[Ww-snww-regional-list] Hybrid Model Perspective

Al MacIntyre almackable at gmail.com
Thu Aug 20 10:18:39 EDT 2015


After some of the discussion last night, I've been endeavoring to learn 
from whatever is available about other rural broadband solutions and 
came across this article on*///Stop the Cap!//http://stopthecap.com/
/*It brings into perspective the attempt at using a fiber/wireless 
solution, and the actual financial pitfalls of the hybrid model within 
our regional service area (Hawley).  The rest of the site has some 
useful and intriguing articles, as well, and is well worth reviewing.

Also, I wanted to point out that as I recall (and I will "dig" into it), 
dedicated wireless is not permitted on cell towers, according to Wendell 
By-Law, and possibly restricted, in general, per this town document, but 
I will pull it up for confirmation.

Al MacIntire*/

/*
------------------------------------------------------------------------
/*"There is strong evidence voters across western Massachusetts are not 
looking for a government handout and have more than stepped up to pay 
their fair share to guarantee their digital future, but some challenges 
can be insurmountable without the kind of help the FCC already gives to 
private phone companies that spend the money on delivering dismally slow 
DSL service. Western Massachusetts has demonstrated it can get a bigger 
bang for the buck with fiber to the home service — a far better use of 
*/*Connect America Funds*/*than spending millions to bring 3Mbps DSL to 
the rural masses."*
/
http://stopthecap.com/category/providers/wiredwest/


  Broadband Excitement Continues in Western Mass.; Big Support for
  WiredWest
  <http://stopthecap.com/2015/06/03/broadband-excitement-continues-in-western-mass-big-support-for-wiredwest/>

Phillip Dampier June 3, 2015 Broadband Speed 
<http://stopthecap.com/category/issues/broadband-speed/>, Community 
Networks <http://stopthecap.com/category/issues/municipal-networks/>, 
Consumer News <http://stopthecap.com/category/issues/consumer-news/>, 
Editorial & Site News 
<http://stopthecap.com/category/issues/editorial-site-news/>, Public 
Policy & Gov't 
<http://stopthecap.com/category/issues/government-legislation/>, Rural 
Broadband <http://stopthecap.com/category/issues/rural-broadband/>, 
WiredWest <http://stopthecap.com/category/providers/wiredwest/>, 
Wireless Broadband 
<http://stopthecap.com/category/issues/wireless-broadband/> No Comments 
<http://stopthecap.com/2015/06/03/broadband-excitement-continues-in-western-mass-big-support-for-wiredwest/#respond> 

fiber wiredwest

WiredWest is a public co-op seeking to deliver fiber to the home 
broadband across western Massachusetts.

Despite the dreary drizzle, fog, and unseasonably cold weather that has 
plagued the northeast since last weekend, 191 residents of New Salem, 
Mass. crowded into a basement for the town’s annual meeting Monday 
night, largely with one issue in mind: better broadband.

A reporter from /The Recorder/ noted 
<http://www.recorder.com/home/17133801-95/new-salem-voters-turn-out-to-ok-borrowing-15m-for-broadband> 
Moderator Calvin Layton was surprised by the overwhelming vote for fiber 
broadband — 189 for and only one apparently against.

The town clerk for New Salem typically counts around 60 heads at such 
meetings, but this night was different because the community was voting 
to spend $1.5 million to bring broadband to a town completely ignored by 
Comcast and Verizon. That fact has hurt area property values and has 
challenged residents and business owners alike. The town is fed up with 
inaction by the state’s dominant phone and cable company, which has done 
nothing to expand access in western Massachusetts.

“Our goal is to make this broadband available to every house, not just 
the places that are easy to wire,” said MaryEllen Kennedy, the chair of 
the town’s Broadband Committee.

New Salem isn’t alone.

Monterey passed its own bond authorization with a vote of 130 to 19, 
becoming the 10th consecutive town to vote in favor of bringing 21st 
century broadband to the region. The community of Beckett followed a day 
later.

Phillip "There are no broadband magic ponies" Dampier

Phillip “There are no broadband magic ponies” Dampier

Residents in 16 of the 17 towns asked so far to authorize the borrowing 
necessary to cover their community’s share of the fiber to the home 
project have usually done so in overwhelming majorities 
<http://www.berkshireeagle.com/local/ci_28225436/wiredwest-advocates-energized-by-town-votes>. 
But it has not been all good news. The town of Montgomery in Hampden 
County voted down paying its share by just two votes. Supporters claim 
low voter turnout may have done the project in, at least for the time 
being. A call for a new vote is underway.

Perhaps the most contentious debate over WiredWest continues in the 
small community of Hawley, where one activist has organized opposition 
for the project 
<http://www.recorder.com/news/townbytown/hawley/16526714-95/letter-not-the-only-option> 
based on its cost to the community of 347. Hawley is in the difficult 
position of being a small community spread out across a lot of hills and 
hollows.  The cost for Hawley to participate in the fiber to the home 
project would be around $1 million, a figure many residents decided was 
out of their price range. Participation in WiredWest was shot down in a 
recent vote and the repercussions continue to this day in the opinion 
pages of /The Recorder/ as residents fire back and forth at each other 
<http://www.recorder.com/home/17048179-95/letter-divided-hawley>, 
sometimes with strident personal comments.

While easy to vote down participation in WiredWest, finding an 
alternative for Hawley has proved difficult.

Kirby “Lark” Thwing, a member of both the town finance and 
communications committees, is trying to find the cheaper broadband 
solution 
<http://www.recorder.com/home/16989622-95/hawley-is-cheaper-broadband-possible> 
advocated by Hussain Hamdan, who has led the charge against WiredWest’s 
fiber to the home service in Hawley.

Thwing has run headfirst into what /Stop the Cap!/ feared he would find 
<http://stopthecap.com/2015/05/07/western-mass-voters-stampede-for-fiber-optic-broadband-in-communities-big-telecom-ignored/> 
— the rosy budget-minded alternatives suggested as tantalizingly within 
reach simply are not and come at a higher price tag than one might think.

Installing a Wi-Fi tower to bring wireless Internet access to a resort 
park.

Installing a Wi-Fi tower to bring wireless Internet access to a resort park.

Thwing is looking at a hybrid fiber/wireless solution involving a fiber 
trunk line run down two well-populated roads that could support fiber 
service for about half the homes in Hawley and lead to at least two 
large wireless towers that would reach most of the rest of town. He’s 
also hoping Hawley would still qualify to receive its $520,000 share of 
broadband grant money from the Massachusetts Broadband Institute to help 
cover the alternative project’s costs.

If Hawley can use that money, Thwing predicts it will cover much of the 
construction cost of the fiber trunk line. After that, each homeowner 
would be expected to pay to bring fiber from the trunk line to their 
home, definitely not a do-it-yourself project that will cost at least 
several hundred dollars, not counting the cost of any inside wiring and 
a network interface device attached to each participating home. 
Residents should also expect to spend another $100 on indoor electronics 
including a receiver and optional router to connect broadband to their 
home computer and other devices.

But the expenses don’t stop there.

Thwing also has to consider the cost of the wireless towers and 
provisioning a wireless service to Hawley residents not immediately 
adjacent to the fiber trunk line. He will be asking residents if they 
are willing to pay an extra $25-50 a month ($300-600 a year) to pay down 
the debt service on the town’s two proposed wireless towers. It isn’t 
known if that fee would include the price of the Internet service or 
just the infrastructure itself.

As Thwing himself recognizes, if the total cost for the alternative 
approaches the $1 million the town already rejected spending on fiber to 
the home service for everyone, it leaves Hawley no better off.

As /Stop the Cap!/ reported last month 
<http://stopthecap.com/2015/05/07/western-mass-voters-stampede-for-fiber-optic-broadband-in-communities-big-telecom-ignored/>, 
we believe Hawley will soon discover the costs of the alternatives Mr. 
Hamdan has suggested are greater than he suspects and do not include the 
cost of service, billing and support. Fiber to the home remains the best 
solution for Hawley and the rest of a region broadband forgot. Other 
towns that want to believe a cheaper alternative is out there waiting to 
be discovered should realize if such a solution did exist, private 
companies would have already jumped in to offer the service. They haven’t.

At the same time, we cannot ignore there are small communities in 
western Massachusetts that will find it a real burden to pay the 
infrastructure costs of a fiber network when there are fewer residents 
across wide distances to share the costs.

That is why it is critical for the Federal Communications Commission to 
expand rural broadband funding opportunities to subsidize the cost of 
constructing rural broadband services in communities like Hawley.

At the very least, state officials should consider creative solutions 
that either spread the cost of network construction out over a longer 
term or further subsidizing difficult to reach areas.

There is strong evidence voters across western Massachusetts are not 
looking for a government handout and have more than stepped up to pay 
their fair share to guarantee their digital future, but some challenges 
can be insurmountable without the kind of help the FCC already gives to 
private phone companies that spend the money on delivering dismally slow 
DSL service. Western Massachusetts has demonstrated it can get a bigger 
bang for the buck with fiber to the home service — a far better use of 
Connect America Funds than spending millions to bring 3Mbps DSL to the 
rural masses.



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.deepsoft.com/pipermail/ww-snww-regional-list/attachments/20150820/9242004f/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: fiber-wiredwest-640x332.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 43680 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://mailman.deepsoft.com/pipermail/ww-snww-regional-list/attachments/20150820/9242004f/attachment-0002.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: profile.png
Type: image/png
Size: 53791 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://mailman.deepsoft.com/pipermail/ww-snww-regional-list/attachments/20150820/9242004f/attachment-0001.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: wifi-tower-575x1024.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 82805 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://mailman.deepsoft.com/pipermail/ww-snww-regional-list/attachments/20150820/9242004f/attachment-0003.jpg>


More information about the ww-snww-regional-list mailing list