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Reporter Lynn Stanton, who covered F2C: Freedom to Connect for Telecommunications Reports earlier this week, has arranged TR's permission for me to publish her coverage here. The six stories below are all . . .

Copyright 2009, Telecommunications Reports. Reproduced with permission of Telecommunications Reports.

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MARCH 30, 2009
MUNI BROADBAND AGREEMENT
SPARKS WIRELINE-WIRELESS DEBATE

SILVER SPRING, Md. - The question of the relative advantages of wireless and wireline broadband for unserved and underserved areas sparked heated debate during the Freedom to Connect (F2C) conference here this morning.

“Muni supersession” moderator Joanne Hovis, president of Columbia Telecommunications Corp., kicked off the debate by noting that unlike many conference panels, the panelists all agreed that municipal broadband networks were a good idea, and asked whether networks should be wired or wireless.

Dirk van der Woude, program manager-municipal broadband policy for Amsterdam, said that wireless broadband is convenient but slow. “And you need fiber for back haul,” he said.

Tim Nulty, president of ValleyFiber, Inc., a nonprofit telecom company in Vermont, discounted arguments that it is too expensive to bring fiber-to-the-home to rural America. “Every single home in America has a telephone. Why should it be harder to replace copper with fiber than it was [to put the copper in] in the first place? It’s not; it’s easier. The poles are already there,” and the cost of fiber is relatively less now than the price of copper when the copper network was being extended into rural America, he added.

From the audience, Mark Cooper, director-research at the Consumer Federation of America, said, “We’ve been advocating a combination of middle-mile fiber . . . [and] first-mile, cutting-edge wireless.” Using wireless at the network edge “enables you to get farther” for the same amount of money, and it provides a “two-fer” of mobility and connectivity that meets most needs, Mr. Cooper said.

Mr. Nulty responded, “I know the price I have to charge on wireless is twice what I have to charge on fiber.” He added that “giving away money is a bad idea” and that “rural fiber can pay its own way,” while rural wireless cannot. He said that covering 1,000 square miles with a shared 3.6 gigabits per second capacity wireless network would require “at least 200 installations, and 500 miles of fiber for backhaul - we’d only need 1,400 miles to get [fiber] to everybody” living in that 1,000 square miles.

Another panelist, Lev Gonick, chief information officer at Case Western Reserve University and founder of Cleveland’s One Community connectivity project, attempted to smooth over the disagreement. “This is a debate inside the family,” he said, adding, “We’re missing the opportunity of a lifetime” if proponents of ubiquitous broadband allow disagreements over technology to derail current momentum.
Bill Schrier, chief technology officer of the city of Seattle, also tried to smooth over the dispute, saying that wired and wireless broadband are “really symbiotic.”

Mr. Nulty said, “We absolutely intend to put a wireless cloud on top of our fiber network.”

In a separate session, Larry Keyes, a principal with Microdesign Consulting, Inc., demonstrated Telecare for Rural Home Health, a joint undertaking with the University of Vermont funded by the National Institute on Aging, in which senior patients who have fallen or who are at risk for falling receive interactive tai chi instruction over a broadband connection, although only 384 kilobits per second is required, he said. The project uses a set-top box - or DocBox - and participants were provided with broadband connections if they didn’t already have it. The video is shown on patients’ television sets, because “they already know how to use it, and it’s in the largest room in the house,” allowing space to perform the tai chi movements. - Lynn Stanton, lynn.stanton@wolterskluwer.com


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MARCH 30, 2009
FCC’s CHIEF TECHNOLOGIST SEES ‘MYTHS’
IN COMMON BROADBAND ARGUMENTS

SILVER SPRING, Md. - FCC chief technologist Jon Peha - expressing only his own opinions - said today that many of the frequently heard arguments about broadband “seem to me to be based on myths,” including the idea that there is less interest in broadband in rural areas and that the lack of broadband service doesn’t harm communities and those living there.

Speaking at the Freedom to Connect (F2C) conference produced by Isen.com and MuniWireless.com, Mr. Peha, who is also a professor of engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University, said, “There is fascinating speculation about why a third less households in rural areas would want broadband. . . . [However] if you look at the percentage of households with Internet of any flavor, rural is only slightly behind,” because a larger percentage of subscribers use dial-up connections. “Maybe this means people in rural areas want access to the Internet, but they like it sl-o-o-o-w,” he joked. He noted that “roughly one-third of rural households do not have access to terrestrial broadband at any price, so maybe it’s not surprising that one-third fewer rural households subscribe.”

He also discounted the idea that if the market has produced fewer broadband subscribers in rural communities, the market must be right. He noted that market-based decisions don’t take into account benefits to those other than the purchaser. Communities without broadband miss out on the “spill-over effects,” or positive externalities, of broadband, such as small business creation, job creation, and increased property values, he said. Internet users outside the community also miss out on the ability to communicate via broadband with those in the unserved community.

Mr. Peha said another myth is that “unserved communities may not gain from broadband, but they aren’t harmed by the lack of broadband.” Applications were once optimized for dial-up users, but as broadband becomes more widespread, that changes, so that every year dial-up Internet access becomes less valuable to those without broadband. - Lynn Stanton, lynn.stanton@wolterskluwer.com


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MARCH 30, 2009
MUNI NETWORKING ‘FAILURES’ DISPUTED

SILVER SPRING, Md. - A member of a panel on “muni networking failures” at the Freedom to Connect (F2C) conference here today disagreed with the premise of the session, saying that media reports of such failures have created a widely believed falsehood.

“Earthlink’s model [for a muni network] in Philadelphia failed; Philadelphia hasn’t failed,” said Esme Vos, founder of MuniWireless.com, which along with Isen.com produced F2C. “As of December they had 137,000 users,” she said.

Ms. Vos also said that Philadelphia is moving to use the technology to operate wireless parking meters. “Cities aren’t just setting up wireless networks to provide free broadband but because of all these other things you can do,” she added. She cited “smart” water meters in other cities. She said that once people hear that the city broadband technology is going to save them money on their water bills, argument from a private-sector provider about the government competing with the private sector is “going to fall on deaf ears.”

However, Ken Biba, co-founder and chief technology officer of wireless data network advisory firm Novarum, said that the first generation of these municipal networks had failed because of “the impracticality of a free lunch” and “impossible expectations.” He added, “Free is not a sustainable business model.”

Mr. Biba also said, “Wired will always be faster and cheaper than wireless, but it ends where it ends. Wireless is the extension. They cooperate together.”

From the audience, David Young, Verizon Communications, Inc.’s vice president-federal regulatory affairs, asked why cities don’t just use commercially available wireless broad service. Mr. Biba said, “It’s too expensive. You can’t spend $60 a month per police car, and you don’t get uplink video.” - Lynn Stanton, lynn.stanton@wolterskluwer.com

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MARCH 31, 2009
F2C SPEAKERS TACKLE ARRA, TRANSITION

SILVER SPRING, Md. - Speakers at the Freedom to Connect (F2C) conference here today addressed a range of issues, including traffic management, broadband grants and loans, and the changes at the FCC with the new presidential administration.

Kevin Werbach, a professor of legal studies at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School who was also a co-leader of the Obama FCC transition team, said that former FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin “accentuated the siloing of the agency” and that during his tenure “there was a hostility to new ideas coming up from the bottom. . . . He tended to have a very top-down approach.”

Under FCC Chairman-designate Julius Genachowski, “I think there’s going to be a willingness to explore” long-term ideas such as spectrum allocation that would serve future needs, Mr. Werbach offered.

Mr. Werbach said, “There really was a great sense of mission from people I worked with on the transition [such as his transition team co-leader Susan Crawford, who is rumored to be under consideration for a White House technology advisory position, as well as Mr. Genachowski]. Hold them to it. It’s hard to see beyond the fog of the Beltway.” He continued, “We’re going to need the whole country, and not just 52% of the country [to solve these issues].”

Another speaker, Terry Huval, director of Lafayette Utilities System in Lafayette, La., said in response to an audience question that the LUS broadband network, which only recently began offering service, is not prioritizing traffic. Responding to concern that providing cable TV service will lead LUS to behave like a private-sector provider and try to block or interfere with Internet-based video services, he said it was fine with LUS “if everybody in town buys Internet and gets all the video they want that way.”

Also in response to a question, Mr. Huval said LUS pays $50 to $60 per month per megabit per second.

Regarding implementation of the broadband provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Joanne Hovis, president of Columbia Telecommunications Corp., speaking in her role as a member of the board of directors of the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors, warned against playing into the hands of those who don’t want to see broadband competition by turning the funding application process into a battle between “metro” and rural interests.

Ms. Hovis also said, “We are a little bit concerned that there is a little bit of a conflict between [the states’] role as an adviser to [the National Telecommunications and Information Administration] and their role as potential applicants and we hope that NTIA will keep that in mind.”

From the audience, Mary Beth Henry of Portland, Ore., said her city hopes to win broadband funding under the ARRA to expand its telehealth application of remote monitoring, which allows the elderly to stay in their homes, to lower-income residents, and to fund a demand-side economic development program that helps small businesses see the benefits of using the Internet, as well as a video connection program on the education side that, among other things, would allow parents to participate in Parent Teacher Association meetings without leaving home.

The issue of wired versus wireless broadband continued to be raised, albeit with less heat than during yesterday’s discussions. Mr. Salter said, “I’m a proponent for fiber because I think you need big bandwidth for all this [demand-side management and other smart grid applications].” However, he acknowledged that the smart grid doesn’t require fiber, and that most companies rolling the technology out are using “hybrid systems, with fiber to a collection point and wireless to the meter.” He added, “I think the applications are going to require more and more bandwidth and that’s why I’m an advocate for fiber.”

The F2C conference was produced by Isen.com and MuniWireless.com. - Lynn Stanton, lynn.stanton@wolterskluwer.com


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MARCH 31, 2009
ENERGY ISSUES OFFER BROADBAND OPPORTUNITIES,
F2C SPEAKERS SAY

SILVER SPRING, Md. - Energy sector issues such as smarter networks, cleaner fuel sources, and demand management present opportunities to extend and boost broadband networks, according to speakers at the Freedom to Connect conference here today.

James Salter, founder of Atlantic Engineering, who spoke about electric utility “smart grids” and flattening peak demand, said, “When you’ve wired up all these houses for smart grid, you’ve wired up every house in America” for broadband Internet access, which has the added benefit of potentially reducing commuting and other transportation.

Billy Ray, chief executive officer of the Glasgow (Ky.) Electric Plant Board, said that a house’s “load shape” (over time) is determined by “the dumbest devices” in the house - thermostats on heaters, water heaters, refrigerators, and freezers, and that the sine wave load shape forces coal-powered plants to power up and power down, rather than operate most efficiently with a constant output.

Mr. Ray said that Glasgow has been putting IP (Internet protocol) addresses on all the thermostats to control them, but has discovered that neither it nor its power supplier - TVA (the Tennessee Valley Authority) - know “what to talk to the thermostats about.” Although he could not reveal the details, he said that Google, Inc., TVA, and Glasgow are working together on software to control the thermostats. “Some of you smart people need to write some software,” he told the audience.

Bill St. Arnaud, of CANARIE, Inc., said that the move to reduce carbon emissions is “an opportunity for our industry, because anything that reduces carbon emissions is eligible” to win some of the money that would be created by a requirement for offset payments, since producers of carbon emissions would pay for solutions to reduce emissions, rather than pay the government for producing emissions. Although there is $7.2 billion for broadband grants and loans in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, “there’s $645 billion if cap-and-trade goes through - that’s the market you want to tap,” he said.

Mr. St. Arnaud suggested that broadband could be used to “reward consumers with free video for reducing their carbon footprints,” noting that consumers are responsible for 65% of carbon emissions. He described a business model in which resellers of electrical and gas power could provide free high-speed Internet and fiber to the home as in incentive to reduce usage, with the added benefit that “the utility does all the billing and collection for you.”

However, Mr. St. Arnaud said, the information and communications technology industry must first “clean up our own act,” since it, too, is a producer of carbon emissions. - Lynn Stanton, lynn.stanton@wolterskluwer.com


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MARCH 31, 2009
WHOLESALE ACCESS GOOD FOR INCUMBENTS,
F2C PANELISTS SAYS

SILVER SPRING, Md. - Some speakers at the Freedom to Connect (F2C) conference here this morning argued that opening broadband networks for use by competitors is a good idea for the network owners, although even in this pro-access venue there was some resistance to the idea.

Herman Wagter, chief executive officer of Citynet Amersterdam, said that sharing basic network infrastructure with competitors makes business sense and attracts investments.

Benoit Felten, a principal analyst at Yankee Group, said that, based on a theoretical greenfield business model, it would be virtually impossible to earn back a broadband network investment in less than 10 years unless you reach 30% penetration, or “more reasonably” 40%. Under those circumstances, competition on the incumbents’ network - open access - actually increases penetration because there are multiple sales forces working in the market. “And at 100% you can turn off your copper network, and that’s what really costs you,” he added.

Mr. Felten said that Dutch incumbent telco KPN said recently that it was “stupid in opposing open access 10 years ago” and that open access was actually in its interest.

In response to an audience question, Terry Huval, director of Lafayette Utilities System in Lafayette, La., well-known for its successful battle against private-sector broadband providers to be allowed to build and operate its own broadband network, said, “Until we get all our bonds paid off, our business model is our business model . . . . We’re not going to allow another cable TV provider or switched telephone provider [to operate] on our system.” The questioner, who said he was from UTOPIA (the Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency ), said that the wholesale model works for Utopia. - Lynn Stanton, lynn.stanton@wolterskluwer.com

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