out of the mouth of babes

I spotted this comment to an article in PC World by my new buddy, reporter Grant Gross (it was a reprint of the IDG article, Government Broadband Project to Compete with Existing Service.)

Little 14 year old melindaann13 commented in reply to this quote in the article,

"It doesn't sound reasonable that a competitor would get tax dollars to compete".

She wrote in response:

It doesn't sound reasonable for Windstream to be fighting new services when they aren't willing to improve the existing services themselves.

If they are really as good as they think they are then they should not be so worried about new competition.

Their services don't even begin to meet my needs, and I'm only a 14 year old 8th grader.

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I'm going to take today to be naive and open and believe that this really was a 14 year old kid, probably the daughter of a consumer attorney! Sounds as inquisitive and percocious as my 8 year old policy savvy kid!

Speechless

I am going to reserve judgment on yesterday's announcement of the latest mapping grants.

I am not even going to comment on the fact that some states' maps will be created by a "non profit" organization (with major industry board members) that lobbied states to become their designated mapping grant designee using "seed" capital partially funded by the very same industry incumbents that decided not to apply for grants themselves but are equally NOT interested in having the government subsidize their competitors with grant/loans, enabling these new entrants to provide service to the very same areas that these incumbents claim they are already serving, and by "serving" that is if you mean the incumbents can, if they wanted to, go in and actually build the capacity for all the residents in the area to actually receive broadband access if and when they wanted but are not, well not today anyway because it doesn't make economic sense to right now, as in a "I don't want to play ball, but I am going to take my ball and go home so you can't play either" sort of way...

I won't even say a word about the fact that unless the criteria by which these states determine who is served and unserved is changed radically (read: abandon some or all of the definitions), those same states will end up with horribly skewed inaccurate maps of broadband availability and will end up wasting a bunch of the tax payer's money and make the NTIA look bad in the process for funding it in the first place especially when it should have known better as all the signs pointed to the fact that it all was a BAD BAD IDEA!

Nope. I will keep my judgments to myself for once.

The gig is up?

Up until recently, there have been just a few of us watching the dole out of Broadband Stimulus funds in this little slice of the Blogsphere and Twitterverse that we've carved out for ourselves. (you know who you are)

I believe at some point, recently though, some other people started to notice us huddling over here in our corner one stratosphere to the left of cyberspace. They see us snacking on our nacho chips and beer with our feet cocked up on well-worn ottomans kicking back, talking smack about the government and sharing our thoughts and guesses on how we feel everything is going and better yet how feel it SHOULD be going. Yeah, we've got BIG talk for a bunch of cybergeeks.

Oh but the new watchers - they don't chime in. Make no mistake about that. I'm slowly beginning to think they Just watch. Shake their heads a little. There's some tsk tsking. Some finger wagging maybe. I can feel the hot breath of a little bit of judgment on my neck. Definitely that.

I am just praying to the heavens that the slow down in info from sources this week is on account of the holidays and that some haven't stopped sharing 'cause they've figured out that I'm taking the juice and tip toeing back to the computer to spread the word among my Twitter buddies. No one has love for a loud mouth dweeb.

I'm hoping I haven't become a victim of my own notoriety - even if it is based on a narcissistic delusional impression that I am more relevant than I really am.

And Yes. It is too early in the morning to be blabbing like this. I can admit that. Good night.

Scoop This!

On my tracker for this week:

1. Someone asked me if I thought there would be additional awards this month. My RUS contact told me earlier that she knew awards would be given out by the end of the month. I asked her to clarify if that is still the case or if she was referring to the ones given out last week. To be honest, I would be surprised if that was the case because it looks like it took much scrambling and such to pull off the multiple simultaneous announcements in multiple states, embargoed releases and carefully crafted and selected applicants and... whew! I'm exhausted just writing all that down. So I do not think this close to Christmas and New Year's the government has all that in it to repeat. What MAY happen is that the final waves of the remaining 2 billion and change is released purely Press Release style as was the case with the Mapping Grants. (edited to add that I am not questioning that they will be awarded just the method)

I put in my query to my old faithful RUS contact and will report what she says.

2. While I had her ear, I also asked if the remaining $2billion and change allocated for round 1 will be announced before the NOFA for round 2 because clearly people need to plan these things around whether or not their project is funded in Round 1. We'll see what she says...

3. Finally, I also asked her to verify the Twitter accounts. Someone (St. Louis Broadband) questioned if the USDA and NTIA Twitter accounts were authentic considering the fact that neither had the verified Twitter marking of authenticity. Twitter started handing those out at the requests of celebrities who were finding people were opening fake accounts with their names (e.g. well hard earned brands), accumulating massive amount of followers and pretending to be those celebrities. Apparently, FCC was astute enough to request one when it started or a bright intern at Twitter saw the account and confirmed its realness. In any event, the NTIAgov Twitter account hasn't been updated since last week, which could mean one of several things: a. it was started by someone at NTIA but whoever is in charge is not updating it regularly; b. there's no new news to update (this one I hardly believe as there's always something going on that FCC is at Tweeting feverishly about); or c. it was started by a someone without authority to create it who just isn't keeping it up and is creating cause for him/her to be outed sooner than later.

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In other Broadband award speculation news, CJ Settles published an article on his blog sharing some insights and pontificating on whether his early predictions have come into fruition.

In response to his thoughts over the fact that Telcos were awarded relatively small amounts, I'd say that was the case simply because of that "rush" he mentioned to get something out the door STATt! Just as the public/private partnerships made sense to fund out the gate, so did it make sense to fund projects requesting smaller amounts that most likely weren't challenged. The one big project that was awarded and announced by Biden has already been getting some mild push back from those that challenged its funding area.

Also, there was a lot of speculation that wireless guys would be the big winners. Many point out that the NOFA and literature coming from the government seemingly favored wireless projects. I think that will still be the case when it is time to award last mile projects.

All those early analysts were and are correct that it makes sense to fund the middle mile projects that will create the infrastructure to reach the internet backbone and will provide lower cost options for the last mile folks to interconnect to, so to speak. Wireless is still not seen as a viable middle mile solution, whether correctly or not and perhaps that is why fiber and maybe some satellite projects may win in that arena. Who knows?

And in reply to CJ Settles mention of the Chest Thumping by the winners, I think it's one thing to make big claims but the government reporting requirements demand that projects document and report every single NEW customer that the project signs up.

So to say, 'I SEE YOUR 700 NEW SUBSCRIBERS YOUR PROJECT CLAIM AND I RAISE YOU 7,000 NEW SUBSCRIBERS' you've got to be prepared to Walk the Walk after Talking all that talk eh? err. yeah.

Anyway, all this speculation is making me hungry. Time for breakfast!

Everyone's Got an An Opinion These Days

Take a gander at all the early blog posts and articles analyzing the latest awardees? I wonder when the mainstream press is going to get on this. Kudos to the following outlets:

• EDITED TO ADD A BIG OMISSION: Craig Settles, the preeminent consultant and analyst who has been out in front on these issues since early on... In his review, he confirmed what he predicted months ago: that public/private partnerships would be among the BIG winners
• EDITED TO ADD Stacey Higgobotham's analysis which questions whether the original 4.1 billion allocated for Round 1 has been dwindled down to just 2billion.
  

• App-Rising has a critical but optimistic analysis

• Telephony's Analysis is pretty informative and introspective
  

• Telecompetitor's got the Local perspective

• The Blog of Equipment Manufacturer OCCAM Networks has a pretty good analysis with predictions
  

• The Benton Foundation suggests we (watchdogs and government alike) measure the results from what is supposed to happen with the grants and loans carefully
  

• A reporter from ComputerWorld took the bait from the PR pitch folks of Windstream or TDS Telecom, companies that challenged North Georgia Network Cooperative's application claiming they served the areas North Georgia proposed to serve. Looks like incumbent challengers won't go quietly into that good night after all...

• The White House has a full Report of the projects announced Thursday and a summary of this Report on its Recovery website

NTIA listed on it website an outline of each of the 10 BTOP grant awards it has made so far. (and edited to add that this explains why my informant was of the position that BIP and BTOP divorced. Looks like there is no BIP page for awards thus far as only those awarded BTOP funding must have been contacted for information that is not due diligence related)

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and in other updates, NTIA is now FINALLY on Twitter, (*edited to ADD, if it is real as it has not been Verified by Twitter) A little late to the party, but better late than never, right? Let's welcome them and follow them as with only 43 followers, NTIA has a looooong way to go to catch up with the FCC's 240,631 followers (and counting).

NTIA joins Commerce Secretary Gary Locke who has been there since September 24, 2009, who followed the FCC which started its Twitter account on August 14, 2009, one month and a day after the USDA (also unverified) did on July 13, 2009 (a trailblazer in Government years ).

I still think the BTOP and BIP programs should have their own unique (Verified) Twitter account which they use to supply up to date information. Come on in guys! The water's fine.

Perhaps part of this move to go where the people driving the discussions are is driven by the White House which issued specific guidelines and directives recently requiring all administrative agencies within the next 60 days to create an OPEN government website where they share with the public information about proceedings that the public wants to know.

I guess you can say that Broadbandusa.gov is that type of website, but since the purpose of the executive memo on transparency which was the impetus behind the directives issued this month was a call to more OPENNESS and TRANSPARENCY, we can all agree to disagree that the Broadbandusa could do more to be both those things.

Not to belabor the point further, but I really dug the part of the directive that required agencies to proactively use modern technology to disseminate useful information, rather than waiting for specific requests under FOIA.

I saw that and immediately thought of (1) all those States that refused to make their priority picks public and (2) Strickling's mention during the last oversight hearing of the dozens of letters the agencies had gotten from various Congressmen/women inquiring about projects on behalf of their respective constituents.

I mean inquiring minds wanted to know this type of stuff and shouldn't have to go through the sometimes timely FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) process to get it.

I'm off for now, just got a disturbing analysis of the government's latest statement about the Stimulus funding

Stay tuned...

there is no vocal virtuoso with a large girth in sight

or in other non-PC terms, "It aint over until the Fat lady sings"

There appeared to be some confusion from applicants who were not named among the first awardees yesterday. Several thought that yesterday's announcement for awards which amounted to less than 3% of the applicants and only $128 million of the 4 billion up for grabs this round, was it as for the Round 1 process.

Although various statements from officials and the press following this proceeding indicated that was NOT the case and even I tried to make that clear in my tweets, I still saw scores of sullen faces (metaphorically speaking and through my computer screen) after the list of 18 were made public.

Good thing the NTIA made the point abundantly clear on its website today:

Awards will continue to be announced from the First Round application pool on a rolling basis into February 2010

As I stated in past tweets, if you hadn't been invited and gone through the due diligence process by now, you had no business even expecting to be listed among the first awards.

I guess after some companies filed their application, they stopped watching the process and sat down idly waiting for the results and didn't not bother to educate themselves on the next steps.

That became very apparent by the number of different characters tweeting about the stimulus via the channels: #btop #bbstim #bip #ntia #rus #ruralbroadband #broadband etc etc etc

so a Broadband lawyer, engineer and administrator walk into a bar...

ah, the beauty of Twitter is that people watching a particular proceeding are able to quickly share news and information with one another without the filter of traditional news media, high profile blogs and government PR offices.

Gotta love it folks.

I say all that to share the waaaay over 140 characters response that @BroadBandEngr gave me in response to our Tweet convo s/he, @ColoComLwyr and @MicahSchwalb and I were having about our feelings about the caliber and characteristics of the projects that were announced yesterday for funding. In particular, the discussion flowed over whether terrestrial fiber projects or wireless WiMax, microwave and other sexier technologies like hybrid systems would do a better job of solving the problem at hand - lack of broadband access for rural and remote communities.

In any event, I asked about hybrid systems combining wireless, wireline and satellite transmission modes as a middle mile solution and this is the response I got in the wee hours of the morning when no creature should be stirring other than the anxious insomniatic 97.5% of the applicants still waiting on word that their project has been funded.

From @BroadBandEngr:

Today, most networks are a hybrid of different transmission media, with the most common being copper, fiber and wireless. A DSL circuit feeds into a DSLAM shelf, which is often connected by fiber to some higher capacity network. It is common for a wireless ISP to use a leased T1 (copper) to feed the base station. Even highspeed cable often uses a combination: coax (copper) at the home, fiber from the neighborhood to the headend. These copper, fiber and terrestrial wireless systems typically have low latency (time to travel from one node to another is very short). Any satellite link will have a higher latency due to the time necessary to send the signal to space and wait for the return.

Introducing a satellite link into the picture means that you are willing to accept the higher latency. This is annoying to the user for any rapid response application. Satellite links have also historically been slower links (lower throughput speeds), although this is improving. Satellites will always be slower than terrestrial copper and/fiber.

Satellites do have specific applications, especially in difficult geographies. "Difficult" means that it is expensive, impractical or impossible to construct fiber and/or copper lines to a location. Examples might be islands, deep canyons, mountainous areas or extremely remote areas (northern Canada or Alaska for example).

To run a wireless ISP using a satellite feed, an operator can deploy a normal terrestrial wireless multipoint system (Wi-Fi, Wi-Max, even cellular), and use the satellite link to connect back to 'the world'. The terrestrial systems will work normally except for data transmitted over the satellite link. The satellite traffic will be subject to the delays and speed restrictions of the satellite link. It is completely possible to extend from a satellite downlink to a 2nd or 3rd wireless hub using terrestrial microwave (licensed or unlicensed wireless point-to-point). Technically, this will work. However, due to cost, latency, speed, and possible usage limitations by the satellite provider, the use of satellite for backhaul is almost never preferred over terrestrial copper or fiber (if one of these options is available).

There are stories of Wireless ISPs using satellite feeds to reach communities in the bottom of the Grand Canyon http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/21/technology/satellite-web-links-let-indian-tribes-take-a-technological-jump.html. One company actually promotes the use of satellite fed WISPs as a niche market http://www.ftionline.com/services/wireless.html. Satellite fed ISP is pretty common in remote villages in Alaska http://www.entrepreneur.com/tradejournals/article/108560688.html.

Here's my priority list for broadband access: If you have fiber, use it. If you are mobile, wireless is your only option, and coverage is king. If you are not mobile, and don't have fiber, you might have a choice between copper and wireless - choose the one that gives you the best bang for your buck. If you have no terrestrial option, go for a satellite link. If you find a place where satellite doesn't reach, thank your lucky stars you have found peace, and find a good book to read (that's an old fashioned thing with ink markings on paper, ask an old guy how to use it).

BBEng

Hmm. I have to let that one marinate a bit and prepare my response me think.