Category: National

Fun: Black Fiber & Black SUVs

Here’s a link that’s mostly just for smiles: The One Fiber Optic Cable No One on the Dig for Tysons Rail Wants to Hit.

You may have heard of “dark” fiber—that’s the miles of fiber that run across the country that has never been lit; fiber that has never been used. So it’s common to talk about “dark” fiber and “lit” fiber and its differing costs and availability.

But you’ve likely never heard of “black” fiber. That’s because you’re not supposed to have heard anything about it. Apparently that’s the trade term for the ultra-secure fiber that the government intelligence agencies use. So it’s a special kind of problem when it gets cut. That problem is apparently particularly intense around the D.C and Northern Virgina areas where the various agencies have their headquarters…

Here’s a fun snippet:

This part happens all the time: A construction crew putting up an office building in the heart of Tysons Corner [VA] a few years ago hit a fiber optic cable no one knew was there.

This part doesn’t: Within moments, three black sport-utility vehicles drove up, a half-dozen men in suits jumped out and one said, “You just hit our line.”

Whose line, you may ask? The guys in suits didn’t say…. But Georgelas assumed that he was dealing with the federal government and that the cable in question was “black” wire — a secure communications line used for some of the nation’s most secretive intelligence-gathering operations.

“The construction manager was shocked,” Georgelas recalled. “He had never seen a line get cut and people show up within seconds. Usually you’ve got to figure out whose line it is. To garner that kind of response that quickly was amazing.”

…he figured that the government was involved when an AT&T crew arrived the same day to fix the line, rather than waiting days.

Spooks, apparently, care about their fiber…and get good service. 🙂

Now THATS a National Broadband Plan

Broadband advocates here in the good old US of A have been getting a little giddy at the sight of the federal government’s machinery groaning into low gear to actually start the process of formulating a National Broadband Plan. (Yes, that explains why we haven’t appeared to have a plan. We haven’t.) Why just yesterday we started the planning process. First, in the distantly snide tone only the WSJ can pull off: the FCC “approved a broad set of questions designed to solicit opinions from consumers, telecom companies and state and local governments, to name a few.” The FCC is gearing up to gear up because Congress has delegated to them the task of being the big thinkers on the 7 billion of the stimulus plan dedicated to broadband that is to be administered by bureaus within the Commerce Department and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The FCC is supposed to devise the “national broadband plan” that will guide the decisions these bureaus make. (It’s all in the law.)

I’ve been feeling pretty hopeful about the process…hey, it’s a start. And a big step up from facing toward Fort Knox, closing our eyes, bowing low, and repeating the mantra “the market” 20 times as a substitute for telecom policy. Now I know that the money is actually being distributed in bureaus elsewhere and the people making those real decisions are all the way across the District of Columbia from the FCC…and it won’t be ready in time to make a difference with the current stimulus money anyway, but still…to have something on the books that is supposed to be rational and comprehensive would be helpful, won’t it? At least a start?

But all that feel-good sorta melted away when Austrailia announced its broadband policy: FTTP; Fiber To The Premise. At 100 megs. For the whole country, or 90% of the population anyway. (The most rural 10% will have to make do with a minimum of 12 megs—but everyone is offered real service.

Wowser.

And the way they’re gonna do it! The government had been negotiating to fulfill a campaign promise to expand broadband access with the incumbents and some foreign corporations who, of course, wanted to be made lords of the domain for the next 50 years or so if they were to deign to do anything very useful. That part sounds familiar. We’ve got campaign promises and lords of the domain too… But the Austrailian government did something that it is hard for Americans to understand: they took a look at the I-want-it-my-way suggestions of the big corporations and grew a spine. They told ’em that they weren’t offering a “good value” in return for the public’s investment and that rather than accept any of their self-serving plans that they’d rather do it themselves.

They announced that they were intending to fund a Australian 43 billion dollar (30 billion USD) National Broadband Network (NBD). The government would get no less than 51% of the company and effective control; private investors would be allowed to buy in to 49% with the previously rejected telecom corps strongly urged to buy in…and to contribute their network assets to pay for their share. Take it or leave it. And if the telcos want to leave it: be aware that the Aussie national government fully intends to issue a new set of regulations enforcing structural separation that would effectively force open access on the current network assets they retain. The new National Broadband Network will be open as well. The old way of doing business is over; there is no comfortable monopoly—vertical or horizontal—to go back to.

Australian broadband advocates are pretty much stunned. (Imagine the US government saying anything remotely like this to Cox, Comcast, AT&T and Verizon? You know: “Take your greedy plans to feed at the public trough and shove it. We can build our own advanced network for the price your asking buddy, thanks plenty.—and by the way, no more local monopoly for you either, we’re going back to real regulation of you guys.” Oh You can’t imagine it? Neither could the Aussies. Until now.)

We in Lafayette are in a particularly good position to see how much sense this all makes. We were happy to build it ourselves when told by the incumbent lords that we did not need and were not competent to run a modern FTTH system ourselves. That system is up and running and serving customers today—and doing so quite well, thanks. Since making that committment we’ve benefited by consistently being spared rate increases placed on other communities and, most recently, by getting a second 50 meg provider (albeit only 50/5) at a price that is 1/3 off what they plan to charge the rest of the country for that speed. And we got that before any of the big markets Cox serves or even the larger cities in our own market. Almost any other part of our country would kill for that sort of service and absolutely no place has it for as little as we pay. It pays to stand up for yourself in public as in private life.

Good on the Aussies. There’s is a real national broadband plan. It will fix what’s really wrong the current system. The current Aussie system, modeled in part after the mistakes we in the US were making, had resulting in a market with even more of the markers of monopoly dominance than ours. Aussie markets were more monopolized. The equiavalent of AT&T/Verizon, the telecom Telestra, was at least as insistent on maintaining its virtically integrated monopoly position and the cable sector was much weaker. Australians paid even more for broadband than Americans and an even smaller percentage of them were capable of getting really world-class speeds.

Going forward this will no longer be true. Australia will have a truly world-class network running at stunning speeds and capable of massive upgrades at minimal costs. Where homes in places where the villages have less than a thousand people don’t have direct fiber they will have fiber-fed wireless. The final few deep in central desert will get satellite at no less that 12 megs. This is a public policy (and a stimulus) that will bear fruit for generations. When people talk about “forward-thinking” this is what ought to be meant.

While we cheer on the Australians (“Go for it, mate!”) we on this continent have to feel a little bummed and whiny. Why can’t we have a rational telecom policy, too? The up side is that the unthinkable is now finally thinkable. An English-speaking continent has taken the plunge and told their teleco monopolists that the current system is broken and then put forward a credible plan for fixing it that doesn’t grovel and plead before of those that have failed them. Maybe we can do the same. Or at least talk about it!

In fact, not all is yet lost on these shores: One of the guiding lights of the Austrailian success was Paul Budde, long an advocate for a smart national plan in Australia. To read his blog these days is a real joy. He’s as stunned as his fellows but is rallying nicely—telling the doubters in one example “Yes, we can!” in a deliberate reference to the hopes for a positive change that are now dominant in the U.S. Even more encouraging is the fact that he’s also been in consultation with the Obama administration since before they took office and has no doubt been an advocate for much of this before our own leaders. I’d guess that until a few days ago his ideas, while judged rational in some sort of ultimate way, were not considered “pragmatic”—a key desiderata for the new administration. That judgment may now have changed. Indeed, on Budde’s blog he remarks in the comments to his well-worth-reading analysis that:

I also received envious but very supportive comments from the Obama Team, they are very interested and several of the experts are eager to participate in our work group to contribute and to learn.

Not to get your hopes up but, perhaps, just perhaps someone here will say: “Yes! We can!”

Addenda:
If you want a bit more, yes I’ve got the fun references: Budde’s Blog, The NYTimes, ZDNet Australia, Tasmania rollout to start in July, The Netherlands: Telecommunications Breakdown, France’s Fiberevolution, or try your own Google News search.

Lagniappe: New Zealand, who recently announced a great plan too, is also jealous now: “Newman said that while the NZ National proposal looked visionary a year ago, it now looks comparatively limp.” Aussie Envy; it’s the latest syndrome to afflict the digerati.

Watch the F2C Conference Live! (Updated)

A quick note from the F2C conference. You can watch the live stream—and it looks very good. The conference this year is highly recommended: the speakers are amazing ranging from Pulitzer Prize winning authors to absolutely top notch fiber partisans to the guys who actually build the networks. Some, like Lafayette’s own Terry Huval qualify on multiple grounds.

Tim Nulty, the force behind Vermont’s fiber to the home projects (yes projects, plural) is on as I type this now, next on the same panel is the guy who put together Amsterdam’s ground-breaking system. And that is only the first panel. Watch!

The link: rtsp://odo.warpspeed.com/f2c09.sdp

A link to the agenda/schedule might help…

And, should you want to follow the chatter, there is also a chat stream that comments the talks: https://f2c09.campfirenow.com/room/210948

Update: 3/31/09 — I’m not sure who else is blogging this conference but the Broadband Census guy just down the isle is doing a pretty good job. Coverage of Tom Friedman’s keynote is provided by CNet. (I’m hoping that the streaming video is being archived somewhere and I’ll be able to post an update with that link…)

F2C: Freedom to Connect

Well, I’m about to take off for the Freedom to Connect conference in Washington DC. That’ll explain any upcoming odd missives posted from D.C. 🙂

The agenda is great—and the conversations in the lobby even better. (Organizer David Isenberg-—yes, that Isenberg—explains the theme of this year’s conference quite nicely.) If you have an interest in the internet and public policy and ever get a chance to go you really ought show up. I hope to visit with good people, a few of which occasionally read this blog, and soak up a some bright approaches to my most recent interest: Lafayette Commons.

(Oh yeah: Lafayette will be well represented…Terry Huval will present on our Fiber to the Home project. David has been a stauch supporter.)

WBS: “VidChat: LUSFiber is Live!”

What’s Being Said Dept.

Geoff Daily of App-Rising posts a video chat with Terry Huval, LUS Fiber head celebrating the launch of LUS Fiber. Terry brags on the speed, the reliability, and the 100 meg intranet. Geoff notes that the speed he can get in the nation’s capital with the dome visible from his window is less than the slowest speed that LUS sells.

Impressive. Fun.

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Venice: Internet Access As Birthright

There’s getting it and then there is really getting it.

“Venice provides free Internet access to newborns”

Venice will become the first city in the world to provide newborn residents with free Internet access, a spokeswoman for the city council said Friday.

Newborns will receive a user ID and password entitling them to free Internet access at the same time as they get their birth certificate, the spokeswoman said.

“The resident’s new digital identity will give free access to the Web, because we consider that’s an important universal right,”

Whoa….

(From NetworkWorld via the inestimable Baller list.)

After Thought: Yes, the remark about New Orleans is snarky. I suppose sad recent news has made the residents of other sinking cities a bit nervous… Another connection: Where Venice is using a fiber infrastructure to power a municipal wifi system in hopes of keeping from sinking financially as well as physically that avenue to pride and hope was closed to New Orleans by the incumbent’s (un)Fair Competiton act and Cox and AT&T’s unwillingness to give the city a break when it became apparent that a law aimed at Lafayette was doing unintended damage to a city staggered by Katrina. We can all hope that one consequence of the change in Washington is real change in telecom policy that would allow communities to use their own resources as they see fit. At the very least maybe they will go ahead and pass that bill that been pending for years to gaurantee that the states can’t forbid municipal networks.

There was a time, not all that long ago where Louisiana voices were front and center on the community side of this issue. If Tauzin and Breaux had had their way maybe New Orleans could be bragging on, and attracting business on the basis of, their shiny new muni wifi network. Landreiu? Melancon? You listening? Want a good way use your new found power and influence? Be seen as progressive? Help communities?

A Nationlal Broadband Strategy Call to Action

Lafayette, in the person of Terry Huval, participated in Monday’s “National Broadband Strategy Call to Action” in Washington. He was among a high-flying group that have worked to build a national policy to promote broadband availability and use. The signatories range from Google to AT&T to the American Library Association to the Communications Workers of America to Cisco to Teletruth to Internet2…and the Lafayette Utilities System. In short: a baker’s list of representative of every contending group that has an interest in promoting a more available and better internet.

Quite frankly some national policy is needed. It may come as a shock to hear that the US doesn’t have a policy—to hear that it doesn’t have a coherent approach to the most basic infrastructure need of our time. The record is clear: countries that have widely available, capable, inexpensive wired and wireless networks have them because they’ve instituted real national broadband policies. Not necessarily the same strategy—but some strategy. (The US experience is a substantial part of how we know policies work: the US is the clearest example of what happens when you lack such a policy: we dropped from 1st in the world to near the back of the industrial pack in the last 15 years and pay more for broadband than countries with much better service. Countries with a systematic plan have roared to the front—and saved their citizens real money to boot.)

Frankly, the whole Fiber Fight here in Lafayette has been a consequence of our national failure to deal with the issue. With a real national policy building our network would have been either 1) impossible (had the incumbents had their way) 2) explicitly legal and federally protected (had the progressives prevailed). A fight was only possible because there was no policy. So Lafayette has, as the highest profile and most successful battle to put in place a real forward-looking plan in at least one place in the US, involved in this issue for a long time. Lafayette is also involved because Jim Baller, LUS’ attorney and champion through much of the fight was the organizer and chief proponent of the gathering.

So, with such a long-standing good reason to get on with it why does the idea of a national broadband policy take off now? Well, Baller has been driving this forward on the basis of national pride and competitiveness and that provided some traction as the US continued to slip in the rankings. But with a new, progressive administration and the collapse of the financial market there is a the new acceptance of infrastructure construction as economic stimulus. It’s apparent that there will be a big(ger) stimulus package soon that shifts the emphasis from giving money to people who have made bad decisions to stimulating the economy by building things that we can all fruitfully use. With money on the table for the incumbents, the unions, and the equipment manufacturers the dawning possibility of actually getting a national broadband policy in place that will promote the interests of the municipalities, the internet companies, and the net citizen groups all see the value of coming to an accommodation before the moment passes. That may be (is) a somewhat cynical view. But it fits the moment it seems to me. Economic stimulus in hard times seems an effective motivator.

With some background out of the way on to the Call itself: It is only a call…not the plan itself. Probably the most important single accomplishment so far is getting such broad consensus on the idea of a national policy. To date the incumbents have fought the very idea of a national policy or promoted the idea that our current incoherent approach somehow constituted an implicit one. Getting them to help promote the idea that a policy is desireable is the biggest single accomplishment of the day. The meat of the two page call is the suggested goals.

Goals

  1. Every American home, business, and public and private institution should have access to affordable high-speed broadband connections to the Internet.
  2. Access to the Internet should, to the maximum feasible extent, be open to all users, service providers, content providers, and application providers.
  3. Network operators must have the right to manage their networks responsibly, pursuant to clear and workable guidelines and standards.
  4. The Internet and broadband marketplace should be as competitive as reasonably possible.
  5. U.S. broadband networks should provide Americans with the network performance, capacity, and connections they need to compete successfully in the global marketplace.

Even a cursory read of that reveals a lot glittering genralities…the “built by a committee” nature of the thing is apparent. Baller himself, during the introduction (see video above), spoke of the judgment of some that the call is “mealy-mouthed and watery.” His point the current document is only a start on a larger project. The call for universal, affordable access is particularly noteworthy. That, by itself, calls for a huge project to reach everyone and substantial change to the current structure of telecommunications policy.

And there are a few points of real progress: Beyond agreeing that a broadband policy is necessary and should be affordably available to all, the various interests seem to agree that broadband is infrastructure. Getting agreement there is a real advance. Even more specifically: both AT&T the Communications Workers union talk about an refreshingly ambitious target: a 10 megs standard and making broadband cheaper overall.

With LUS already setting up to offer 10 megs as their cheapo, slow tier and offering it all for 20% less Lafayette will have already met that goal. Nation, please take notice. Frankly, that should make it easy to see that the municipal alternative should be encouraged in any national policy….

Durel’s wishlist to Obama

What’s Being Said

The INDblog carries news of Mayor Durel’s Christmas list for Santa Obama. MSNBC sent out an email asking 100 more than 1000 mayors for their top two wishes of the new administration. Durel’s reply could be summarized in a word: infrastructure. First he wants the Feds to fund I-49 between New Orleans and Lafayette (we’ve been registered for that gift for a number of years now). But the second wasn’t so much an ask as a tell:

The city of Lafayette is installing fiber optics to every home and business in the city that wants it. We will give our citizens, peer to peer connectivity of 100mbs — for free! This is being done through our city-owned utility and we will have something 80 to 90% of America won’t have 20 years from now. The federal government needs to do all it can to encourage municipalities to do what we are doing.

Durel touts our FTTH project and recommends that the nation follow our lead and invest in useful infrastructure.

Can’t say as I disagree.

[…….pssst: Joey’s first name is really “Lester?” For true?]

Internet Good for Teens? And US not getting enough?

Apparently, the geniuses over at the McArthur foundation spent a lot of time studying the internet use of teens and how it affected them.

Surprise: apparently hanging out online isn’t really bad for for the under-twenties. In fact it teaches “important social and technical skills.” Touble is, the parents (roll eyes) just don’t get it. (You can get more on this from the source, or read the study, or, hey, more appropriately: watch it on YouTube

So it’s been since the world began: kids hang out together and do weird things, the adults grumble and sputter and it turns out that it really was a good thing “developmentally.”

“The social worlds that youth are negotiating have new kinds of dynamics, as online socializing is permanent, public, involves managing elaborate networks of friends and acquaintances, and is always on.”

So, if it’s good to hang out and geek out on the internet then what about this finding that US kids don’t get as much interenet as kids from, say, the Czech Republic…are we falling behind in the geeking out on obscure interests and hanging out with friends on the net competition?

Probably. 😉

“How Can We Say There’s Not Enough Money To Wire The Country With Fiber”

Good Question:

Anyone who’s against the idea of America moving aggressively into a full fiber future tends to cite the enormous cost of doing so as a reason not to.

Yet the cost to do so is pretty clear: about $1000 a home, with about 100 million homes, that roughly equates to $100 billion.

If we can come up with a trillion dollars to make up for the reckless actions of irresponsible parties simply to stave off the potentially devastating impact their mistakes may have on our economy, why can’t we invest a tenth of that in our future by upgrading the most important infrastructure of the 21st century?

That’s from Geoff Daily of App-rising. The brutal answer, of course, is that this isn’t actually confusing–though it should be. Geoff’s complaint only makes sense if you assume that the current federal regime is run in the long-term interests of the country and its citizens; as it should be. If you instead assume that it is run in the short-term interests of corporate wealth then there is nothing confusing about failing to support fundamental infrastructure because large corporations might be offended and bailing out a whole class of non-performing corporations.