-field, barb-wire fence keeps popping up after each step. When you have to do the job of the reseller’s tech support supervisor on top of that, life gets rough. It’s even worse when the Level 2 reseller tech support techs try to parse and jump on every word you say to avoid having to call the last-mile carrier. They also like to subtly remind you that you aren’t qualified to operate a TV remote control, let alone tell them that their network doesn’t work properly and why. I have now learned from 3 different people how the ping command works because apparently I was unaware that I needed a re-education in this. Must be test coming up that nobody has told me about.

If this article does nothing more than tell the resellers and backhaul carriers that somebody needs to be reviewing their absolutely pathetic customer service above Level 1, then it has some value beside my personal therapeutic value. Hopefully this article helps you to navigate through the painful ordeal that is our backhaul carrier’s support processes. I firmly believe now that these processes were developed by the medical insurance industry and ported word-for-word into our industry. Either way, I hope my ranting has some redeeming value because I know that if I have to go through this again, I will be hiring a full time Anger Management consultant, making an appointment with the Hair Club for Men, and putting a gastroenterologist on speed dial.

A few days before Christmas, we started getting calls that web browsing had pauses of 15-30 seconds between pages. NetFlix users were also having big streaming buffering problems. We knew about the NetFlix/Amazon problem and also thought it might be our network since our load was up about 300% since September. We looked at 5.5.2 Ubiquiti firmware as a possibility since there were some rumblings in that area on the forums. So, after quickly testing 5.5.4 Beta 2 in our office, we decided to deploy it on our APs and for a day or so, things seemed to be much better. Ah, problem solved, life is good. Silly me, I was so naïve. It had nothing to do with the firmware although 5.5.4 Beta 2 was working better than 5.5.2. However, we did go back to 5.5.2 when further testing showed some possible compatibility issues with 5.5.4 RC-1 that we didn’t have time to review as of this article (my wife made it clear to me that  spending time with the in-laws was more fun than playing with new firmware features across a few hundred radios). The firmware does seem to work very well and will be an improvement but you probably shouldn’t deploy it mixed with 5.5.2 Beta 2 in a production environment yet or at least do your own testing before making that decision.

The problem cropped up again the next day, or at least that’s when we started getting calls again. Now we were looking at the authentication servers and routers. Couldn’t find a problem there either and the Peplink load-balancing routers had been rock solid for years. So, we were down to the provider’s routers. We realized that we were seeing two circuits that normally run about the same level of bandwidth because of the load-balancing, having a bandwidth usage differential of 10-1 that was unexplained. We rebooted one of carrier routers, and bounced the Peplink port on that router. Now it wasn’t coming up at all. This is where the fun starts so grab a HoHo, a glass of milk, and the Pepto-Bismol and get comfortable.

I’m not a big fan of following the rules, especially when everything in my experience set tells me that something smells wrong and the obvious direction I’m being told to follow is the same failed path I’ve gone down before. However, in the interest of the Christmas Spirit and Good Will Towards your Fellow Man thing, I followed process and opened the call as I’m supposed to.  A Level 1 tech (or as I have nicknamed them, Evil Guardians of Truth and Productivity and the preventer of getting my circuit back up and running) took the call, and tried the usual “did you power cycle every computer within 5 square miles” shtick. I realized it needed to get escalated quickly, but they said I would hear back from them within a couple hours. Even though I let him do it, I knew the model for their Level 2 tech support was “We don’t need to call no stinkin’ customers back” from past experience. However, I waited my obligatory 2 hours, got scolded by at least 10 new Kindle owners during that time, added another 30 minutes extra, and then started over again.

The standard lie that the Level 1 tech support personnel tell you is that they have no way to contact Level 2 tech support. Companies that think this firewall is a good policy in that a data communications company can’t reach another division within their company clearly need to be cleaning out some middle management. However, the level of difficulty for Level 1 to reach Level 2 varies between companies. Some companies only allow Level 1 to use some type of Instant Messaging or email for Level 2 (brilliant move there CenturyLink, for your business customers and why I’m now another provider at my office). Yeah, dictating to a Level 1 tech person middleman who is typing at 50 words per minute trying to describe a routing problem is so much more efficient than talking at 125 words per minute. And with feedback from new information taking minutes, it takes an hour to convey something that could be resolved in moments.  It’s simply a really stupid policy and does nothing but waste time for the Level 1 tech, ticks off the customer to no end, and forces Level 2 techs to multi-task which is difficult in a conversation, but impossible in a highly-technical solution process. It doesn’t help that the Level 2 techs also start off with the same stupid question, “Have you checked the cables and power cycled everything first”.  I too am a fan of the IT Crowd (British Comedy TV show about a dysfunctional corporation and the tech support guys in the basement), but that wastes another 20 minutes waiting for reboots and is the reason my cell phone almost became a projectile.

If you calmly explain to the Level 1 tech that you graduated the 3^rd grade, know that the word computer doesn’t start with a K, and that your shirt matches your pants, you might gain enough credibility to get them to understand you aren’t a total idiot. When that doesn’t work (you have a 50/50 chance here) then you ask for a supervisor or tell them to connect you to Level 2 because this problem is above their pay grade. This effort raises your chances of getting to Level 2 by 0% but it makes you feel better. That’s when you threaten to commit Hari-Kari, start throwing out your technical analysis of the problem with every detail and what you have done to resolve it thus proving it’s their problem, not yours, and tell them you have contracts from their competition sitting on your desk ready to sign.  Miraculously, they have now discovered the extension number of Level 2 support.

So, we are now about 3 hours into this problem and still nothing has been accomplished. When you finally reach Level 2 tech support and you get past the obligatory, “have you power cycled the router”, (I never get tired of hearing that one because it’s so much more funny the 30^th time it’s repeated), then you basically sit on the phone while the new tech rereads the notes on this problem. It’s really silly of you to think that anybody in Level 2 even looked at this yet since it’s only an hour past since they were to respond. Oh wait, I almost forgot the best part. Before this second call, while waiting for Level 2 to call you back, this little jewel pops up in my Inbox from said department on my case, Level 2:

“We need verification from the EU if they want DHCP enabled on the router or not.”

After I picked myself off the floor, I reviewed everything to make sure I hadn’t just jumped to another dimension and Rod Serling was talking to an audience about this. Let’s see, one of my circuits is dropping 5-15 pings or basically freezing up every 2 -3 minutes for 30 seconds or so and my other circuit isn’t even close to delivering the bandwidth I’m paying for. That’s the official trouble ticket. Now go back and read the response from Level 2 again and tell me that as an industry, we should be worried that “going networking” hasn’t replaced “going postal”.  Of course they called the local carrier and asked them to check everything. When the carrier responded with, “everything is working fine but the DHCP setting might be wrong”, my reseller Level 2 technician thought this was such a great response, he couldn’t wait to share it with me before critically analyzing this vital information to see how it fit into my trouble ticket. Utterly brilliant, and now I’m kicking myself because I didn’t think of the DHCP setting being turned on or off as the possible culprit?  What was I thinking?

This is on my business circuit that never used DHCP and has been on static IP addresses from the beginning. How two Level 2 technicians or network engineers came to the epiphany that DHCP has anything to do with this issue is something that I will never be able to explain to my dying day and for which I never got an answer. For reference to my possible reflection that either everyone in the world has gone crazy or it’s just me, reread the first paragraph. It was either that or Allen Funt was going to jump out any time and tell me I was on Candid Camera.

Maybe the Level 2 techs got into the eggnog too early or maybe their multi-tasking led to this mistake. What I do know is that my reseller Level 2 support never called me and then somehow came up with this brilliant conclusion. I also knew at this point that I was going to have to restart the tech support ladder from the bottom with 50 client calls backed up and I’ve been down about 4 hours now. The last thing I wanted to do was walk 2 companies though troubleshooting processes for something they are supposed to be the experts in. I’m also 100 miles from home and missing hand-made ravioli with all my relatives who flew in to visit us for Christmas. I’m not in a great mood for this kind of apathetic effort on their part. I could tell that this was going to be a very long day.

I’m going to pause now until Part Two of this epic adventure.  I know that many of you have had far worse technical support problems with issues 300’ in the air in below freezing weather. I understand that and have been through some of that myself so believe, me, I feel for you. This article isn’t about looking for sympathy about some of the challenging and difficult environments that we deal with. Be honest, it beats sitting behind a desk all day and if we didn’t love it, we would be doing something else. It’s more about how difficult it is for a WISP when you have to deal with tech support processes put in place by incumbent carriers that simply don’t care about customer service. It’s either that or they hire managers and staff who would rather be playing Halo 4 than doing their job. The only guy I feel for in this process is the Level 1 tech who has to make a decision to escalate a call to Level 2 or actually call them to do their job, especially if I’m on the other end of that line after my last trouble ticket email from Level 2.

So now you know the reason for my Christmas ulcer. I started the whole process over again but with the knowledge that Level 2 tech support is going to require me to hold their hand to get their job done.  That means no mercy anywhere along the process since I am painfully now aware that Level 1 is impotent and Level 2 is lazy and inattentive. As you can see, I’m 3 pages deep and still haven’t gotten a single thing accomplished with either company and now other data circuits are down at another location 80 miles away.  The hits just keep on coming.  Part two of this article might be a little less cynical after I’ve had lots of really, really good eggnog and with my used to be fresh leftover ravioli that now have to be micro waved to death (aaarrrggghhhh).  If I ever needed a HoHo for dessert and comfort, now would be the time.

* * * * *

Next article: Tales from the Towers, Chapter 43: Galactus – Destroyer of Wired Worlds

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Indeed, this small pilot is by no means a done deal. Gigabit Squared needs to raise money to build the network. The MoU will help them attract investors. They expect to begin offering fiber broadband service in the autumn of 2013.

The network will be called Gigabit Seattle and has three parts (according to the press release):

(1) Fiber to the home and business: Gigabit Seattle plans to build out a fiber-to-the-home/fiber-to-the-business (FTTH/FTTB) network to more than 50,000 households and businesses in 12 demonstration neighborhoods, connected together with the excess capacity that Gigabit Seattle will lease from the city’s own fiber network.

The initial 12 neighborhoods include: Area 1: the University of Washington’s West Campus District, Area 2: South Lake Union, Area 3: First Hill/Capitol Hill/Central Area, Area 4: the University of Washington’s Metropolitan Tract in downtown Seattle, Area 5: the University of Washington’s Family Housing at Sand Point, Area 6: Northgate, Area 7: Volunteer Park Area, Area 8: Beacon Hill and SODO Light Rail Station and Areas 9-12: Mount Baker, Columbia City, Othello, and Rainier Beach.

(2) Dedicated gigabit to multifamily housing and offices: To provide initial coverage beyond the 12 demonstration neighborhoods, Gigabit Seattle intends to build a dedicated gigabit broadband wireless umbrella to cover Seattle providing point-to-point radio access up to one gigabit per second. This will be achieved by placing fiber transmitters on top of 38 buildings across Seattle. These transmitters can beam wireless signals to multifamily housing and offices across Seattle, even those outside the twelve demonstration neighborhoods, as long as they are in a line of sight. Internet service would be delivered to individual units within a building through existing wiring. This wireless coverage can provide network and Internet services to customers that do not have immediate access to fiber in the city.

(3) Next generation mobile wireless internet: Gigabit Seattle will provide next generation wireless cloud services in its 12 neighborhoods to provide customers with mobile access.

The fiber network, the gigabit dedicated wireless connections, and wireless cloud services neighborhoods will together provide broadband wired and wireless network and Internet services, giving Seattle customers new choices.

This is the first demonstration project of Gigabit Squared’s Gigabit Neighborhood Gateway Program (GNGP), which will bring other projects like this to promote gigabit network innovation in six selected university communities across the country. The $200 million broadband program was developed in partnership with The University Community Next Generation Innovation Project (Gig.U).

NOTE: It’s not clear who is going to act as the service provider. I am assuming it will be Gigabit Squared. However, Gigabit Squared’s About page shows that they are an engineering/consulting firm, not a traditional ISP. 

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