Thursday, October 28, 2010
The past few weeks have been nothing less than embarrassing for the FCC and their National Broadband Plan. Grumblings had been heard all along that it might be heading in the wrong direction, but the numbers released by Ookla earlier this month showed that advertised speeds were far better than the FCC once thought. One of the authors, Blair Levin, bared some interesting insight in a tell-all interview with PC World today.

"Conventional wisdom says the primary metric for measuring the validity or power of a national broadband plan is the speed of the wireline network to the most rural of residents." Levin told reporter David Lamli. But he continued: "That way of looking at the problem is entirely wrong, is profoundly wrong -- almost every word in the sentence I just uttered is wrong."

Levin explained that using this metric points us in the wrong direction and leads to wrong conclusions. "it's almost always about wireline and it turns out wireless is going to be the key driver of growth in the next decade." The FCC's apparently one-sided focus on improving wireline speeds turned out to be costly, not feasibly, but worst of all, not the real problem in the first place. Levin explained, "I would say that 4G is going to end up being more important to more people over the next couple of years than increases in wireline speed."

It's ironic, really, considering we dug up reports from the FCC months ago that explicitly recognized wireless broadband as the most cost-effective solution for rural broadband. Nonetheless, Levin laments that the National Broadband Plan apparently overlooked this fact, or perhaps, discovered it too late.

But Levin later made a striking comment about the wireless/wireline argument. "It's a mistake to think of wireless communications as separate to wired communications. Most wireless communications are riding over wire, so one has to have both networks working well." The goal of our broadband infrastructure should be to improve speed and accessibility, neither of which isolate any particular means as the sole solution. Even though wireless is the most cost-effective to reach rural subscribers, the wireline network must be robust enough to support those users.

In the end, the network as a whole has been proven to be two things: first, not at all as bad as we thought it once was; but second, still an important endeavor for our government and industries to continue improving. Levin leaves us with a telling comment to keep in mind, "The most important thing to understand is that broadband is not important in and of itself. It is important because it is the vehicle of knowledge exchange, which turns out to be an incredibly important driver of economic and job growth and critical for a civic society."

Labels: Blair Levin, FCC, Fixed Wireless Broadband, National Broadband Plan, Rural Broadband

posted by Nick Carter at 12:54 PM Link to this Article  1 Comments

Wednesday, October 20, 2010
There's been no small discussion recently about the use of "up to" in advertising broadband speeds. When ISP's publish rates "up to" a certain speed, how often does the connection actually get up to that speed, for how long, and for how many subscribers. That's what the FCC wanted to find out recently, and what consumers want to make sure is being advertised honestly.

So, is it?

An independent study says, "yes!" Ookla--the brains behind such testing services as pingtest.net and speedtest.net-- decided to do some comparisons recently. They charted advertised speeds in over 100 countries against the actual broadband speeds the end users experience on average. What they found may shock you... honesty.

That's right. They're report "concludes that Americans get 92.91 percent of their advertised throughput rate" (ARS Technica, 10/2010). In short, we get what we pay for over 90% of the time--a stat that the telecommunications industry is sure glad to tout. The global study puts the U.S. 11th among the 26 countries tested, led primarily by former Soviet nations in Eastern Europe. According to Ookla's standings, the U.S. leads Western European nations such as the UK and France, who bottomed out the list at 25th and 26th respectively--delivering honest speeds less than two-thirds of the time.

So, what does this mean for business? First and foremost, it ought to (but still might not) quiet some of the accusations levied against the telecom industry at large. Why might it not? Because of exactly what the report says: nearly 8% of customers don't get what they think they're buying. In this debate, we have what many would call a "loud minority" petitioning for justice on behalf of what is likely to be a select few perpetrators in advertising. The reality is that most ISP's are honest, most customers get what they pay for, and still a few sour apples are spoiling the bunch.

Ookla's report, while encouraging, should not stop the efforts of the telecom industry to continue pushing for honesty. False advertising, however rare, must be addressed no matter what industry it is in. However, consumers of broadband services can rest assured--at least 90% sure, that is--that the rates they think they're getting are being delivered.

Labels: Advertising, Broadband, Broadband Speed, FCC, Ookla, Published Rates, Telecommunication

posted by Unknown at 5:55 AM Link to this Article  0 Comments

Wednesday, October 13, 2010
For months, now, the country has been talking about the national broadband plan and it's alleged restoration to a so-called lagging national broadband infrastructure. Of course, as with any government initiative, the FCC's findings and the plan that they led to have been under constant scrutiny by consumers, broadband providers, and media alike. Today, a new critic weighs in: another federal agency.

The U.S. General Accounting Office (or GAO) decided to audit the FCC's findings and make sure their proposition was in good reason. Turns out, they did some digging on their own, and their stats may surprise you... I'm sure they surprised the FCC.

95% of the U.S. Population has access to broadband.

The U.S. only lags behind other nations in price, stemming from lack of competition, not in access.

The GAO is calling into question whether the government needs to step in and fund new infrastructure for existing broadband providers, or whether creating a business environment where new competition can thrive would be the better option.

The difference between the two agency's respective positions has to do with the figure of broadband access versus broadband service. It's true, still less than 80% of U.S. households are serviced with Broadband -- a figure the FCC believes marks a horrible "lag." However, the GAO is suggesting that the issue is not so much one of inaccessibility to service, but rather, affordability that causes adoption to be low, even where access is available.

So, who is right? Well, both, really. Even if the GAO is correct in their assessment that 95% of Americans could get to broadband if they could afford it, it will require infrastructure in order to add competitors, and thereby drive prices down. Currently, those most difficult to be reached are also the most expensive to reach with broadband signal... and therefore making an expensive service to boot. The FCC's intention in developing new infrastructure is to bring even more access options, and thereby increase the rate of adoption.

Will it work? What do you think? What is the answer to our broadband lag? Or is there a lag at all?

Labels: "Internet infrastructure", FCC, GOA, National Broadband Plan, Rural Broadband

posted by Unknown at 1:56 PM Link to this Article  0 Comments

Wednesday, October 6, 2010
I had coffee yesterday with a friend and mentor, Tom Barnes. As I entered the meeting, I beleived that Tom was just what he appeared on the surface: a franchisee with a business coaching organization called the Growth Coach. And he is that, but I soon learned that Tom takes his own advice. He owns 4 businesses, in fact. His brief coaching moment for me was this: "follow the money train."

Tom said, "succeeding in business is simpler than people think. You don't necessarily have to have an original idea." He continued, "Find a money train and get on it."

"What's your money train?" I asked.

"Cell phones."

"So, you own a cell phone company?" I was a bit surprised.

"No," he said, "but I'm in the cell phone business." Tom went on to let me know some very interesting statistics. There's over 30,000 towers in the U.S. today. Estimates are that within 3 years, that figure will more than double. However, there are only 6,500 people licensed and certified to service those towers--the majority of which are employed in-house with the big telecom companies.

However, the interesting "money train" that Tom found in this scenario is this: even though the service providers employ the service technicians, they don't want the liability of sending them up a 1500 ft tower. So, instead, they sit at a desk in project management roles.

This left a great need that Tom decided to fill. He found an insurance company that would underwrite his business. He used the best in safety equipment, training, and practices. And then, he went to work getting contracts to service the towers that nobody else wanted to climb.

But, Tom is a business owner, not a technician. He's never climbed a tower in his life. He created systems and processes to fill a need in the market. He created systems and processes that sustain jobs. He created systems and processes that generate profit.

The telecom industry is a money train. More private capital, government grants, and lending equity are being invested in the broadband infrastructure in the U.S. in the next 5 years than in the past 15 combined. So, which car are you going to ride? How are you going to hitch onto the money train?

Labels: Broadband, Business, Cell Towers, Profit, Telecommunication

posted by Unknown at 6:07 AM Link to this Article  0 Comments