[Ww-snww-regional-list] Hybrid Model Perspective in Gross Error

David Young coordinator at town.warwick.ma.us
Thu Aug 20 16:37:32 EDT 2015


The article at www.stopthecap is fully in error with respect to service
provided by Warwick Broadband, and far short of the truth with respect to
TVWS with which we have some success, using the Carlson product. In addition
it says nothing about hybrid solutions which would describe us as we are
fully fiber backhauled. Somebody send me a link please to a cogent
discussion of hybrid broadband.

Warwick Broadband advertises speeds of up to 1Mbps down and half that for
uploads, we exceed the advertised rate in most cases. The price for our best
effort, which can provide as much as 11 Mbps downloads is $50 not $100. In
addition we offer a tier priced at $30 per month which many residents select
to start with and many more have downgraded to because it works for them.
VOIP works and low res Netflix does too at this tier. Moreover there is no
usage cap on any of our service plans. None.

Blaze WIFI is not a reseller of WBS. I have never heard of them. We have
three resellers who sell our service out of town and out of state. That is
because the Selectboard doesn't want the Town Coordinator working on
nonresident's needs. The reseller's are WiValley.net; CountryRoadsNetwork;
Mt Grace Broadband.

What follows is the load of crap that I am responding to and I have no more
confidence in facts presented by "stopthecap" than the Onion.

David Young

"What About Wireless ISPs?

Second, there are traditional Wireless ISPs (WISPs) which do a reasonably
good job reaching very sparsely populated areas, as long as customers are
willing to sacrifice speed and pay higher costs.

BlazeWIFI advertises service <http://www.blazewifi.com/zip-results>  in the
rural community of Warwick, Mass (zip code: 01378). But it is anything but a
bargain. The least expensive plan is $99.99 a month and that offers the
dismally slow speed of 1.5Mbps for downloading and only 512kbps for
uploading. It also includes a data cap of 25GB a month. That is slowband and
a last resort. It's more expensive, it's slower, and it is usage-capped.

Some WISPs offer faster service, but few are equipped to handle the FCC's
definition of 25Mbps as the minimum speed to qualify as broadband. In short,
this technology may eventually be replaced by white space broadband where
speeds and capacity are higher, as long as suitable unused channel space
exists."

http://stopthecap.com/2015/05/07/western-mass-voters-stampede-for-fiber-opti
c-broadband-in-communities-big-telecom-ignored/

 

 

From: ww-snww-regional-list
[mailto:ww-snww-regional-list-bounces at deepsoft.com] On Behalf Of Al
MacIntyre
Sent: Thursday, August 20, 2015 10:19 AM
To: Robert Heller
Cc: ww-snww-regional-list at deepsoft.com
Subject: [Ww-snww-regional-list] Hybrid Model Perspective

 

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  <http://stopthecap.com/category/issues/editorial-site-news/> &
Site News, Public Policy
<http://stopthecap.com/category/issues/government-legislation/> & Gov't,
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-bo
rrowing-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-energiz
ed-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-o
nly-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-possib
le>  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-opt
ic-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-opt
ic-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.

 

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