Top
Site Search
Archives

Entries in ILEC Advisor (54)

Wednesday
Jan042012
DateWednesday, January 4, 2012 at 10:00AM

A New High Wire Act Along New Hampshire Roads

Sometimes when we discuss the need for broadband in remote or rural areas, it's easy to forget just how much work it takes and how many hours are necessary to complete a fiber build-out. As a case in point, consider New Hampshire, where this winter residents will see more than just snow along the road. There, crews are working demanding hours for Network New Hampshire Now (NNHN), hanging fiber from already-existing telephone poles. Last week, Seacoast Online reported that the BTOP-funded, 750-mile fiber network was “moving into the next phase,” thanks to diligent work and considerable man-hours. But the project is taking time, thanks to a complicated build-out process that involves “stringing cables from pole to pole to pole—over 750 miles in cities, suburban streets and back woods—a lot of hours spent in 'bucket trucks' doing the physical work, but just as many [crew members] figuring out how the cables can fit on the poles, which are owned either by the electric company or telephone company.”

As a public-private consortium, NNHN oversees the $65m project, with $44.5m in grants from the federal stimulus package and $21m in matching funding from other sources. It's an ambitious and far-reaching broadband initiative that, according to NNHN, will “ensure that residents of ten counties in New Hampshire will be able to plug into a powerful future with internet connectivity.”

There are three main components of the network: the middle-mile fiber backbone, last-mile fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP), and a closed middle-mile public safety microwave network.

The middle-mile network will stretch all across the Granite State—from the Seacoast, across the more populated southwest, up to the northwest, and all the way to the remote North Country and mountainous Lakes Region. NNHN says it will “place network access points in or near existing central telephone office locations along the path, allowing all commercial broadband providers to potentially leverage the fiber optic network build across the state regardless of protocol, service or technology.” This portion of the broadband network is being overseen by University of New Hampshire Information Technology—a leader in the initiative.

A variety of partners are coming together to provide last-mile connectivity through what NNHN is deeming an “innovative model called FastRoads,” which will provide fiber-optic connectivity in 35 communities in the southwest part of the state. According to NNHN, these 35 communities translate into 1,300 homes and businesses.

Finally, a closed middle-mile microwave network called NHSafeNet will be made available for public safety, public television, transportation and mobile broadband communications on mountaintops across New Hampshire covering 3,800 square miles.

As with any statewide broadband initiative, the list of partnerships for NNHN is quite long. Last April, Chelmsford, Massachusetts-based Waveguide announced that it would “provide engineering and construction services,” along with New Hampshire Optical Systems, based in Nashua. Additionally, Green Mountain Communications is constructing NHSafeNet, along with other state organizations and departments.

But, despite good planning and an impressive assembly of partners, the issue of actual, physical work remains. And it takes time.

Waveguide president Rob Carmichael described the process of preparing for and hanging fiber to Seacoast Online last week: "We have a right to the space, but the space has to be made available. First we do a survey, walk the pole line with both utilities. We look at the pole, take measurements, engineers in the field decide on this one, power can move up, phone can move down, cable TV can be rearranged, whatever is needed, then you'll have space," he said. "There are no unique issues, other than the timelines. Building 750 miles in this time period is fast.” Completion date for the network is slated for June 30, 2013.

Of course, in addition to deadlines and man-hours in the cold, the network has also faced criticism from existing providers in the area. FairPoint Communications has already built a similar fiber backbone in the area, which it uses to provide its DSL service. In more populated areas like Nashua, in the southern part of the state, FairPoint's FAST provides fiber-to-the-home for residents. But in many “overlooked” regions of the mountainous state, there is no fiber connectivity.

With an impressive scale, NNHN's 750 miles of fiber is just one of many New England fiber builds, as Vermont, Massachusetts, and Maine are all stringing fiber to underserved areas of their states. In Maine alone, 1,100 miles of fiber will crisscross the state, connecting businesses and residents who cannot currently get high-speed service.

But just like in New Hampshire, these networks, too, will be completed in difficult terrain, in a variety of weather—one measurement, one survey, and one cable line rearrangement at a time. No faster.

AuthorCara Snider | Comments Off | | | Print ArticlePrint Article
tagged , , , , in , , ,
Tuesday
Jan032012
DateTuesday, January 3, 2012 at 3:15PM

Blooston Rural Carriers to FCC: Keep Tier One Wireless out of Mobility Fund

Petition for Reconsideration of USF/ICC Order Focused on Pitfalls of Reverse Auctions

Eighteen rural wireless stakeholders, collectively the Blooston Rural Carriers, submitted a Petition for Reconsideration of the USF/ICC Transformation Order on December 29, 2011. The law firm of Blooston, Mordkofsky, Dickens, Duffy & Prendergast, LLP wrote arguments against reverse auctions and several aspects of the Mobility Fund Phase I on behalf of these companies. The Blooston Rural Carriers argued that reverse auctions will create a “race to the bottom” and may provide opportunities for deceptively low and anti-competitive bidding. Additionally, the process favors large carriers and does not include sufficient provisions to ensure small rural providers will participate or be successful in winning Mobility Fund support. The Blooston Rural Carriers also argue that the FCC has essentially ignored several of their previous comments (and warnings) about reverse auctions in the Mobility Fund NPRM and CAF proceedings.

The FCC alleges that reverse auctions are the best possible methodology to distribute Mobility Fund Phase I support (and most likely CAF and Mobility Fund Phase II support too), but the Blooston Rural Carriers ask, are reverse auctions really the best way? The petition explains that reverse auctions are “susceptible to a number of shortcomings that ultimately undermine the Commission’s intention of expanding existing coverage to unserved areas in the most economic way possible.”

The Blooston Rural Carriers have made several attempts over the past year to convince the FCC that reverse auctions would be detrimental not only to small carriers, but the goals of USF overall. However, it appears as though many of Blooston’s pleas have gone unacknowledged by the FCC despite the fact that “courts have long held that an agency must respond to ‘relevant’ and ‘significant’ comments.” The Blooston Rural Carriers snipe, “The opportunity to comment is meaningless unless the agency responds to significant points raised by the public.”

The Blooston Rural Carriers did indeed raise one significant point in their petition that should produce an interesting response from the FCC: Tier One wireless carriers be limited or prohibited from receiving Mobility Fund support. The Blooston Rural Carriers explain, “USF funds are limited, and the Mobility Fund rules must recognize that no Tier One carrier requires financial assistance to complete its buildout.” The USF/ICC Transformation Order makes $300m available in Phase I via reverse auction, where any carrier can participate in the auction and no areas will be prioritized (The ILEC Advisor: Introducing the Mobility Fund: “A National Priority”). This means that Verizon and Sprint, who voluntarily surrendered USF support in exchange for merger approval, will actually be able to participate in (and possibly win) reverse auctions for support they have allegedly given up.

The Blooston Rural Carriers refer to Verizon, explaining, “Were it not for the Commission’s conditioning the Alltel merger upon a phase-down of USF receipts, it stands to reason that the merged entity would have remained the largest recipient of high-cost funding.” Verizon and AT&T saw profits in 2010 of well over $10b, which certainly begs the question of exactly why the big companies need money to deploy a few extra towers in unserved areas. According to the Blooston Rural Carriers, “Notwithstanding the fact that the recent annual profits of either AT&T or Verizon could fund the entire proposed $4.5b annual high-cost program budget with room to spare… the Commission is looking to give them substantial new CAF and Mobility Fund support… without any reference to their earnings,” which is tantamount to corporate welfare.

Even though the FCC contends that Phase I Mobility Fund support is not intended to go to particular classes of carriers, the Blooston Rural Carriers argue that, “The only way to effectively encourage high-quality expansion into unserved areas is to ensure that funding is directed to carriers that have a legitimate interest in building and maintaining high-quality services in those areas” and rural carriers have a “vested interest” in doing just so. The Blooston Rural Carriers explain that small rural carriers have only been able to achieve mild success in regular spectrum auctions because of special provisions like bidding credits—“without such measures, small carriers would have had no realistic chance.”

There are no bidding credits or special provisions for small companies in the Mobility Fund—at least not in Phase I. The Blooston Rural Carriers warn that “participation in the Mobility Fund will significantly favor large, nationwide carriers whose capital and operating costs are significantly lower than small and rural service providers.” Furthermore, large carries may have opportunities to game the system though unreasonably low and anticompetitive bids, and determining winners based on costs alone might produce undesirable results. The Blooston Rural Carriers insist, “It is important to take into account more factors than simply which entity can claim to do the job for the least amount of money.”

As an alternative, the Blooston Rural Carriers recommend that the FCC “choose a method of distributing funds that takes into account an equitable comparison and evaluation of the differing costs and service characteristics of different technologies, rights of creditors and repayments of outstanding loans, and the treatment of carrier of last resort obligations, costs, as well as past performance and experience providing service in the kinds of areas that generally remain unserved.” In addition to bidding credits for small carriers, the Blooston Rural Carriers’ list of recommendations for improving the Mobility Fund for small rural carriers includes:

  • Ensuring affordable roaming agreements for rural carriers who receive mobility support
  • Facilitating greenfield projects and “economic ‘jump starts’” for RLEC spectrum holders interested in deploying new wireless systems in their service areas,
  • Prohibiting competitively harmful exclusive equipment and handset arrangements
  • Require 3G systems deployed with Mobility Fund support be easily upgradable to 4G

Finally, the Blooston Rural Carriers are concerned about the future direction of the Mobility Fund, since many of the finer details are still unclear and will be left to the Bureaus to determine: “The Commission’s reliance on undetermined further procedures provides little comfort for rural carriers who are routinely at a disadvantage to larger carriers.” The Blooston Rural Carriers hope that the FCC will finally notice and respond to some of the arguments mentioned in this petition—arguments that the Blooston Rural Carriers and other rural stakeholders have been delivering for over a year with little acknowledgement by an FCC determined to make reverse auctions work. However, there is a real threat that the efforts to make reverse auctions work will undermine the goals of the USF and misallocate the precious little funding that is available in the tight $4.5b budget.

The Blooston Rural Carriers recommend that the FCC, “on reconsideration, take real, concrete, active steps to ensure equal opportunity and competitive participation among all carriers.” What do you think the FCC should do to ensure small rural wireless carriers can actively participate in Phase I Mobility Fund reverse auctions?

The full Petition for Reconsideration is available here.

AuthorCassandra Heyne | Comments Off | | | Print ArticlePrint Article
tagged , , , , , in , , ,
Thursday
Dec292011
DateThursday, December 29, 2011 at 7:00PM

2012 Regulatory Outlook: New Year, Same Basic Goals

FCC Agenda Likely to Stay Laser-Focused on Broadband, Spectrum

2011 was undoubtedly a landmark year for Julius Genachowski & Friends, but will 2012 include great leaps forward as USF/ICC reform, Connect to Compete and the White Spaces? The FCC certainly has its work cut out tying up loose ends on all three of these seminal issues. We can likely anticipate further powerful thrusts to improve wired and wireless broadband deployment and adoption in 2012, as well as initiatives to alleviate the spectrum crunch.

2012 might be the Year of the Reverse Auction. Reverse auctions could be spectacularly disastrous or sensationally effective, depending on a variety of factors including auction design and industry participation. Two other issues that RLECs should watch for in 2012 are solutions for the rural call termination problems and the PSTN transition—I would expect proceedings on both in 2012, and hopefully a swift resolution to the call termination problems.

A December 8 speech by Commissioner Robert McDowell to the Federal Communications Bar Association titled “2012: The Year of the U.N. Regulation of the Internet?” revealed some clues about what may come in 2012 at the FCC. I was most excited about this possibility: “Until it actually happens, I will keep talking about launching and concluding a proceeding to reform our Universal Service program’s contribution methodology by mid-year.” As the USF contribution rate reaches an all-time high of nearly 18%, the FCC should have adequate pressure to make a move on contributions reform. Additionally, USF contributions reform is basically the last box left to check under the National Broadband Plan goals for modernizing USF. The question is: who will have to contribute under the new methodology? Will all broadband service providers and consumers be on the chopping block? What about major content providers like Google and Netflix? I expect that the contributions reform proceeding will be every bit as action-packed and controversial as the 2011 USF/ICC reform proceedings.

We aren’t nearly finished grappling with the November 18 USF/ICC Reform Order either—not by a long shot. Comments in response to the FNPRM are due in several rounds throughout January, February and March. Following these comment cycles, we will possibly get some resolution on 2011 rural telecom cliff-hangers like rate-of-return re-prescription, CAF methodologies for RLECs, broadband public interest obligations, IP interconnection, and the Remote Areas Fund.

A Policy “Roulette Wheel”

The dreaded HCLS regression analysis will cause no end of headaches for RLECs in 2012 as these companies will need to play a rather sadistic guessing game with their costs in order to avoid placement at or above the ninetieth percentile. The precise regression analysis methodology will be finalized through the FNPRM—it is very concerning that the proposed methodology inserts such a great deal of unpredictability in HCLS because RLECs will not know in advance if they will fall above the ninetieth percentile—this level of unpredictability is far greater than the rather constant artificial increases in the NACPL used to cap current HCLS.

The FCC appears to protect itself from legal challenges by adopting a regression analysis methodology that will be used, predictably, but the methodology itself is where things get murky. In other words, it is predictable that the FCC will use the regression analysis, but it is unpredictable as to how individual companies are impacted by the model. The unfortunate carriers who fall in or above the ninetieth percentile of similarly situated carriers may face a double-whammy punishment: clipped support and ineligibility to receive redistributed support.

John Staurulakis Inc. economic and policy director Douglas Meredith provided the following statement about the regression analysis: “The FCC regression methodology proposed to limit capital and operational expenditures is fraught with policy and technical challenges. This method is an order of magnitude less predictable for individual carriers than the current HCLS mechanism—even with the current capping procedure. This method has been summarized as a ‘race to the middle.’ If adopted, we should consider whether a capital expenditure race to the middle will promote and advance universal service in high-cost and remotely populated areas of the nation.”

Meredith continues, “I submit that the proposed method fails to achieve the Congressional goals for universal service. In addition to serious policy concerns, the technical aspects of the proposed method are also suspect: study areas that are missing from the FCC’s analysis, descriptive independent variables missing from the model, relatively low goodness of fit measures and a high reliance on covariance relationships among carriers makes the application of this regression method look more like a roulette wheel in Las Vegas than well-established public policy.”

There’s a First Time for Everything

As mentioned above, I expect 2012 to be the Year of Reverse Auctions. The FCC is responsible for designing—for the first time ever—reverse auctions for second phases of the Mobility Fund and the wireline broadband Connect America Fund. Furthermore, if Congress releases under-utilized government spectrum in 2012, the FCC may also be tasked with designing auctions for this spectrum too. According to McDowell’s December 8 speech, “If that were to occur in 2012, suddenly the Commission could be working furiously on auction and service rules, band plans and such throughout the year.”

Voluntary incentive auction legislation has passed in the House, which Genachowski praised as a “major achievement.” Genachowski’s December 13 statement explains that the legislation “would authorize the Federal Communications Commission to conduct voluntary incentive auctions as recommended in the FCC’s National Broadband Plan. This would free up new spectrum for mobile broadband, driving investment, innovation, and job creation; generating many billions of dollars in revenue; and helping foster U.S. leadership in mobile broadband.” Genachowski insists that FCC incentive auction authority “needs to become law;” but warns that the House bill “could be counterproductive” by downplaying FCC policies to promote unlicensed spectrum and limiting the FCC’s ability to develop band plans and auction structures “in ways that maximize the value of licensed spectrum.”

How will the FCC avoid pitfalls associated with reverse auctions, which have been implemented internationally with less-than-stellar results? How will the FCC ensure that small rural carriers have a fair shot in future auctions? The Mobility Fund Phase II proceeding may provide an excellent opportunity for small carriers to state their demands and recommend a methodology that is fair for companies of all shapes and sizes. But... will the FCC listen, or pull a Consensus Framework 2.0, demanding industry input then essentially ignoring it?

Broadband for President in 2012

The FCC built up considerable momentum in 2011 with broadband adoption and deployment initiatives; but the U.S. has a whole lot of work to do before reclaiming #1 in the world for broadband adoption, deployment and speed—a spot in the top ten would be a nice goal for now. You can debate how important international broadband rankings are in the grand scheme of things, but with a presidential election on the horizon it probably wouldn’t be out of line to speculate that America’s sub-par international broadband ranking could become a hot-button issue in 2012.

A December 14 FCC blog post by Josh Gottheimer and Jordan Usdan includes a line that could easily be inserted into any run-of-the-mill campaign sound-byte: “Closing the digital divide isn’t just an economic issue, it’s one of the great civil rights challenges of our time. Broadband can be the great equalizer – giving every American with an Internet connection access to a world of new opportunities that might otherwise be beyond their reach.” The common assumption among politicos is that more broadband means more jobs, so increasing broadband will surely make it into multiple presidential-hopefuls’ campaigns. As a result, the FCC could be pressured to take further drastic steps to influence broadband adoption and deployment, even if 2011 initiatives (like Connect to Compete, for example) prove unsuccessful at actually adding percentage points to deployment and adoption rates.

The Legislative and Legal Fronts

2012 is also looking to be a significant year for telecom and Internet-related legislation and legal decisions. The Internet ecosystem is in an uproar over House and Senate legislation to combat online piracy and “rogue” foreign websites, to the extent that the uproar over net neutrality almost pales in comparison. Given the public outcry, it seems unlikely that SOPA or PIPA will pass as they stand, but we can probably expect similar legislation to go through in 2012—hopefully it won’t kill the Internet as we know it.

A House bill to actually reform the FCC is still a live wire on the Hill, so we might continue to see a power struggle between Congress and the independent agency charged with regulating telecom that we all love so much. According to a December 20 Politico article, Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) “called the FCC ‘way out of control,’” and stated, “’We need to reign them in and remind them that their job is not to manage the industry but to provide just a light hand of regulation to make sure there is fairness.’”

Additionally, courts in DC and Denver will hear appeals cases on net neutrality and USF/ICC reform, respectively. Although it is too early to tell how these cases will conclude, we can’t rule out the possibility that the decisions could throw a wrench into the regulations and reforms that the FCC spent the better part of the last 3 years bringing to fruition.

If the regulatory theme of 2010 was the National Broadband Plan (with net neutrality a close second) and USF/ICC reform dominated 2011; what will be the one thing that we will remember the 2012 FCC for accomplishing? You know my guess is designing and implementing reverse auctions for the Mobility Fund, CAF and re-released spectrum, but what do you think?

AuthorCassandra Heyne | Comments Off | | | Print ArticlePrint Article
tagged , , , , , , , , , in , , , ,
Thursday
Dec292011
DateThursday, December 29, 2011 at 5:36PM

2011's Broadband Bonanza Means New "Explorations" in 2012

While researching for a profile on Paul Bunyan Communications several months ago, I was struck by the cooperative's 60-plus years of underdog status—a fitting 2011 year-end metaphor for many of the companies I talk to across the country. There, in Minnesota, was a cooperative that organized in 1950 to connect underserved areas, and was helped along in its goal by federal legislation that sought to improve rural telephone service. Now, as 2011 draws to a close and we look ahead to what 2012 will bring, many companies I've interviewed this year are still trying to reach underserved areas—this time with broadband—and doing so is part of the larger, national plan to bring valuable high-speed internet connections to every home and business, in every community. With the year ending, these companies and co-ops are also hoping that broadband subs will help offset landline losses; this may be the last year for such a ying-yang balance, too, as broadband growth slows and it becomes less likely these adds will be able to offset the losses going forward.

A sweeping dedication to broadband will certainly continue into 2012, but boy has the game gotten more complex.Thanks to the recent detailed analysis offered by our own Cassandra Heyne, I won't use this space to parse out the specifics of federal funding for broadband or other regulatory hurdles facing rural providers. But I would like to reflect on what 2011 has meant for the rural service providers, cooperatives, start-ups, and advocacy groups I've spent the year researching and interviewing. Whether the goal was to tap into vertical markets, harness the potential of the cloud, or test out new services and platforms, without a question the name of the game this year was broadband—how to build-out fiber networks, how to increase speeds, how to offers services via broadband, how to pool resources and efforts through alliances and consortiums, how to share resources and infrastructure, how to get into the data storage market, and so on. Ultimately 2011 centered on a challenge and a source of opportunity; both are captured in the phrase I heard over and over again—“broadband build-out."

2011: Betting on Broadband

Just last week, new ceo of 3 Rivers Communications David Gibson summed up one of the most fitting characterizations for rural and independent companies. In an interview for the Great Falls Tribune, he said that, without a doubt, “Fiber is the way of the future... When you replace all that copper [with fiber] the service quality is better; you get much faster broadband speeds. You can offer IPTV. It's just good all around, it's where we need to be to position ourselves.” But Gibson went on to note the snags in building out rural broadband—threats to funding by “problems... in the mechanics” of the new Connect America fund and threats of stiff competition from satellite and wireless broadband, encroaching cable companies, municipal-owned broadband and others.

This year, I've talked to rural co-ops, independent providers, advocacy groups and consortiums in Kentucky, Ohio, Minnesota, Tennessee, Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina, West Virginia, Texas and the Dakotas, and for all of them, broadband was central to their goal of providing new services and connecting unserved or underserved rural communities. In some cases, broadband meant better connectivity for local high schools, community colleges or universities; in other cases, there were advances in telemedicine, improvements for tribal communities, or farming technologies. But in every case, the directors and spokespersons I interviewed insisted that broadband brought with it the possibilities for a changed community and more vibrant opportunities for rural residents and businesses. And they had examples of these improvements... many, many examples.

The question remains, however, do these broadband build-outs actually mean more stability for the ILECs and co-ops, many who find themselves in an increasingly competitive market? Will all of the federal dollars in broadband grants and build-outs in 2011 equal more advancements to rural areas in 2012? Will rural providers need to delve more deeply into new options like LTE and cloud services to remain relevant? Or will fiber as the “way of the future” actually mean subscriber retention and added revenue? These are all questions to investigate in the coming year, by talking to the experts on the front lines: the rural providers themselves.

2012: Building on Broadband, Exploring New Territory

Just recently we've seen announcements about IPTV and LTE—two services that are getting attention from rural ILECs and co-ops who consider them potential golden tickets. Most likely, 2012 will bring more in-depth look at what these services might mean for the independent communications provider industry—most specifically for the rural companies I talk to regularly. LTE's potential is up in the air (pun intended), but IPTV has already become a key talking point for ILECs who want to attract and retain customers in their communities. Earlier this year, we ran the numbers and found that, for the companies who disclosed that they provided video services, “their rate of decline in access lines... was sharply lower than those in the survey who did not provide data on video subscribers.”

Several of the companies I profiled to this year—Palmetto Rural Telephone Cooperative and Paul Bunyan Communications, to name two—named IPTV as central to their business strategy going forward. Earlier this month, Texas ILEC Valley Telephone Cooperative announced that it would offer a hybrid IPTV service that combines HDTV, DVR and cloud services through a single TV input and interface. And last month, Griswold Cooperative Telephone Company announced it would use its hefty $12.7m RUS loan, in part, to lay fiber that would support advanced services like IPTV.

As for LTE, it will be interesting to see what comes of the partnership between rural ILECs/ rural cellular providers and Verizon's Rural 4G LTE Program. Just last week, Pioneer Cellular (of Kingfisher, OK-based Pioneer Telephone) announced its first successful end-to-end data test with Verizon's 700 MHz spectrum, and so far Pioneer is just one of 13 rural providers partnering with Verizon for use of its LTE network. The goal, of course, is to provide LTE services in areas where Verizon does not plan to extend coverage, and, through the program, rural partners are allowed to build and operate their own LTE network, using some elements of Verizon's core network. Just as cooperatives and partnerships have helped bring fiber to rural areas, it's possible that partnerships between small, rural providers and the Big Guys could supplement existing services and retain customers. It's possible.

Ultimately the influence of LTE in rural areas remains to be seen, but it is a step toward spectrum use that so many rural providers have looked into but not developed. In my own discussions this year, I have heard numerous company spokespersons say that they were currently “exploring the possibilities” of spectrum for a variety of services, but had not made any definite commitments. Perhaps 2012 will bear the fruit of these, and many other, “explorations.”

AuthorCara Snider | Comments Off | | | Print ArticlePrint Article
tagged , , , in , , ,
Page 1 ... 7 8 9 10 11