North Carolina Officially Launches the First Commercial TV White Spaces Network

My Comments

There was an official launch of a commercial-service-ready Internet-service backbone based on “TV White space” in Wilmington, North Carolina, USA. The network was to use vacant frequencies in the VHF (most likely Band III) and UHF bands that were used by TV broadcasters before they went to digital technology and shut off their analogue signals. It is primarily a fixed-wireless setup but there is the ability to use transportable modems at the customer’s end of the link. One major benefit was the ability for improved “non-line-of-sight” performance which means that forests or built-up areas cannot easily interfere with the signal.

The idea behind the “white-space” network was to make Wilmington a “smart city”, a proving ground and commercial-rollout showcase for the technology. But there were some gaps concerning the rollout and delivery of this technology to customers. For example, could customers use an existing rooftop VHF or UHF TV aerial (antenna) that is still in good working order as the aerial for the “white-space” service’s link; or would they need to install a new aerial on the mast. 

As well, the main deployment was to cover Wilmington’s parks and gardens but I would rather that we see a full-scale “TV White Space” rollout that encompasses one or more country towns with associated hamlets or villages. Here, this can be used to assess coverage of sparse living areas like farmland or mountainous area and to assess how a network operator can go about covering particular areas where there is low coverage.

Similarly, I would like to find out whether the service is really costly to provide to the customers and what the real-world bandwidth and service reliability is like in a “White Space” Internet-delivery setup.

Indigenous plea for NBN in remote areas | The Australian

My Comments

I have previously stood for rural access to broadband Internet as an enabler for the rural communities when it comes to commercial or government services. But this latest article underscores my standpoint for rural broadband from the arts and culture perspective and enabling indigenous communities located in rural and remote areas.

This was highlighted by the National Congress Of Australia’s First Peoples who wanted to see increased effort in providing the National Broadband Network to the Indigenous Communities around remote Australia. This is in the form of access to arts and culture for these communities, including integration of urban and rural communities.

The same argument could be iterated in other countries that maintain scattered indigenous-people communities like New Zealand with their Maori people or North American with their Red-Indian communities. Here, they would have their unique cultures enhanced by the technology such as through “large-area” ceremonies or similar activities. Similarly, this argument could be raised for the Gypsy and Traveller communities in Europe when it comes to their access to broadband technologies.

In Australia, the remote communities that are outside the reach of the fibre backhaul would be covered by fixed-wireless or satellite links. But I would also like to see the feasibility of fibre links for community clusters with closely-located households, so as to provide higher-quality service in these communities.

The spectrum bills are trying to define who will have access to wireless broadband. In essence television broadcasters are being asked to give up at least part of their spectrum for mobile broadband. It seems like most favor this idea, but as is usually the case, the devil is in the details.

Agreement

One thing everyone seems to agree on is providing both the spectrum and the funding for public safety entities. This national broadband network would make it possible for people to handle an emergency. In the case of 9-11 the network already set in place failed. There were issues with communication that ended up delaying some of the much needed help. With a national network, information would flow smoothly and at a much faster pace if a disaster did take place. Who wouldn’t feel a sense of safety knowing that the people that take care of major issues and crisis have an open source of communication ensuring that they are more efficient in their duties?

Disagreement

The spectrum bills asks television broadcasters to give up some of their spectrum. As an incentive, they would receive a portion of the auction price for that specific spectrum. Here’s where things get tricky. In some instances, Congress is attempting to take more control of unlicensed wireless. While Wi-Fi and Bluetooth operate in this portion of unlicensed spectrum there is a threat to other potential opportunities for advancement. Ever heard of the Super Wi-Fi (also called White Spaces broadband)? There is no guarantee that these plans or ideas would be allowed to proceed under certain spectrum bills. This may close the door to future Wi-Fi developments.

Licensed bidders like several of the big internet service providers have the ability to bid on this open spectrum. While this does generate funds and gives these companies a larger range of access, it is the everyday person looking to take advantage of the wireless system that could lose out. He or she would have to gather together a large number of individuals and attempt to make a single bid as a collective group. Even with the latest technology, the chances of outbidding larger corporations seem slim.

The final oddity in some of Congress’ spectrum bills is the geographic location issue. It is being suggested that people should bid on available spectrum in certain locations. A company may have access in one state and no access in another. It prevents a national system for everyone to take advantage of. Instead there would be a set of disconnected lines that can only be accessed from one specific location.

Progress seems to walk a fine line. On the one hand everyone wants to see improvement. The problem is that everyone wants that improvement to look different. Some internet service providers may want to make a bid for the spectrum, giving them unlimited access. Individual users have concerns that their own Wi-Fi will be hindered as there are regulations and rules for different entities in different parts of the country.

The tech industry needs an environment that is open to new discoveries. It is here that new technology is developed and offered up as progress and improvement to everyone. At this point there is no one spectrum bill that truly benefits the tech community as a whole.

Author Bio : Sam Kirby is a freelance content writer who develops articles on various topics. Sam’s main interest lies however in developing articles realted to Internet services and internet service providers.

Wayne Swan to hit switch on NBN regional link | The Australian

My Comments

Previously I mentioned a fibre link which would enable Darwin and Alice Springs to benefit from real competitive broadband service like the rest of Australia. But there is another link which would serve Darwin that the Acting Prime Minister, Wayne Swan is about to switch on at the time of publication.

But this one would provide a link between Darwin and Toowoomba in Queensland; and would be part of the National Broadband Network. It would pass Mount Isa, Tennant Creek, Emerald and Longreach, thus “lighting up” these towns for real broadband.

One of the main reasons in enabling Darwin with these fibre-optic broadband backhaul links is to exploit Darwin’s proximity to Asia. This means that Australia-Asia Internet links can be set up between these territories, allowing Australia to benefit from Asia being the newer business hub.

As these backhauls are laid down, it would be a chance to allow smaller communities to benefit from real Internet service. This is more so if there is encouragement for branch links to be extended out to the other communities that the trunks pass.

BT fibre rollout reaches Scotland, Wales • The Register

My Comments

British Telecom are now touching Scotland and Wales with their fibre-based next-generation-broadband services.

These will use a combination of fibre-to-the-cabinet and fibre-to-the-home deployment setups depending on the location. They wanted to have 34 exchanges in Scotland and 16 exchanges in Wales fibre-ready by 2012 with two thirds of UK premises passed by their fibre-optic network by 2014. This is part of their bid for the latest round of Broadband Delivery UK funding.

How I see it is that the upgrades are happening in the face of various local-focused rural-broadband-enrichment activity that is taking place through various parts of rural UK. In some cases, it could lead to the creation of competitive next-generation broadband like what is occurring in France where providers can compete on an infrastructure level.  It may then put BT “on notice” about the pricing and quality of their service as far as consumers and retail Internet providers are concerned due to the availability of this competing Internet infrastructure.

At least these kind of rollouts could then allow for vibrant competition in Internet service delivery in the UK.

Gigaclear Customers website

Press release

Video – BBC East Midlands Today TV interview

Link to video at YouTube

My Comments

I have previous covered the arrival of fibre-to-the-home broadband at Hambleton, a village in Rutland in the United Kingdom courtesy of Gigaclear and Rutland Telecom.

This included doing a Skype-based telephone interview on this network. Now I have seen and provided this video which exemplifies the benefit of this real broadband Internet service to this village.

An example of this was the Finch’s Arms pub which had experienced a different from of trade that a “local” wouldn’t experience. They had installed a Wi-Fi hotspot and there has been more through the till for them due to this broadband service. They also acquired more of the business traffic again due to the high-speed Internet traffic,

Of course, there was a change of life brought about buy the provision of this fibre-optic network with the city-style Internet service being exposed to these residents. Some were even achieving reliable Skype videoconferencing sessions with distant relatives while others were making telecommuting more feasible.

From what I have seen, this is an example of what can be done to enable a village or small country town with real Internet.

Fibre optique : la Gironde s’équipe mais Bordeaux prend du retard – DegroupNews.com

My Comments

In rural France, a département at a time for real Internet

Previously I have mentioned about Gironde being the location of a département-wide fibre-optic backbone rollout with an intention to reduce the digital divide that existed in that area. Now the rollout is underway with positive results coming through in that goal.

What is happening in Gironde

The fibre-optic trunks will allow more ADSL equipment to be in place thus enabling 7600 households who couldn’t to have Internet and 35000 more dial-up-modem or low-broadband households to have real proper broadband speeds.

There is public money involved with a public-private partnership with Orange. But the Gironde local government will persist on the project making sure real Internet service passes more households.

Delay with Bordeaux

But it is not all rosy at the moment. Bordeaux, the main economy in that area is being put back while the rest of the département is being covered with fibre-optic. Part of this is a presumption that there is full ADSL coverage in that city, but Bordeaux could benefit from next-gen broadband as much as anywhere else.

A main limitations is the competence of the bureaucracy concerning Bordeaux’s Internet rollout and this exposes the city to a two-tier risk as far as Internet service is concerned. This can be demonstrable with outer-urban growth corridors or resort spots that exist around the town. It can also extend to areas that may house lower socioeconomic classes But they hope to have Bordeaux covered with fibre-optic next-generation Internet by 2013.

Conclusion

In some countries, it may take a local-government area or a regional-government area to focus on Internet-enabling that area and it may have to be a public effort.

Internode adds Darwin POP • The Register

My Comments

In Australia, Darwin has benefited from the expansion of competing backhaul networks through the country. Previously, this city only had access to a single Internet backhaul line provided through Telstra, which led to higher prices and poor service quality due to an oversubscribed data pipeline. This didn’t provide for a competitive environment where the end-users could benefit through lower service prices and higher Internet throughput.

Here, the second backhaul that is passing Darwin allows competing operators to use an independent data path and wholesale service. This has lead to Internode being able to establish a point-of-presence in this town, thus offering an unbundled local loop Internet service to customers in that area; which would be feasible by early 2012 when this backhaul between Adelaide and Brisbane is enabled.

What I would see out of this is that Darwin is able to benefit economically whether through one or more larger employers setting up shop there or the development of research facilities in that town.

FCC’s ‘Connect America Fund’ redirects phone fees to provide rural broadband – Engadget

From the horse’s mouth

Press Release – PDF

Executive Summary of FCC order – PDF

Connecting America page

My Comments

The FCC have taken further steps to bring the reality of proper broadband service to rural areas closer to America.

Here, they have passed an Order to reform the Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation schemes in order to cut out wast and extend the scope of this universal-service-obligation mechanism to broadband data and cellular wireless service. This scheme has also been renamed the “Connect America Fund” due to this new remit.

They see it as a job-creating economy stimulus because of the concept of extending real broadband Internet to the rural areas. This could be true due to the ability for larger employers who value broadband like research-driven industries to set up shop in small towns where the land is cheaper. Other established small businesses like Main-Street shops or “Motel-6”-style motels are in a position to benefit in many ways.

This fund also has established a “Mobility Fund” which helps cellular-telephony / wireless-broadband carriers to extend their wireless footprint into the rural areas, including the Tribal areas.

The FCC have placed requirements for proper accountability regarding service provision. Here, it must be proven that the carriers are actually deploying the broadband services to the rural areas in question and that the services are real modern networks.

But there is a gap concerning the definition of the broadband services in this press release. Here, there isn’t a determined headline speed for the data services and the FCC haven’t qualified the point of measurement for a rural broadband service. This can lead to installation of DSLAMs in an exchange yet link these modems to the customers via decrepit telephone infrastructure. As I have observed, this environment leads to reduced DSL service reliability and bandwidth.

There is also another gap concerning the improvement of broadband coverage in peri-urban areas which were standalone rural towns. As I have said before, these areas may be servicing a farming industry or an area of outstanding beauty but they could be working with decrepit communications infrastructure. These areas should be worked on when it comes to building out telecommunications coverage.

They have also modernised the intercarrier compensation funding regime to encompass VoIP services. This is especially as more American households and businesses head towards VoIP telephony setups, whether to reduce call costs or take advantage of features in these setups.

From this, I have seen some positive steps to cover the rural parts of the US with real broadband and I hope that the FCC doesn’t become a toothless tiger in this respect.

Gigaclear press release

Rutland Telecom press release

My Comments

I have previously covered the Hambleton fibre-to-the-premises broadband network on  HomeNetworking01.info in a few articles on rural broadband as well as an interview with Matthew Hare from Gigaclear. Here, I used this network and the Lyddington fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) network as examples of enabling rural communities with this new technology for real broadband Internet.

Now Gigaclear and Rutland Telecom have “switched on” the Hambleton FTTH/FTTP fibre network which currently services two thirds of the properties in this village to full revenue service.

One main driver for this FTTH was Hambleton Hotel & Restaurant. They were wanting a high-grade internet service for their business guests who would be paying a premium to stay at this hotel. So they approached Rutland Telecom about establishing a broadband Internet service that would suit proper business needs and this is how this service came about. This hotel and another hospitality business in Hambleton have cottoned on to this broadband network as a way of providing real broadband as a value-added service to their guests.

In other ways, this has also been seen as a real investment in to this rural village by making it have real next-generation broadband. Who knows what it could lead to for the growth of Hambleton.

Matthew Hare replied to my email offering to do a short Skype-based telephone interview rather than an email interview. This allowed him and I to talk more freely about the Hambleton and Lyddington rollouts which I have been covering in HomeNetworking01.info .

Real interest in rural-broadband improvements

There are the usual naysayers who would doubt that country-village residents would not need real broadband, and I have heard these arguments through the planning and execution of Australia’s National Broadband Network.

But what Matthew had told me through this interview would prove them wrong. In the Lyddington VDSL-based fibre-to-the-cabinet rollout, a third of the village had become paying subscribers to this service at the time of publication. In the Hambleton fibre-to-the-premises rollout, two-thirds of that village had “pre-contracted” to that service. This means that they had signed agreements to have the service installed and commissioned on their premises and have paid deposits towards its provision.

Satisfying the business reality

Both towns have hospitality businesses, in the form of hotels, pubs and restaurants that need real broadband. For example, Matthew cited a large “country-house” hotel in Hambleton that appeals to business traffic and this hotel would be on a better footing with this market if they can provide Wi-Fi Internet service to their guests. Similarly, these businesses would benefit from improved innovative cloud-based software that would require a proper Internet connection.

As well, most of the households in these villages do some sort of income-generating work from their homes. This can be in the form of telecommuting to one’s employer or simply running a business from home.

The reality of a proper Internet service for business was demonstrated through the Skype call session with Matthew. Here, the Skype session died during the interview and when he came back on, he told me that the fault occurred at his end. He mentioned that he was working from home at another village that had the second-rate Internet service and affirmed the need for a proper broadband service that can handle the traffic and allow you to be competitive in business.

A commercial effort in a competitive market

Matthew also underlined the fact that this activity is a proper commercial venture rather than the philanthropic effort that besets most other rural-broadband efforts. He also highlighted that there were other rural-broadband improvements occurring around the UK, including the BT Openreach deployments. and this wasn’t the only one to think of.

But what I would see is that an Internet market that is operating under a government-assured pro-consumer pro-competition business mandate is a breeding ground for service improvement, especially when it comes to rural Internet service.

Conclusion

From what Matthew Hare had said to me through the Skype telephone interview, there is a real and probable reason why the countryside shouldn’t miss out on the broadband Internet that city dwellers take for granted.

thinkbroadband :: Gigaclear begin fibre-to-the-home deployment in Hambleton

From the horse’s mouth

Fibre-Optic Gigaclear Network for Rutland Village – Gigaclear Press Release

Rutland Telecom (Hambleton page) (Home)

My Comments

There has been previous coverage about Rutland Telecom establishing fibre-optic next-generation broadband in Hambleton, Leicestershire in the UK. Now Gigaclear are in the throes of laying down the fibre-optic infrastructure for the next-generation broadband.

The Hambleton network has been financed through private investors in the Hambleton village. Here, they would want to see a triple return in the form of financial growth, community togetherness and a real next-generation Internet service.

Of course, Rutland Telecom will be the main service provider for this town’s next-generation broadband service even though it is part of Gigaclear. The service is intended to be online in October 2011.

Significant features will include VoIP telephony and 50Mbps headline speed for the service. As well, the router, which will be an optical-network terminal will have 300Mbps dual-stream 802.11n Wi-Fi and a 4-port Gigabit Ethernet switch. This also includes a future proof software design that supports IPv6 networks, which I think are the way to go for next-generation broadband. Rutland Telecom could offer as an alternative an optical-network terminal that connects up to user-supplied broadband routers, which would be required for Wi-Fi hotspots that have advanced user control.

GigaClear and Rutland Telecom have higher expectations with a “fat pipe” data link between Hambleton and London as well as streaming of high-definition television in to this neighbourhood during the 2012 Olympics.

What I have liked about this development and the Lyddington development is that they have become a catalyst for villages and towns across the UK wanting to achieve real broadband Internet on a par with the cities.

But I have observed activities that have raised the standard of rural Internet service in certain areas where there has been lively and competitive trading environment for Internet service. These range from local startups who offer to raise the bar for Internet in a country town to governments putting their hand to the plough for real broadband in the country.

Why rural broadband service

Farmers and small business in rural areas

Primarily farmers and small-business owners would benefit from proper broadband in the country. This is due to more of the business being transacted online such as the use of e-government services as part of managing livestock on the farm.

There is also the desire to be competitive with urban businesses or, in the case of farming, be responsive to customer and partner needs very quickly.

Motels like this one can offer Wi-Fi hotspots as a competitive edge

It also extends to hospitality businesses like hotels, motels, cafes and restaurants in these areas who want to offer public-access Internet service as a way of offering “that bit extra”. This would encompass resorts created around mountains or water features like ski resorts or lakeside resorts.

Similarly, education institutions who have rural campuses can benefit from real broadband Internet as a study and research tool. This could lead to universities and the like enriching the town with research-driven business.

Country living

The countryside is infact considered an ideal place to live due to a slower pace of life. As well, some parts of the country are particular areas of attraction for this class of living due to features of natural beauty like water features, forests or mountains.

An increasing number of urban-based people visit the country as a holiday destination or even move there. Here they would benefit from the same standard of broadband as they have in the city so they can communicate with relatives or friends there.

Similarly, the appeal of telecommuting wound go in hand with the country life as people can head in to the city only when they need to conduct business meetings. This would appeal to semi-retired people who are reducing their time in the main office.

Peri-urban areas

I am also encompassing peri-urban rural areas as well as the typical rural areas that are a distance away from major towns in the scope of this article. These are typically farming districts, areas of outstanding natural beauty or areas surrounding classic monuments that abut a major city; but are sparsely populated compared to the major city.

The people who live in the major city see these places as being a destination for a day trip and a lot of business in these areas is boosted by the tourists from the major city. Some of these areas, especially those focused around areas of outstanding beauty also attract retirees or other people who are “done with the city” as a place of residence, although it doesn’t take them long to travel to town when they need to visit it.

Examples of these in Australia are the Yarra Valley Wine District and the Dandenongs in Melbourne; the Blue Mountains in Sydney and Barwon Heads in Geelong. In France, there would be the wine regions surrounding some of the major cities like Bordeaux.

Action that has been undertaken on this front

Local initiatives

A major form of action that I have noticed is initiatives that are driven by local government and business. This has commonly occurred in broadband-improvement rollouts that are funded by local councils and / or facilitated by small local telecommunications firms or ISPs.

The best examples are the UK developments where local broadband service providers are formed or regional broadband service providers plough effort into “switching on” particular parishes. There are intense local awareness campaigns run by these small broadband service providers to solicit interest from the residents and business owners; and they will manifest in the form of offline and online promotions; including town-hall meetings.

In some of the UK deployments, there has been the use of local “sweat equity” for assisting in the establishment of fibre trunks as well as local landowners setting up easements for these fibre trunks.

Similarly local governments in the UK and France have provided seed money to the broadband initiatives. These are usually to make the towns attract more investment as well as to ignite local “e-government” initiatives.

National assistance

Defining universal-service obligations

Some countries are taking action to define a minimum broadband Internet service standard to be available across their territories. This is akin to the universal service standards that have been applied to electricity and telephone services.

Here, this may be achieved through extending the remit of the universal telephone service, including collecting monies associated with its provision, to the broadband Internet service.

National and international funding

This also leads to national governments funding broadband-service improvement; usually as part of an Internet-service improvement for the nation.as In Europe, for example, the nations also receive handouts from the European Union in Brussels towards facilitating these improvements.

In some countries like Australia and the UK, the upgrading of the telecommunications backbone to fibre-optic technology and the provision of fibre-based infrastructure close to or reaching the customer is considered a major driver for rural-broadband improvement. The use of public resources for this kind of upgrade has often beem met with derision by various conservative groups because they would rather see it all left in the hands of private enterprise.

Technology

Some of the technology is based on what is being used to established the “next-generation broadband” Internet services and is being used as a way of catering to the growth of these rural areas and the changing data transfer needs.

Fibre-to-the-cabinet technology

This typically creates a high-speed fibre-optic backbone to one or more street cabinets located close to customer clusters.The customers have the phone connections linked to this cabinet and the Internet service is delivered via ADSL2 or VDSL2 technology over these phone services.They may have the regular telephone provided via the town’s exchange, a sub-exchange in the street cabinet or VoIP technology.

In some situations, this technique has been used as an “ADSL2 booster” effort by bringing a higher-throughput ADSL2 service to customers who, by virtue of distance to the exchange, would receive lower throughput service or no service at all.

This also opens up a path for offering fibre-to-the-premises next-generation broadband Internet to customers in these towns, either as a service differentiator or as an upgrade path. It also provides for service growth especially if a town acquires a major employer and sees its capacity grow.

Fibre-optic trunks

A fibre-optic trunk line that passes country areas may be treated like a natural-gas pipeline passing these areas. Here, branch lines or “spurs” are connected to the trunk line and used to serve local communities; while the trunk serves cities that are at each end of the line.

This is seen as a way to establish a next-generation broadband Internet service in to the neighbouring towns in a cost-effective manner.

Terrestrial wireless and “white space” spectrum

Another technology that is exciting the prospects of real broadband to the country is the concept of terrestrial wireless. These setups are typically fixed-wireless links that serve individual households or, in some cases, communities or household clusters, with a wired technology like ADSL2 or Ethernet linking to each customer.

Initially this technology was based on 2.4GHz or similar radio links but there is a new break being facilitated at the moment and it is known as “white space”. This is where UHF or, in some cases, Band III VHF, TV spectrum that has been vacated by TV broadcasters as they change to spectrum-efficient digital TV technology.

Governments are looking at using this bandwidth as a cost effective way to provide terrestrial-wireless Internet service to country areas where it would be difficult or cost-prohibitive to provide copper or fibre-optic wireline Internet service. Examples of this kind of setup would be mountains or islands.

This will typically end up as a fixed-wireless deployment with a modem connected to the aerial (antenna) which would most likely be a high-gain TV aerial. This modem would be connected to a broadband router to serve the home network installed at homes in these locations.

Issues to be looked at

A key issue to be looked at in relation to providing a proper broadband Internet service to the country is the decrepit telephony infrastructure that exists in these areas. This is something that I have seen for myself with people who have lived in the country or peri-urban areas as they experienced ADSL service that performed poorly or became less reliable.

Here, telephone companies have historically allowed the telephony infrastructure to perform just enough for voice traffic. As well, due to long cable runs, it has become cost-prohibitive to always renew this telephone wiring to the customer’s door. In some cases, monopoly telephony carriers have allowed the telephony infrastructure to become severely derelict, with callers experiencing poor-quality telephone conversations where they hear crackling or crosstalk.

Dial-up modems and fax machines have worked to what was expected of these phone lines, usually using error-correction methods as part of the data transmission protocols.

ADSL broadband has put a newer requirement on the phone lines due to the bandwidth decreasing as the distance increases. In some cases, newer wiring has effectively increased the performance of the telephone system as far as ADSL service is concerned. On the other hand older and decaying connections would impair the telephone circuit’s ADSL performance, even causing the ADSL signal to drop out. This is even though you could successfully make or take a telephone call on that same line.

What needs to happen if ADSL broadband is being rolled out in to a rural area, the telephone lines need to be checked for quality and reliability. This includes checking connections for quality and reliability; and that ADSL line-distance metrics need to be true to the phone service’s distance from the exchange.

It also includes re-assessing telephone systems whenever newer building developments take place; which can happen over a town’s lifespan. It also includes situations where a neighbouring town becomes larger and the current area becomes a suburb of the neighbouring town.

Conclusion

There have been some positive steps taken by different parties to make the idea of real broadband Internet service in the country a reality. This includes encompassing it as part of defining the minimum requirements for an Internet service.

La Gironde investit dans le numérique – DegroupNews.com

GirondeNumerique.fr – main web site

My comments

Gironde, a département in the south West of France, known as one of France’s key wine districts is doing major works to improve broadband coverage across its area.

Here, they have laid 1,060 kilometres of fibre-optic cable to produce a backbone for this service and are at the moment running it through the necessary tests. This network will provide 83 districts and 168 public buildings in this département with fibre-to-the-premises next-generation broadband.

This network will also be about making sure that an ADSL2 service capable of at least 2Mbps “at the door” will pass 99% of all households in Gironde. The remainder that cannot achieve this speed will have access to a two-way satellite connection, It will also support the competitive service provisioning that has kept the French Internet scene very lively and put a high-value Internet service in to the hands of most, if not all, French people.

This has been funded by Gironde’s local government with private input from France-Télécom (Orange). This local government is also using it as part of rolling out an improved online presence including the gradual provisioning of e-government facilities for its citizens.

I would encourage other countries to look at what the UK and France are doing for their next-generation broadband services because these countries have implemented strong mechanisms to assure a lively Internet-service marketplace. This includes technological and regulatory measures that have been put in place and the encouragement of local government rather than central government in the service-establishment phase.

thinkbroadband :: B4RN to deploy 1Gbps fibre network to rural parishes in Lancashire

Web site

B4RN website

My comments

Another valiant effort is taking place to connect rural England to real broadband Internet. This time it is happening in Lancashire’s rural areas north of Lancaster.

This is being achieved through a community-benefit company called “B4RN” which stands for “Broadband for Rural North”. The service is a fibre-to-the-premises service that is being provided to homes, farms and small businesses in these rural parishes. They have a goal to cover all of the 5162 properties but are working it in three phases. This is with the digging of the first phase to commence around Christmas 2011 and the first subscribers on board by January 2012.

What is interesting is that the capital for the effort is being raised through a share issue to the community and that the company is established as a “community-benefit” company where the assets are there for the community rather than being sold off if anything happens to the company.

The effort for he broadband rollout is being driven through shared local labour. It doesn’t matter whether it is to dig the necessary trenches or lay down the conduit and fibre-optic cable in order to connect up the properties. There is even support for training and upskilling locals into these areas where necessary and even the business’s office labour is local-based. One of the videos on the B4RN site even related this effort to how mains electricity was brought to rural Lancashire in the 1930s, through the use of community effort in preparing the infrastructure for the service.

At the moment, B4RN are selling the 1Gbps broadband services for £30 / month tax inclusive and with a £150 connection fee. A good question that may be raised with this service is whether B4RN would be looking at supplying VoIP telephony and / or IPTV as part of an extra-cost option or primarily offer a “purely-data” service for their customers. This is although most next-generation services typically will be expected to offer a “single-pipe triple-play” service with TV and telephony down the same connection as part of their service pack.

This service is another example of how rural communities can become active about bringing real broadband Internet to their areas rather than bemoaning the lack of the service. It also put forward the case for use of fibre-optic technology to deliver broadband to farms rather than unreliable radio services.

Rural white space wireless standard signed off • The Register

My Comments

Most countries are now moving to digital TV services and, as they switch off the analogue TV signals that broadcast on the UHF spectrum, they open up significant tranches of this radio spectrum. The same holds true for VHF TV spectrum, especially if the white space there isn’t being used for DAB-based digital radio or similar activities. Questions are being raised about what this vacant spectrum should be used for – newer broadcasters, emergency-service radiocommunications or rural Internet service. It will be more so if a digital-TV-broadcasting technology’s “single frequency network” abilities are proven and exploited by the broadcasters as a tool for covering areas of poor TV reception without using extra radio spectrum.

I have previously covered the UK and US efforts to use “white space” as a tool for delivering real broadband to rural communities. Here, I have viewed the proper use of the spectrum as to assure reliable reception of radio and TV services and provision of improved broadcast services for rural areas as well as providing real broadband to these areas.

Now the IEEE have called a standard for data networks that use this UHF-band “white space” as the transmission medium.  This standard has been called as the IEEE 802.22 standard and is intended to be called this to avoid the press’s practice of referring it to Wi-Fi for “white space” where Wi-Fi really is about local networks working on the 802.11 series of standards.

Here, this standard is about long round-trip data that is part of service-provider-to-consumer data links. Of course, like most other wireless network technologies like 802.11n and wired network technologies like DOCSIS cable Internet, HomePlug powerline, MoCA coaxial and the legacy “coaxial Ethernet” and unswitched Cat5 Ethernet technologies, thus one uses shared bandwidth from the transmission towers. Here, the shared bandwidth would theoretically be 22Mbps on a regular 8MHz UHF TV channel.

There have been the concerns about negotiation of used spectrum, with the hardware able to detect where spectrum is occupied or use GPS geolocation technology and “lookup tables” to identify blank spectrum.

Now there is a newer standard being worked on as a “point-standard” or addendum for this application. This standard, known as 802.22.1 is to alleviate any interference that the technology may cause to wireless microphones and similar devices that work on the UHF spectrum.

Of course, the technology shouldn’t be thought of as a networking or Internet-delivery technology for use in larger cities. It should also be noted that as a town grows and becomes more dense, the town should look at implementing the wired-broadband technologies like DSL or fibre.

NBN switched on in Kiama, NSW | The Australian

My comments

This deployment of the National Broadband Network has become the second mainland location for this technology. The first mainland location to have the next-generation Internet was Armidale in NSW.

Kiama is primarily a tourist-attraction country town which attracts many day-trip tourists from Sydney. This then feeds a hospitality-driven economy centred around cafes and restaurants. Other than that, it doesn’t necessarily have a key employer like a corporation or university that could create a significant economy.

Of course, it is worth finding out which areas of these towns are actually wired up for the broadband service, especially if these towns are growing out or becoming major economic centres in their own right, as in the case of Armidale which has the University of New England as a key employer. Here, it could be feasible for certain suburbs or neighbourhoods to have the optical fibre pass every door, rather than the whole town. This is a practice that I have noticed with Australian pay-TV where certain communities had Foxtel cable pass their door while others didn’t.

It is also worth knowing, when one or two towns are established with the technology, it could then allow for infrastructure to be deployed out to neighbouring towns as it is built out, especially if “highway” runs are being constructed and “lit up” in order to connect major economic centres. This may also incite more key employers to set up shop in these towns thus creating an increase in the economy there.

Cynics would describe this effort as being political due to the towns being in marginal electorates and the provision of the National Broadband Network as a vote-catching exercise by the Australian Labor Party. But who knows how this could change if the NBN does change the economies in these towns such as through attraction of new employers.

It will therefore be interesting to see what comes about with the arrival of the NBN through the different towns and whether the fibre-to-the-home next-generation broadband would be a proper winner.

Le Vaucluse veut se doter d’un réseau très haut débit | La Provence (France – French language)

My comments and information obtained from this article

Vaucluse, a department in the Provence area of France is known for features like Avignon with that famous bridge. But it has a sizeable amount of rural space with its eastern half being mountainous and 17% of the population in the rural areas. Of course, there are the 5 major urban hubs being Avignon, Orange, Carpentras, Cavaillon, and Apt.

What is relevant to this site is that 5 of the exchanges in that department are fully dégroupé – served by all the competing Internet service providers independently.This is part of a digital divide that exists through this area with not all areas having a broadband service that is “up to snuff”.

The département’s local government have realised what is going on in this area and are to work on the issue of proper access to real broadband, both ADSL and next-generation service. Here, they will do a stocktake of the existing infrastructure and identify areas that need the work.

They reckon that this work will take 20 years for next-generation service to cover this département. The UMP party who are in opposition consider this as being too long because of the time that the technology takes to evolve in the Internet.

Of course, there are the key problems that beset rural and outer-urban areas when it comes to telecommunications, like ageing or derelict infrastructure. These have to be looked at as much as the existence of service at each of the exchanges. This stocktake may factor these issues in and assess the quality of this infrastructure.

Good marks to the Vaucluse local government in France in tackling this problem of adequate Internet service in rural areas. Here, this is an example of UK and France achieving a lively competitive and accessible Internet service for all.

BT: Tests using white space for rural broadband are ‘very encouraging’ – FierceWireless:Europe

My Comments

There have been a few tests taking place in various countries to use bandwidth vacated by TV stations when they gone digital for use as the wireless last-mile in broadband service delivery. This application of the “white space” will be used primarily to deliver real high-speed broadband in to households and small businesses in rural and remote communities.

The BT Openreach tests that occurred recently and were cited in this article were performed on the UHF TV band and were covering the Isle Of Bute in Scotland. This exploited the ability for this band to be received on indoor antennas (aerials) like the typical “rabbit’s ears” used on portable TVs, as well as outdoor aerials.

A good question that may be worth raising with a UHF-based “white space” setup may be whether such setups may cause digital-TV reception problems for stations broadcasting on that band. This is more so in areas where the UHF band is being used as a “repeater” / “translator” broadcast band to fill in reception black spots in a TV broadcaster’s market area. In a rural area, there will be these transmitters being used for each TV broadcaster that is to be received in the area alongside any “white-space” Internet-delivery setup.

Other questions worth asking include whether such a setup will use “fibre-to-the-transmitter” or other high-speed wired backbones, what kind of bandwidth is available to the customer and whether it will be a “shared bandwidth” setup like DOCSIS cable-modem setups or a “dedicated bandwidth” setup like what Ethernet and DSL setups can provide.

There is a common issue with Internet service provision for customers that live outside of a major metropolitan area and this issue will become of concern as these metropolitan areas edge out to the country areas. This is where a town or district has old and decrepit telephony connections that are repaired or improved in a “patchwork” manner.

Typically, ADSL service would be rolled out to the towns by the installation of DSLAM equipment in the telephone exchange by the various providers. This happens with the old telephone wiring and connections still in place and, of course, any work that is done on the wiring infrastructure may be in response to disaster events or simply damaged lines such as a tree falling across a phone line. The old and decrepit phone infrastructure may be just good enough for a voice call or a fax transmission with modest equipment at each end of the line.

In some areas, there may be some work done on the telephone infrastructure covering the core business area of a small town i.e. the shopping strip and areas surrounding the hospital, police station or council offices. A large employer who is attracting business to the town may cause the telephony infrastructure provider to provide improved infrastructure for their business premises and some nearby areas.

The examples

Previously, I had seen a friend of mine who lived in Yarra Glen, which is in the Yarra Valley Wine District just east of Melbourne about their Internet connection.

The symptom was no successful connection to the ISP. They tried a new modem router just in case the old one had packed it in and the problem was the same. Then their retail ISP had found through Telstra who was the infrastructure provider in Australia that there were connections between the exchange and my friend’s residence that were simply rotten. They were good enough for voice telephony but not good enough for ADSL service.

Another example was found out through a conversation with a small-business owner who runs bottle shops (liquor stores / off-licences) in two towns in the Dandenongs that are a short distance apart from each other.

At one of the shops, there was poor quality-of-service for the Internet connection servicing that premises. He received different quotes for the “distance to the exchange” metric which affects the ADSL Internet service, even though the business was very close to the town’s exchange.

At that time, there was work being done by Telstra in the neighbourhood to replace some problemsome wiring. This was then causing the different readings for the “distance to exchange” metric due to the different quality of wiring and the connection that existed.

An industry problem that may affect service providers and customers

A question that typically faces the user and the retail broadband provider is who is to blame for the substandard service? That is whether it is the infrastructure provider, the wholesale broadband provider or the retail ADSL ISP?

This ends up with the buck being passed between the different parties and can become more aggravating especially where the fault lies with decrepit infrastructure. In some situations, this can place the customer in a position of liability for troubleshooting work that had taken place because the retail ISP’s equipment wasn’t at fault.

If the fault lies with the infrastructure between the exchange where the ISP’s ADSL equipment is located and the customer’s premises, it should be made clear that the fault lies at that point and the infrastructure provider is required to repair that fault.

What can be done

Infrastructure assessment as part of service deployment

Typically, whenever ADSL broadband is rolled out to a town in a rural, regional or peri-urban area, the work that typically occurs is to have the DSLAM equipment installed at the exchange plus some modifications at the exchange end of the service infrastructure. There isn’t a chance for the wiring infrastructure to be assessed for service problems, such as poor-quality connections or old and decrepit wiring.

This should be done more so as retain Internet service providers that provide their services on an “unbundled local loop” basis start rolling their services out in to that area or as multiple retail Internet service providers share the same DSLAM equipment in the exchange.

What should really happen is that if customers in an area register for ADSL service and the service arrives at the exchange; the condition of the wiring to that area should be assessed for proper ADSL throughput. At that point, any and all repairs should then be performed for all of the telephone subscribers in that area; including removal of pair-gain wiring setups that limit modem throughput.

Public-private engagement

Of course, it may be considered too costly especially in these areas, but there also needs to be the benefits assessed for that work to take place. This may include increased service utilisation which may yield more revenue and an incremental improvement for businesses who work in the area where their goods and services gain increased value.

In some ways, this kind of effort could be a public-private partnership where government is involved in the improvement effort. My suggestion of the use of government involved with money sourced from the taxes that we pay may be scoffed at by the “free-market, no-public-money” advocates but it may have to be the way we would go to seek these improvements. This is more so if there isn’t any sort of universal-service-obligation mechanism established for broadband Internet service.

In this case, the local government which is the shire or city council could be engaged in funding these service improvements that are specific to their local area. This could then allow the local government to attract more business or maintain a highly-viable business ecosystem in their area; especially if the area is driven by many small businesses like most of these areas.

This has been performed successfully in various British villages like Lyddington in Leicestershire whenever next-generation broadband Internet was delivered to these villages.

Conclusion

We just can’t think of improving broadband in particular rural areas when we give real broadband to sparsely-populated areas. Rather we also need to factor in the sparsely-populated areas that exist on the edge of our cities and, in some cases, serve as attraction districts for these urban areas like wine districts or beauty districts as part of broadband-service improvement plans.