broadband

Provo council approves FTTH system sale to Google

23 April 2013 by Steve Blum
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Provo’s newest resident.

In a series of unanimous votes, the Provo municipal council voted tonight to approve the sale of the city’s fiber-to-the-home network to Google. The benefits to Provo and its citizens – free (more or less) Internet service for at least seven years, connections for city and school facilities and millions of dollars invested in finishing the build out of the system – were praised by the council and members of the public.… More

Details of Google's Provo FTTH purchase emerging

22 April 2013 by Steve Blum
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Did you really expect it would be free as in beer?

Provo residents will be paying at least $5.35 a month via their City utility bills for their otherwise free Google Internet service for the next seven years, according to the Associated Press. Documents released by the City of Provo back up that report and provide further details on the purchase, although some questions still remain.

Under the terms of the deal that the Provo City Council considers Tuesday, Google buys the FTTH system for a token amount (like, a couple of bucks), and agrees to build out the system to more or less every residence.… More

CEA report good news for connected homes, even with a grain of salt

21 April 2013 by Steve Blum
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Structured wiring is not necessarily Ethernet.

Broadband cabling is fast becoming a standard feature in new homes built in the U.S., with 92% being pre-wired to one degree or another. Many include sophisticated video and/or data distribution networks. That’s the conclusion of a report just released by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA).

The CEA’s eleventh annual State of the Builder study found that “structured wiring” is installed in 70% of new homes. That doesn’t necessarily mean all of those homes are completely wired for Internet.… More

Fiber cuts not as disruptive on California's central coast

19 April 2013 by Steve Blum
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Lightning fast and always lands on its feet. The cat too.

Four years ago, someone chopped into an AT&T fiber optic cable south of San Jose in California. Big chunks of Santa Cruz, San Benito and Santa Clara Counties fell off the Internet for the better part of a day. Mobile and landline phone service was disrupted.

Earlier this week, a similar cut was made in more or less the same place. The same thing happened to a lot of people.… More

Taking on Provo failure proves Google is serious about FTTH

17 April 2013 by Steve Blum
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You risk your mojo, you risk everything baby.

The troubled municipal fiber to the home system in Provo, Utah will soon be Google’s problem, assuming the city council signs off next week. The terms of the deal haven’t been released yet, but Google’s selling proposition is that it will connect all the homes along the existing fiber route and provide them free 5 Mbps Internet service for at least seven years. The only cost would be a $30 connection fee.… More

More competition means lower FTTH prices according to Swedish study


Sweden breeds competitors.

Competition drives prices down on open access municipal fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) systems. That’s the conclusion of a study completed by a graduate researcher in Sweden. Ziyi Xiong, a masters candidate at the KTH Institute of Technology in Stockholm, examined data from 290 Swedish municipalities – with and without FTTH service – and found that the cost of a 10 Mbps subscription dropped by about a dollar a month for every service provider on a given fiber network.… More

Serving urban homes means adapting CASF to urban broadband business models

11 April 2013 by Steve Blum
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Sometimes the last mile is a matter of feet.

Urban areas haven’t benefited from California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) infrastructure subsidies. All of the 34 broadband projects approved in past years and the 29 currently under review are in rural areas of the state. Two reasons account for it, one conceptual and other structural.

To be eligible for CASF infrastructure subsidies, an area has to at least qualify as underserved, which means there’s no broadband service available that delivers at least 6 Mbps download and 1.5 Mbps upload speeds.… More

AT&T snarls but cable lobby embraces expansion of California broadband subsidies

10 April 2013 by Steve Blum
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But Austin is a peaceful planet!

The California cable lobby has stopped foaming at the mouth over the idea of expanding the list of companies and organizations that are eligible to apply for California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) subsidies. In comments filed with the California Public Utilities Commission, the California Cable and Telecommunications Association seems to have figured out that relaxing the rules gives them the chance to stick their nose in the honey jar too.… More

AT&T gets the Googlefinger

9 April 2013 by Steve Blum
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I guess it’s just coincidence your suit fits too, Mr. Bond.

“Mr Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action.”

AT&T is reacting to Google’s Austin announcement with the same paranoia that Auric Goldfinger eyed James Bond on their second, not-so-accidental meeting. The Texas capital is now positioned to get gigabit service from both companies.

It’s Google’s second venture into fiber to the home service, which could mean they just want to check results from what is still an experiment in Kansas City.… More

British Telecom rolling out user-financed FTTH service


Brits surf different too.

The cost of directly connecting a home to British Telecom’s fiber network will be in the thousands of dollars range. BT has released details on the formula it will use to calculate the charge for running fiber from a neighborhood node – fiber to the cabinet in BT’s terminology – to a home or business.

The minimum charge is £700, about $1,075 at today’s exchange rate. BT says that 55% of its customers can fiber up for somewhere between £700 and £1,500 (about $2,300).… More