Fast Net News, DSL Prime, DOCSIS Report

Marquette-Adams Telephone Cooperative will get $20 million in grants and loans to run fiber to 4,600 unserved homes in Wisconsin, Rick Barrett of the Journal Sentinel reports. http://bit.ly/9SUvP4 New fiber will cover 498 route miles, most of which will be labor costs. The fiber will cost $10M at the typical $20K/mile, so the price is not out of line. Jobs and newly served homes are precisely what the stimulus is about, so this is on target. But is it right to spend $4K of public money for each home, or the $10K that RUS rules allow? The broadband plan suggests money should first be spent on those least expensive to reach, including over a million at less than $1K. That makes sense for me, and I believe there are some homes – maybe half of one percent – so expensive that 5 megabit satellite is the right answer. (The plan didn't say so explicitly, but assumes satellite for that 0.5% and the total cost of coverage at 4 megabits drops to $10B to $15B.) Reasonable people differ on whether the cutoff for subsidy should be $3K, $10K, or higher, but the question needs to be faced squarely.

A reader of Rick's article pointed out how broadband destroys jobs as well as creates them, as every print reporter or record executive knows. “The $20 million in grants & loans may have a negative affect on the Adult Video Stores. Will we now have to bail out the owners of Adult Stores?”

GTA TeleGuam has begun installing VDSL2 from Occam to speed up their network. When I interviewed Dan Moffat for the story about stimulus funded overbuilds, I urged him to fight back by delivering the best possible network. Glad to see some people on Guam will now have the choice of 50 megabits and higher.
For the record: Vermont Tel received a grant from NTIA. I didn't have anything to do with writing the proposal, but I previously worked on a statewide wireless project for them and they remain friends.

I spent a day or so going over what I thought would help with D.C., including following the rules and giving the Feds a proposal that fits their program rather than trying to persuade the Feds to stretch to fit what VTEL thinks is better. In total, my fee was four figures. Years back, I did a little work for VTel as they extended their DSL network to 98.5% of a rural territory. They and others – including British Telecom – proved 98-99% coverage was practical in rural areas. So I've long been skeptical of those who say they can't go beyond 88-93%. That field experience, confirmed by dozens of other U.S. rurals, informs my comments about Windstream and others.