Category: Lafayette

Big Cable Is Bleeding

An interesting story today in GigaOm ruminates on the third quarter loses in video subscriptions for the top US cable corporations. While there is both an upside and and a downside to these reports the downside is pretty dramatically evident:

There’s now even more evidence that subscribers are cutting the cord and opting out of paying for cable: By adding up subscriber losses from four of the top five cable companies, we found that more than half a million users have ditched their cable companies….(No. 3 cable provider Cox Communications is privately held and therefore doesn’t have to announce its subscriber losses for all the world to see.)

As the story goes on to point out cable loses are not a new story; the available market is popularly understood to be pretty saturated but what is new is that satellite TV and IPTV (mainly Verizon in the east and ATT’s UVerse) is no longer making up for cable’s shrinking base.

Fewer people are subscribing to paid channels. Period. Full Stop.

That’s a real change.

The Downside:
Much of the speculation on the net is that people are not watching less video but are instead getting their video over the internet. (The terms to google are “internet” and “cable cutters.”) Less acknowledged is that the recent transition to Over The Air (OTA) HD digital broadcast may also have had an impact. A digital signal is by its nature clean (or not available); the “bad” snow and breakup that plagued analog signals at the edges of the broadcast area and the generally poorer-than-cable picture and sound is no longer true and people are discovering that their old antennas are bringing in a really nice picture. A combination of OTA local and network television with free internet downloads are very tempting. Add in a ready supply of “must have” TV and movies from the likes of Netflix and iTunes and you have a solution that makes for a more than adequate—and much cheaper—alternative for many.

All that has implications for Lafayette—even beyond the few people who hold stock in one of the big players. These days we all have an interest in seeing LUS Fiber succeed and prosper. And LUS has structured its business plan around seizing a substantial portion of the video market. I’ve no reason to think that there is any real trouble there in the short run. LUS knew well that the city’s video market was already saturated and that it would have to take customers away from Cox to succeed on this leg of the triple play of video, phone, and internet services. The utility’s business plan called for a three year ramp up to getting the 23% penetration that they’ve said we’d need to make break-even. We’re at the beginning of that three-year cycle that kicks off when the system is complete and Huval has claimed that we’re above that number in areas where the network has been in place for more than a few months. My guess is that the recent video-only price increase was intended to make sure that the video side continued to contribute its projected share to the plan to make break-even in the face of recent video price increases (example).

Because LUS has modeled its business plan after the video-focused one that has succeed so handsomely for the major players we need to be concerned when the larger industry has trouble spots like this one.

The Upside:
But an interesting counterpoint to gloom and doom is that while subscribers are declining the amount of money each subscriber that is kept contributes is continuing to rise:

Comcast reported on its earnings call that average revenue per user (ARPU) increased by 10 percent year-over-year, ending the third quarter at about $130 per month. Charter’s ARPU also rose about 9 percent, to $126. And while Cablevision’s reported average revenue per sub didn’t grow as fast as the others, it’s now a whopping $149.

What’s happening, of course, is that prices are rising and people are, by and large, paying. That resulted in higher revenue and higher profits for the big cable companies. LUS has reported that people are buying more services (all of the triple play for instance) and higher tiers (especially on the internet side) than their original metrics predicted. That’s good news, of course, all other things being equal it should mean that they could make break-even with a smaller number than originally predicted. (Though all other things are seldom equal…the upswing in video costs no doubt hits hard.)

The contrast between the incumbent cable market losing customers at the same time that profits and prices increase is evidence of some pretty serious market failure and confirms the idea that what we are dealing with is a quasi-monopoly situation. People pay until the can’t pay any longer simply because the lack of real competition at any price, much less a lower price, means there isn’t much in the way of practical choices.

Lafayette’s LUS Fiber is an IPTV system…in this it is like AT&T and Verizon. The upside here is that this is the segment of the market that appears to be growing fairly strongly according to Q3 filings reports. In fact, that’s the main point the GigaOm story misses: the adds the two new IPTV video providers have account for 440,000 of the half million loses the old cable side of the market suffered. That accords well with LUS’ experience as well. They are growing their market; in our fairly simple context it is pretty clear that LUS’ gains come at Cox’s expense as far as the video market is concerned. What LUS provides that AT&T and Verizon do not is substantially cheaper, long-term, ungimmicky prices; LUS offers no discounts on bundles (hence part of their surprise at the larger-than-expected uptake of multiple services) and it offers no discounts that are “limited” in term. The traditional providers all offer special introductory offers, 6 month specials, and aggressive offers to “lost” customers.

The final upside, however, is the one that interests me as a supporter of LUS fiber the most: the moment is rapidly approaching when the quality of the internet connection is all that really matters to savvy consumers. When that day comes LUS will have a clear advantage. People can legitimately dispute over which video system is best. (I’ve my judgment and I argue it is well-founded but, hey, I’m pretty clearly biased toward the local provider.) But there is little to no room to dispute over the internet connection. It’s simply faster, cheaper, and has vastly lower latency. If you like Netflix you’ll love LUS Fiber. And in the not too distant future that’s just about all that will matter.

Lagniapppe:
GigaOm has a new weekly series on cord-cutting that is, appropriately, offered via free streaming internet video. 🙂

LUS Fiber Video Rate Increase

LUS Fiber will see its first rate increase as of November 24th according to a letter from Terry Huval. That letter was posted on October the 15th and is making its way to subscribers.

Only the prices for higher-end video services are being raised—phone and internet services are not. The letter I received mentions only changes to the “Digital Plus” tier (from $58.31 to $67.82 monthly) and to the premium movie channels, Cinemax (to $7.78), Starz/Encore (to $10.85), Showtime (to $12.11) and HBO (to $14.81.) The Digital Plus tier is LUS’ most extensive and highest priced offering. It seems that the lower-priced tiers are not changing at this time. [Update: Amanda McElfresh at the Advertiser has the fuller story in a short piece posted in the afternoon of 10/18; there she notes that all the video tiers were being updated:

Expanded basic tier will go from $39.95 per month to $46.95 per month, an increase of $7

Digital Access will go from $46.44 per month to $54.95 per month, an increase of $8.51]

It will have been about 22 months since LUS first began service when these initial increases show up on peoples’ bills; November is a somewhat traditional time to see cable rate increases and generally they come in yearly—or such was my experience while I was on Cox. (Cox’s most recent rate increase was 11 months ago in November of last year; that included increases throughout Cox’s video offerings and price increases to its internet offerings as well.)

LUS explains the changes as a consequence of the rising costs of programming, complains that it has been shut out of money-saving deals by its exclusion from potentially money-saving deals available to members of a cooperative of small providers. Readers will recall that there was quite an uproar about The Nation Cable Television Cooperative (NCTC) not too long ago—LUS has filed a formal complaint with the FCC and while it is not mentioned in the letter to its customers LUS, in both its filings and its public messages basically blamed Cox. Cox joined the coop after the fiber referendum where LUS won the right to build the system. Cox’s new membership in one of the nations largest cable systems was highly unusual for the organization—which originally was formed to allow smaller operations to compete with huge corporations like Cox. Cox now has a seat on the board. The whole thing smelled even odder after the two other municipal fiber utilities that had originally been denied membership along with LUS were admitted after joining in the preliminaries to the FCC complaint. The only visible difference between LUS and the other two cities was that Cox was competing in Lafayette—and not in the other two cities.

National News Connects…
While the ongoing battle over Coop membership surely played a role, it’s unlikely that price increases could be put off indefinitely. Video programming is simply expensive, and getting more expensive yearly.

For instance, technology and business news on the internet was rife with stories about how the Fox network was locked in a showdown with cable giant Cablevision over the upcoming programming contract. Fox is allegedly more than doubling in price this year from 70 million to 150 million and Cablevision is refusing to go along. Fox’s channels all went dark today exciting angst from sports fans. But what roiled the internet was that Hulu was briefly forced to cut off internet access to Fox shows for Cablevision customers—and only for customers of Cablevision. So if you bought your internet connection from Cablevision you couldn’t get last weeks programming from Hulu….even if you used AT&T or the DishNetwork for video. That didn’t last long, Hulu was allowed to open up access again rather quickly. But it raises real network neutrality issues. But perhaps more importantly, Fox was willing to flash the knife in this conflict, showing the cable companies that it controlled internet access to its programming with the implicit threat that it could go over the head of the programmers at the cable companies and take its content directly to users if it so chose. Large pipe internet connections have started to shift the balance of power between content providers and the cable companies. We may have just seen the first shot in a war that makes cable companies much less powerful. Many people anticipate that cable will not be able to avoid being cut out of its powerful—and profitable—role as the necessary link between consumers and producers. The Fox network just fired a warning shot across the bow of not only Cablevision but all of the national cable companies.

Update 10/19/10: The Advertiser has posted the official, it’s-in-the-paper version of the rate increase story…

LUS: Who Governs?

The question of who governs LUS—and apropos this blog, LUS Fiber—was raised last night at the meeting of the Lafayette charter commission. Terry Huval, LUS director, suggested that he favors some sort of governing board. This drew sharp questions from the commission and featured articles from both the Advocate and the Advertiser. The Independent blog weighed in early alerting readers to the meeting and offering useful background information. But AOC, as part of its desire to inform the public, has uploaded the full meeting to the web and I’ve embedded it here:

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The stories, understandably, focus on the sure-to-be-contentious issue of governance. It’s a source of conflict because LUS’ governance is the point which most clearly illustrates the reasoning of those who are pushing for deconsolidation, for giving Lafayette back its own city government. LUS was owned by, and arguably was the most valuable asset of the city of Lafayette back in the days before consolidation. The clear intent of the new consolidated city-parish charter was to keep control of LUS in the hands of the city. In pursuit of that goal LUS was to be governed by the LPUA—a panel made up of all the members of the city-parish council whose district contained at least 60% city residents. Almost immediately, however, legal opinions were sought and contradictions were found between those sections that gave control of LUS to the LPUA and those that gave control of “all” functions to the full council. A subtext here is the general tenor of the time immediately after consolidation— a “we can all get along” feeling was apparently widespread and when bond attorney’s voiced a feeling that bond issues would be look stronger if both the LPUA and the full C-P Council approved them that principle was quickly generalized to all governance matters. With a few tweaks to the implementation details that has been how LUS has been governed since.

This all blew up recently when LUS asked for the first electric rate hike in more than a decade. Arguably (and I do so argue) the ensuing deconsolidation conflict grew from the fact that ideologically conservative Bellard and Theriot, rural members of the council with few city citizens in their districts, refused to honor the majority decision of the LPUA to grant the hike. That resulted in a squeaker vote and served notice that the traditional ways of working around the deficiencies of the charter could no longer be relied on. People began looking for ways to “fix” the problem by fixing the charter. But once that Pandora’s box was opened the issue quickly morphed into one focusing on sovereignty for the City of Lafayette—a new city-only council, a real mayor for the city, and total city control of city assets. LUS has become a secondary issue for most of those passionate about issue but it remains the biggest practical problem, and among those whose bent is practical and pragmatic a solution to the problem of LUS governance would go a long way toward ending their worries.

(Unintended consequences alert: Bellard and Theriot are the councilmen most passionately opposed to deconsolidation. It’s a practical not principled position. The new ideological conservatives are supposed to be all for smaller government and moving power closer to the people as a matter of principle—and deconsolidation would do both. But Bellard and Theriot have the practical problem that their largely rural constituencies would be the ones left without resources in a new, rump, parish government. So, principle aside, they are against it. If they’d been old-fashioned conservatives earlier and honored the tradition of allowing the LPUA to decide on matters relating to the city utility they’d not be in this position today.)

What was interesting in Huval’s presentation lay as much in what he did not suggest as what he did.

What was suggested (@ 1:16 minutes in the above video) was drawn from data offered by the American Public Power Association (a body of which Mr. Huval is a past president):

  1. 44% are run by an appointed Board
  2. 28% are run by an elected Board
  3. 28% are controlled by the Council or local equivalent

The Commision had asked Mr. Huval to suggest a range of alternatives and this is what he offered in response. Huval clearly did not want to wade in any deeper though he seemed, in several remarks, to favor some form of a board. For instance, he remarked that he’d recommend, and repeated this recommendation several times, that a condition of membership on the board be residence in the city of Lafayette. At another moment he was also clearly concerned that it was at least possible for a council to be made up representatives who, even if their districts were mostly in the city, were not themselves city residents.

What was not suggested was any of a range of alternatives that had been batted about and which were mentioned in passing by Commission members. Specifically: proportional voting. In such a scheme all members of the council who had any city citizens in their district would get a proportional vote on the LPUA/Council on matters relating to LUS. So, in one example, if Representative A had a 20% city constituency then he’d get 20% of a vote and Representative B, whose district was 80% city would get a vote that was 4 times as large as A’s. Bruce Conque, a commission member who’d floated such a suggestion, was not present at this meeting.

Also not suggested were ways of dealing with the issue by simply changing the charter to take away any ambiguity as to the governance of LUS. It should be a relatively simple matter to make LPUA control explicit. Why that should not be explored more specifically is a matter for speculation. How much of the bond-worthiness of the city and the parish is due to having the large and stable income of four utilities to stabilize its income?

Nor was there any discussion of separating the traditional utilities—which operate as a municipal monopoly and the LUS Fiber division which operates in a much more competitive environment and under a vastly different set of constraints. State law already separates LUS Fiber from the rest of LUS for many purposes (part of the infamous (un)fair competition act) and discussion of the value of a separate LUS Fiber board would seem in order—even if it were finally decided that was not the way to go.

A lot of the questions asked by the Commissioners centered or touched on the role of LUS in encouraging or discouraging annexation of developing areas into the city. Mostly this centered around water (which is now being sold to surrounding areas at a rate that is higher than the retail rate in the city!) LUS Fiber, which is too young to have an historical role to play in that story was largely unmentioned. But it should be clear that LUS Fiber adds significantly to what the city of Lafayette can offer unincorporated areas. What isn’t being discussed is how LUS’ tight ties to the city have limited the growth of the utilities themselves. To the extent that the people of the community own their own utilities they keep local money at home and can use the resources to best serve the people of the community rather than the best interests of out-of-town investors. LUS has traditionally been seen as a huge benefit to the town and then city of Lafayette and it is often cited as a partial explanation for the way Lafayette moved past larger, but less progressive cities to become the hub city of the region. Is there any way to extend those benefits to others in the region without being unfair to the people of the city of Lafayette? I’d hate to see the value of public ownership stifled by peculiar historical arrangements. Of all the suggestions so far put forward the most easily adaptable to allowing the utilities to benefit the people outside the city limits would seem to be proportional voting. It’d make sense to separate LUS Fiber and the other utilities so that they could advance at differing rates. (It is my understanding that bond covenants which entangle all of the traditional utilities would likely make it impossible to separate out the water service from the electric. I’d be happy to stand corrected.)

Interestingly, the current dustup isn’t the first time the issue of LUS governance has been raised locally. The local League of Women Voters (full disclosure: I’m an active member) recommended an oversight board as the “final recommendation” in their extensive study of LUS Fiber’s potential for the community. Interestingly Terry Huval was at that time adamantly opposed to the idea, attending a public meeting SLCC called to discuss the issues raised by the report chiefly to make the point that such a board for LUS Fiber was not a good idea. It isn’t clear what has changed between then and now…beyond the uncomfortable realization during the rate hike discussion that LUS could no longer count on the city-parish council to honor what city councilors thought best for the utility.

“LUS now offering 100 Mbps residential Internet”

Nathan Stubbs over at the Independent blog has a brief article announcing that LUS Fiber is now officially offering a 100 Mbps residential tier. That makes Lafayette one of the very few places in this country where homes can easily and relatively affordably buy a 100 Mbps of connectivity.

It’s not entirely clear why LUS has decided to offer this service at this time. Huval points to demand; apparently regular folks are asking for a speed that LUS thought only businesses would desire:

He adds LUS Fiber continues to be pleasantly surprised by the higher levels of service being sought by the average residential and commercial customers. “The level of service [being sold] is higher than we expected,” he says, “which is very positive.”

The utility was already offering a commercial tier at the 100 Mbps speed for $199.95 a month. Huval has long said that any resident that wanted to pay for the commercial version was free to order it up so it is a little unclear as to just what is new about this explicitly residential service offering. (The LUS Fiber residential internet page has not yet been updated to reflect this change.) Unlike the 10 and 50 Mbps residential offerings the new 100 Mbps residential tier it is not cheaper than the corresponding business ones. The other residential tiers are cheaper than their corresponding business tiers by 45-48%. Nor, according to Huval’s remarks in the comments is the monthly usage cap any different—in both the residential and the commercial versions of the 100 meg package is capped at 8 terabits. (Note: that’d be about 1 terabyte of hard disk storage.) The idea behind the higher prices for businesses is that they use much more bandwidth than households—and LUS pays for its connectivity by capacity.

Another possible reason to formalize a 100 Mbps tier right now is that Chattanooga’s still-building municipal fiber-optic utility recently announced a 1 Gbps option on its system. Chattanooga’s Gig is expensive for a regular consumer at $399 a month. In general, while Chattanooga has offered higher speeds, their pricing schedule has been more expensive than LUS’. That relationship no longer holds with LUS pricing its residential 100 Mbps package at the same cost as its commercial one—LUS’ price is 200 dollars a month while Chattanooga’s is a 14o…

It sounds a bit as if this new residential tier hasn’t been completely thought out. I’ll not be surprised if revisions that bring it more into align with other residential packages don’t appear.

Worth the Listen—Net Neutrality

Ok, here’s something for those of you that are aural learners or just like a good rousing speech…The FCC hearings in Minnesota on Net Neutrality.

Franken starts @ 17 minutes
Copps begins @ 31 minutes
Clyburn @ 55 minutes
Chris Mitchell @ 72 minutes

This one’s been making the rounds of the internet…you may well have heard remarks about Senator Franken’ speech or raves about FCC Commissioner Copps’ (An FCC commissioner got a standing ovation? Really!? Really… And deserved it. ) Both of those are well worth the time spent listening. Franken has lost none of his wry, dry wit in the transition to Senator and who knew that any nerdish regulator had the capacity to give a stem-winder like Copps did? The freshman on the FCC team, newly appointed Mignon Clyburn turned in a journeyman piece of work as well.

But the hidden gem is in the follow-up to the headliners. Don’t miss Chris Mitchell—friend of Lafayette and all-round advocate of community-owned networks—get in his licks. He makes his points—that regulation is a necessary check on the self-interest of corporations, that the FCC’s role is to regulate in the public, not the private interest, and that all communities should be allowed to own their own networks. The FCC has the authority to do all this and should, he avers. In the process he cites Lafayette for being a model of non-partisan, local decision-making and the best-value network in the United States. “…Lafayette, operates the absolute best broadband network, as measured by value; for less than 30 dollars a month anyone can get a 10 gigabit connection. Symmetrical….in St. Paul I have to pay 3 times that much to get anything like that upload.”

Of course, not all of us are willing to slow down and listen to an actual speech. Ars Technica has a very readable overview of the major players that includes the money qoutes from both Franken and Copps: “I believe that net neutrality is the First Amendment issue of our time,” from Franken and “I suppose you can’t blame companies for seeking to protect their own interests, but you can blame policy makers if we let them get away with it” brought down the house for Copps.” Clyburn made it crystal clear that she, like Copps, won’t stand for separating wireless data services from the internet. So, early in the game, two of the 5 FCC commissioners have made it clear that the Google-Verizion deal won’t get past their desk—and that’s amazingly good news.

Championing Fiber—And Our Advantage

1012 Corridor, a regional business mag run by Baton Rouge’s Business Report has a rather late recap of the April Fiber Fete here in Lafayette. The news, such as it is, centers around the revelation that the organizers are now characterizing it as the “first annual” fiber fete and that an ancillary group “FiberCorps” is being formed that ogranizer Daily says is:

 “an entity that can coordinate the people and resources of Lafayette to work toward the common goal of being the Hub City for fiber-powered innovation.”

The story closes with a worth-repeating quote that emphasized maintaining the momentum Lafayette has now:

“Right now, Lafayette has the attention of the outside world, and I think a good goal would be, by the start of next year, to have made a whole lot of progress.”

The question is: What sort of progress?

It’d be good to see a second event and good to see a community support organization—though I have to say that one that supports only for-profit business forms of “innovation” would be show a massive lack of imagination about what is possible for a community-owned fiber network. The real value, the unique value, of a powerful, affordable network that runs past every home and corner grocery lies in those many homes and micro businesses. We’d be smart to compete in areas in which we have a clear and sustainable advantage—and not for businesses that could be developed in any decently-appointed business park in this country. I’ve no objection to devoting some resources to big blue-sky business projects and even more energy to encouraging private investment in private businesses that utilize our resources. But I do think that the real value lies in the fact that we are well on our way to providing the resources of that enable a top-notch business park to even the least well-appointed neighborhood in our city. Why not build the sorts of resources on top of our network that you see in those “incubators?” Big bandwidth is a nice start. Community WiFi at full speed? Shared supercomputing resources? Shared storage? A streaming video server? A server with free cloud services like Google’s Apps?

What would a community look like if it didn’t take thousands and thousands of dollars to use the tools that are now restricted to large businesses and college campus but would instead be available to all for a cheap, shared price?

Nobody knows, of course. But then again almost nobody else has the basic resource of a community network upon which to build these new sorts of community infrastructure.

But we do.

And that is our advantage.

“Judge asked to toss LUS Fiber suit” [updated]

¿¿ “Judge asked to toss LUS Fiber suit” ??

Uh, no—The suit in question is the National Cable Television Cooperative’s (NCTC) suit. Lafayette Consolidated Government has filed papers further supporting its contention that the NCTC’s lawsuit is merely designed to block an ongoing FCC inquiry into the matter.

So if the headline isn’t actually the news in this story then what is?

Well it is a little hard to tell from the Advertiser story. Especially since important bits that might make it all make sense are missing.

The real timeline involved goes something like this: LUS and two other cities with new FTTH networks who have submitted applications for membership after years of being ignored and then enduring a “moratorium” on new members started proceedings at the FCC asking the FCC to exercise its obligation under the Communications Act to block anticompetitive practices. The FCC requires that complaints be preceded by filings of intent at the FCC and fully informing the interested parties. LUS and its sister cities did so. (This is not fairly characterized as a “threat.”) The FCC’s hope in requiring this is pretty clearly that the two parties will get together and work it out without burdening their docket with the case. Indeed, the two other cities were admitted…and only Lafayette was refused. Why? Well the NCTC simply hasn’t said. But the fact (unreported in this story) is that Cox Communications is the largest member (this is recent—they joined after the successful referendum battle in Lafayette and the “moratorium”) and has a seat on the board of directors. The two other cities don’t compete against Cox or any other NCTC member. (This is not established policy, other places have more than one competitor in the NCTC.) If the point of the NCTC refusing only LUS membership is to stifle competition on behalf its most powerful member—well…on the face of it that would make their action anti-competitive and the FCC would be obligated to act.

Sooo, armed with a more complete picture can we now discern what the real news is?

Why yes, it is contained in the final, trailing paragraphs:

Included in Lafayette’s latest filings is a letter from an FCC official, supporting Lafayette’s position.

“We are extremely gratified that the Federal Communications Commission has taken the extraordinary step of writing a letter for submission to the federal judge in order to indicate that the agency is in full agreement with Lafayette’s position that the FCC should have primary jurisdiction over resolution of the issues under the Communication Act,” City-Parish Attorney Pat Ottinger said in a statement.

Lafayette has garnered the support of the FCC, which is agreeing that the matter falls into its domain. This is a big deal and Ottinger is right to be “extremely gratified.”The court will surely understand that if it allows the lawsuit to proceed it will be in danger of federal preemption—that the FCC will simply exert its right under the Communications Act to rule on such issues and take it out of state courts.

That, actually, is news. And it is good news for Lafayette and LUS

7/28/10, 2:12 pm: I’m Wrong: It has just been pointed out that federal preemption can’t be at stake here because the case is in federal court. That was careless. Thank goodness there was a knowledgeable reporter around to gently set me straight.

It’s still good to have the FCC asserting its authority and that will help sway the court to defer to administrative authority but it is not nearly as effective in a federal court as the implied threat of preemption would be in a state one.

LUS Fiber Commercial

LUS is prepping a new media campaign—something Director Huval hinted at recently when he noted that the new utility had resisted starting a full-scale media campaign until the network was finished and available to everyone in the city. Since that day is upon us now is time to see a full-throated campaign developed to sell the network to the community

This draft video is of the first television ad in that campaign.

What’s most interesting is the themes that are sounded. It’s a fair indication of what the campaign will emphasize. Take a listen, if you haven’t already, and see what you hear.

I like it. Here are some key phrases in sequence:

  • “Together we’ve built something special. And the world is watching”
  • “LUS Fiber belongs to all of us.”
  • “Fiber to the home…Others want it, We’ve got it.”
  • “Invest in Lafayette. And bring the world right to your door”

The accompanying visuals with a growing network of glowing (orange!) fiber traced out over the city connecting houses and bringing services reinforces the basic message.

The major theme is local pride—pride in what’s been accomplished and in what we have. That’s the right note…as is characterizing taking the service as investing in Lafayette.

“Getting your Fiber ON”

Local videoblogger Lane (Lanevids.com) has posted a stream of consciousness review of LUS Fiber install and intial tests to his funnyrats channel on youtube.

Short version: He likes it.

Part of the reason, no doubt, is that he finds he pegs out his iPhone’s Speedtest App when using LUS Fiber to push wifi to his iPhone (left). Speedtest needs to update its graphics.

The video (below) is part of his daily vlog so if you are uninterested in the bits about his banking and his cat’s grooming habits you might want to look at the first minute or so of intro and skip to minute 5….

“Cox gives laptops to eighth-graders”

Kudos to Cox. This morning’s Advocate reports on Cox’s latest effort to address the digital divide and offers a brief overview of continuing efforts in Lafayette to address the issue.

The company announced Thursday that it will donate 350 Dell netbooks to select eighth-graders who have no access to the Internet at home. The donation also includes free home Internet service for a year.

This isn’t Cox’s first donation—they did something very similar back in ’08 supporting The Early College Academy. This time through:

[Cox] will donate 350 Dell netbooks to select eighth-graders who have no access to the Internet at home. The donation also includes free home Internet service for a year…

The 350 students will be identified through the district’s GEAR UP program, an early college-awareness program that targets middle-school students.

This initiative resembles a suggestion made late last year by the cable industry. At that point the NCTA—the industry’s support and promotion arm, suggested that a good way to use some of the broadband stimulus money was to support its “A Plus” program; that program was broader but less generous with Cable’s resources. It suggested that:

(1) digital media literacy training; (2) discounted computers that can access the Internet; and (3) discounted home broadband service to households that do not currently receive a broadband service.

Cox is also renewing support for the Boys and Girls Club, this time donating an expansion of their computer lab to the Jackie Club.

These generous donations join other Lafayette-based efforts to ensure equity in accessing the internet. In ’09 Je’Nelle Chagois’ Heritage School put 200 computers into the hands of students at Faulk Elementary. The Heritage School is also a participant in a $5.3 million stimulus grant request with LUS that has a similar, student-based purpose.—A second grant for $3.5 million has LUS and LCG partnering to build and enhance community computer centers that serve a broad range of citizens.

It’s all good stuff. Kudos to Cox on this one.

UPDATE 7/13/10: The Advertiser logs in with a substantially similar story this morning, except theirs doesn’t discuss other Lafayette efforts to bridge the divide…