Monthly Archives: December 2014

New Year’s Resolution: Protect your Internet of Things

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The Minneapolis Star Tribune ran an interesting article this week on cyber security and the Internet of things. The quick take is that the Internet of Things will make life so much more convenient but will also open us up for greater security risk. I think that’s the balance we have any time we use the Internet – for email, for web browsing, to buy anything. It’ makes life easier but riskier. The difference with the Internet of Things is that the risk more directly impacts our home and our bodies…

Consumers will soon become accustomed to conveniences such as starting a dishwasher from work, even though it’s hardly a necessity, said Ken Hoyme, a scientist with Minneapolis-based technology researchers Adventium Labs.

Small smart devices are “the weakest links” in a network, he said, whether it’s in a hospital or a home. For instance, he said computer worms can get into hospital systems through CAT scan machines with built-in browsers for automatic updates.

Breaking into an organization’s network could be as simple as exploiting out-of-date software on a smart thermostat to gain access to other connected systems, or simply changing the temperature settings to overheat a server room.

Hoyme said medical devices attached to the Internet could also be hacked, but that the dangers associated with not implanting a smart defibrillator far outweigh the likelihood of being the victim of a cyberattack. The University of Minnesota’s Technological Leadership Institute recently held a public forum on securing wireless medical devices against hacking.

If you’re looking for a short list for New Year’s Resolutions – you might at least consider how wide you want to balance convenience with security and privacy

MN 2015 broadband goals loom. Twin Cities served at 100 % yet Aitkin and Lyon Counties at less than 5%

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The 2015 broadband goal for Minnesota is ubiquitous access to speeds of 10-20 Mbps (down) and 5-10 Mbps (up). As the Connect Minnesota map here indicates, almost 90 percent of the households in Minnesota have access to those speeds.

State Ranking

Almost 90 percent is not a bad grade, unfortunately it’s not a consistent grade as you cross the state. The map  indicates that as well – but for me sometimes a visual helps but the numbers really make a difference. So today I dug into the numbers.

In November, Connect Minnesota released their final survey results measuring broadband access in Minnesota. They measured access with and without including mobile access. I took the numbers they had and ranked them. (I used percentages with mobile included.)

The difference in percentage served is staggering. Twin Cities (Hennepin and Ramsey Counties) are served at 100 percent. (And just last week the Twin Cities got news about more competition in the ultra-high speed broadband market!)

As a former teacher, I’m always willing to throw out the top and bottom grades – just to budget for anomalies and save arguments. BUT even when we get rid of Hennepin County (at 100 percent) and Aitkin County (at .06 percent), there is still a big discrepancy.

The top 10 rankers have come in at more than 99 percent coverage each. The bottom 10 rankers come in with less than one third of households served. Lyon County has 4.14 percentage covered. Yikes!

From a practical basis – where do you want to buy your next house, move your business or have your kids go to school? Hennepin or Lyon County. (Lots of other factors but broadband matters!)

My hope is to look at each county in the next month or so – to highlight their stats and maybe add a few things I’ve heard about that is happening in each county as related to broadband. I thought that might be helpful to light fires under the people in those areas and the policymakers who represent them.

You can see how your county ranks below…

Percentage Households Served at ≥ 10 Mbps Download/6 Mbps Upload Speeds

Ranking County HH Served
1 Hennepin 100.00
2 Ramsey 100.00
3 Anoka 99.99
4 Red Lake 99.99
5 Steele 99.93
6 Dakota 99.90
7 Scott 99.81
8 Washington 99.65
9 Clearwater 99.64
10 Carver 99.50
11 Dodge 99.40
12 Lac qui Parle 99.36
13 Stevens 99.26
14 Waseca 98.80
15 McLeod 98.66
16 Polk 98.52
17 Le Sueur 98.47
18 Beltrami 98.46
19 Meeker 98.31
20 Rice 98.20
21 Olmsted 98.10
22 Freeborn 95.79
23 Goodhue 93.54
24 Wright 93.32
25 Benton 92.79
26 Sherburne 91.86
27 Stearns 91.68
28 Pennington 91.64
29 Isanti 91.54
30 Nicollet 91.36
31 Mower 90.87
32 Blue Earth 90.48
33 Winona 90.23
34 Sibley 89.93
35 Chisago 86.64
36 Grant 85.85
37 Brown 85.39
38 Clay 82.50
39 St. Louis 80.18
40 Lake 77.32
41 Hubbard 76.45
42 Wabasha 76.29
43 Koochiching 74.00
44 Big Stone 72.37
45 Fillmore 69.75
46 Houston 68.88
47 Jackson 68.78
48 Wilkin 67.05
49 Itasca 66.72
50 Rock 66.29
51 Traverse 65.51
52 Watonwan 64.58
53 Otter Tail 64.33
54 Carlton 62.81
55 Redwood 62.61
56 Norman 61.92
57 Marshall 61.4
58 Cottonwood 60.52
59 Wadena 60.48
60 Crow Wing 59.76
61 Becker 59.68
62 Martin 59.17
63 Nobles 59.15
64 Renville 58.39
65 Pipestone 57.57
66 Kandiyohi 57.47
67 Mille Lacs 55.99
68 Mahnomen 55.40
69 Lake of the Woods 47.08
70 Roseau 45.67
71 Murray 43.53
72 Kittson 43.08
73 Lincoln 40.90
74 Morrison 38.44
75 Faribault 38.06
76 Cass 37.70
77 Pope 31.40
78 Swift 30.68
79 Kanabec 28.54
80 Yellow Medicine 25.85
81 Todd 25.69
82 Chippewa 24.63
83 Pine 24.63
84 Cook 20.70
85 Douglas 16.21
86 Lyon 4.14
87 Aitkin 0.06

One quick statistics note: These numbers actually reflect 6-10 Mbps up (not 5-10) because Minnesota goals are a little out of sync with standard federal measurements.

Already making legislative guesses. Who will be interested in funding for rural broadband.

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I’ve been trying to track the traction for broadband in the 2015 Legislature. In that spirit I wanted to be sure to add the take from the Grand Forks Forum…

MN_Statewide_Broadband10M6MSome rural lawmakers make it a priority for the state to help fund expanding high-speed Internet, known as broadband, to the entire state, as does Gov. Mark Dayton. But other lawmakers say the state has no business getting involved in what should be a private business matter.

State Sen. Matt Schmit, D-Red Wing, spearheaded a successful effort earlier this year to put a down payment on the issue, but much more money is needed, advocates say. The question is whether the state should get involved.

Rep. Joe Schomaker, R-Luverne, said that he hears a lot about the issue in his southwestern Minnesota district. People there “want broadband,” he said.

On the other hand, the Republican lawmaker said that he thinks the state should be careful about putting money into broadband.

Sen. Kent Eken, D-Twin Valley, is a proponent of increasing state spending: “We need to do much better than we have in Minnesota. We really have a patchwork quilt in Minnesota when it comes to broadband services.”

However, he admitted, “it’s an expensive fix. … It will require some significant investment.”

Rep. Bud Nornes, R-Fergus Falls, agreed.

“It borderlines on being a necessity,” he said. “Those who are aren’t able to use it are a little behind.”

Others wonder if some are in too big of a hurry to lay fiber optic cable throughout Minnesota when another option, such as satellites, may be better.

Then there is Rep. Steve Drazkowski, R-Mazeppa, who said does not hear that the Internet is a problem in his area. “Absolutely not” is his answer to whether the state should fund broadband.

I get two sides to the issue because I think in many cases the focus on broadband is secondary to the focus on taxes and investment – and people have more visceral reactions to public funding. BUT I’m a little disappointed in someone who says there isn’t a problem. Representative Drazkowski doesn’t think there’s a problem because Mazeppa is pretty well served by NU-Telecom, which offers speeds up to 28 Mbps. There are lots of smaller towns in Minnesota that are well-served, often by local, independent providers such as NU Telecom. BUT there are still plenty of areas that aren’t!

US Internet to offer 10 Gig in part of Minneapolis

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Where it rains, it pours. Earlier today I reported on another Star Tribune story on CenturyLink expanding services (to include cable) in the Twin Cities. Now it looks like US Internet is expanding their fiber service to some parts of Minneapolis…

The Minnetonka firm that offers fiber-optic service to about 30,000 households in southwest Minneapolis announced Tuesday that it will use that network to offer 10-gigabit-per-pecond Internet speed, which is among the fastest Internet service available today. That’s 400 times faster than the average download speed in Minnesota, 25 megabits per second, according to Ookla, an Internet diagnostic firm.

“The fastest Internet in the world is going to be here in Minneapolis starting this afternoon,” said Joe Caldwell, co-CEO of US Internet. “We’re talking about a game-changing speed.”

The service will cost $400 per month, Caldwell said. The company already offers 1-gigabit-per-second service for $65 per month to the same 30,000 households west of Interstate 35W, and plans to expand its network east of 35W, mostly to neighborhoods south of Lake Street.

“This coming summer, if you’re east of 35W, you will be able to get fiber from us,” Caldwell said. “Not everybody, but big parts of the city.”

This is great news – for some parts of Minneapolis. I’m feeling a little left out in St Paul and realizing that this won’t help my friends in East Central Minnesota at all but I still think it’s good for Minnesota. It raises the bar. Suddenly we have to think in larger numbers. In 2010, the National Broadband Plan set out to promote 100 Mbps connections to 100 million homes and 4 Mpbs (1 Mbp up) to the rest of the US. So broadband in 100 million homes is 25 times faster than in other homes by design. Now the FCC just redefined broadband as 10 Mbps – which means the discrepancy is only 10 times BUT when suddenly some homes are getting 10 Gig – well as the article points out that 400 times faster than 25 Mbps.

This discrepancy came up at a Minnesota Broadband Task Force meeting in June too when Travis Carter asked Task Force members what they meant by “broadband”…

It started when Travis Carter from US Internet asked “so broadband – are we talking Gig?” Everyone sort of hemmed and hawed and finally said – actually we’re talking 10-20 Mbps up and 5-10 Mbps down. Gulp!

At the same meeting another essential issue came up too – the difference between backhaul charges for Twin Cities versus rural providers…

Then providers got down to brass tacks and budgets. Access (Gig) to the backbone in Minneapolis costs a provider 50 cents a month. In Red Wing it’s more like a dollar. In Thief River Falls, it’s $10,000-$20,000 a month. Clearly when wholesale costs vary so much, retail is a different game in remote areas.

So while US Internet’s expansion to some part of Minneapolis isn’t going to matter to most of us – I think it’s good that it’s happening because it makes people ask why? And maybe it will help people figure out a way to fix the discrepancy.

CenturyLink to provide cable in the Minneapolis? There are a few hoops first.

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According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, CenturyLink is looking at providing cable services…

Minneapolis residents could soon have another option for cable TV service, as CenturyLink looks to dislodge Comcast’s monopoly on the market.

CenturyLink plans to seek a new franchise agreement that would allow it to provide its Prism TV cable service alongside Comcast’s offerings. The digital cable service is distributed through a fiber-optic network and allows customers to watch live programming on smartphones and tablets, in addition to their televisions.

Such an agreement would require the approval of the Minneapolis City Council, which won’t take up the issue until the new year. CenturyLink’s move could dramatically reshuffle the local television market, as cable companies nationally are under intensifying competition from other providers and Internet streaming services, such as Netflix.

One hiccup is that CenturyLink is looking to start in just a few neighborhoods and Comcast (the cable incumbent) has issues with Minneapolis allowing that to happen…

CenturyLink does not plan to immediately offer service to all Minneapolis residents. Instead, it would offer Prism TV to a variety of neighborhoods where its network is already in place and later bring it to other parts of the city.

Comcast said in a statement it expects competitors to adhere to the same standards it does.

Minneapolis, however, seems open to the idea of competition. In fact they are opening the door to other applications (Are they hoping Google Fiber applies?)…

Council Member John Quincy, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee — which will have to sign off on CenturyLink’s plan — said state law requires franchise holders to build out their systems over the entire franchise area. Franchise holders then pay the city a fixed percentage of their revenue.

In response to interest in a new franchise, the city has issued a formal notice of intent to accept applications. Now, CenturyLink and any other companies that want a shot at the business have a window of time to file their plans, along with a $40,000 application fee.

Quincy said Comcast has been the sole cable operator for years in part because companies must be able to prove they could serve the entire city.

“The bar’s pretty high,” he said. “If you’re going to be serious about doing it, you’re going to have to demonstrate a lot of capacity and capital to do the build-out.”

It will be interesting to see what happens. The comments show a great interest in what happens too – most are very positive about the opportunity for competition.

Killer Apps in the Gigabit Age – Is bandwidth a bottleneck?

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The Pew Research Internet Project asked smart people the following question…

Will there be new, distinctive, and uniquely compelling technology applications that capitalize upon significant increases in bandwidth in the US between now and 2025?

Then they asked them to elaborate on their answers. A number of themes emerged – unsurprisingly – it was the last one that interested me most. (And not it’s not a typo, people just felt very different ways about access to big broadband.)

1.People’s basic interactions and their ability to ‘be together’ and collaborate will change in the age of vivid telepresence—enabling people to instantly ‘meet face-to-face’ in cyberspace with no travel necessary.

2.Augmented reality will extend people’s sense and understanding of their real-life surroundings and virtual reality will make some spaces, such as gaming worlds and other simulated environments, even more compelling places to hang out.

3.The connection between humans and technology will tighten as machines gather, assess, and display real-time personalized information in an ‘always-on’ environment. This integration will affect many activities—including thinking, the documentation of life events (‘life-logging’), and coordination of daily schedules.

4.Specific economic and social sectors will be especially impacted; health/medicine and education were mentioned often.

5.New digital divides may open as people gain opportunities on different timelines and with different tools.

6.Who knows? ‘I have no idea due to rapid change.’ ‘The best Internet apps are yet to emerge.’ ‘If I knew, I wouldn’t tell you, I would invest in it!’

7.Advances will be gradual for various reasons: Bandwidth is not the issue. The US will lag because a widespread gigabit network is not easily achieved.

You can check out the original article for the full answers to all of the themes. But to save a little time I’ll borrow from and paraphrase the report below on the bandwidth topic…

David Clark, a senior research scientist at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, wrote, “Video will continue to be the major driver of bandwidth demand. Video is not new or distinctive. There will be new apps, but I doubt that they will be enabled by increases in bandwidth. The exception may be mobile apps, which are highly constrained by cellular capacity.”

Mike Roberts, Internet pioneer and longtime leader with ICANN and the Internet Society, responded, “…Yes, there eventually will be killer apps dependent on gigabit-style bandwidth, but the path to them will be longer and more tortuous than advocates like to admit.”

Robert E. McGrath, an Internet pioneer and software engineer who participated in developing the World Wide Web and advanced interfaces, commented, “First, there will not be ‘significant increases in bandwidth’ in the United States. Increases yes, but not significant. … Investment is going down, which makes me say there will be no great results, since we aren’t doing the work to get them.”

Leah Lievrouw, a professor of information studies at the University of California-Los Angeles, responded, “… So we might well increase digital bandwidth, but use it to deliver and meter familiar, trusted (and ‘safe’) products and services, or variations on them: media content, college lectures, voice telephony, security services, public utilities, financial information and services, health care advice, and so on.”

Andre Brock …, “I am unwilling to believe that there will be ‘significant’ increases in bandwidth before 2025. My concern lies with the unwillingness of telecom providers to upgrade their backbones to accommodate gigabit bandwidth and their continued litigation strategies to prohibit municipal Internet service providers willing to install their own fiber. Without significant federal intervention on the lines of the ‘universal service’ provision of the 1996 Telecom Act, we will continue to see incremental increases in bandwidth (wired and wireless), overcharges for ‘4G’ access, and increased telecom lobbying against net neutrality in order to profit from ‘tiered service’ throttled access.”

David Bollier, a long-time scholar and activist focused on the commons, responded, “The question contains embedded assumptions that may or may not hold true: 1) that the Internet will necessarily remain open and nondiscriminatory (net neutrality); 2) that telecom providers will indeed build out Internet bandwidth in significant and roughly ubiquitous ways; and 3) that killer apps are the necessarily the biggest, most desirable outcome imaginable. …The most promising avenues involve social collaboration, especially in nonmarket, commons-based contexts—but most business models today presume some monetization imperative that can limit or poison collaborative possibilities, and bottom-up, self-organized financing and governance remain rudimentary and under-theorized.”

Doc Searls, director of Project VRM at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, agreed that resistance by entrenched interests may not stop the eventual development of the gigabit Internet. He wrote, “For apps to be truly killer we will need symmetrical high-speed (gigabit+) connectivity, so the speed of the network—in both directions—approaches or equals that of our machines and our home networks. I believe that will happen. The examples we already see in Chattanooga and Kansas City will go viral in other cities, despite political opposition by the incumbent carriers, which seem hell-bent on keeping old TV consumption and business models alive for as long as possible. Once symmetrical gigabit connectivity happens, offsite storage and computation in clouds, for everybody, will become a norm. So will personal control over how that is done. Once everybody can keep and manipulate their own data in their own clouds, the Internet of Things will be included as well.”

And some said innovation will occur regardless of bandwidth. Glenn Edens, a director of research in networking, security, and distributed systems within the Computer Science Laboratory at PARC, a Xerox Company, replied, “The new and distinctive applications will occur with or without increased bandwidth. Our current progress in increased bandwidth is pretty miserable; my home bandwidth has been stuck at 24 megabits (on a good day) for many years now. Mobile bandwidth is getting better but usage increases are still outpacing gains. Application developers find new and interesting things to do all the time—a lot new will occur even if bandwidth gains stall.”

IRRRB to invest $7.7 million in broadband on Iron Range

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Sorry – since posting I have heard that the Pioneer Press rescinded their article – apparently there was a misunderstanding during a board meeting. So I’m rescinding this post – but leaving it up to make it easier to follow for those, like me, who heard the first chapter but not the second.

Looks like good news for broadband on the Iron Range, according to the St Paul Pioneer Press…

Efforts to bring fiber-optic cable for broadband high-speed Internet to rural areas of the Iron Range will get a boost today from the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board.

The IRRRB is set to approve a $1.5 million grant to White Township, part of a $4.8 million project by Northeast Service Cooperative and Frontier Communications to expand fiber-optic services across remote parts of the region.

The project will result in about 97 miles of new cable directly serving 23 town halls and fire halls, and will extend high-speed service to 2,262 Frontier subscribers in 13 townships.

A total of 9,400 “underserved households” will have the opportunity to hook up to Internet service offering speeds exceeding the state’s goal as it seeks to bring broadband to residents in all regions.

The state Department of Employment and Economic Development is adding $2.4 million for the effort, with Frontier kicking in $750,000 and Northeast Service Cooperative $150,000.

 

Redefining broadband speeds – promoting a culture of consumers not producers

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Late last week the FCC redefined broadband…

The FCC will now require companies receiving Connect America funding for fixed broadband to serve consumers with speeds of at least 10 Mbps for downloads and 1 Mbps for uploads. That is an increase reflecting marketplace and technological changes that have occurred since the FCC set its previous requirement of 4 Mbps/1 Mbps speeds in 2011.

According to recent data, 99% of Americans living in urban areas have access to fixed broadband speeds of 10/1, which can accommodate more modern applications and uses. Moreover, the vast majority of urban households are able to subscribe to even faster service.

Doug Dawson wrote a smart piece on why 10 Mbps is insufficient…

The FCC came to this number based upon tables they included in the Tenth Broadband Progress Notice of Inquiry released last August. The FCC suggested the following as representative of the broadband usage today in different sizes of homes:

‘                                       Light Use        Moderate Use             Heavy Use
One User                      1 – 2 Mbps          1 – 2 Mbps                6 – 15 Mbps
Two Users                    1 – 2 Mbps          1 – 2 Mbps                6 – 15 Mbps
Three Users                 1 – 2 Mbps          1 – 15 Mbps              More than 15 Mbps
Four Users                   1 – 15 Mbps        6 – 15 Mbps              More than 15 Mbps

The first thing that is obvious is that the FCC didn’t set the new standard high enough to satisfy households with 3 or 4 people. I know in my household with 3 users that we often look something like the following in the evening:

1 User watching HD movie                    5.0 Mbps
1 User watching SD movie                     3.0 Mbps
Web browsing                                          0.5 Mbps
Cloud Storage                                           1.0 Mbps
Background (synching emails, etc.)     0.4 Mbps
Total                                                            9.9 Mbps

But we can use more than that. For instance we might be watching three HD videos at the same time while still doing the background stuff, and using over 16 Mbps, as the FCC suggests.

I certainly second his conclusion. I have three kids; 10 Mbps would be a slow day for us – especially in the winter in Minnesota. But I want to add that while 10 Mbps is insufficient, 1 Mbps is ridiculous as an upload speed. The discrepancy in up and down speeds indicates to me that we’re building a network for passive consumers – not producers of information, tools, culture or economy. I think an important elegance of broadband is the ability for anyone to produce information. That’s the game changer!

 

People are producing; YouTube reports that 100 hours of video are uploaded each minute. But it’s more than uploading videos. It’s being able to work from home, which means virtual private networks (at 1-3 Mbps), Cloud computing (1 Mbps) and video calls (1.5-8 Mbps depending of number of people on the call). Just going through a very short list of what you might need for a business, 1 Mbps seems to be a bare minimum *if* you are going to do one thing at a time. If you want to get into a job that focuses on technology (app development, software engineer, digital marketing, graphic illustrator…) you’re going to need a lot more.

I hear people paint a picture of leveling the playing field so that the next Google can come from anywhere. Unfortunately we’re creating a network where people can use the next Google anywhere – but creation will be difficult at 1 Mbps.

 

 

RS Fiber plans to serve 1600 customers by late 2015

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KEYC-TV out of Mankato recently ran a nice story on RS Fiber…

The RS Fiber Board in collaboration with Hiawatha Broadband Communications in Winona will provide affordable fiber-optic broadband service in ten communities and 17 townships in Renville, Nicollet and Sibley County.

The service aims to provide faster and more reliable access to television, internet, and phone. With a heavy emphasis on agriculture, tele-medicine, and education.

The groups financial planner, and local business man, Phil Keithahn says,  “That’s what this does. It levels the playing field for people who live and work in rural America with people who are in the twin cities. So it’s an economic development tool for south central Minnesota.”

The initiative is expected to serve 1,600 homes and businesses by late 2015 and has the potential to reach more than 6,200 customers by by 2016.

The accompanying video provides more information on the local value and interest in the network.

Free Blandin Webinar Jan 7: Getting Started on Community Broadband

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Two important trends are driving more communities to consider community engagement in broadband availability for the first time. First is the fact that broadband as a necessary element of everyday life is not a theoretical discussion anymore.  Almost everyone wants broadband so that they can participate fully in 21st Century life.  What might have been hyperbole ten years ago is now undeniably true.  Lack of broadband lowers property values and impacts quality of life.  No doubt about it.  Second, the availability of state and federal fund to address rural broadband issues seems to be growing.  Unprepared communities will soon see the funds flowing to their better prepared neighbors, thus motivating communities to get busy and play catch up.

Join Blandin Foundation consultant Bill Coleman and guests for this webinar that will address key topics, like: What is broadband and why is broadband important?  How do you analyze your existing broadband networks and services.  The webinar will provide an overview of wired and wireless broadband technologies and discuss alternative paths to better community broadband.  Tools and resources for community broadband initiatives, including those of the Blandin Foundation, will be highlighted.

Wednesday, January 7, 2015
02:00 – 03:00 PM

Register Here

How does US broadband rank? Depends what you measure.

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I read an interesting report today. It’s a rebuttal to reports (such as Akamai) that show that the US is not a leader in broadband. It’s an interesting look at different ways to measure broadband expansion – or as they put it health. (The report is Internet traffic as a basic measure of broadband health by Bret Swenson.) I think Swenson’s report focuses on judging whether we’re deep enough; Akamai may be judging how wide we are. Both reports have merit.

I’ll dive deeper into it but on a high level I think the report, especially compared with others, demonstrates that there are almost two inherent industries that involve broadband. There’s broadband where there’s a market case (deep) and there’s broadband where there isn’t (wide). Swenson’s report demonstrates that the US does well where there’s a market case and he seems to dismiss the areas where there isn’t a market case by saying…

Do the traffic figures obscure the fact that some pockets of America do not enjoy quality broadband? I don’t think so. Some people in some localities simply do not enjoy access to the fastest networks. This is true, however, for any geographically diverse nation or region. The per user and per capita traffic comparison does show that despite all of America’s challenges, broadband still excels.

The trouble with broadband (in terms of comparison and policy) is that deep and wide are completely different; both are important but supporting each seems to require different courses of action

Back to the report, Swenson sets out to measure Internet traffic per capita and per user. He gets his stats from Cisco, CIA Factbook and Live Stats…

To compare and contrast among nations and regions, I used Internet traffic estimates from the June 2014 edition of the widely cited Cisco Visual Networking Index, population data from the July 2014 update of the Central Intelligence Agency’s World Factbook, and Internet user data from Internet Live Stats,17 which compiles its estimates using data from the ITU and national and regional authorities.

 

Using that data, the US shines at number two. The report also looks at consumer Internet traffic (per capita and per user) the ranking results are the same. Here are the specifics…

The US world share of consumer Internet traffic, at 31.5 percent, is actually higher than its share of total traffic. Per capita consumer traffic is 49.8 gigabytes per month (see figure 3), and consumer traffic per Internet user is 56.7 gigabytes per month (see figure 4). This is 7.6 times the global per capita average and 3.2 times the global per user average. It is 2.3 times Japan’s per user consumer traffic and 2.7 times that of Western Europe (see table 1).

What I think this indicates is that the US has some great power users – both in industry and consumers. Swenson dismisses that idea, but to the detriment of his own merit I think…

Some might argue that a small portion of a nation’s users could generate enough traffic to skew global comparisons. It is true that some power users generate disproportionate shares of traffic. But every developed nation has power users, and other evidence shows why they alone do not account for the disparity.

I’d maintain that the US has a lion’s share of power users because we are innovative and entrepreneurial, which helps us produce companies like Google and YouTube sensations such as Rebecca Black. (Sort of the best and worst of America’s entrepreneurialism there.) I’ve heard many broadband providers say – show us the business who will pay for broadband and we’ll get it to them. The key is “who will pay.” US broadband expansion will go deep when there’s a market case to be made. We have policies in place that support broadband expansion as a business tool and it’s working! That’s a good thing.

The problem is going wide. Going wide is providing service in areas where no one can pay or at least they can’t pay enough to merit a business case. That’s where the Akamai results are useful. For example the US is not coming up when they look at “percentage of users with better than 4 Mbps connectivity.”

That means that there is a sub-sect of the US with hindered innovation (as far as technology goes) but that group also suffers with limited educational access, healthcare use and access to government services. Suddenly broadband isn’t just a business tool; it’s a utility. Suddenly from a policy perspective we need to look at more than a commercial business case scenario for providing service – but what is the cost to tax payers (in terms of making resources available offline to the disconnected), to quality of life and to civic engagement to not provide service. The policy implications to support a utility is very different than supporting a commercial business tool.

But as I said – both views are important. We do need to look at all sides – and we need find a way to support what we’re doing well (deep) as well as support areas where we need better expansion (wide). When we’re able to do that we can be leaders on all of the lists! More importantly we can all reap the benefits.

Get a Taste of Blandin Foundation’s 2015 webinar series: a Comprehensive Community Approach to Broadband

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The Blandin Foundation is planning the 2015 webinar series to support communities that are looking at better broadband. In 2014, topics ranged from digital inclusion programming to market assessment tools. This year the plan is to start broadband and dive deep into the topics that are top priorities for the Blandin Broadband Communities. We wanted to whet your appetite by reposting one of the favorites from last year – Bill Coleman’s Pre-conference  on a Comprehensive Community Approach to Broadband.

If you have a topic you’d like to see Blandin tackle via webinar in 2015, please post it as a comment below. We have already scheduled the first webinar (Getting Started on Community Broadband) for Wednesday, January 7 from 2-3pm. Details to follow soon.

Surveys show that even a small discount will entice segment of non-adopters to get broadband

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The Washington Post recently ran an article promoting reduced rates as a way to get more people to subscribe to broadband…

In a survey of 15,000 Americans who don’t have broadband, nearly two-thirds of respondents said they wouldn’t consider signing up for the service at any price. This reflects what we already know: That people who aren’t connected largely aren’t interested in being connected and don’t see how it would be relevant to their lives. But the remaining third of the sample leads the researchers to this promising conclusion:

The data indicates that up to 10 million households in the U.S. for which broadband is available might be willing to subscribe if a subscription discount is offered.

How much of a discount are we talking about? The researchers — a number of whom work for the Federal Communications Commission, which is tasked with promoting broadband nationally — estimate that to achieve a 10 percent increase in the share of Americans who are connected to broadband, the price of Internet would have to drop by 15 percent from what it would currently cost them.

I think this is great news. Two years ago, Connected Nation did a similar survey and found that non-adopters who could be swayed by price were saying $20 per month was their magic number. At the time, that was a 50 percent discount.  Fifty percent is a game changer; fifteen percent is pretty reasonable.

And I wonder if once they had access if they might be able to see the value of continuing even at a higher price. Several Blandin Broadband Communities have tried that tactic – offering reduced rates to get people started and providers have found many customers (one example was 80 percent; I’ve heard higher and lower) remain customers even when the prices went up.

2015 Association of Minnesota Counties’ Broadband Platform

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I am pleased to share the Association of Minnesota Counties’ (AMC) broadband platform (with permission).

2015 AMC Broadband Platform

  • AMC supports identifying and implementing actions to achieve by 2020 the goal of statewide deployment of advanced broadband networks and symmetrical high-speed capacity.
  • AMC supports initiatives to make it easier for counties, townships, cities, municipal utilities, schools, libraries, and other public sector entities to collaborate and deploy broadband infrastructure and services at the local and regional level.
  • AMC supports public/private collaboration to achieve state broadband goals, including partnerships and cooperation in providing broadband services and infrastructure.
  • AMC supports removing barriers to the exercise of local authority to provide such services, including repeal of Minn. Stat. § 237.19, that requires a supermajority voter approval for the provision of local phone service by a local unit of government, and clarifying county and state bonding authority.
  • AMC supports offering incentives to private sector service providers to respond to local or regional needs and to collaborate with cities and counties to deploy broadband infrastructure capable of delivering sufficient bandwidth and capacity to meet immediate and future local needs.
  • AMC supports completely and continuously updating comprehensive statewide maps of broadband services to identify underserved areas and connectivity issues.
  • AMC opposes the prohibition of public money to be spent on broadband infrastructure projects.
  • AMC supports permanent funding for the Office of Broadband Development within DEED, and continued funding for the Border to Border Broadband Development Fund.
  • AMC supports removing the prevailing wage requirement for the Border to Border Broadband Grant Program, and to allow non Minnesota based COOPs to apply for the grant as long as the project is in MN, if the program is continued.

There’s a lot of support for what is already happening, which is good. There are some specific suggestions for change. I’ve mentioned several times – broadband is poised to be a hot topic in the MN Legislature this year. It’s good to see people preparing!

Teach tech basics to older adults – qualify for a $10,000 scholarship!

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Dosomething.org has a great opportunity for youth and seniors – teach a senior about the Internet and you may win a $10,000 scholarship. I’m going to paste the info from the website here – but the quickest way to get started is to visit the Dosomething.org site.

Teach tech basics to older adults and improve their quality of life.

40% of seniors don’t use the Internet.

That can leave many feeling depressed or isolated from loved ones. So, teach an older adult the basics — and wonders! — of technology!

Grandparents Gone Wired | DoSomething.org | America’s largest organization for youth volunteering opportunities, with 2,700,000 members and counting

Teach tech to an older adult, send a pic of the two of you in action, and — bam! — you’ll enter to win a $10,000 scholarship.

AND, for each senior you teach, you earn another entry to win. So teach one senior and send a photo = one chance to win. Teach 12 seniors and send 12 photos = 12 chances to win. (And so on!)

Check out the Official Scholarship Rules for more details