If you were white, middle-class and urban, the Internet was opening untold doors of information and opportunity. If you were poor, rural or a member of a minority group, you were fast being left behind.

She points out that…

While we still talk about “the” Internet, we increasingly have two separate access marketplaces: high-speed wired and second-class wireless. High-speed access is a superhighway for those who can afford it, while racial minorities and poorer and rural Americans must make do with a bike path.

And after detailing how (technically) we can close the gap with cable and fiber she concludes that the issue is a national concern…

The new digital divide raises important questions about social equity in an information-driven world. But it is also a matter of protecting our economic future. Thirty years from now, African-Americans and Latinos, who are at the greatest risk of being left behind in the Internet revolution, will be more than half of our work force. If we want to be competitive in the global economy, we need to make sure every American has truly high-speed wired access to the Internet for a reasonable cost.

With that in mind I want to ask if we to invest in technology that will raise all boats – faster broadband that will facilitate two-way communication requires for telehealth, remote employment, even job interviews – why does the National Broadband Plan perpetuate the digital divide by aiming to provide genuinely high speed (100 Mbps) connectivity to 100 million homes but settle for 4 Mbps for the rest?

Here’s the main gist from the part of the article that is available online…

Last Tuesday, council members shelved a recommendation from the utilities commission to direct city cable TV department manager Curt Egeland to provide cost figures to the commission for upgrading Jackson’s cable TV system for the purpose of making it all digital and independent of the rural electric association’s signal. The commission had earlier tabled such action due to the city’s involvement in Southwest Minnesota Broadband Service’s fiber-to-the-premise project, which promises to compete with the city’s cable TV system and — eventually — replace it.

But at the commission’s July 25 meeting, member Kevin Speiker said that might not be such a good idea.

It seems as if Spieker is concerned about quality of service and thinks that the costs of upgrading the cable system have probably come down since they last investigated. City council member Ken Temple spoke out indicating that time would be better spent focused on fiber rather than cable. The topic has been shelved for now as a meeting has been scheduled between commission members and folks at Southwest Minnesota Broadband Group (SMBG).

I spoke with the folks at SMBS – they indicated that the folks they have contacted seem very enthusiastic about fiber – wondering what it might take to be first on the list for installation. ..

Members of the SMBS management group are meeting with the Jackson PUC in the near future to answer any questions they might have. SMBS will also be opening a sales/construction office in Jackson in the near future as construction in Jackson will be begin soon. SMBS has attended Jackson community events and has received positive feedback from the citizens of Jackson mostly asking when they can have the service and excited to finally have a choice for broadband service besides Qwest/CenturyLink and the limited wireless choices available today.

“While a new digital video headend might bring better video service to Jackson (which will be comparable to the services that SMBS is providing), the real issue is that there are not enough broadband options within Jackson”, stated Project Consultant John Schultz. SMBS will offer not only a better video service that is available today but also finally open the broadband market in Jackson.

Midcontinent Communications is boosting broadband speeds for more than 250,000 customers in the Upper Midwest, including a top tier of 100 Megabits per second down and 15 Mbps up, and has added access to ESPN3.com online video service as part of the upgrade.

Not often I get to mention ESPN. The article goes on to talk about the services offered and the method…

The DOCSIS 3.0-based MidcoNet Xstream Wideband service is available in three new tiers of service: 100/15 Mbps; 50/10 Mbps; and 30/5 Mbps. Those replace the operator’s previous tiers of 50/5, 30/3 and 20/2.

The higher speeds were made possible by Midcontinent’s analog-reclamation project which freed up spectrum. The company said up to 300 Mbps now flows into individual neighborhoods. Midcontinent already offered the fastest Internet speeds in the three-state area, where 3 Mbps downstream is the average, according to the company.

The last time I reported anything on Midcontinent was in 2009 when they were beginning to serve Sabin Minnesota with 50 Mbps down and 5 up. They recently purchased systems in North Dakota and MN from US Cable and now report having 214,000 customers between the two states.

They posted on the latest broadband news – but that really means pointing folks to the latest Minnesota Broadband Advisory Task Force Report, which has been discussed here. (That’s not to minimize the impact of the benchmarks that the report sets!)

The LMC also gives an update on statewide cable franchising. I will borrow from their update…

The League has learned that Qwest, the national telecommunications service provider, is looking into seeking legislation to eliminate local franchising in favor of state franchising. Several city cable franchise administrators indicated that colleagues in other states that have reported this. Qwest officials apparently are especially interested in this legislative change as its merger with CenturyLink moves closer to final approval across the 14 states where Qwest is the major telecommunications service provider.

No legislation has yet been introduced in Minnesota to grant Qwest or any other company new statewide franchises to offer cable TV services. Still, local cable commissions and franchise administrators are reminding legislators that cities have supported competitive cable franchising at the local level and that state law already prohibits exclusive local cable TV franchises.

Last session, with the support of the League and the Minnesota Association of Community Telecommunications Administrators, the Legislature enacted a new law clarifying that cities are authorized to grant a competitive local franchise to a telecommunications service provider to serve customers in the area where the provider currently offers local phone services within the city—even if that service area is different than the one where the incumbent cable TV franchisee is operating. In addition, the League previously provided the Legislature with a list of at least 50 cities where two competitive cable franchisees offer video programming service.

There are about 600 cities in the state that already franchise cable service operators.

I love the look back in her article…

“Before that [cable], there was dial-up. It was 56 kilobits per second, if you could get it,” said David Spencer, finance director for the city of Tracy, and a local resident. Getting a telecommunications hookup in town was “very big, not just for the Internet, but for telephones and cable television too.”

Remember when you had to convince an Internet service provider to bring dialup to your area? I was one of the people you called if you wanted MRNet to come to your town. I remember getting the calls and I remember visiting areas where the Internet was a long distance phone call. It wasn’t that long ago.

The article recognizes the expense of bringing infrastructure to rural areas where the population density is lower, which means fewer customers per mile, which in turn means you have to cover more miles. But that being said, local providers in the area have talked about customer base tripling in the last 5 years.

Cable isn’t the only option, wireless is mentioned too…

Some groups have opted to pursue alternatives to cable-based Internet in southwest Minnesota, however. About four years ago, the Southwest/West Central Service Cooperative invested in a system of microwave wireless towers to provide high-speed Internet to a total of 31 school districts in the region. Minnesota Valley Television also uses a wireless network to bring Internet service to rural areas.

The MVTV wireless network was another good option for Tracy.

MVTV received ARRA funding so their area is about to expand. They weren’t the only providers in Southwest Minnesota to receive funding. The Southwest Minnesota Broadband Group has received moved to deploy fiber – but maybe I’m getting ahead of the Marshall series on broadband.

Comcast has already pushed DOCSIS 3.0 past 90% of their footprint, delivering 50 Mbps speeds in the process. While the company only offers 100 Mbps service in one market, a source tells us Comcast will be pushing faster 100 Mbps service to around 20% of their market by year end.

It’s a great glimpse at what DOCSIS 3.0 can do and it’s good to see someone deploying at the high end. But for a glimpse at the broadband discussion throughout the US – check out the comments. Some love Comcast, some don’t. Some will never get enough bandwidth, some wonder what in the heck you’d do with so much. Some blame the users, some blame the providers. Also you can get a history of cable and broadband – it’s personalized and biased but still interesting and still a part of the broadband discussion.

First – Cable Braces for IPv6. It seems as if I’ve been hearing about IPv6 forever – certainly in 1994 – it also seem as if eventually we will need to move to IPv6 as more and more devices get online. (IPv6 is Internet Protocol version 6 – the next generation addressing scheme.) Apparently guestimates for a timeline for running out of numbers are as soon as two years from now. According to Cable Digital News, Comcast has already has its backbone outfitted for next-gen IPv6 and could begin residential tests as early as this year. With DOCSIS 3.0, they expect to be able to run IPv6 to businesses and homes by the end of next year.

Second – Cable Crafts Turbo Option. Apparently the cable industry is brainstorming an invention to allow customers to supercharge their connections for short spurts of time. Here’s the scoop from Cable Digital News:

As described (PDF) by CableLabs, that invention — dubbed the “Method for dynamic control of per-flow bandwidth preemption” [Ed. note: Catchy!] — will let a customer request that the cable operator provision (mostly likely through the cable modem and the cable modem termination system) a temporarily faster and higher-priority level of service.

It’s not here yet – but they’re working on it.

I have included my notes, such as they are. Please forgive any typos. Thanks to the Task Force for sharing the PPT presentations.

I usually try not to give too much of my opinion, but… I think it was great for so many providers to come in to talk. But I think it might have been more helpful to give each 90 seconds to speak and then let the board ask questions. I think that would have helped get beyond the party lines for each business and into more heated issues.

Here are the notes…

Minutes approved from last week.

Public comments

Mike Riordan – City of St Paul representing Jim Miller & Ann Higgins from League of MN Cities ask that the Cities be able to make a presentation to the Task Force.

Minnesota Association of Townships had same request. Sounds like they contacted Rick King.

Provider Forum

TELCO PANEL

Where Are We Now? A Small Telco Perspective (Brent Christensen)

Frontier of MN High Spees Capability – Mike Flynn

Covers 1632 exchanges in MN – representing the medium side telco
(Some folks are still OK with dialup despite having access to more – not many, but some.)

John Stanoch – Qwest

They brought connectivity to the RNC

They were the baby Baby Belle
4,000 employees (Union shop)
In 14 states (states west of MN)
Full product portfolio – partnership with Direct TV and entering partnership with Verizon for wireless

Recent deployments in MN
Improving network with $200 million since 2001 in MN – expanding DSL services into lots of offices and expanding remote terminals
Focusing on fiber to the node in MN in last 2 years
Physical plan is in good shape so they through fiber to the node would be the most cost effective deployment. Provide speeds up to 20M – that means 3-4 high speed uses per home (HDTV, gaming…)

Land line is on decline but there is growth in high speed Internet.

Watching business build through their kids. Kids don’t want all of Direct TV – just maybe ESPN for example.

The Task Force should focus on market development. There are more folsk on dialup in MN than other states served.

Qwest have asked for changes in fed rules related to USF. USF means everyone gets a phone. It has already provided computer in school. That needs to be expanded/transferred to provide broadband service.

QUESTIONS

If you wanted to create a playbook for your arch enemy state, what would you include to make sure that broadband use and deployment did not increase?

Christensen’s – focus on only one side of the equation.

Qwest – avoid communication. Don’t ask what the needs are. Don’t look at private public partners – and don’t provide grants. Duplicate services and waste money.

In MN we don’t talk enough. The providers are the last people to know that the school can’t get connected or that business X didn’t move to the area because of poor connectivity.

Frontier – people want to provide service in front of the need – but just in front of need and that can be location based. Investment has to pay off.

Question – don’t replicate services – then why are there so many closed networks? Don’t open networks make sense?

Qwest – we should have open networks. Qwest does have to make their connection open in some ways. Qwest doesn’t have unlimited access to funds. So we go to densely populated areas so you can recoup costs and expand forward.

Open Networks will destroy business because then businesses can’t recoup costs.

Question – If customers want something else – we can do it. What does that mean?

Frontier – We can build where needed. ED teams ask for the build it and we can get businesses to relocate – but that’s different than a customer calling for an upgrade.

CABLE PANEL

Dick Sjoberg – Thief River Falls

Sjoberg operated in NW corner of MN
Serve 33 towns – with customer-based ranging from21-3500 customers per town

1998 – starting with cable modems. It was state of the art. Now up to 11M.
880 Megabits of traffic per home daily. If someone wants higher speeds we can do that.
We have customers on fiber 40G
1550 fiber miles and are moving to fiber.
Where we do FTTH we get about 80 percent penetration.

Connectivity isn’t the biggest problems. Costs of computers/equipment is a stopper issue for subscriber use too.

Bill Jensen – Mediacom

Mediacom just took over 3 municipal cable networks because they couldn’t afford the equipment to upgrde.
There’s a ton of broadband in Minnesota. We compete with lots of folks.

Tucker Carlson – Charter Communications

The high end user is becoming a drain on the network. Good analogy to broadband as a river and the more junk high end users dump into the river the slower it flows.

David Diers – Comcast

[Ann's note: I foudn this helpful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOCSIS]

QUESTIONS

What would it take to open your network (unfettered) to other proiders?

Charter – They do it now. But they have to pay for it.

Mediacom – VoIP does it now too. They work with HickoryTech and Inventus. They lease connectivity.

Question - Would you provide access to residential providers?

Yes. But they won’t give a list of customers. Also those providers can’t be residential users; they have to upgrade their connection to a business account.

Question – what’s the scope for DOCSIS 4.0?

Preliminary talk indicates 996M to premise – so pretty much Gig service symmetrical.

WIRELESS

Don Brittingham – Verizon

Verizon is making a push towards integrating to 4G, which also will help merge protocols (I may have mis-said that but years ago you could go in a couple direction for wireless and providers went into different directions and now they will be meeting up again.)

Anthony Will – Broadband Corp

Representing fixed wireless solutions – mostly meeting the needs of people outside of the Twin Cities
They’re excited about the new white spaces opening up
They plan up to 2M
They’ll be deploying WiMAX – it competes with LTE

They’re biggest problem is limited resources
550Mhz with an unlicensed band

Get backbone through Charter and provide service through that. Some backhauls are able to do a Gig. (A Gig is also possible in Pt2Pt.)

There are other provider and we’re independent companies.

They work without loans and they’re making a business of it
The government needs to stay out of it to keep us going.

QUESTIONS

Frontier services the Iron Range. There are lots of holes on the wireless map in that area. Will Verizon be getting into these areas?

Verizon – 700 Mhz is a better channel so we expect that we’ll be able to fill in some of these spaces – but not all.

Verizon has to deal with local governments too – which is an issue.

Verizon would also like for the government to not over regulate. Flexibility in regulation has been a help to the wireless industry.

Question – There are communities that need broadband. Cable maps indicate coverage but there’s a huge area not served. What would it take to provide coverage to all areas at an affordable price?

Verizon – Don’t try to predict what the marketplace will do and don’t try to fix it that way. Let the marketplace lead the efforts. Let people compete with each other. For areas that won’t get served that way – may need to consider incentives (tax credits?) but they shouldn’t be handcuffs.

Cable – Wired and wireless services will create the solution. There aren’t lots of spaces without services – the maps show lakes and reservations where no one lives. But we have areas not served by wires and that’s OK so long as wireless can come in. WiMAX at 15M is going to be a great tools for remote areas.

Broadband Corp – there’s a right tool for the right problem. There’s no way to get FTTH to every home. But we have an arsenal of tools to provide a level of service.

Question – is there enough incentive out there to get rural MN covered? Why hasn’t it happened already?

Broadband Corp  – It’s all about ROI. Unlicensed equipment has come down in price. Right now equipment is $350 per customer; last year it was $450; before then it didn’t exist. Next year the prices should go down.

As equipment gets cheaper and better the coverage spreads.

There just aren’t big spaces that aren’t covered. The big holes are in the boundary waters (BWCA).

Qwest – the other issue is the high cost to serve. MN is behind in this area. That’s why we’re interested in USF. If there’s no ROI – then it’s tough to invest. We need to be focused on where the gaps exist.

Cable – we need to look at services and focus on how to create the solution. We’ll find that some infrastructure doesn’t exist in (doesn’t make sense) in some areas.

Frontier – there are pockets. But we need to step back at the wider view. Towns need broadband and cell service. No business is going to an area without cell coverage. The Free Press just reported about $44 billion for USF.

Sjoberg – The discussion of gaps could be shelved until the maps are finished.

LUNCH

Understanding International Broadband Comparisons – Scott Wallsten, Technology Policy Institute

OECD discussion – the ranking is meaningless
One issue – they combine business lines but divide by households
Household penetration count by indicates that the US ranks 9.
FCC doesn’t/can’t count business lines.
Stats track households not individuals so the results get skewed based on how many people live in each home.
So even when every household has Internet access the US will rank lower on per capita chart due to high average of people per household.

Speeds – do you go on advertized speeds or actual speeds?
US ranks about 7th on one chart; 8th on another
People around the world are not willing to pay a lot of fast speeds right now.
Providers in Korea will advertise the number of subscribers they have at each tier of service.

If you want to promote use, focus on rural areas.

Conclusions:
There isn’t a crisis. We’re not the best but we’re not the worst. We have time to create good policy.
Ask census to continue to get BB data.
Get better data on business data.
Do we really need maps? Does that encourage collusion? Don’t you need to update it constantly?
Do a cost benefit analysis.
There are a lot of programs out there to promote BB. Learn from them.

Tough conclusions
Remove entry barriers – open up spectrum, improve rights of way issues.
INCRASE ADOPTION: Focus more on low-income people than rural areas.
INCREASE BB INVESTMENT: do not subsidize new investment – do reserve auction like Virginia did

QUESTIONS

All charts are based on adoption.

Question – is there are recommendation to improve data collection?

There was a bill (BB data improvement). Most data is based on mapping, which isn’t all that helpful.

Question – How would you recommend we collect data?

Piggyback on existing data collection methods. Maybe there’s a public health survey. Any way to get into the homes. Want to know how doesn’t have BB and why.

Question - Focus on lower income because of density? And how?

Yes – it tends to be a cost issue. Think of a USF type program that offers computers to lower income homes.

Question – what do other countries pay for service?

It’s tough to figure it out. You have to look at cost versus advertized speed and that’s not right. There isn’t really a good way to compare services.

Question – you said don’t worry. Do you think the market will take care of adoption?

Overall the market will take care of it. But there will be people left out. That’s where government should focus. Need to target market failures.

Question – This discussion probably happened with the highways.

Not so much. NO private company was building the highway. The government has so many other roles – universal health care, fixing roads.

Question – Do you have a view on high end users who are a drain the network?

BB is a Multisided market, it’s a platform that leads people to applications. It’s hard to know how to prices. People may need to consider new pricing schemes. Changing by time doesn’t make sense. But some people do so little – it seems that there ought to be a pre-paid phone sort of solution for them. And then there’s BitTorrent users.

We know when we have an all you can eat model – people eat too much.

Question – have providers thought about new pricing models?

Qwest – has contacted people to offer a business solution. And that has worked well.

Within the next 10 years we’re going to see some changes. Long distance has changed. Land lines have changes – the industry needs to change too.

ON TO THE REPORT

Here’s an outline:

Exec Summary
Chapters:
Statement of values
Where we’re been
Where are today
Where we want to be
How are we going to get there
Define Broadband by functionality
Comprehensive Policy Recommendations

How should we handle any minority reports?

FEEDBACK

There’s a role for distinguishing residential and business when we look at defining BB by function. Maybe a recommendation for future studies. Maybe in the Where we want to be section.

It sounds like availability is not the issue and if so much of this can be handled by the market. The economic situation has changes. There probably won’t be money for this. Maybe we need to find other programs to hop onto.

It seems as if BB access isn’t an issue.
There’s a mixed view – when we hear from people on the demand side we may hear another story. There are 2 sides to every story.

We are in a position where the state needs to take on more issues so BB falls down the priority list. But on a national level BB is a bigger issue now – maybe we can take advantage of that opportunity.

We need to be open to a more robust section on the difference between business and residential issues. One of the big issues for providers is business wanting business services for residential prices.

One issue might be lack of awareness for BB access. Having an educational component or public service announcement to inform the public of access is a role the board could take.

What is the access definition? Do people need access in their homes, in their communities, on their person? What’s the speed of access?

Some of these questions will be addressed in future meetings.

Everyone liked the framework.

Blandin brought a forestry report to the task force. It’s short and sweet and only talks about recommendations. To create a quick look like that, the task force plans to condense – probably twice to meet the different needs of potential readers.

HISTORY OF BB IN MN

The history team has created a Wiki (www.urbanusers.com/wiki) to track big events and reports in Minnesota related to the Internet. They will be condensing them to help form the Where We Have Been section of the big report.

Mostly folks seem to like how this is presented. They would like to include a timeline.

Tracts of history include:

State milestones
Tech catalysts
National drivers
In-state BB initiatives
Municipal Initiatives
Backbone networks

Might consider regulatory environment. (May want to add that Where are We Today chapter too)
Might consider provider initiatives although it might fit in the technology catalyst section.

Why not post the whole report online? Just plan to print the summary and recommendation?

MORE QUESTIONS

Can a committee think about getting a panel of municipal-type folks to talk in February?

Can we get a group of high tech folks to talk too? MN used to be a high tech hub – not it isn’t.

Can we hear from end users and business about their needs? Could roll that in with the high tech users?

Rey Ramson(?) working on bringing BB to low income areas. He might be a good person. (from Growing Economy?)

Locations for Greater MN:
Mankato
Fergus Falls
Grand Rapids

Blandin was listed as a possible help as was the League of MN Cities, and Association of Townships.

VIDEOCONFERENCING FOR NEXT MEETING

Video conferencing – would it be possible to use MNSCU links to meet? They stepped up to help for the January meeting. Metro State would be a location in St Paul – with links to other locations around the state. They mentioned a few places but suggested that others might be possible.

An added benefit would be streaming to folks at home. Also people in rural areas could participate more easily.

So the plan is to move ahead with the locations named, to hold off on adding extra locations and give it a go.

February
Value Statements from members
Summary of other State Reports
K12 schools and libraries
Municipal/County perspective

March
Healthcare
CWA Study
Gates Foundation Report (maybe)
Economic Development (maybe)

April
There will be a move to more discussion and work and fewer presentations

Legal opinion on working online – we can meet anywhere that’s accessible. Otherwise technology still isn’t allowed as recommended in the first meetings.

Blandin Conference – 4 members spoke and 2 were in the audience. They got a lot of input on what was important. The theme was that they were underserved and needed funding. We said that getting service was a goal of the task force. We need to be in synch with providers. Promoted public-private partnerships.

People were glad the task force was there.

The group is doing a good job but we’re going to need to think about the task ahead. The hard work is about to start and we may need to meet more often.

http://www.noradsanta.org/- a fun seasonal broadband site, powered by Qwest

Comcast sent their network management maps and plans to the FCC – as required. I guess that’s the good news. The bad news is that they are planning to “manage” downstream traffic as well as upstream traffic. So they are widening their focus. Now they’ll be managing not only the P2P folks but anyone who downloads a lot – such as movies or TV shows.

The good folks at IP Democracy (such a great name) have really looked into the issue.

I’m pretty surprised by this. So many more people download and now the management has the potential to reach so many more people – and not just the geeks. I think it’s a strategy that might backfire as word gets out. Well as people run into bandwidth issues. Apparently they have tested it and so far no issues – but have they tested in the dead of winter in Minnesota when the whole family has nothing to do and 4 computers to do it on.

The big news is that the FCC just ruled, as widely expected, that Comcast’s treatment of BitTorrent traffic violates the FCC’s broadband policies.

According to Commissioner Michael Copps, who joined with Chairman Kevin Martin and Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein to form a 3-2 majority, “This is a landmark decision for the FCC—a meaningful stride forward on the road to guaranteed openness of the Internet.”

The decision does not attempt to lay down rules for all situations but focuses on the specific Comcast practices at issue. The FCC emphasizes the need for a balance between preserving the openness of the Internet and permitting essential network management.

A written order is not yet available. The FCC’s press release and the statements of Chairman Martin and Commissioners Copps and Adelstein are available at www.fcc.gov. They are well worth reading.