Speed Matters
August 27, 2009
The Communications Workers of America (CWA) have just released a study called “Speed Matters” – I couldn’t agree more that speed matters, but I also disagree with the namby-pamby view of what the CWA believes broadband speed should be. The website for more information is www.speedmatters.org.
Before I go on to explain why the CWA recommending that an acceptable broadband speed is 10 megabits downstream and 1 megabit upstream is not in their long term best interests. But before I go there … a trip down memory lane.
While President of Frontier Communications back in the 1990’s, I had the opportunity to interface with Local CWA 1170 – “Up the Rebel!” Anyhow, for the most part, I had good dealings with these folks. On occasion, I would spend a day with one of the techs in the service van’s going around fixing customers problems. I always thought those moving office van jobs were the best in the company. You showed up early, received your assignments, and management was now in your rear view mirror.
Customers always enjoyed when you showed up because you were there to solve a problem or initiate a service. These grassroots services people were invaluable to the company, they knew where the proverbial bear would crap in the woods and were street warriors, of sorts. The biggest gripe the van nomads had was with arbitrary job assignments by management – which I happened to agree with the CWA. A van nomad would get his or her assignments for a day and by going down the list they could tell you out of six jobs, two will take all day – if anyone new, they would. But, management measured on how many jobs got done without considering complexity as many calls were repeat situations.
A lot of repeat situations were the result of not being allowed to do the job right in the first place in order to meet measures. So, you completed your 6 jobs, but you know at least two will be showing up again in a day or two — no one was measuring repeats outside of the nomads in the vans. The groans in the garages at 6:30 am when certain addresses would pop up … again and again.
This is a family blog, but some of the stories I could tell you that the van nomads experience are varied and wide — ranging from a topless women greeting a tech at the door to allowing hookers during February cold spells in Rochester to warm up for a while in the van (sorry, no hanky panky), to discovering service fraud by cross wiring blocks to the President (yours truly), riding shot gun with a super soaker pulling up on another working nomad crew and letting them have it on a hot summers day.
Anyhow, as I said I had a good relationship with the CWA and in leading the first local market competitive carrier in the United States back in 1994, the CWA was a great conduit for being competitive. Bob Flavin, President of 1170 back then would call me occasionally and whisper sweet nothings in my ear over the phone on certain competitor’s activities or a forthcoming pissed-off customer. Many times I was able to counter or diffuse certain situations as a result.
Bob and I didn’t need a contract to know what was in the best interest of the company and its customers – we trusted each other.
Back to the speed question. If you look at the release of information, here are the top and bottom rankings by state in America:
Fastest Internet Connections
Delaware (9.9 mbps)
Rhode Island (9.8 mbps)
New Jersey (8.9 mbps)
Massachusetts (8.6 mbps)
New York (8.4 mbps)
Slowest Internet Connections
Mississippi (3.7 mbps)
South Carolina (3.6 mbps)
Arkansas (3.1 mbps)
Idaho (2.6 mbps)
Alaska (2.3 mbps)
No offense to Delaware or Rhode Island, but Ted Turner owns land bigger than your states. I am surprised you don’t have higher speeds than this!
As I have advocated in previous posts that it would be in the interests of all Americans and the CWA to have a minimum threshold of 100 megabits now and 1 gigabit services to 80% of America within a decade. My opinion, any grants or loans from the government should be predicated on achieving these parameters plus reliability standards. When you combine speeds like this with reliability standards, the most cost effective platform is fiber optics. The 20% outside the 80% is mostly rural-rural – USF-like funded satellite, 4G or WiMax capabilities for access is my proposed solution. Let’s face it folks, 50 megabits to rural-rural areas can be a good goal, a fair goal – dial-up or no service is unacceptable. Global competitiveness requires we do not fall behind further by serving the lowest common denominator such as rural-rural (i.e., FTTB — Fiber-To-The-Barn) just like what has been done in our public school systems but everywhere.
Though this is my view and world statistics supports me, I have yet to get invited to the White House for lunch to discuss my opinions on 100 megabits or the dumbing down of our public education system to serve the lowest common denominator of student.
The telephone companies are on the way to becoming “integrated telemedia” (copyright Dave Rusin) companies with one huge advantage at the moment – an in place network infrastructure wire line and wireless. However, to achieve long term cost advantage, the CWA should push for fiber connectivity while avoiding copper creep bandwidth limits to enable others to succeed. Its pure arbitrage and a fools bet in my opinion, to milk the copper under today’s regulatory environment. If you can’t get forbearance on the copper, either sell the copper to an unsuspecting third party or rip it out and replace it with fiber as soon as possible. Think about it, if some CLECs whine inside the beltway for copper access, see how fast they will line up to buy the frame and copper loops from the ILEC and its regulatory conditions – I think the hypocrisy will show itself. Let the CLEC own the facility and the van rolls … . If you don’t believe me, go ask an RLEC … I am sure they would rather pay regulated rates for copper facility use to a CLEC that thinks it’s a great money maker… van rolls are even more costly in rural areas.
Assuming Japan, South Korea, Australia, Tasmania, those crazy Portuguese and others stand still with bandwidth rates they are delivering today, at our current rate it would take America 15 years to catch-up – assuming they stand still!
I encourage the CWA to lobby for 100 megabits and reliability first, and then the dialogue on how to incent investments private and/or public can begin in earnest. In the interim, encourage ILEC management to offer up copper loops for out right sale to CLECs fighting forbearance – just sell them as is where is and subject to regulations – hell, the ILEC can be a CLECs customer on those loops since the business model is so lucrative per the CLECs. Meanwhile, the CWA can get busy installing last mile fiber access and advancing America.
Up the Rebel!
Pissing and Moaning About Copper
August 25, 2009
For those of you who read this regularly, you know that I am an admitted bigot … a fiber optic
bigot.
I think copper loops are long past prime time and are not reliable enough or scalable enough to deliver globally competitive broadband. Water is a big problem for copper.
I wanted to share with you something that came across my desk. It was created somewhere on the internet.
A farm wife called the local ILEC phone company to report her telephone failed to ring when
her friends called — and that on the few occasions, when it did ring, her dog always moaned right before the phone rang.
The telephone repairman proceeded to the scene, curious to see this psychic dog or senile lady.
He climbed a telephone pole, hooked in his test set, and dialed the subscriber’s house.
The phone didn’t ring right away, but then the dog moaned and the telephone began to ring.
Climbing down from the pole, the telephone repairman found:
1. The dog was tied to the telephone system’s ground wire with a steel chain and collar.
2. The copper wire connection to the ground rod was loose.
3. The dog was receiving 90 volts of signaling current when the number was called.
4. After a couple of jolts, the dog would start moaning and then urinate.
5. The wet ground would complete the copper circuit, thus causing the phone to ring.
This demonstrates that some copper loop problems CAN be fixed by pissing and moaning.
It is impossible for this to happen with fiber optics. Copper Loops – PETA is probably on my
side!
25 Years…
August 20, 2009
Dear Readers:
Today is August 20th.
A year ago today, my wife and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary. Married for 25-years and we have never had a fight …
Anyhow, a year ago today as well, my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. We have gone
through the treatments over this past year – so far, so good.
This date serves as my yearly reminder to remind anyone and everyone – get those mammograms. Please pass my message along!
If my wife had not gone yearly, the outcome may have been an entirely different story.
Dave
Lunch with the President
August 18, 2009
Dear Readers & AFS Customers:
Recently President Obama had a White House luncheon. He had lunch with Ursula Burns, CEO of Xerox Corporation; Muhtar Kent, CEO of the Coca-Cola Company; AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson; and Honeywell International CEO Dave Cote.
Each of the parties invited handed over credit cards to a staffer to be billed for the lunch. A spokesperson defended the move to avoid any conflicts of interest. The White House did not disclose what was served at lunch.
No more criticism over transparency for this Administration! And understanding where every dime is going, superb!
I just want to let you know, if–or perhaps it’s just a matter of when–I ever get invited to the White House for lunch, I will brown bag it.
Is it possible the President may read my blog? If so, and he invites me over for lunch, I will be myself – no fuss, no muss. Oh, and no Coke for me–I’ll bring a diet Pepsi in my bag … sorry Muhtar.
Excitement in BTOP Land
August 13, 2009
As we approach the August 14th deadline for the first round of proposal submissions under the Federal Governments $7.2 billion Broadband Technology Opportunity Program (BTOP), excitement fills the air. It’s almost like the feeling that Chris Matthews of MSNBC had – a tingling running up your leg. With $1.6 billion to be allocated during Round 1, the submissions should make for some interesting reading.
I have found a few more oddities in the process that I’d like to share with commonsense America.
Before I start, have you noticed something that has been going on over the past 4-6 weeks? It is very pertinent to the BTOP process and how a proposal may be challenged after submission by an incumbent wire line or wireless carrier–or any carrier for that matter–anonymously, of course, and without due process.
There has been a flurry of press releases from all major wire lines–wireless and cable companies claiming to offer service speeds on an advertised basis in excess of 10, 20 or 50 megabits in some cases, some as high as 100 megabits. All sorts of new high-speed advertised services!
Keep the above in mind …..
According to the BTOP folks, a proposal receives points on 5 parts of a submission form. Each part gets 20 points, so the highest points a submission may receive is 100 points.
In one of the sections, based upon the USA’s definition of broadband of 768 kilobits, an initiator of a proposal has to go through all sorts of census data machinations and mapping in defining areas of a proposal that qualify as being unserved or under-served. Respectively, no service is un-served and under-served below the broadband service definition of 768 kilobits per second. It is plausible that a proposal may be eliminated at this stage by not meeting these criteria by supportable quantifiable analysis, though in a different section of scoring, if your proposal offers megabits or gigabits of broadband you can get extra points.
Think about this for a second. The two points contradict each other.
That said, a proposal may also be challenged for elimination – get this – if the advertised broadband speed by a provider in an area is greater than 3 megabits per second. Thus, all the recent announced advertised speeds greater than 3 megabits are dripping all over the place.
Think about it – not an installed speed of 3 megabits with 90% coverage, but an advertised speed greater than 3 megabits. Advertised! It gets better.
If a proposal gets rejected because some carrier did a press release and updated a tariff to a new advertised speed above 3 megabits the proposal submitted gets called into question of the quantifiable analysis of unserved and underserved per the rules, assuming you get a hearing on the matter; and guess where the burden of proof falls? Yes, on the company that submitted the proposal and quantified census research must prove that the advertised speeds are not available, limited, etc. Now, can someone out there in blog land please tell me where you are going to find such information? Think about this for a second – you are guilty of a quantifiable census analysis according to the BTOP rules as required if someone advertises a speed greater than 3 megabits across a region wire line or wireless. The burden should be exactly the opposite – a carrier or Cable Company advertised certain rates of speed greater than 3 megabits per second, especially the last 4-6 weeks, should prove the penetration rates on a map by actual sales via their billing records.
It gets better.
In the BTOP rules, with the definition of Broadband at 768 kilobits, there has been a sector excluded from consideration because they not only deliver at least 3 megabits of service but they can serve 100% of America today. Satellite companies as an industry group and platform are excluded from BTOP as a viable measurement for unserved and underserved. Why? Because the satellite broadcast companies by the Federal Governments own definition of broadband makes America 100% served at 3 megabits or above … how convenient. They not only advertise it today, they are doing it today. Why the discrimination against this sector? I can’t tell you why and I am surprised satellite carriers are sitting by idly.
The straight talk here is simple: it’s about politics, the beltway disconnect with reality and protecting the interests of campaign contributions even though America is woefully behind in broadband access and speeds overall. I filed my opinion at the start of the process calling for a minimum standard of 100 megabits as the definition of broadband with a goal of 1 gigabit within a decade with the global economy as a backdrop. According to “advertised” announcements recently, my 100 megabit broadband definition suggestion seems plausible and achievable.
Those Crazy Portugese…
August 11, 2009
Those crazy Portuguese.
I just finished reading cable digital news and I can’t believe it–this crazy company in Portugal, called Zon, is going to offer 1 gigabit services–the first such country to do so in Europe, according to the article. Imagine that!
Besides competing with incumbent high-speed provider, Portugal Telecom SGPS, they also compete with three additional high-speed providers with table stakes today starting at 200 megabits per second in Portugal. Imagine that! – Five facilities based competitors (also known as fiber infrastructure). Imagine that!
Meanwhile, back in the USA, we have settled on an appropriate 768 kilobits per second as our definition of broadband and for broadband measurement purposes. Imagine that!
In Memory of Shawn Olson
August 5, 2009
Dear Readers:
I wish to share with you further information on the tragic loss of an AFS employee.
Olson, Shawn W.
Age 42
Died Mountain Biking on July 27, 2009
He lived life to the fullest and died doing what he enjoyed. Survived by wife Jennifer; son Brian; parents Glenn and Carole Mae Olson; sister Krista Olson (Philip Patrick) and their children Eleanor and James; parents in law Roxann and Dave Wilkinson and their son Doug; and many loving relatives and friends. Memorial Service August 15, 2009 at 2 p.m., Westminster Presbyterian Church, 1200 Marquette Ave., Minneapolis. Underground parking entrance on 13th Street between Marquette and Nicollet. Memorials are preferred to Brian Olson’s college fund, in his name at: Edward Jones, P.O. Box 1624, Monticello, MN 55362, attn. Chris Kruse
What I like about this obituary is so true – Shawn never defined himself by where he worked, his job or his craft, but through the actions of how he lived.
How often do we witness in our own lives people who define themselves by “what” they do, a title, a business deal, “power”, money, house they live in, who they (think they) know, car they drive, etc. Have you ever noticed upon retirement or loss of a job where, some of these folks lose what they think their identity is or was? Some go into a depression. It was a falsehood in the first place. This is sad to see any human being who goes through life defining oneself by what they do, material holdings, or how they want others to perceive them.
I can assure you Shawn lived a balanced life, a full life albeit, a shortened life by this accident. He was a family man first, and the sun would rise and set with his son Brian. He was loyal to his wife, the sanctity of marriage and family.
Shawn has been with AFS since almost the beginning – when we had nothing. His loyalty was tremendous during the telecom meltdown circa 2001-2003. Like everyone else at AFS during this period of great uncertainty, Shawn made substantial economic and personal sacrifices to the benefit of our investors and customers in seeing AFS through this perfect storm. No complaints – he conducted himself without a complaint for the overall benefit of the organization, survival and our prosperity during such a horrible economic period.
Shawn was a big man, stood six foot three. Never played basketball, as he would tell you his coordination skills were lacking. I enjoyed our many visits together in person or on the phone which would transcend across business and family. A particular “rise” I could always get out of Shawn was pushing the idea that AFS should be “micro trenching” fiber. If you ever wanted to set Shawn ablaze, that was the subject. You could also mix in some politics on occasion … like Al Franken most recently.
Shawn liked to ride motorcycles and he smoked. Two things I told him would probably kill him! Something to be said about living and enjoying life as no one knows what tomorrow will bring.
Some day when I pass away, I hope to be remembered like Shawn. More about how you left lasting memories of shared experiences, humor while sharing life stories or experiences with others to their own benefit or advancement. Giving is better than receiving.
As I grow old, some day sitting in rocker thinking about life, I will grin slightly as my memories of Shawn Olson come to mind and the part of the life experience we shared together. Those memories will be more valuable than anything else I can think of.
As Shawn demonstrated, it’s not about holding yourself back or being held back by others because of where you are from; it’s all about looking forward; and where you are going … and the quality of that adventure.
I am glad to have known Shawn Olson and thank God for allowing me to do so.
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