community broadband networks

Since the story broke about the NSA domestic spying practices, debate among concerned citizens has revolved around the Big Brother surveillance model. Most of us shudder at the thought of our federal agencies from DC watching, noting, and recording our actions. However, there is another type of Internet surveillance that largely escapes notice and likewise threatens our liberty. 

Both types of surveillance are perversely encouraged by a poorly regularly market that allows big corporations to profit from violating our privacy.

We have long known that our online habits are being recorded and combined with other personal data that allows companies to show us personalized ads. But Free Press recently offering a compelling explanation for how this model can harm us. From the Dana Floberg article:

And about those “personalized ads” — this isn’t about Facebook learning you prefer Coke over Pepsi. This is about corporations targeting us where we’re vulnerable. This is about your Latina neighbor who sees ads for risky high-interest credit cards. This is about your cousin who just got laid off and now sees ad after ad selling him dangerous fast-cash offers and subprime mortgages. This is about your friend who lives in a rougher part of town and sees higher prices whenever he shops online. This is about all of us.

These ads aren’t personalized — they’re predatory.

Floberg goes on to describe how shopping sites alter prices based on income and location so more affluent shoppers can access better prices and coupons. These sites both use and reinforce stereotypes as they take advantage of the most vulnerable in our society.

Without laws to protect consumers, there is little we can do to stop this predatory behavior. Just as the market encourages corporations to violate our privacy to sell its goods, big corporations are also profiting in their work with law enforcement at all levels.

An AP article by Anne Flaherty notes that AT&T charges $325 to activate a wiretap and $10 per day to maintain it. Verizon charges the government $775 for the first month and $500 per month after that to continue it. It is hard to believe these charges are in line with actual costs. 

Meanwhile, the other massive providers are undoubtedly aware of what allegedly happened when Qwest CEO Nacchio refused to help the NSA illegally spy on Americans - the NSA cancelled a lucrative contract with Qwest. This provides a major disincentive to follow the law, particularly when they can expect retroactive immunity after violating the law for years.

What would become of any provider who dared to say "no" to the NSA? We found out when Xmission, serving consumers via UTOPIA said "no" - absolutely nothing happened. No fearful complicity at local Xmission. Xmission is focused on serving its customers, not Wall Street.

Massive corporations collect information from millions of customers; the more data, the higher the value. Even if a municipal network tried to collect and sell private data, the opportunity to profit would be limited because their reach is localized. 

Community owned networks, whose focus is on serving the community rather than maximizing profit, have no reason to collect and sell data. In fact, it is a revenue source to avoid. With a local customer base and more accountability, selling data would violate the trust that gives their brand a competitive edge. When it comes to protecting privacy, supporting smaller scale providers that are rooted in the community is a far better protection than anything Washington, DC, can or will provide.

AT&T and American Eagle spying image created by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and available via Wikimedia Commons.

We recently learned about Aztec, New Mexico's, free downtown Wi-Fi  so we decided to contact Wallace Begay, the IT Director, to find out more. This desert community of about 6,600 people not only offers the free service, but uses its fiber to serve government, schools, and even four-legged residents.

Begay tells us that in 1998 the city and school system coordinated to install the original fiber and the entities share ownership. The school wanted better, affordable connectivity for students while the city wanted economic development opportunities. Community leaders used E-rate funding and a Gates Foundation grant to construct the original fiber aerial route.

The town provides water, wastewater, and electric services through municipal utilities with its SCADA system. The public library and all ten Aztec Municipal School facilities connect to the fiber network. Municipal government facilities also use the network.

Even though the city is a co-owner, it took several years for municipal offices to get on the fiber network. Aztec City Council originally decided to install the fiber network as a way to bring in revenue by leasing dark fiber, not as a way to connect offices. When Begay started at the city in 2001, administrative offices still used dial-up connections. Twenty dial-up accounts (and the crawling speeds associated with them) added up to $500 each month.

At the time, Qwest (not CenturyLink) was the provider in Aztec and could only offer microwave or copper connections. Connecting 13 facilities at 1.4 Mbps would have cost the city $1,200 each month. Begay used $500 from the electrical enterprise fund to purchase equipment and pay for tech labor to move municipal offices on to the existing network. The city electrical enterprise fund pays for expansions and updates. The network is now about 12 miles.

Begay is especially pleased about the 2004 expansion to the Aztec Animal Control facility, serving all of San Juan County. Before the expansion, Animal Control also used dial-up and spent a significant amount of time fielding calls from worried pet owners. Now, when a new animal arrives it is photographed and vitals are posted online. Staff spends more time working with animals rather than answering calls and more pets find their way home. Begay says Aztec Animal Control also teams up with local animal shelters to share video of potential adoptees to expand adoption possibilities.

In 2010, new City Manager Joshua Ray, embraced the idea of providing free Wi-Fi. From a 2011 Farmington Daily Times article:

"Aztec has possibly the best fiber infrastructure for Internet in the entire southwestern United States, so we decided to capitalize on it and build a citywide Internet connection," he said. "I'm hoping we can eventually light up the whole city with free Internet."

…

"In other cities, you have to go hunt down the Starbucks or McDonald's to get free Internet," he said. "We'll have it throughout the city, and I think that will be incredibly attractive to businesses and tourists. It will really improve the quality of life for our citizens and visitors, and I think it will be an economic driving factor for Aztec."

With a New Mexico Certified Community Initiative grant and additional funds from the city, Begay purchased the equipment for the Wi-Fi network for around $75,000.

There are 19 hotspots, mostly along the business corridor. Begay says the community is considering expanding the range to reach residential areas. 

Begay told us Wi-Fi users sign on for two hour time blocks to discourage "squatters." The Wi-Fi offers up to 11 Mbps and many businesses downtown use it for Internet access and simple applications. They also appreciate the ability to offer access to patrons. Entrepeneurs in Aztec often contact the city to find out details about the Wi-Fi signal when choosing a location for a new business. Aztec sponsors several large outdoor festivals in Minium Park and the city provides free day-long access so vendors can serve customers and increase sales.

The city still intends to offer commercial dark fiber leasing and is vetting technical and legal requirements. Begay estimates Aztec will have pieces in place within three months and will be ready to sign up its first customer.

As we previously noted, the city of Longmont, Colorado, is preparing for a referendum to allow the City to offer telecommunications services to local businesses and residents using a fiber ring it built long ago. This is due to a 2005 law (the "Qwest" law) that was pushed through the Colorado Legislature by incumbents seeking to prevent competition.

That law has succeeded -- most Colorado communities can only choose between slow DSL from the incumbent telephone company and comparatively faster services from the incumbent cable company. And when Longmont last attempted to pass a referendum to share its fiber infrastructure with local businesses, Comcast and Qwest swamped the town with unprecedented sums to confuse residents -- leading to the referendum failure with 44% voting yes.

But after the referendum passed and people had time to better understand the issue, many who voted against it realized they had been duped. We have seen the same dynamic elsewhere -- in Windom, MN, for example, where the second referendum succeeded. WindomNet has since saved a number of jobs and is expanding to eight other underserved rural communities around it.

Longmont built its fiber ring in the late 90's but it still has a lot of unused capacity that could be used to attract economic development if the publicly owned power utility were authorized to offer services to businesses. Without this authority, the community has a valuable asset that they are forced to leave unused -- even as local businesses could benefit greatly from it.

The Longmont Times-Call outlined the situation in July:

Without that vote, the city can't let homes or businesses use that fiber without a vote, thanks to a 2005 state law. It's a fight the city's lost once before in 2009, when opponents -- including the Colorado Cable Telecommunications Association -- spent $245,513 to urge the measure's defeat.

This time out, there's a different tack. The city has been underlining in discussions that the measure would "restore its rights" to provide telecommunications service. And it's stressing that no high-dollar project is on the table -- the first words of the ballot measure now read "Without increasing taxes ...

But Comcast and CenturyLink (previously Qwest) don't want to see their duopoly threatened by a new entrant that will create new competition. So they are again trying to swamp the referendum.
The incumbents have already started their FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) campaign. The anti-competition group called "Americans for Prosperity" (that is the short name, the full name is "Americans for the Prosperity of a few Massive Corporations at the Expense of Everyone Else - or AFPMCEEE) is mobilizing its base to oppose the City. Funny how groups that support the most powerful corporations never seem to run short of funds.

The incumbents (and their hired minions) are robo-calling many citizens with misleading claims to scare people into opposing the referendum. They are framing it as the city using tax dollars to compete with private businesses to deliver cable services. They may or may not be aware that the City is not going to use tax dollars (ahem, the fiber loop is already built!!) but they will undoubtedly continue using these lies to scare voters.

The question is whether people will be swayed by these annoying calls, emails, and glossy mailers or by the debate they had last Friday night.

Note: We think having a debate is a great approach to airing pros and cons of broadband investments. We encourage you to record (video if possible, audio otherwise) to make sure people can revisit it as the referendum approaches. Many people are still not even aware of the issue and likely did not attend the debate but will later be curious.

At the debate, pro-incumbent spokespeople from outside the community came into town to convince others that Longmont should let Comcast and Qwest decide what Internet access is available and on what terms. They made the same old arguments, claiming that "most" of these networks have failed. When pressed, they were unable to offer specifics beyond UTOPIA and Burlington Telecom -- networks that we have demonstrated are not representative of community broadband in general.

They also made the same farcical claims that we should loudly laugh at when we encounter them:

"Right now, there's robust competition in wired and wireless," he said. "I'm concerned that when the government gets in, it'll drive away companies instead of attracting them."

Robust competition in wired and wireless??? Longmont has 2 wired choices - crap DSL and slightly better cable. In wireless, we are about to see the market go from 2 big providers and 2 small to 2 big providers and 1 small. Robust???

Longmont Mayor noted that Longmont wants to partner with businesses:

Baum said the city had no interest in being a telecommunications company itself, but wanted to partner with private businesses -- including those opposed to the measure, such as Comcast -- to help connect Longmont homes and companies to the loop. Comcast already leases fiber all over the country, he said; by doing so here, it could bring down its cost of doing business.

"I'm a free-market guy," Baum said. "I'm a capitalist pig. We're trying to create competition here."

This is exactly right. Communities desperately want more telecom competition while Comcast and CenturyLink desperately want to limit it in order to maximize their profits. They pretend local governments will "scare" away private investment but we have seen far more investment from the private sector in communities that have built their own networks.

If Longmont is allowed to use its fiber to offer services to local businesses, Comcast and CenturyLink are not going to leave town! They will invest more in the network, cut prices, and compete.

The crowd supported allowing Longmont to offer services to the private sector:

"You say you want government not to interfere with business," audience member Bernie Stoecker said to Paige and Gifford. "What we've got right now is a state law that interferes with our business."
"How is it a risky bet if the infrastructure's here and we're not using it?" someone else asked.
"Think of the city as a landlord and owning a commercial building that has offices for rent, but there's a prohibition that says it can't rent space to businesses," Joel Champion said. "We're wasting an asset."

Finally, Geek News Central has published an interesting story by Susabelle that explores the issue from the perspective of someone who recently moved to town:

Fortunately, I think people are a little smarter than they were a few years ago.  Every time they write that check to Qwest for $80 for Internet and basic home phone, they wonder if the city offered broadband, would it be a little cheaper?  Maybe a LOT cheaper?  Considering our municipal-run electric utility sells us electricity for about 6.9 cents a kilowatt hour, I can only imagine that the broadband cost might be pretty darned low.

And even if it isn’t, and Qwest or Comcast end up being more cost-effective, that’s great for them, and will keep them customers.  If they are worried about losing customers to a cheaper alternative, then maybe they should examine their pricing a little more closely and see if they can find a more competitive pricing structure.
I’m hoping that the people of my town don’t fall for the ridiculous counter-advertising that the tel-cos and cable companies will be spreading our way in the next month or so.  I hope they all look at that exceedingly cheap electric bill, do the math, and realize that our little city can give us a much better deal on broadband, the same way they are giving us a much better deal on electric service.

People supporting local authority to use the fiber ring for economic development have set up a website as a hub for information about their campaign - Longmont's Future. Check in there to get more information.

Also, Craig Settles interviewed Vince Jordan, CEO of a local service provider RidgeviewTel and supporter of the City in the referendum, on Gigabit Nation. (Audio to come.)

I wrote this short case study of the Powell network in Wyoming for our Breaking the Broadband Monopoly report but it never got published on this site. As we noted a year ago, Powell bought its system back from investors last year.

The city of Powell started talking about a fiber network in 1996 but did not make progress for almost ten years. They developed a plan to build a FTTH network and lease it to an outside operator. The incumbents declined to partner with the City and later spent considerable effort to derail the City’s efforts. However, the City found a local cooperative, TriCounty Telephone (TCT), willing to offer triple-play services on the City’s network.

Financing the deal took more time than expected because the City was unwilling to commit public money directly or even as a backstop if the network fell behind on debt payments. While the City worked on the financing, cable incumbent Bresnan and telephone incumbent Qwest tried to convince the state legislature to abolish Powell’s authority in this arena. The legislature did create new obstacles for cities building such systems but Powell was grandfathered in.

In late 2007, the City agreed to an arrangement where TCT would exclusively lease the network and make up shortfalls in debt payments if required for a period of six years. After that period, the network would be open to other service providers as well and it would be the City’s responsibility to cover any shortfalls if needed. If the City chose not to appropriate in that situation, the investors could take the network. Estimates suggested a 33% take rate would allow the network to break even by the fifth year but most expected a higher take rate.

In early 2008, Powell completed the $6.5 million bond financing. As is more common in small builds, they immediately connected a line to the home rather than waiting for the subscriber to sign up. They trenched a fiber to the side of every house regardless of whether they were taking service, putting the fiber in a box on the side of the house. If the occupant signs up, a crew only has to install electronics rather than bringing a line down from the pole. This approach increases the capital cost slightly but can significantly decrease operating expenses as residents subscribe.

TCT began offering services in early 2009, creating a price war. Bresnan and Qwest significantly lowered their promotional prices in response to the network, ensuring that even residents who do not subscribe to the new city owned network will benefit from it. Bresnan has lowered its prices considerably, offering deals to Powell customers that are unavailable in nearby communities without competition. Incumbent providers often engage in what appears to be predatory pricing – a matter we discuss below in Obstacles to Community Ownership.

Powellink, built with the slogan “Our Fiber, Our Future,” offers much faster speeds than Qwest and Bresnan, both of whom are limited to asymmetrical connections that leave upload speeds at 1Mbps or less. TCT, whose network can offer 100Mbps symmetrical connections, does not fool around with promotional rates and long-term contracts.

Responding to critics of the City’s investment, Powell’s mayor noted that small communities like Powell always have to wait for companies to get around to them:

"It was 10 years ago when people at Qwest said they would be bringing us a fiber-to-the-home system," he said. "I found a letter from 1997 saying, 'It's coming soon.' Obviously, 'soon' for us is different for them."

The network has attracted jobs that require these high speeds – teaching English to students around the world using tele-presence applications. The company intends to hire 100 people, a major economic development win in a community of 5,000.

Powell’s City Administrator, Zane Logan, argues that building a modern network offers much more bang for the buck on the matter of economic development. Some communities work out tax breaks and other advantages for a company that announces it will create a certain number of jobs. In Powell, they instead focused on providing great infrastructure. They started by upgrading the public power system to ensure the highest reliability. Then they built an impressive network, offering speeds rarely available in even the densest urban areas of the U.S. and at prices below existing packages. Now, as Powell expands, developers will pay the majority of costs to expand the network in newly built neighborhoods in the same way they connect sewer systems.

Powellink Photos, courtesy Ernie Bray.