Category Archives: Cable

CenturyLink seeks cable franchising in Eagan

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Comcast is the current cable franchise holder in Eagan – CenturyLink is looking to have a franchise as well. This presentation to the Eagan City Council is from an attorney on the topic. The presentation is really a look at why the Council should consider a second franchise and under what context.

You can watch the video. Or see the PPT presentation. The attorney really sets out what needs to happen to smooth the path to providing a franchise agreement to CenturyLink – looking at potential local and federal policy issues.

It sounds like July 21 would be the time that CenturyLink would actually present their application. It will be interesting to watch the process – in part because some of the agreements made with Comcast are not recent and the policies surrounding the issues are not necessarily recent. Although it sounds like Eagan does have fairly updated information on what residents want from a cable franchiser holder.

Cable Franchising: Learn more about it through Dakota County’s process

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Cable franchising is always a prickly topic. Providers would often like to do away with or at least streamline the process of cable franchising. Local government is not always interested in losing control or revenue that stems from franchising.

Northern Dakota County is looking at cable franchising now. They recently sent an email out to residents about CenturyLink’s application for franchising. I think there’s a lot to be learned in the email – about the process in Northern Dakota and beyond…

Residents Feedback Wanted

Northern Dakota County Cable Communications Commission (“NDC4”) has received a Cable Television Franchise Application from CenturyLink, the local incumbent telephone exchange carrier operating in the Commission’s seven-city franchise area. Residents and businesses of Inver Grove Heights, Lilydale, Mendota, Mendota Heights, South St. Paul, Sunfish Lake, and West St. Paul are encouraged to submit comments or questions relating to CenturyLink’s franchise application via one of the following options:

  • Via telephone or in person during the LIVE televised and web streamed meeting on June 3rd at 7 p.m. The meeting will be televised LIVE on local Government Channel 18 (Comcast) and web streamed LIVE here.
  • Via e-mail at  www.townsquare.tv/contact-us.cfm by 3 p.m. on June 3, 2015.
  • Via US Postal Mail to NDC4 Cable Commission, 5845 Blaine Avenue, Inver Grove Heights, MN 55076, received in our office by 3 p.m. on June 3, 2015.

Submitters should indicate their name and home or business address located in one of the above-listed seven cities.

Background

NDC4 published a “Notice of Intent to Consider Application(s) for Franchise(s)” on March 8, and March 15, 2015, with the application deadline of March 31, 2015. One application was received from CenturyLink. NDC4 published a Notice of Public Hearing on April 5, 2015, announcing the opening of the public hearing to occur during the full Commission Meeting on April 15, 2015. During that meeting the Commission voted to continue the Public Hearing through the next full Commission meeting on June 3, 2015 at 7 p.m.

Documents and Video

The following documents are available at  www.townsquare.tv/customer-services-dakota-county-public-access.cfm.

You can also watch the April 15, 2015, NDC4 Commission Meeting online.

Other Information

CenturyLink has applied for franchises or requested the initiation of the process in many Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area communities. The City of Minneapolis granted CenturyLink a video franchise on May 15, 2015, and you can watch the video of that meeting here. You can read more about Minneapolis’s franchise process is available here and here.

NDC4 is a joint powers cooperative formed by its seven member cities to administer and enforce the cable television franchise ordinance for each of the seven cities. NDC4 is the local franchise authority representing cable subscribers’ consumer interests, and also overseeing seven local community access channels on the Comcast cable system. For more information, call 651-450-9891, Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., or visit www.townsquare.tv.

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.

Cable Providers Asked to Think About Local Content

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Last week I went to the MTA conference. (I’m hoping to get a PPT to share and will post my notes as soon as I get it.) It was interesting to hear about how telecommunications providers are exploring new sources of revenue. The telephone/telecom game has changed dramatically in the last 20 years. (Remember long distance bills and payphones?) Cable is experiencing some similar disruptions. They have picked up broadband as a product but the content/video game is changing daily. Here’s a view form a recent editorial from Olmsted County…

To remain viable, cable needs to adapt in other ways. When television was first taking hold, radio felt its fair share of growing pains. Now it is television’s turn to evolve. Much like radio, I think cable television still has a place in the marketplace, but finding that niche is essential to success. Licensing content to online companies like Netflix and Hulu works for content creators, but content distributors depending on providing viewers content delivered straight to the television are struggling.

I learned in college the best way for radio stations to remain relevant was to localize. Their content changed from being something people gathered around in the living room every night to enjoy, to in-car entertainment, and the industry survived.

I’d love to see cable television attempt to do the same. The local news broadcasts are honestly what I miss the most from our lack of a cable subscription. Harnessing the local strategy might be able to sustain cable’s content delivery, but they’ll need to be innovative in their process.

His suggestions remind me of Lake County and Cook County – both communities are building a place for local content online and/or on air with a mashup between YouTube, Livestreaming and community radio. The old motto for the Internet was always “think local, act global” – looks like that sentiment is as strong as ever.

Two-thirds of Americans can access 100 Mbps broadband

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According to a recent blog post from the NTIA (National Telecommunications & Information Administration)…

Considering wireline and wireless technologies together, the slowest broadband speeds are nearly ubiquitously available, and access to very fast broadband (over 100 Mbps) has now reached two-thirds of Americans. The data, as of December 31, 2013, shows that 99 percent of Americans have access to wired and/or wireless broadband at advertised speeds of 6 Mbps downstream and 1.5 Mbps up, though this number drops to 89 percent when considering wireline broadband alone.

The NTIA credit upgrades in cable infrastructure.

I myself moved to cable fairly recently. I finally cancelled my other/old broadband service last week. As any good provider (of any services) would do, the customer rep on the phone tried to talk me out of cancelling until I told her I really needed better upload capacity. She allowed that upload wasn’t their long suit.

As much as it’s heartening to hear that so many Americans have access to good speeds, it makes me nervous to see that juxtaposed so many having access to 100 Mbps that 89 (or 99) percent have access to “6 Mbps downstream and 1.5 Mbps up” or better because that is quite a digital divide. It’s exactly what the National Broadband Plan was going for (100 Mbps to 100 million homes; 4/1 Mbps service to everyone else) but again it’s quite a digital divide.

My fear is just as I forget about the days it used to take hours to upload some of the video I post on the blog regularly now that I have cable; I’m afraid the rest of the world will forget about the 4/1 people and communities once “we all” (or at least 100 million households) get 100 Mbps.

What Lake County Residents are Seeing

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Yesterday I wrote about an editorial in the Lake County News-Chronicle on the reaction of Jeff Roiland, Project Manager for Lake Connections to postcards being sent to residents in Lake County.

Today I have a copy of the postcard that is being sent to folks. It helps to frame his comments so I thought I’d share with others. I’ll include the images of the postcard; but I thought I’d type out the contents too.

Text from Lake County postcard:

Why should Lake County taxpayers take a $70 million rick on fiber optics?

Several Minnesota communities have rejected risky fiber optic projects or paid for their mistake.

FiberNet Monticello is running a $250,000 monthly loss and using city funds to cover it
TonkaConnect was unanimously rejected as too risky by Lake Minnetonka Communications Commissioners
Cook County residents are up in arms over using $4 million in special sale tax for a fiber optic network
North St Paul residents overwhelmingly voted down PolarNet 2 to 1
GoMoorhead’s red ink increased electric bills and led the city to privatize the system

Side Two:

Why have Lake County officials broken their promise and committed $3.5 million of your money for this project?

Lake County Officials said the construction of a $70 million fiber optic project “WILL NOT BE SUPPORTED BY LAKE COUNTY TAXPAYERS” (Lake County News-Chronicle, June 11, 2009)

How much more will the fiber project cost you and who pays if this project fails?

Why won’t Lake County officials let taxpayers vote of the $70 million fiber optic project? State law required a referendum (vote of the people) when a local government builds a telecommunications network that includes telephone service like the proposed fiber optic project in Lake County (Minnesota Statutes 237.19)

Too many questions. Not enough answers. Visit http://www.letlakecountyvote.com to sign the petition for a public vote!

Paid for by the Minnesota Cable Communications Association.

Clearly point of view plays a large role in the message you create. Someone who was a proponent of the project might mention communities such as Windom, Lac qui Parle, Sibley County – or they may have even spoken to different people in Cook County and Monticello.

It’s a good reminder for residents in the community – there are at least two sides to every story. And a good reminder for any community looking at broadband – there will be many sides to your broadband story too.

The digital divide widens

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The term digital divide was replaced by digital inclusion a while back – maybe a year ago , maybe two. Digital inclusion is more positive, it implies progress – but it doesn’t paint the picture. Over the weekend Susan Crawford helped to repaint that picture in an article in the New York Times…

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?

Jackson – when it rains it pours broadband

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Thanks to John Shepard for sending me a recent article from the Jackson Pilot. It drives me crazy – but Jackson Pilot does a really good job of posting teaser articles online persuading folks to go buy a paper for the whole scoop. (If I ran the paper, I might do it that way too.) The scoop in question today is community plans for fiber versus the city cable system. From a broadband blogger perspective this sounds like a nice problem to have – “too many” broadband options.

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 brings 100 Mbps to parts of MN

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According to MultiChannel News…

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.

Telecommunications Legislation from League of MN Cities

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The League of MN Cities does a great job of advocating for and educating Minnesota Cities. So when they post about how Broadband and Cable Franchising Developments May Impact Cities, I listen.

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.

Broadband options around Marshall

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For the second in her Broadband series, Deb Rau from the Marshall Independent focused on broadband options available in the area. Cable (first in the form of Prairiewave, now Knology) has been a big players in towns such as Tracy.

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 soon offering 250Mbps

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According to DSL Reports, Comcast may be offering 250Mbps service by the end of the year. (Thanks to Tim Finnerty for the heads up.) Here are their numbers…

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.

Cable – Ipv6 & turbo boosts

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What’s new in the world of cable? I’m a little closer to updated with help from Tim Finnerty who recently sent me some interesting articles.

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.

Minnesota Ultra High Speed Task Force December Meeting

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Big crowd at the Task Force meeting today. Loads of people joining via phone. I have not seen so many suits since I quit working at law libraries.

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… Continue reading →

Comcast Throttling Downstream Traffic?

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It’s a beautiful day in Minnesota – and I know our days are numbered – I read through all of my headlines and said I’d only pause if I saw something really good or really bad. Well, I paused…

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.