Tag: "video"

Three Counties in New York Building Southern Tier Network

Posted April 12, 2011 by Christopher Mitchell

Steuben, Chemung, and Schuyler counties have joined with fiber-optic cable manufacturer Corning to announce a middle-mile network connecting community anchor institutions, wireless towers, etc. Corning picked up the lion's share of the network, $10 million of the $12.2 million price tag.

Local governments, educational institutions, health care organizations and other commercial/industrial businesses also stand to benefit greatly, said Marcia Weber, Southern Tier Central executive director.

Possible applications include “distance learning” between college campus branches and “telemedicine” between rural clinics and major hospitals, Weber said.

…

The project has been a top priority for Southern Tier Central in recent years. Weber, who called it “her passion,” was very disappointed when a major federal stimulus grant was narrowly missed last year.

The counties’ share (Steuben, $1.23 million; Chemung, $790,000; Schuyler, $188,000) will fund a non-profit, to be called Southern Tier Network, that has been created to oversee and maintain the network.

The project starts this year and expects to be finished by 2013. In 2014, the project is expected to become self-sustainable -- being funded by the fees it charges for access to the infrastructure.

A fact sheet on the project [pdf] explains the governing structure:

Southern Tier Network is a new not-for-profit, local development corporation (LDC) established to own, build and manage a $12.2 million regional fiber optic backbone that will enable access to the highest speed broadband connectivity available in Chemung, Schuyler and Steuben Counties. Articles of Incorporation for Southern Tier Network have been filed with New York State, and a board of directors is in place, comprised of representatives from the three counties and other community stakeholders.

The fact sheet also explains the idea of Middle Mile and Open Access (referencing Axcess Ontario, a similar project funded by Ontario County):

Southern Tier Network will...

Christopher Mitchell Discusses NC Muni Network Ban on Tech News Today

Posted March 31, 2011 by Christopher Mitchell

Yesterday, the Tech News Today netcast on the TWiT network invited me on to discuss the North Carolina legislation to kill community networks and the Google Gigabit network decision to build in Kansas City, Kansas. I am on the first 12 minutes or so of the show, embedded below.

Cedar Falls Utilities Videos - Building a Community Fiber Network in Iowa

Posted March 30, 2011 by Christopher Mitchell

Cedar Falls Utilities, an incredibly successful publicly owned cable network in Iowa, is upgrading to FTTH. In these videos, they explain some basics of their system. The final video interviews some subscribers.

Their web site has more information, including a fact sheet and price sheet - they have decided to continue offering asymmetrical connections, unlike most of the modern community fiber networks.

Wired West Creates Long Video Discussing Their Need for Better Broadband

Posted March 26, 2011 by Christopher Mitchell

Something for other communities to learn from!

Gary Evans of HBC Discusses Burlington Telecom Situation

Posted March 25, 2011 by Christopher Mitchell

In a bimonthly local show, Burlington City Councilmember Karen Paul discusses City issues. In the recent show, she discussed Burlington Telecom with Gary Evans, the head of Hiawatha Broadband Communications (HBC). Evans has been helping BT get back on its feet after struggling for years. HBC is a private company most notable for strong success in overbuilding cable companies in SE Minnesota as well as running the Monticello FiberNet for the City.

For those who need an update on what is happening to BT since its problems were widely publicized, this is a great place to start.

Disappointment in North Carolina as Time Warner Cable Bill Moves Forward

Posted March 24, 2011 by Christopher Mitchell

After a few days of false hope, the Time Warner Cable Monopoly Protection Act, H129, passed the House Finance Committee after being stripped of the amendments that would have allowed communities without access to real broadband to build their own networks.

As usual, Stop the Cap! offered the first recap of yesterday's fiasco.

Faison’s amendment was designed to open the door to someone — anyone – to bring broadband into rural areas of the state. While Time Warner Cable, AT&T, and CenturyLink dawdle, large numbers of rural residents simply go without any broadband service. Faison’s amendment was simple and reasonable — if at least half of an area is not served with 4/1Mbps service, provisions should be made to allow local communities, if they wish, to establish service themselves to get the job done.

Last week, when Faison’s amendment appeared to be headed for incorporation into the bill, industry lobbyists blanched and fled the room, raising vocal objections and demanding a week timeout before a vote was taken. After winning their reprieve, they managed to get the Republican majority in line to throw rural North Carolina under the bus, uniformly opposing Faison’s amendment. Two Democrats, one representing the city where Time Warner Cable’s regional division is headquartered, joined them.

In its place, they substituted a new amendment which defined broadband in the state of North Carolina as any service occasionally capable of achieving 768kbps downstream and 200kbps upstream. That represents “well-served” among these industry-friendly legislators.

This came after an excellent exposé showing Representatives annoyed to be asked why they are pushing Time Warner Cable's bill (to the detriment of every other business and citizen of North Carolina) after taking large contributions from telecommunications companies.

This video is no longer available.

Others have taken notice as well - see this political cartoon...

Network Neutrality Opponents Totally Out of Touch With Reality

Posted March 17, 2011 by Christopher Mitchell

Public Knowledge produced and released this video revealing the increasing divide between reality and what opponents of network neutrality claim.

Chanute, Kansas, Publicly Owned Fiber-Optic Network Serves Area Businesses

Posted March 15, 2011 by Christopher Mitchell

I continue to find it odd that more communities with publicly owned networks do not create official videos or other promotional material that is readily accessible on the Internet. Videos discussing fiber-optic investments continue to be the exception to the rule.

But it was a video promoting Chanute's fiber-to-the-business network that I stumbled across in a search for something else. It turns out that Chanute has built a network with a variety of current and planned uses:

Smart Grid

Energy Management

Utility SCADA Systems

Interactive Distance Learning (IDL)

Free WiFi Hotspots

Telemedicine

College – using broadband for testing, building partnerships

City – meeting broadcasts, pool construction, public awareness, accounting, record-keeping, collaborations with other entities, security, emergency communications, and back up to the county 911 emergency operation center.

Real-time video surveillance of public assets – Chanute currently monitors over 40 high resolution video cameras connected to its community network. These cameras provide improved public safety and enhance security for the community’s public assets. The cameras can be configured individually for viewing by the City from various display terminals within the City’s emergency operations center, and at governmental, utility and public safety department offices. Video surveillance images from the school district and the local community college can be viewed by government officials.

They have also made significant wireless investments for redundancy:

We have a City-owned Broadband Wireless Network which also provides back up to the fiber system for critical facilities in the community. Most of the broadband wireless links are dedicated to the private use of the City to support its utility operations, video surveillance, and provide wireless backup in the event of a fiber segment failure. There is one commercial customer that uses this as a primary source for Internet connectivity. Chanute views these wireless assets as a mechanism to provide immediate access to the community’s network to support the short-term commercial needs of businesses in Chanute. The wireless links can be deployed rapidly, sometimes in less than 24 hours, until such time as the fiber infrastructure can be extended to...

Comparing Broadband Services: Salisbury Fibrant and Wilson Greenlight to Incumbents in North Carolina

Posted March 11, 2011 by Christopher Mitchell

This is a video we have wanted to do for a long time. With H 129 threatening community networks across the state, we finished it. It uses information we published in a report about broadband in North Carolina in November, 2010.

Our full coverage of H 129 is available here.

Natural Monopoly in North Carolina: The Need for Community Networks and Competition

Posted March 1, 2011 by Christopher Mitchell

As the North Carolina Legislature considers HB129 and S87 to greatly limit community broadband networks (we analyzed the bill here), it is worth taking a step back to understand why companies like Time Warner Cable provide broadband that is unreliable and comparatively both slow and costly without having other companies come in to offer a better product. The problem is basic economics: the problem of natural monopoly.

Ever wonder why you generally don't have a choice between two major operators like Comcast and Time Warner Cable? They have carved up the market due to the costs and difficulty of directly competing with one another.

Some folks have a choice of cable companies -- RCN and Knology, for instance, have been successful overbuilders in a few regions (though they went through troubles far worse than most public networks that have been termed "failures").

But for the most part, overbuilding an incumbent cable company is all but impossible -- especially for a private sector company looking for a solid return on investment inside a few years. In the face of a new cable entrant, massive companies like TWC start lowering prices, offering cash or other enticements, and lock both residents and businesses into contracts to deny the entrant any subscribers.

Companies like TWC can do this because they have lower costs (through volume discounts for gear, content, and even marketing synergies as well as because they long ago amortized the network construction costs) and can take losses in one community that are cross-subsidized by profits from non-competitive areas. New entrants, both private and public, have higher costs as well as a learning curve.

This is why we have so little broadband competition. Without competition, the few providers we have invest less and charge more, which is other countries are rapidly surpassing us (not because we have large rural areas, nonetheless a popular straw man).

In the face of this reality, communities have built their own networks for a variety of benefits, including creating competition or changing the dynamic of a duopolistic "market." Massive incumbent providers responded by claiming competition from communities was unfair and using their lobbying power to...

community broadband networks

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