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For the Record: New America, Craig Settles, Blair Levin
Sunday, 06 February 2011 16:02
Blair
FYI I went over a lot of the data with Craig. I urged him to be very specific in his suggestions and relate them to what is in the NPRM and the plan, not the press reports.
Craig
Here's the summary of the Columbia report. I did the first draft of this portion and it was checked by two Ph.D's. Bob Atkinson (not the D.C. fellow with the same name) insisted this be about the facts, not opinions, and is a close as we could come.
Executive Summary
One principal conclusion that can be drawn from this report is that by 2013‐4, broadband service providers expect to be able to serve about 95%2 of U.S. homes with at least a low speed of wired broadband service and they expect to offer to about 90% of homes advertised speeds of 50 mbps downstream.3 Service providers expect to provide many homes with access to these higher speeds by 2011‐2012.4 Wireless broadband service providers expect to offer wireless access at advertised speeds ranging up to 12 mbps downstream (but more likely 5 mbps or less due to capacity sharing) to about 94% of the population by 2013. In addition to several wireless broadband choices, the majority of American homes will have the choice of two wired broadband services. Upstream speeds for wired and wireless services will generally be significantly lower than downstream.
A second conclusion that can be drawn is that a significant number of U.S. homes, perhaps five to ten million (which represent 4.5 to 9 percent of households)5, will have significantly inferior choices in broadband: most of these homes will have wireless or wired service broadband available only at speeds substantially lower than the speeds available to the rest of the country. Some of these homes will have no choice except satellite broadband,...
--------------------
The whole report is attached and I can point you to the primary sources. The key piece of research I added to this - which I originally did December 2008 to influence the broadband stimulus - is how amazingly fast DOCSIS 3.0 is coming and how good it is. It really is 50 meg down, 5 up 95+% of the time and I'd bet the real number is closer to 98%. Even when it's slow you'll get well over 10 meg down 99% of the time. The next generation is twice as fast and has begun to ship.
Comcast this week will announce they are over 90% covered, and that's almost half the U.S. Cablevision is 100%. Charter just told methey are over 65% and I believe the same is true at Cox. When we actually get the figures, we'll find yearend 2010 over 65% of the U.S. going to 90% in the next 2-3 years. Add a few percent from rural fiber, etc, and we'll be 92-95% (100M homes) by 2015.
Similarly, LTE is a legit 5 meg down - with a capacity limit of 20-50 hours of TV a month. Verizon is set for 92% in 2013 and is right on track. Add a few points from others and the Columbia figure for 2013-2014 is 94%. For five years from now, the US. total will be 96-98% and Obama will hit his goal even if the FCC doesn't do anything at all in the next five years. It's amazing how many people don't realize that and how many policies will be promoted as a way to get that 98%. It turns out competition and technology are far more important than anything likely to come from D.C.
Certainly possible to slip two or three % and a year or two, but this should be pretty close. Sources are the companies on wall street and financial filings, the CTO type presentations, my research on the technologies and cost to see what makes sense, etc, and a lot of off the record help from contacts of Bob and myself.  Companies lie very freely to reporters and D.C, far less often to wall street or in technical presentations.
So my take is 5-10% need help with facilities and 90% need help with affordability but will have 50 meg wired, 5 meg wireless in 2013-2014.  I'd love to solve the affordability problem with more competition if you could find a way to make it so, but I'm dubious. Wireless capacity limits means it's only a partial substitute for DSL and cable. So I'm all in favor of your thoughts on enhancing competition, but believe that's unlikely to work in most situations. I feel that if affordability is important, the FCC needs to take direct action. 40% of the poor families in country will be able to get a (too sow) Comcast package for $9.95 because of the merger negotiations. I believe the FCC needs to use tools like that, and more direct ones, if the results are important. Blair disagrees in some respects.
We're all on the same side, great broadband for all. We disagree on what's necessary and practical.
Happy to share any info I have.
db
On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 4:35 PM, Craig Settles <craig@successful.com> wrote:
> Dave,
> Karl Bode and I were discussing my session Monday with Blair about the the
> Nat'l Broadband Plan, and he said you might be able to help me with some
> info I'm trying to nail down. Do you have 15 minutes to talk over the phone
> about the USF and how it might be reformed?
> The whole program is such a mess I don't want to get out into the weeds,

Blair Levin, who led the broadband plan and community broadband advocate Craig Settles got into a debate on GigaOm which they followed up live in D.C. Feb 8. Craig reached out to me with some questions and I was happy to provide some info. What I wrote to him is stuff I've said before but perhaps is put clearly here. When I say things in D.C., I like to post them here as well in the spirit of disclosure. I don't know all of what Craig will be saying. I suspect we agree on what's good but strongly disagree on how to get there. Here's my note to Craig, starting with the data in the CITI Columbia report to the broadband plan and adding some of my opinions. If I have anything wrong, please let me know, since it's for a D.C. event.  

Craig

 

Here's the summary of the Columbia report. Bob Atkinson (not the D.C. fellow with the same name) insisted this be about the facts, not opinions, and is a close as we could come. 

Executive SummaryOne principal conclusion that can be drawn from this report is that by 2013‐4, broadband service providers expect to be able to serve about 95%2 of U.S. homes with at least a low speed of wired broadband service and they expect to offer to about 90% of homes advertised speeds of 50 mbps downstream.3 Service providers expect to provide many homes with access to these higher speeds by 2011‐2012.4 Wireless broadband service providers expect to offer wireless access at advertised speeds ranging up to 12 mbps downstream (but more likely 5 mbps or less due to capacity sharing) to about 94% of the population by 2013. In addition to several wireless broadband choices, the majority of American homes will have the choice of two wired broadband services. Upstream speeds for wired and wireless services will
be significantly lower than downstream.A second conclusion that can be drawn is that a significant number of U.S. homes, perhaps five to ten million (which represent 4.5 to 9 percent of households)5, will have significantly inferior choices in broadband: most of these homes will have wireless or wired service broadband available only at speeds substantially lower than the speeds available to the rest of the country. Some of these homes will have no choice except satellite broadband,...--------------------

The whole report is attached and I can point you to the primary sources. The key piece of research I added to this - which I originally did December 2008 to influence the broadband stimulus - is how amazingly fast DOCSIS 3.0 is coming and how good it is. It really is 50 meg down, 5 up 95+% of the time and I'd bet the real number is closer to 98%. Even when it's slow you'll get well over 10 meg down 99% of the time. The next generation is twice as fast and has begun to ship. 

   Comcast this week will announce they are over 90% covered, and that's almost half the U.S. Cablevision is 100%. Charter just told methey are over 65% and I believe the same is true at Cox. When we actually get the figures, we'll find yearend 2010 over 65% of the U.S. going to 90% in the next 2-3 years. Add a few percent from rural fiber, etc, and we'll be 92-95% (100M homes) by 2015. 

Similarly, LTE is a legit 5 meg down - with a capacity limit of 20-50 hours of TV a month. Verizon is set for 92% in 2013 and is right on track. Add a few points from others and the Columbia figure for 2013-2014 is 94%. For five years from now, the US. total will be 96-98% and Obama will hit his goal even if the FCC doesn't do anything at all in the next five years. It's amazing how many people don't realize that and how many policies will be promoted as a way to get that 98%. It turns out competition and technology are far more important than anything likely to come from D.C. 
Certainly possible to slip two or three % and a year or two, but this should be pretty close.

Sources are the companies on wall street and financial filings, the CTO type presentations, my research on the technologies and cost to see what makes sense, etc, and a lot of off the record help from contacts of Bob and myself.  Companies lie very freely to reporters and D.C, far less often to wall street or in technical presentations. 

So my take is 5-10% need help with facilities and 90% need help with affordability but will have 50 meg wired, 5 meg wireless in 2013-2014.  I'd love to solve the affordability problem with more competition if you could find a way to make it so, but I'm dubious. Wireless capacity limits means it's only a partial substitute for DSL and cable. So I'm all in favor of your thoughts on enhancing competition, but believe that's unlikely to work in most situations. I feel that if affordability is important, the FCC needs to take direct action. 40% of the poor families in country will be able to get a (too sow) Comcast package for $9.95 because of the merger negotiations. I believe the FCC needs to use tools like that, and more direct ones, if the results are important. Blair disagrees in some respects. 
We're all on the same side, great broadband for all. We disagree on what's necessary and practical. 
Happy to share any info I have.