A recent column from Mark Stencel of CQ Politics details the woes of major municipal Wi-Fi networks. The one in Philadelphia is currently going down in flames. I continue to advocate that northern Minnesota’s Iron Range must use its unique revenue and public governance structure to create a universal high speed internet network, whether that network is public, private or, most likely, some blend of the two. And it’s important to know that Wi-Fi is not the same as a high speed network. These huge wireless networks are actually quite slow, relatively speaking, and are harder to maintain and secure. And the wireless internet we know today is probably going to go the way of the 8-track before the end of the decade. The troubles in Philadelphia should not deter us for an historic opportunity to leap ahead of every other rural, industrial, economically-challenged region in the country when it comes to e-commuting, homegrown businesses, educational opportunities and much more.
Some have recently asked me if I’m in the tank for FiberNet or any of these other public high speed internet projects. No. I just want high speed internet across the region for the economic viability of the next generation. If Qwest doesn’t want a public entity like FiberNet then they should get off the can and propose a better idea to make this happen. If they won’t, forget them. This is an idea in the public interest but has the curse of being something that most good, hard working Iron Rangers don’t understand. But that’s the point. We’re not building this infrastructure for today’s generation; we’re building it for the next one. Southeast Asia is exploding with growth in part because of high speed internet that allows them to do business cheaply all over the world. All we need to do is ensure that this project doesn’t fall into the pattern of other major economic development projects that eventually become little more that job security for lawyers and lobbyists. (It’ll be here in five years; pay me now).
This is where leadership and community activism comes in. I may only get 100 unique readers a day sometimes, but I’m betting you 100 know what I’m talking about. Unless those 100 are just Qwest lobbyists getting Google alerts. In which case I’ll be in the back, drinking.
I know what you’re talking about, Aaron. In fact, I advocated the same position more than 15 years ago. Nobody in power listened then, either…..
Aaron,
Do you know how much installation of this fiber optic network would cost (in public dollars) for a town the size of Nashwauk or a bigger town like Hibbing? Also, how much monthly access would be for customers once it’s complete?
Short answer (according to Blandin Foundation’s Broadband Initiative) is “$1,500 to $4,000 per household”. Obviously, it is cheaper to run fiber to 150 apartments than it would be to hit 150 homes along Townline Road. For that reason alone, here in Hibbing, I would hope our FiberNET friends are looking at something FAR North of $1,500 per home.
In Nashwauk you have essentially the same problem.
Aaron,
Crack that beer – I am guilty of using Google Alerts. Have been so for years now. How else would I find buried treasure like this? 🙂
I could go on and on about this project, as I’m sure you know.
Perhaps my former boss said it best:
Does light rail down 1st Avenue sound like a good idea? Sure. Is it practical to meet the limited demand? No.
-Zach
Hi Zach, thanks for the response.
You know, I get Qwest’s concerns about this and I know it’s expensive. I guess I just don’t care about the price. I mean, I do, but I think if we’re able to piss away IRRRB money on massive loans to developer-driven projects that will never be paid back why don’t we spend the money on some permanent infrastructure that gives our area a competitive advantage. The cost per household may be high, so was the cost of rural roads and electrification in the 1930s. I think light rail is a little bit of stretch, metaphorically speaking, compared to fiber cables.
It’s a situation where we need to look at the global trends and technological needs of the next generation. Some of that might transcend current market demands. How can the private sector make the Range competitive in tomorrow’s information economy? If you sell me on Qwest’s or any others’ plan I’ll shout it from the mountaintop.
I certainly wouldn’t sell you any Qwest services 🙂
I just don’t want to be in a situation where my money is being spent as tax dollars to compete directly against me (Mediacom to clear the air) & subsequently regulate my competitive response.
For what limited dedicated fiber demand that is currently out there we have our own business, Mediacom Enterprise, already offering & selling fiber optic connections that we have had readily available for years now.
There is also no economic growth impediment due to lack of fiber. We have a tremendous amount of it already in the ground all over the Range. I can’t tell you how much or where because Qwest also knows the power of Google. We just don’t do a great job of promoting it and/or couping it with local economic development initiatives. As an example, if no business moves into the industrial spec building it will not be because they couldn’t get fiber. We already put it in the ground before the spec building was done.
I recognize and respect your concerns for our next generation here. I don’t, however, agree that we need to invest in a fiber to the home network as a future-proof solution. So much has changed in my 7 years in the telecommunications business. If I told you that “I knew” what technology was going to be commonplace 10 years from now I’d be lying.
Zach —
D’oh! You’re THAT Zach. Sorry. 🙂
Point taken. I know that there is fiber around, but I think the Range would be well served by finding out a way to leverage these good mining years and build the technology infrastructure of the future. I’d sure be interested in talking to you and others in your business about what that might be. Where is this crazy internet going to go?
Thanks again for your comments,
AB
I don’t know yet where our beloved Internet will be a few years down the road, but the main arteries of the Internet aren’t ready for the growth in traffic that 2.0 is bringing. And remember, no matter how fat your pipe is into your own home your email still has to fly around through AT&T or some major backbone provider – who will no doubt charge your ISP to carry *more* bandwidth as usage grows.
It’s a vicious cycle. Ultimately, all we can do as the last mile ISP is to beef up our fiber networks in anticipation of additional traffic growth.
I do know where my Internet connection will be this evening – on my boat 🙂
I have a Sprint PDA that gets decent speeds – enough to show me active radar and the ability to peruse the MN DNR Lake Finder site for lake maps. It is common usage like this that leads me to believe we’re experiencing a “mobility” period of Internet usage – see everyone’s Crackberry & iPhone. As my home connection gets faster and faster I’m using it less and less.
Personally, I think that if WiMax is 1/2 of what it’s hyped to be we’re in for a lengthy mobility cycle.
If the costs of $1500 to $4000 per household are accurate, this would be quite expensive. For Hibbing, the town had about 17,000 residents and 7,439 households in the 2000 census. Assuming those statistics are still accurate, it would cost anywhere from $11.1 million to $29.8 million just for Hibbing.
If I told you that “I knew” what technology was going to be commonplace 10 years from now I’d be lying.
Fiber optic ultra-highspeed internet is current technology that is commonplace throughout most of the industrialized world. It may be more profitable to price it as an expensive luxury – especially if it will replace your own established 20th century technology.
There is no reason to worry about the ability of the internet to handle the bandwidth, the rest of the world sure isn’t. Even Grand Rapids has fiber optic to the door, provided by Paul Bunyan, the Bemidji-based telephone coop.
As Zach states, the real issue here is competition. Qwest, Mediacom and the other providers of 20th century technology are doing everything possible to prevent competition for their existing networks. That may be good for them, but it is bad for people on the range and bad for business.
Waiting until the demand is there to provide basic infrastructure will guarantee that the Range falls further and further behind the rest of the world. That may be profitable for some people, but is it really in the public interest?
Allow me to retort:
1) Replacing our fiber with new fiber isn’t really going to help anyone, is it? Is new glass that gets put in the ground any advantage over existing glass? After all, it was stated at last week’s JPA meeting that this glass should “last 100 years” (hence my refusal to be a fortune teller). If I was on record for a statement like that I would cease to be an employee actually working in telecommunications. Consider this a call for meeting minutes of the JPA meeting. I’d like to get that name before it escapes me…
2) You should be concerned. PB isn’t setting any land speed records in Grand Rapids, so I’m not going to think another provider offering 5Mbps is going to bring the entire net to a screeching halt. I am, more practically concerned however, with the growth and upkeep in capacity from the major providers of backbone connections – the big guys that every ISP (even us) has to pay toll fees for. If you think providing 1 Gbps to all homes in the US is in their best interest, perhaps you are lobbying the wrong entities. Take your case to the gate keepers. They aren’t charging us less to provide more speed for us to provide to our customers.
3) Competition is exactly what’s wrong with this plan. It’s not competition when one competitor builds a new network with the tax monies of the competing network’s employees and then retains control & regulation of that competitor.
Perhaps a meeting with my Northern MN employees might help to enlighten you. I’d like to be there when someone tells them how this is a good plan for them.
4) We’re not piloting the Titanic here. I defy you to provide me an example of a business that wants to locate/relocate to Hibbing that can’t get fiber from at least 2-3 competitors already. Seeing as we’re not running a charity here it will cost *something* to provide a service to anyone – if it’s down by Southside Sinclair it may take a bit more to make it happen, but I guarantee you it can happen.
So, by your logic, adding a 3rd or 4th provider to the tune of $50M is somehow in the best interest of the public.
In fairness, we don’t do a great job of tooting our own Fiber horns and we (me at least) take a lot of pride (way too much really) in delivering services to my friends and neighbors. I have an intimate knowledge of the local market demand for bandwidth, services, prices and features. I don’t see anyone blowing down my door for 1Gbps connections. On the rare occasion that someone does blow down my door looking for Gb connections, I just refer them to our established business that already provides high bandwidth services to those who actually need and can justify using that amount. I, as a self professed & card-carrying Geek, could not fill up a 1Gb pipe for any sustained amount of time to justify such a bandwidth request.
those who actually need and can justify using that amount.
This reminds me of the mythological claim that Bill Gates once said “640K ought to be enough for anybody.”
I, as a self professed & card-carrying Geek, could not fill up a 1Gb pipe
The goal here is not to serve “geeks”. Its to provide basic internet service at the accepted world standard. Waiting until its “needed” to provide that infrastructure is a guarantee it won’t be there until long after it is really needed.
I’d like to be there when someone tells them how this is a good plan for them.
Its not. Its not good for Qwest or Medicom – that’s why they are pulling out the stops to block it. But its good for everyone else and its essential if the Range isn’t going to be left behind.
My mistake…”good for them as taxpayers and local employees”.
I’m beginning to understand why this region suffers from brain drain. Perhaps I did make a poor decision to return, seeing as I’m somehow trying to keep us all in the dark ages.
Let me explain something to you.
I have yet to work 1 year for a cable ISP that didn’t increase it’s speeds to match, what it correctly determined, was the current market trend. If you read the news you may have come across my company’s latest release that our slowest speed (768k, formerly 256k in 2006) was to be phased out all together. The slowest speed now offered will be 3Mbps. The new top tier for residential is 20Mbps.
It is growth in speed like this that allows me to feel confident that we, as private providers, will step our efforts to meet demand where it exists.
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“I have yet to work 1 year for a cable ISP that didn’t increase it’s speeds to match, what it correctly determined, was the current market trend.”
Lets be clear, what you are confirming by that statement is that the “market” is not going to provide this infrastructure. The existing telecommunication companies have an investment in 20th century technology that they want to defend.
“my company’s”
I thought you worked for Mediacom. Their home page says:
“With download speeds* of up to 8 Mbps and upload speeds of up to 512K Mediacom Online’s residential service …”
That is not remotely comparable to fiber optic to the door which is capable of 100Mbps. There isn’t a huge demand for that kind of speed right now and you rightly point out that providing that service will have upstream costs.
As we found out with telephone service, once you stop treating internet access as an expensive luxury by making service universal the cost of providing service drops dramatically. Costs are spread over a much larger user base.
The reality is that if we wait until the full demand is there to make it profitable for existing 29th century technology providers to upgrade to modern infrastructure it will be too late. The region will already be in, as you put it, the “dark ages” unable to compete using your 20th century technology.
Its much the same as if the state had failed in the 60’s to provide incentives for modern taconite technology and waited for the steel companies to decide it was profitable. Why should they invest to compete with themselves?
“Let’s be clear…”
I was actually referring to the local market here. It is, after all, something we do monitor closely. In a survey from 2006 it was reported that 65% of homes in my local market owned a computer. Of those that owned a computer, 82% had Internet connections. Of those homes Dial Up was used 25% of the time – by choice.
65% were also pleased with their current provider – whatever private provider they had. Did AOL impact that score? Sure. Does it mean something to us as providers? Absolutely.
You can feel free to quote my company’s home page any time. 8Mb just to happens to be our ‘flagship’. Much in the same as other fiber to the home operations are offering 3 or 5Mb as their “flagship” service. I’m willing to bet that was the longest amount of time you’ve spent actually researching what’s presently available in your backyard. Spend about 30 more seconds on our site and you will also find symmetrical 1GB speeds for TLS, or dedicated 1GB fiber connections for any business that needs it.
On another note, I’m rather enjoying your painting of my fiber network as somehow less advanced than a network that’s composed entirely of fiber. Just because my fiber terminates in your alleyway and not your basement doesn’t mean that it’s not composed of the same substance. Our fiber carries the exact amount of massive data load that all fiber carries.
Your fiber to the home dream will result in some edge device that downconverts the signals to your Television set – fed by copper, your phone – fed by copper, and your computer – fed by copper. Just because we downconvert it in your alley we’re somehow less advanced. Like I said, as a provided that has hundreds of miles of fiber already in the ground – and the experience in producing return on investment for actual construction of said fiber – I’m rather enjoying the portrayal of our networks as outdated.
It’s that underestimation that dooms these projects. You forget that you are supposing to compete with billion dollar companies. Yes, you are in fact competing against private companies (Cable, Satellite, and Telephone). Do you plan to make new customers where they didn’t exist? Do you not plan to port existing telephone numbers (which would mean you compete against local exchange carriers)? You intend to take my customers; my employees’ customers. If you are estimating take rates on the hope that we intend to hand over our networks, all the customers we take so much pride in servicing, and not fight to maintain our existing local JOBS you, my friend, are sorely mistaken.
Belated thanks for the link to my CQ column, Aaron, and glad to see it helped spark such an interesting discussion. Let me know from time to time how your effort is turning out. All the best. — Mark Stencel