Claudville, Virginia, pop. 916, is making Internet history.
The tiny rural community is the first place in the nation to make use
of TV white spaces – broadcast frequencies freed in the transfer to
digital television – for wireless high-speed Internet service.
"Due to its availability and range, TV white spaces have proved to be a
very cost-effective way to distribute high-speed Internet in this
heavily forested and hilly rural community," Peter Stanforth told Reuters.
Stanforth is CTO of Spectrum Bridge, one of the companies that
contributed computer hardware, software and expertise to the project.
Because the white space channels can pass through walls and trees and
cover long distances, they provide an ideal medium for rural broadband
Internet.
Jerry Whitlow, administrator of Trinity Christian School in Claudville,
told Reuters, "Our students and teachers did not have access to
computers or broadband connectivity until now."
Today's Internet is haunted by the same forces that have tried to restrict communications for more than 100 years. Wally Bowen describes the haunted history of the FCC.
The Federal Communications Commission is officially looking at complaints that Google Voice blocks calls to rural communities, the Washington Post reports. Google Voice assigns you a telephone number and then directs calls to that number to home phones, cell phones or voice mail. It doesn't replace a phone, but it does manage calls. (See the video for a quick explanation.)
Google, however, blocks calls to conference call services, chat-line numbers or local exchanges it claims have high access fees. Several rural telecom companies say Google is targeting rural America and 20 lawmakers sent a letter to the FCC asking for an inquiry into whether the company was red-lining rural places. AT&T is upset too, claiming Google is avoiding "common carrier" regulations that it and other telecoms must adhere to. Some rural carriers also want the FCC to investigate other services, such as MagicJack and Speakeasy, to see if they are avoiding requirements traditional phone companies must abide by.
Google's response is that the company does restrict calls to numbers controlled by companies that "charge exorbitant termination rates for calls" and "partner with adult sex chat lines and 'free' conference calling centers to drive high volumes of traffic."
There are 2,200 applications seeking a piece of the first $4 billion in stimulus money set aside to speed high-speed internet connections to rural communities and other neighborhoods with poor access. The applications contain $28 billion in requests, reports Joelle Tessler, and promise all kinds of development, jobs and new economic opportunities. Tessler reviews four of these applications to give a taste of the kind of projects being planned.
For instance, the local cable company has pulled out of the Coeur d'Alene tribal reservation (which is about half the size of Rhode Island) and Verizon offers DSL to just a small part of the rez. So the tribe is asking for $12.2 million to run fiber-optic lines that would connect 3,500 homes on one side of the reservation. The tribe has a wireless network, but it's not particularly fast and it's expensive ($100 a month). The tribe says a fiber network would give its members fast access to courses and medical care.
A group in western North Carolina is asking for $2.5 million to extend its wireless network. In Graham County, the library and community college have high speed access, but Tessler reports that budget cuts have restricted the hours those computers are available. The group (Mountain Area Information Network) is hooking its wireless networks into a new fiber network. Oh, and the group would use the stimulus money to Mount Mitchell State Park, the highest point east of the Mississippi River. (Observation deck on mountain's top above.)
Here's a serious reason you need a broadband connection in Minnesota: If you can't connect to the state website, you can't buy a fishing license. And if you don't have a license, you can't fish! The Minnesota Post's reporter Sharon Schmickle writes about the need for broadband access in remote areas of the state. She goes to Cook County (above), where residents will vote soon on a sales tax to fund, among other development projects, a fiber optic network. "The plan is to make high-speed Internet access, cable TV, and telephone service available to every home and business," Schmickle writes.
Cook County is applying for federal broadband money, arguing that slow, dialup connections are hurting local businesses. A realtor says he lost a sale to some doctors at the Mayo Clinic when the buyers learned they would have to rely on satellite connection to the Internet. "The business community in Cook County desperately needs broadband," the application said.
This is an interesting story because it collects on-the-ground information about what small communities are doing. Windom (pop. 4,490) is one of the first cities to provide fiber-to-the-home service. In Monticello, however, a similar project has been blocked by an incumbent provider, the local telephone service. The city and the telephone company are now in court.
Somebody in Washington, D.C. forgot about mountains.
Rick Boucher, a Democratic Congressman from hilly southwestern Virginia (above), says that some rural communities may not qualify for federal broadband grants because they are too close to larger cities — even though they are cut off from those population centers by mountains. The federal guidelines for the broadband stimulus grants say communities within 50 miles of a 20,000 person city don't qualify. But Boucher said that stipulation doesn't take into account mountains. "For communities with small populations that are isolated by mountains, the cost of building broadband can be great," Boucher said in a statement, according to InformationWeek.
Besides, Boucher said, under these regulations "almost the entire Eastern U.S." is disqualified. So far, $28 billion in requests for grants and loans have been submitted. The stimulus bill has set aside $7.2 billion for broadband access. The first winners could be announced in November.
You can now see who in your community has applied for broadband money from the stimulus fund. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration has put a summary of all 2200 applications on line. You can find a searchable list here. You can look at all the applications here. These are the applications for NTIA's share of the $7.2 billion in stimulus money meant to spread broadband into unserved areas, particularly in rural communities. In all, the applications ask for $28 billion.
Telecompetitor.com has gone through the applications and has made several observations. Like, "Rural telco last mile applications appear to be heavily weighted toward FTTH" (as in Fiber To The Home). "There are a significant number of companies intending to use broadband wireless for last mile access...."
Telecompetitor also notes that Hughs Net wants $500 million to expand its satellite coverage. (There are several satellite proposals.) Rural phone carriers made applications, but CivSource finds that "Noticeably absent among the applicants were major telecommunications carriers, like AT&T, Verizon and Sprint. Some of the largest telecoms to file applications were Hughes Networks, Level 3 and EchoStar."
The Communications Workers of America have issued a report on internet speed — Speed Matters. nocdn=1 The union finds that the speed of broadband connections in the U.S. hasn't changed much in the last few years, on average. And compared to other countries, America is slow, slow, slow. At the current rate of increases, it will take the country 15 years to catch up with current Internet speeds in South Korea. Rural areas, of course, are well behind the national average.
You can look at maps in the report to find the average speed in your county. Or you can go to the CWA site speedmatters.org to test the speed or your Internet connection. (Ours here at the Yonder is average.)
The report has stirred interest in the regional press. The Roanoke Times writes this morning about "an unhealthy broadband lag" that particularly affects the rural portions of Virginia. The Dubuque, Iowa, newspaper laments the state's average speed.
Meanwhile, TG Daily reports that the big telecom companies are arguing that the way to provide all Americans with broadband is to define broadband speeds waaaaay down. The telecos have told the Federal Communications Commission that most Americans don't want fast broadband. They can do with slow speeds.
The federal government has received nearly 2,200 applications from organizations seeking funding to provide broadband services and programs as part of the economic stimulus program.
The proposals seek $28 billion in funding, seven times the $4 billion available in this round of grant making, according to a press release.
"The overwhelming response we received underscores the extensive interest in expanding broadband across the country," said Jonathan Adelstein, administrator of the Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Services (RUS). "Rural communities clearly recognize that broadband can expand their economic opportunities and create jobs."
RUS will give away up to $2.4 billion this year for broadband infrastructure for rural communities. The Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Infrastructure Administration (NTIA) will award another $1.6 billion this year for broadband projects, which won't be limited to rural areas. The agencies will have a second round of grant making next year to distribute the rest of the $7.2 billion set aside in the federal stimulus package for investment in broadband infrastructure, access, and other programs.
NTIA and RUS will now start processing the proposals. NTIA has announced that it is seeking volunteers to help with peer evaluations of the proposals. The agencies also say they will post and online searchable database containing summaries of all the applications.