Fiber-to-the-X: the economics of last-mile fiber

Lately the word “fiber” has started to become ubiquitous in advertisements for broadband. It’s a synonym for the future, for speed and quality. Everybody tries to connect that synonym to their brand, regardless of their actual network design. In the trade press, acronyms like FttX (which stands for Fiber-to-the-X, where X is your favorite letter or word) are used as if all last mile network architectures with optical fiber are more or less equal.

Next Generation Broadband as a Municipal Utility

It is in the national interest that higher-speed networks proliferate quickly and to the greatest extent possible – and that special measures be taken to ensure that these networks can be accessed by people who live beyond the major metropolitan areas. Accordingly, it is the position of the FTTH Council that anyone who has the means and the desire to build an FTTH network should be allowed and encouraged to do so.

USDA: “Broadband Internet’s Value to Rural America”

As broadband—or high-speed—Internet use has spread, Internet applications requiring high transmission speeds have become an integral part of the “Information Economy,” raising concerns about those who lack broadband access. This report analyzes (1) rural broadband use by consumers, the community-at-large, and businesses; (2) rural broadband availability; and (3) broadband’s social and economic effects on rural areas. It also summarizes results from an ERS-sponsored workshop on rural broadband use, and other ERS-commissioned studies.

State Developments 2007-08

Examples of opposition to North Carolina HB 1587:

Federal Developments 2007-2008

Mighty, Mighty Broadband” (in Wilson, NC)

By Fiona Morgan

Sanborn and Gentry Buchan live in a 1920s bungalow less than two miles from the center of Wilson, a city of 50,000 people a half hour east of Raleigh. The mother of a 2-year-old son, Gentry works from home as a sales rep for a cell phone company. Sanborn is home when he’s not traveling as a tobacco buyer, a rare job these days, but one that used to offer reliable work in Wilson, once a major world tobacco market.

NewNetworks on industry “Skunkworks”

Are any of these names familiar to you: TRAC, APT, Issue Dynamics, USIIA, New Millennium Research Council, BellSouth, Verizon, SBC, Pac Bell, United Church of Christ, USTA? – Washington is filled with astroturf groups that keep telling everyone they represent the public interest, but in reality represent the phone companies who pay them well. And Issue Dynamics, run by Sam Simon, has organized multiple groups for the Bell phone companies, all tax exempt, and all in an attempt to make regulators and the press believe that they have your best interests in mind.

Corporate-funded research designed to influence public policy

Reports by well-known think tanks and individuals funded by telecoms are helping quash competition, increase phone rates and set up a corporate-oriented Internet system. Is there any reason to trust these reports? Or to trust experts who testify before regulators without revealing the sources of their funding?

Japan’s Warp-Speed Ride to Internet Future

Americans invented the Internet, but the Japanese are running away with it. Broadband service here is eight to 30 times as fast as in the United States — and considerably cheaper. Japan has the world’s fastest Internet connections, delivering more data at a lower cost than anywhere else, recent studies show.

Bill Moyers talks with FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps

BILL MOYERS: Low-power radio is one piece of the media landscape — a small piece…an alternative, as you’ve just heard, to the handful of corporate giants that have gobbled up practically every media outlet in sight. Those media titans control most of what we hear, see and read and they still want more.