toast

Verizon ends fiber optic rollout, chooses instead to partner with cable TV

2011-12-26T11:07:00.000-08:00

Well, the great idea of auctioning off spectrum to create more competition in wireless services seems to be going by the wayside. Verizon, who had made a big push to provide fiber optic based internet service + cable TV (FIOS) to many homes on the East Coast, seems to have stopped that altogether (too costly, it seems), and instead has been making partnership deals with existing cable TV companies who own the rights to currently unused wireless spectrum. Verizon gets the spectrum rights (for money), making it an even stronger dominating market force, and through partnership agreements it gets access to more homes. The downside? Cable TV companies are giving up on wireless, which may have been a pipe dream to begin with, and consumers will continue to have limited choices for fixed line internet access. Continued expansion of fiber to the home, also, appears to go by the wayside.

See the Op Ed piece here: Verizon's Worrisome Cable Deals.

Broadband Blindness Now Up!

2011-12-21T13:43:00.000-08:00

I'm happy to announce that the final cut of "Broadband Blindness" is now finished and streaming now on Sactoast.com. Due to the large file size, I've broken it into three parts. This documentary features interviews with Carol Anne Ogdin (Interbahn, Placerville), John Paul (SpiralNet, Nevada City), Fred Pilot (Camino Fiber Cooperative, Camino), Tara Thronson (Valley Vision, Sacramento), Thomas Beamish (UC Davis, Davis), and Michael Morris (CPUC, San Francisco). Go to the "Digital Divide" page to view Parts 2 and 3.

Urban Winemaking Part 3

2011-12-02T11:08:00.000-08:00

Part 3 in our Urban Winemaking series will be online later today. In this episode, we visit Sacramento's Spoto Wines and talk with Stuart Spoto about the pressing process and what goes into making his high-end, Oakville (Napa County) vintage reds.

Broadband Blindness Rough Cut Complete!

2011-11-18T11:14:00.000-08:00

Now that the rough cut of Broadband Blindness is complete, I'm soliciting feedback from a number of people before I do the final edits and release it to the public. This has been a very rewarding project, and I couldn't have done it without the generous support of my executive producers and other amazing supporters who donated through Kickstarter.

update on Broadband Blindness

2011-11-02T14:11:00.000-07:00

I had opportunity to enlist the help of a professional photographer (Dale Crandall Bear) to film the host sequences where I introduce the problem and talk about the key issues.

Working with another cameraman is incredibly rewarding, but it also requires a higher level of documentation and formalization of the film concept, flow, and scenes. That meant having to put together a complete storyboard and shot list for Dale, scouting locations for each shoot, and finally writing out my lines on cue cards.

We filmed and finished those sequences two days ago (Sunday), and now I am deep in the editing cave putting everything together. Thanks for your patience. Everything is moving along, albeit delayed. Attached are some photos of the storyboard and two of the shots.

FCC changes Universal Service Fund, but how much will it help?

2011-10-28T13:16:00.000-07:00

This means nothing to most of you, so here's the bottom line: the $$ extra charges on your telephone bill that until now subsidized rural telephone service will soon go toward expanding internet service to more than 600,000 Americans. It will be called the "Connect America Fund" and will be capped at $4.5 billion.

One major problem I see in the FCC's plan, which estimates that $24 billion will be needed to extend broadband to 7 million Americans, is the FCC's over-reliance on 4G cellular network deployments. Most of us have 3G now on our cell phones, and that service is painfully slow in many populated areas like San Francisco and New York City -- so much so that AT&T employees have advised me to force my iPhone to use the older, slower Edge network for browsing and E-mail. The problem isn't with 3G per se; it's with how carriers build their networks. High speed mobile internet service is expensive to operate, and carriers consider average traffic per user and aggregate busy hour traffic (the busiest hour of the day) when they equip their base stations with capacity.

The problem comes when the average traffic per user exceeds the forecast, as is what happened when the iPhone hit the market. The iPhone let people eat up much more capacity than the network was designed for. The base station radio had to either refuse additional customers or throttle down capacity for its existing users. Imagine what happens when those users are connecting their home computers to the same cellular network.

Then, there is the backhaul problem. Even if the radio base station can handle the additional traffic load, the lines connecting the base station to the nearest network hub quickly run out of capacity. Most base stations today have extremely limited backhaul capacity (most are copper T1s) rather than high capacity fiber optic lines. When you go to rural areas, the situation is even more extreme. Fiber optics are practically non-existent. And since cellular networks are sized for mobile devices, which demand less bandwidth than home computers, once you connect a bunch of rural home computers to a cellular network, chances are it will run out of capacity rather quickly.

Without MAJOR investment in backhaul improvements and significant capacity added to 4G base stations - most of which would undoubtedly fail to generate positive net present value - 4G network deployment will unlikely fill the need of rural residents who don't currently have access to internet service.

Urban Winemaking Part 2: James Blake Wines now online

2011-10-13T12:14:00.000-07:00

In Part 2, we visit James Blake Wines in suburban Sacramento and learn why it's important to pick grapes early and how weather plays such an important role during harvest season. Watch winemaker James Scheller talk about what goes into their award-winning Cabernets, Merlots, Nebbiolos and Zinfandels.

Can Kindle Fire add more burn to cord cutting?

2011-09-30T11:55:00.000-07:00

"Cord cutting" is what the cable TV industry says when people stop their cable TV service and go exclusively to the internet to watch television shows. Watching on a laptop is a solitary experience, and it's not much more social watching on a desktop, and many of us have been caught dragging laptops over to our televisions and connecting them up to watch internet streamed shows on a larger screen.

There are several problems with this approach. First, you need a laptop that has a video output connection. Second, you need enough internet speed to stream the show (see trailer for Bandwidth Blindness to learn more about that problem).

So, with the iPad, and now, more importantly, Amazon's Kindle Fire, can you just park a tablet next to you TV, leave it connected to the TV, and power it up whenever you want to watch a show? With tablets, you need to make sure the hardware and software can support what you want to do. Does the tablet have a Netflix App? If it doesn't, can you use the tablet's browser to stream the show?

Secondly, does the table have a video output connection? Apparently, the Kindle Fire's USB port doesn't allow direct connection to a TV, whereas the BrilianTab has a HDMI connection that allows direct connection.

In the case of Amazon, they seem to be actively promoting Netflix for now, which is a good thing. Does their proprietary browser allow streaming of Hulu, Comedy Central, and other sites? Either way, if you can't connect it to a larger screen, your viewing will mostly be by yourself as opposed to with your family or a loved one.

So, it's unclear if the Kindle Fire will contribute at all to replacing "over the top boxes" used to stream cable TV (and hence contribute to the cord cutting phenomenon). One concern is speculation that Amazon's Kindle Soft web browser remotely tracks every single page you visit. Ah, so maybe the $199 price tag isn't so cheap anymore!

Urban Winemaking Part 1: Revolution Wines Now Online

2011-09-29T10:39:00.000-07:00

In Part 1, we visit Revolution Wines in midtown Sacramento and see one of their Syrah crushes. Interviews with owners Gina Genshlea and Craig Haarmeyer. Find out what makes this midtown, Sacramento-based winery unique, and explore their new bistro, located on the corner of 28th and S Streets.

Blade Work Full Version Now Online!

2011-09-29T10:32:00.000-07:00

Check out the full Blade Work episode on toast.

Blade Work goes through the basics of the rowing stroke, what muscle groups are used, and what qualities make an ideal rower. Interviews include Tricia Blocher, who coaches for River City Rowing and for the US Junior Development National Team, Joel Griffith, winner of 3 gold medals at the 2010 World Rowing Masters Regatta at St. Catherine's, Canada, and Greg Darrah, winner of the gold medal in the men's C double at the same regatta.

Blade Work trailer named Video of the Day on Row2K

2011-09-25T11:41:00.000-07:00

We were pleasantly surprised to find the trailer for Blade Work listed on Row2K's site as the video of the day.

Great news is that the full episode is finished and had its world premier at the River City Rowing Fall BBQ yesterday and will be appearing online within the week.

Thanks to the tremendous footage taken by Lew Abramson, Matt Pye, Rose Giordano, Dan Tharp, and Janelle Bogue, the full episode has a lot more than you'd guess from the trailer.

Stay tuned!!

Toast is back

2011-09-20T16:03:00.001-07:00

Sactoast.com is up and running again. Apparently, things are back to normal.

Toast site temporarily down

2011-09-20T14:05:00.000-07:00

Sorry to say that our web hosting service, Fused.com, reports that it is "mitigating an attack." Sounds serious, and at the moment, Toast is unavailable.

new series on Urban Winemaking

2011-09-19T10:40:00.000-07:00

On Friday, just shot some footage of a Syrah crush at Revolution Wines. What makes Syrah so wonderful it it produces a dark, inky, red wine full of depth and wonder. Check out the short trailer featuring Revolution's wine maker, Craig, his staff, and that amazing destemming and crushing machine.

behold, a VRAD

2011-09-16T10:03:00.000-07:00

A "VRAD" (Video Ready Access Device) is what AT&T uses to provide U-Verse high speed internet and high definition television service to homes. In the past, there have been attempts to map out, unofficially, the locations of VRAD in order to figure out where AT&T is offering U-Verse (AT&T won't disclose this information for competitive reasons).

We did a lot of driving around downtown and midtown Sacramento over the past few days and managed to find 3 of them. I'm sure there are more, but they don't jump out at you. Below is a short video clip of what they look like. Telltale signs are a dedicated power meter and an actual address on the box (do they take pizza deliveries?). You'll notice too that they make a slight humming noise.

The VRAD is where AT&T brings in fiber optic lines. The digital signal from these lines is converted from optical to electrical and then sent to homes through a neighboring box called a "cross connect."

An article earlier this year suggested that AT&T is winding down its U-Verse expansion, which is bad news for Sacramento, but we did find one location where they were actually installing a new VRAD, so perhaps it's not over yet.

Why Idaho has the slowest internet speeds

2011-09-15T10:57:00.000-07:00

Should internet service be profitable? If so, how profitable? That's a question nobody seems to want to talk about. Instead, we just plod along, letting large telecom companies decide where they are going to offer service based on profitability rather than equity. That could change somewhat under FCC Chairman Genachowski's proposed Universal Service Fund (USF) reform. But all of the discussion these days is about rural areas. Urban areas area also lacking capacity and coverage, as you can see from a previous post about AT&T service dragging down the average throughput rate in Sacramento.

An article in yesterday's New York Times focused on the abysmally slow internet speeds in Idaho, where the average population density is 19 people per square mile.

It's no surprise that providers have no incentive to extend their networks in very rural areas to just a few homes. This is why the upcoming "Broadband Blindness" is exploring why, given the economic realities of investing in costly networks, we refuse to change how we pay for network infrastructure and leave investment decisions in the hands of public companies who run the risk of plummeting stock prices if their eyes stray from the bottom line.

Wall Street Journal, NY Times now TV stations

2011-09-14T11:05:00.000-07:00

You were wondering what "Toast" was all about, right? Well, wake up and smell the roses. Everything is going video, even though it may not be readily apparent here in our neck of the woods in Sacramento. A recent report by Knowledge Networks shows that online viewing continues to eat into the time spent watching cable or network television. See http://tinyurl.com/6gt88sc.

And it's not just Gen Y. Boomers are also watching more shows online that were traditionally viewed on cable or network television.

Yesterday, the New York Times reported that the Wall Street Journal has expanded its daily video offering to 3.5 hours of live programming and has plans to add to it. This is in direct competition with the New York Times' own TimesCast, which offers short video summaries of certain news events.

President's Broadband Plan is A Pipe Dream

2011-09-12T11:28:00.000-07:00

In his recent speech on the American Jobs Act, President Obama included "a deficit reducing plan to deploy high-speed wireless services to at least 98 percent of Americans." This would be done by auctioning off spectrum to wireless carriers with the condition that they use that spectrum to cover parts of the United States that do not currently have internet access.

This may seem like a marriage made in heaven - using wireless carriers to pay down the deficit AND expand internet access - but it's not. Here are two reasons why:

1) Where's the money to pay for the network, and
2) Wireless isn't a long-term solution

Expanding wireless to 98 percent of Americans could cost many billions more than the US Government receives in revenue from the spectrum auction. So, what's in it for AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile? Clearly, if there were enough revenue potential in the uncovered, primarily rural, parts of the United States, they would already have wireless coverage by now. They're not covered right now because there's not enough revenue to justify offering service there.

So let's assume that the wireless carriers get the spectrum and start building out their networks to meet the 98 percent goal: at what point do they go back to Uncle Sam and demand major subsidies?

Secondly, wireless is not a long-term solution. In wireless technology, capacity and coverage work in opposite directions. You add more capacity, you get less coverage. Covering 98 percent of America with a low capacity wireless network doesn't get you very far. In five years' time or less, the radio equipment will need to be completely replaced as new radio technology comes out.

Rather than combining deficit reduction with broadband expansion, President Obama needs to consider other ways to finance a more future-proof, robust national broadband infrastructure that can meet the needs of the coming decades, and that should focus primarily on landline networks with fiber-optics, which can be used for decades and handle ever-increasing capacity demands without needing an upgrade. We did this for rural electrification, and we can do it for broadband.

AT&T dragging Sacramento down

2011-09-09T13:56:00.000-07:00

Given the choice, most people would choose the express train over the slow train. In Sacramento, and, unsurprisingly, across the nation as a whole, it seems that AT&T Internet Services is the slow train for internet access.

Judging from data collected by M-Lab that is publicly available, one wonders how aggressively AT&T has been expanding their U-Verse network and converting DSL users to their "faster" service.

The visualization below shows average download throughput by provider for Sacramento. The red Sacramento line is the average of the two.

Sample sizes are not radically different between the two providers, and it's clear that average throughput for AT&T hasn't changed much. One takeaway is, if you want fast internet, your only bet is Comcast. There really is no competition here in Sacramento unless you live in one of the few areas where AT&T has recently invested in more capacity.

Earlier this year, AT&T's CEO, Randall Stephenson, made an offhand remark saying that AT&T deployed DSL in the 1990s to fight off Comcast and that the technology was obsolete. This seems to be true here in Sacramento.

Mobile is the cash cow in the telecom business. Fixed line is not. Is AT&T plowing its money primarily into its mobile business, including the T-Mobile buyout?

It would seem that way, given UBS Research's take on AT&T slowing down expansion of their faster U-Verse service.

toast coverage of Chalk It Up now online

2011-09-07T13:41:00.000-07:00

Shot on Sunday, September 4.

Chalk It Up Sacramento 2011 from Robert Osborn on Vimeo.

market research at Chalk It Up Sacramento

2011-09-03T16:35:00.000-07:00

It was an amazing day at Chalk It Up out at Fremont Park between 15th & 16th / P & Q streets in midtown. So many great people, so many great ideas, and the sidewalks were covered with beautiful art. The event is going on through tomorrow, so stop by and check it out. Live music too from local bands, and good grub to boot!

Well Fit Sacramento on Access channel 17 & 99

2011-08-26T15:30:00.000-07:00

watch "Well Fit Sacramento," produced by toast, on Access Sacramento (Comcast ch. 17 and U-Verse ch. 99) on Aug 29 @ 7pm or Aug 30 11am (internet streaming only), or watch it online at http://www.sactoast.com

Grace's Story - re-airing on Access Sacramento Ch. 17 & 99

2011-08-17T11:14:00.000-07:00

Due to a big scratch on the back of the DVD submitted to Access Sacramento (see photo below), Grace's Story unfortunately cut off mid-way during Monday night's airing. A new, undamaged DVD has been submitted, and new air dates are:

Thu. Aug 18 @ 8:30 PM
Fri. Aug 19 @12:30 PM
Sat Aug. 20 @ 4:30 AM (yikes!)

updated Harm Reduction trailer now online

2011-08-12T12:32:00.000-07:00

Amy Winehouse's premature death brought the issue of substance abuse back to the front pages for a short time, but nobody's talking about programs that actually work. The popular response to addiction is "re-hab," but what other programs are out there that deal with addiction head on? Is it realistic to try to get addicts to stop, or does that simply force them to run away or hide their addiction?

Harm reduction services takes a different approach by starting with small steps that can help addicts try to stay healthy and avoid potentially fatal diseases. From there, the relationship may progress further, but the initiative comes from the addict, not the agency. See how it works by watching the trailer and full episode.

Broadband Blindness is now 110% funded! Thank you!

2011-08-09T14:27:00.000-07:00

Today with contributions from Ed and Kendall, we crossed the threshold and now Broadband Blindness is fully funded. Thank you everyone.