[Info-vax] US Broadband

[Scott Dorsey]

Stephen Hoffman  <seaohveh at hoffmanlabs.invalid> wrote:
>On 2015-03-03 16:21:06 +0000, Scott Dorsey said:
>
>> David Froble  <davef at tsoft-inc.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> I've tried asking about fractional T1, and nobody at Verizon knows what 
>>> I'm talking about.
>> 
>> ...
>> 
>> Call the Verizon business office and ask for the "Special Access 
>> Services" supervisor.  However, before doing that, contact your state 
>> PUC and get a copy of your state tariff.  This will show exactly what 
>> services the telco is required to provide in your area.
>
>Also by omission, what is not regulated.  Which was most of broadband 
>and broadband carriers, at least up until the details and the effects 
>of the most recent FCC "net neutrality" decision are known and sorted 
>out.

Right, they are not providing a telecom service, they are providing
"something else."  That something else is actually a telecom service 
combined with a network service together.

When you order a T-1 you get a point to point link from a telecom provider
which terminates wherever you want it.  If you want, you can get it terminated
at a network service provider and have that network service provider route
it to the internet.  The link is tariffed, but once the connection gets to
the MSP the service is not guaranteed.

>>> We're screwed, and we're probably going to stay screwed.  At least as 
>>> long as big money continues to run things.
>
>Broadband is universally available within the US.  Affordable broadband 
>is not.  If you can pay for it, you can get what you want and what you 
>need.

What is broadband service?  Is a T-1 broadband?  Is ISDN broadband?  Nobody
will even define broadband service in a consistent way.

High speed telecom service is universally available within the US, but
getting it terminated to someplace with a fast IP route to where you want to
go is not necessarily easy or cheap either.

>> Be that as it may, the telco world is not like the computer world.  The 
>> telcos are under tariff to provide certain services at certain rates.  
>> They may not like to provide them, but they have to provide them.  
>> Other services they aren't allowed to provide.
>
>That's true for the regulated telco services involving the common 
>carriers.   Broadband wasn't one of these.   The state PUC has little 
>or no regulatory authority over broadband providers nor over what are 
>referred to as except local exchange carriers, short of cases with 
>wires down in the right of way, broken poles causing hazards, or 
>related issues.  The FCC preempts most state and local authority over 
>broadband, including — as states were informed after another recent FCC 
>decision — around various state-level attempts to legislate against and 
>to preclude municipal broadband networks.
>

What is "Broadband"?  

>Per published statements and in the absence of details of the "net 
>neutrality" decision, the FCC decision "regains" the FCC authority to 
>regulate broadband, this after the recent court case that the FCC had 
>lost as the broadband carriers were not then-classified as common 
>carriers, and thus the carriers were not subject to certain forms of 
>FCC regulatory oversight.   In short, the US federal court decided that 
>the FCC would need to reclassify the broadband carriers as common 
>carriers, if the FCC wished to regulate certain details of the carriers 
>under the current statutes and regulations.

What is this "Broadband" you keep talking about?

>It is not yet clear if or how the FCC will decide to regulate 
>broadband, now that at least some of the broadband carriers have 
>(apparently) been reclassified as common carriers.
>
>What is quite clear is that discussions and the decisions around public 
>funding for build-outs and upgrades have not been made, and that only 
>minimal funding is (sometimes) available from the FCC and the 
>Department of Agriculture or other entities as part of various programs 
>or legislative acts, and it is clear that any substantive national 
>funding will invariably involve substantial debate in the federal 
>legislature.

Public funding?  For telecom?  I thought that went out in the 19th century?

>It is also clear that coordinating the build-out of the so-called last 
>mile is not presently on the table for discussions nor for funding in 
>the US.  This last-mile build-out being a natural monopoly to 
>competition, and with parallel build-outs of competitive and 
>oft-incompatible physical plants into the most populated (and therefore 
>likely most profitable) areas being both expensive and redundant.  What 
>are called competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs) were an attempt 
>to encourage competition among the telco carriers, though that was with 
>copper telco wiring and not optical.  (Installing copper looks 
>increasingly questionable, given such problems as corrosion and the 
>occasional theft, and distance limitations and electronic interference, 
>and the weight and size of copper in comparison to how much more 
>bandwidth optical can carry.)  It remains to be determined whether the 
>FCC decides to modify or to extend these CLEC regulations to apply to 
>optical and thus effectively share the last-mine optical infrastructure 
>that available in various areas.
>
>Beyond the ever-shifting regulatory landscape, there are the more 
>technical matters of the broadband carriers, such the slow migration of 
>existing equipment over to IPv6.

What is this "Broadband" again?
--scott

-- 
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."