San Francisco is one of the rare cities that has multiple high quality ISPs competing for market share, though the vast majority of people still seem to be stuck choosing only between Comcast and AT&T. This week, we talk to a rising ISP, Webpass, about their success and challenges in expanding their model. Charles Barr is the President of Webpass and Lauren Saine is a policy advisor - both join us for episode 197 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast.

We discuss the Webpass model, which uses fixed wireless and fiber to serve high density apartment buildings where they are allowed in by the landlord. Unfortunately, they have been locked out of many of these buildings and are looking to the city of San Francisco to adopt better policies to ensure a single provider like AT&T cannot monopolize the building. Though the FCC has made exclusive arrangement unenforceable, the big providers are still finding ways to lock out competition.

We also talk a little about the role of fiber and fixed wireless technologies, chokepoints more generally, and why Webpass is so sure it could succeed if residents were all able to to choose the ISP they wanted.

Read the transcript from this show here.

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show - please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

This show is 27 minutes long and can be played below on this page or via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed.

You can download this mp3 file directly from here. Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index.

Thanks to Kathleen Martin for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is "Player vs. Player."

This week we welcome Gigi Sohn, Counselor to Chairman Wheeler of the Federal Communications Commission, to Community Broadband Bits for episode 192. Before joining the FCC, Gigi was a founder of Public Knowledge.

Gigi discusses the pro-competition agenda that Chairman Wheeler has advanced, including the efforts to ensure communities can decide locally whether to build a municipal network or partner. We also discuss other elements of FCC action to encourage competition in the Internet access market, even how television set-top boxes fit in.

Echoing some of the comments I regularly hear from some thoughtful listeners, I asked if competition was the best approach given the argument that telecom, and particularly fiber, has the characteristics of a natural monopoly.

The transcript from this episode is available here.

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show - please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

This show is 15 minutes long and can be played below on this page or via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed.

You can download this Mp3 file directly from here. Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index.

Thanks to Kathleen Martin for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is "Player vs. Player."

Check out this new video from the Competify coalition. The short 2-minute feature introduces viewers to Mr. and Mrs. Broadband Monopoly, who are clearly suffering from "chronic broadband access control."

Meet Mr. and Mrs. Broadband Monopoly

Competify focuses on raising awareness about the long term damage caused by lack of high-quality Internet access competition. Our livelihoods suffer when a small number of huge corporate telecommunications providers control connectivity. The coalition provides hard information on how these de facto monopolies and duopolies negatively impact our lives and how a more competitive environment can help.

Here is a statement from Competify and the Partners for the Cure:

The largest data collection ever conducted by the FCC and almost a decade of advocacy by those throughout the broadband economy have finally brought us to this long-awaited milestone — the FCC’s review of the high-capacity broadband market. As the incumbents struggle to come to terms with the fact that their own behavior has given them chronic broadband access control, they seem to be trying to blame the high-capacity broadband lines they sell for their very own conduct. Here at COMPETIFY, we have a message for those critical high-speed broadband lines: from powering schools and libraries to 5G to the Internet of Things, we think you are pretty “special.” And today is a major step toward your freedom.

It’s important to note that a very common symptom of chronic broadband access control is confusion. Indeed, the large incumbent companies have gone to great lengths to explain why the lines providing vital broadband service to our businesses, hospitals, schools, government buildings, banks and countless other indispensable institutions are “not very special anymore” and are “obsolete.” By all means, if those interests insist on that point of view, then they should have no concerns whatsoever about this proceeding, as they have obviously moved on to more “special” technologies.  In the meantime, the rest of the broadband economy anxiously awaits the FCC’s efforts to finally cure this diseased marketplace.

Visit the Competify website to learn more and to sign the...

An increasing number of communities appreciate the significance of dig-once policies. Municipal, state, and federal leaders are taking the advice of groups like Next Century Cities and implementing some form of the dig once approach to speed up deployment of telecommunications infrastructure. The next "no-brainer" policy is the one-touch make-ready or OTMR for pole attachments.

Make-ready work on utility poles is typically time consuming because it often requires multiple crews from different entities to move existing lines placed on the pole for different services. Before the new fiber line can be attached, those lines need to be rearranged to make room. When a community adheres to an OTMR policy, companies that own the poles agree to conditions that streamline the process.

Next Century Cities recently covered the policy on their blog where you can learn more about the details of this new approach, described it as the next "common sense" solution:

Perhaps most importantly: providers are likely to look more favorably on OTMR communities as they plan their investments, benefiting both companies and consumers. Across the country there have been complaints about lengthy processes to acquire access to poles and complex make-ready processes that require coordination among multiple providers to make changes… By implementing one touch make-ready policies, companies will benefit from less red tape, communities will benefit from less disruption, and everyone will benefit from faster deployment and increased connectivity.

Be sure to check out the FTTH Council's November 2015 white paper on OTMR, Role of State and Local Governments in Simplifying the Make-Ready Process for Pole Attachments, accessible from the Next Century Cities blog.