Mark's Musings on the Telecommunications Industry

North Carolina Legislate to Limit Muni Broadband is Neither Fair Nor Level

2011-04-07T11:00:00.001-06:00

Last week House Bill 129 was passed by the North Carolina House of Representatives, and it is now making its way through the Senate. This piece of legislation’s sole purpose is to protect the incumbent service providers in the state in areas where they cannot afford to make investments for advanced broadband services. It unfairly limits municipalities ability to drive economic growth and

Where Are Your Blog Posts?

2011-02-22T12:14:00.001-07:00

You may have noticed that I have not posted anything on my blog since mid-December. Instead, I have been posting commentaries to the articles I post on Inphotonics Research. Every day I post and article or two to the news page of our company’s site, and I will add my comments to the story. I post articles relating to municipal and rural broadband on this page. There is an RSS feed associated

Qwest’s Request for Statewide Video Franchise Has a Weakness

2010-12-16T12:14:00.001-07:00

The proposal by Qwest for statewide franchising for video services is not necessarily a good move for consumers unless communities have options to ensure their broadband future. By simplifying the franchising process, Qwest/CenturyLink and others can easily re-enter the video market in Colorado without negotiating with every city they want to provide service; thereby, allowing competitors to

New US "mega kill bill" would give President and DHS even more power to control the Internet

2010-09-17T11:08:00.001-06:00

Laws like this is the reason that I am against the FCC or Congress getting involved in any regulation of the Internet especially net neutrality. This bill, if passed, would give the President and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) sweeping powers to shut down parts and the whole Internet or even terminate specific users they deem are threats by executive fiat. There is no Congressional

The Wrangling on Net Neutrality Continues This Week

2010-09-03T11:18:00.001-06:00

The debate on net neutrality rages on this week with AT&T checking with their position on the topic. Not only did they effectively state their case for differentiated services, they also addressed the inaccuracies in the positions of the political opposition groups. Mr. Hultquist noted, in his blog post, that the position of net neutrality groups like the Church of Extreme Net Neutrality (CoENN

Copps Is Out of Touch With FCC Staff

2010-08-21T15:12:00.002-06:00

Michael Copps should spend more time talking to FCC staff and less time playing politician. The FCC's latest report on broadband performance recognizes and defines different service types, and they state that QOS plays a role in their performance. The FCC staff even goes as far as to recommend the use of differentiated services. in reference to: FCC member blasts Google-Verizon plan, says it

The FCC Has Recognized the Need for Differentiated Services

2010-08-21T14:01:00.001-06:00

Last week the FCC published its’ report on U.S. broadband Internet usage entitled Broadband Performance: OBI Technical Report No. 4. The press chose to report on the sensational claim in the Executive Summary that actual measured bandwidth was half of the advertised bandwidth. If they would have taken the time to read past the Executive Summary or not copy the other articles written about the

Why Richi Jennings Is Right About Net Neutrality

2010-08-12T15:57:00.001-06:00

Out of the hundreds of articles written about the recent set of principles released by Google and Verizon, this article written by Richi Jennings correctly points out two reasons why the egalitarian net neutrality concept will not work. He realizes that packet prioritization is necessary to create a good experience for all Internet users. The Internet’s architecture has changed much from the

True Progress on Net Neutrality from Verizon and Google

2010-08-11T21:06:00.001-06:00

Monday Google and Verizon released their joint framework for an open Internet. While the press and digiratti expressed their outrage that two leaders in the industry too the initiative to make a proposal, it was a major step forward in reaching consensus by the largest access and content providers. Condemnation was generally universal from expected sources like Wired, This Week in Tech, the

The Future of the Internet: Net Neutrality

2010-07-12T11:24:00.001-06:00

Manish Mamidanna of Scatter Tech writes a complete argument (The Future of the Internet: Net Neutrality) on net neutrality covering the deficiencies with the ISP, but he does not make a case for legislated net neutrality. We have been living under de facto net neutrality for years. There have been almost no instances of violation except for a few cases where the appropriate legal remedies were

More Evidence That You Can't Stop That Demand for Bandwidth

2010-07-09T19:18:00.001-06:00

VeriSign's Project Apollo to increase their root domain infrastructure to meet a surge in Internet bandwidth of 1,000 is further proof that the future demand for greater bandwidth is real. This and other empirical data is contrary to the results published in the National Broadband Plan and touted by incumbent service providers. Consumers' consumption of more digital content will only increase

Palm Will Live On at HP

2010-07-02T08:52:00.001-06:00

NEW VIDCAST: A Message to the Palm Developer Community from HP PC on Vimeo. The interview of HP CTO Phil McKinney by two of Palm's developer relations team reassures Palm owners that HP will continue to invest in Palm devices and WebOS under the HP umbrella. Palm will continue to exist as a subsidiary of HP in their mobile products division and Jon Rubenstein will continue to run Palm with

Elimination of Discounts May Spur Fiber Deployments

2010-07-01T10:13:00.001-06:00

Frank Simone has a point here. Carriers utilizing these discounts are using the legacy network to boost their bottom line. Why put in fiber when they can bundle a few copper pairs to provide 10 Mbit/s at $13 per pair typically? The price hike will impact SMB the most when carriers like Covad, IP5280, and Integra Telecom boost their prices. We cannot continue to milk our copper infrastructure

Vendors Picking Up the Slack

2010-06-28T21:01:00.001-06:00

The shift of vendors assuming a greater responsibility started occurring when carriers started reducing costs by offering early retirement packages to their most experienced employees. This left an experience void with many carriers that the vendors filled with their employees' expertise. In reflection, the vendor community sees this as an opportunity to "partner" with their customer to deepen

US Senate committee approves Internet close-down bill by vocal acclaim. Well, saves the fuss of a vote, doesn't it?

2010-06-28T19:53:00.001-06:00

Leave it to a bunch of Brits to point out how we continue to circumvent our democratic system. TelecomTV, along with many other publications, reported that the Senate has passed a bill that will allow the president to shut down the Internet in the United States for up to 120 days without any Congressional approval. The passage of this bill occurred with no mention in the mainstream media, which

Circumventing Due Process for the New World Order

2010-05-15T15:14:00.000-06:00

I like to keep this blog more analytical and less political, but there are times when we need to use our industry expertise to shed light on policy issues when they impact our industry. Entertainment copyright holders for well over a decade have been seeking greater powers to stop digital piracy despite the fact that the GAO has debunked the figures the enforcers throw around on the damage to

Incumbent Carriers Use Political Muscle to Stifle Competition

2010-05-13T08:54:00.000-06:00

Time Warner Cable and other incumbent communications carriers in the state of North Carolina are pushing for a bill that would prevent municipalities from building or even repairing broadband networks. An article in Indy Week states that state senator David Hoyle is introducing a bill in the NC senate that would prevent municipalities from building their own broadband networks unless they spent

Why Boulder Is Ideal for 1 Gbit/s Broadband Network from Google

2010-04-23T19:02:00.001-06:00

I started this article weeks ago before the RFI was due and never found the time to finish it. The problem was that there was too much content to keep confined to a short article. After looking at my draft and realizing that readers, including Google, did not want to read a 10,000 word explanation, I condensed it to a bullet list. So here are the reasons that Google should choose Boulder,

CenturyTel Acquires Qwest: What’s In It for Qwest?

2010-04-23T10:06:00.001-06:00

The unwanted step child of the Baby Bells has finally found a suitor to help it beyond its awkward years, but is this acquisition good for Qwest? After the previous CEO’s failed attempts to sell the lumbering giant to AT&T and Verizon, CenturyTel (CTL) finally a agrees to purchase Qwest (Q) for $22.4 billion including debt. Although this is big news for CenturyTel and Qwest, the purchase will

Telecom Pragmatics Calls Google Effort “Token”

2010-04-21T17:15:00.001-06:00

Telecom Pragmatics recent press release and report stating that Google’s Fiber for Communities project will be just a token effort misses the objective of Google’s project. Google has been very clear through its minimalist communications of its objectives for this project. They want to stimulate new applications, test new deployment techniques, and drive competition beyond the current duopolies

What the 1,099 Communities Not Selected by Google by Google Should Do

2010-04-13T10:21:00.000-06:00

The past month has been crazy ever since Google announced that they are going to build an open access fiber-based network in one or a couple communities from 50,000 to 500,000 in population. Over 1,100 communities submitted responses to the Google Fiber for Communities Request for Information including my own Boulder and Longmont, Colorado. Those communities took the time to thoroughly

Is The Court of Appeals Decision in Comcast v. FCC Good for Net Neutrality?

2010-04-10T10:27:00.000-06:00

Much was written this week about the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia’s decision against the FCC fining Comcast for blocking BitTorrent traffic in 2008. Most of those articles missed the point of the decision and declared that the FCC cannot regulate the Internet. This decision said one thing, and one thing only: the FCC overstepped its enforcement authority in telling

The FCC’s Still Attempts Interoperability Standards for Public Safety

2009-12-11T13:38:00.001-07:00

Wednesday Silicon Flatirons sponsored its latest presentation in the Center’s Policymaker Series. Retired Rear Admiral James Arden Barnett, Chief of Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau FCC, outlined his bureau’s role in specifying public safety interoperability requirements in the National Broadband Policy that we anxiously await for release next February. The Chief shared with the

Comcast Cranks Up DOCSIS 3.0

2009-12-01T23:32:00.001-07:00

A month ago Comcast upgraded my head-end for DOCSIS 3.0. I had some backwards compatibility problems so Comcast gave me a new DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem. My problems went away and my bandwidth increased dramatically. I must say that I am getting quite use to the extra bandwidth. Windows 7 download in only a few minutes, and I enjoy the quicker upload speeds for posting pictures and blog posts.

Taking Ownership of the Rural Network

2009-11-24T12:02:00.001-07:00

I read two stories today that affirm my commitment that local governments should build their own network infrastructure and sell access to private service providers. The first article from TelecomTV discusses how the two largest LEC in the U.S., AT&T (T) and Verizon (VZ), are reducing investment and even neglecting their rural networks. Verizon’s sale of their land-line assets in rural areas to