FCC Correspondence

After reading the recently signed Comcast contract, and having others validate my belief that it is a poor contract that will leave much of Tuolumne County without wireline Broadband for ten years, I sent an email to Michael Copps of the FCC. FCC Commissioner Copps had recently written an op-ed piece in the Washington Post regarding the state of Broadband in the United States. After my email is the link to his op-ed piece.

Commissioner Copps,

I applaud your stance in the attached article. Tuolumne County California just signed a new contract with Comcast to upgrade their service. The County was induced to signed the contract quickly by Comcast as they warned the State would take over the contract negotiations starting 2007. The contract is horrible and will leave 40% without Comcast service including Broadband Internet for 10 years. Part of the contract reads that if Comcast completes their upgrade in three years, the five year contract gets extended another five years. Comcast only has to provide service to neighborhoods with 40 connections per cable mile. This equates to one acre parcels or less in size. That leaves us out that are in two and three acre minimum parcels.

AT&T has completed all DSL expansion in our rural county and at least 40% of the homes do not have access to wireline Internet. At&T's answer is for us to sign up with the satellite provider WildBlue.

How can the United States get out of this mess? It is hurting the economy. Young adults want Broadband access even when they go on vacation now. Tourism in rural counties will be hurt in the future as they cannot provide this service in remote areas.

Bob Ingalls

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/07/AR2006110701230.html

His personal reply was marked Not Public: For Internal Use Only, so I will paraphrase his reply.

He thanked me for taking the time to get in touch. Commissioner Copps believes the way we'll get out of this is to develop a national strategy, a real commitment, to get broadband out to everybody. He suggested that broadband be funded under the Universal Service Fund, but there are other ways, too. He did not state what the other ways are. He further stated that the important thing is to make the commitment to this important infrastructure. He also believes that Broadband is the central infrastructure-building challenge of our time.

While it is encouraging that we have an enlightened FCC Commissioner, there are four other FCC Commissioners and if Commissioner Copps can't get anything done we are going to have to do it ourselves.

Long distance via the Internet: $29.95 per year

One of the reasons why broadband should include fast speeds for uploads, as well as downloads, is the increasing use of Voice Over IP (VoIP). Unlike a web browser, which mostly receives data, voice applications send as much data as they receive (even if you're a slow talker). 128 kb/sec is about the lower limit for voice calls but add a web-cam and you'll want as much throughput as you can get. Latency (delay) with satellite systems can also cause problems with audio data.

With a stable broadband connection however, VoIP can be put to use today by the average home user, at a big cost savings over Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS). The key to making this system usable is to make it work with a standard telephone and to be able to make calls to any ordinary land-line phone. No one wants to make all their calls while tethered to their computer by a headset or spend big bucks on specialized WiFi phones. I have put together a system in our home using the Skype service, an analog phone adapter and our existing cordless phones. There are other VoIP services out there besides Skype; it's just the one I have experience with. Here's a diagram (courtesy of Von-Phone) of how the pieces fit together:

What you'll need for this system:

• A Skype account, with "SkypeOut" service
  This service currently costs $29.95/year and allows unlimited outgoing calls to any phone in the US or Canada. International calls can be made at an additional per minute and per connection charge (see Skype for details).
• VoIP phone adaptor
  This adaptor is about the size of a deck of cards. It connects to your computer via a USB port and to a phone using a standard RJ-11 jack. I am using a Yealink B2K adaptor that I purchased from Amperor Direct. The same unit is also available from Von-Phone. A search for "Skype Phone Adaptor" on eBay will turn up a number of products with prices ranging from $14 - $35 (watch out for shipping charges).
  
• A phone to talk into
  You could connect a single phone to use only for Skype calls but a better solution is to plug in the base station of a wireless phone system, allowing all phones to have access to Skype. The software that comes with the adaptor allows you to toggle between the POTS dial tone and Skype using the phone's star (*) key.

Special bonus: unlimited calling and two phone lines for $29.95. About six months ago, we decided to disconnect the 2nd phone line to our home. It was originally installed as a data line, back when we had dial-up Internet access and a fax machine (I now actively discourage people sending me faxes). When DSL became available, between consolidating our phone and Internet service and disconnecting the 2nd line, we saved a pot of money. But we missed being able to make voice calls on two separate lines. Skype to the rescue! Because we have a two-line cordless phone system, we were able to connect POTS to line 1 and the Skype adaptor to line 2, effectively creating a new second line. Both lines can be in use simultaneously; they can even be conferenced together.

So, how does it sound? On my system, the call quality is comparable to a cell phone. Somewhat worse than a POTS call but perfectly acceptable. Some Skype users have complained of echos and delays but that hasn't been my experience, probably because I have a stable DSL connection at 3m down and 384k up. I've had no complaints from the people that I call (including my 71 year old mother), however I should point out that at this time Skype does not support caller ID. This could be an issue if you frequently call people who won't pick up if they don't recognize the caller. There have been many requests for this feature but Skype will only say that, "currently tests are being conducted with several PSTN carriers for the possible future introduction of callerID."

Adapting to any new phone system means learning a few new habits. For example, unless you use Skype's built-in speed dial, there are a lot of numbers to punch in on a Skype call. Once you get the hang of it though, in most cases you just pick up the phone and dial. The Skype service offers many options that I haven't touched on here. Read about them and get user feedback on the forums at www.skype.com.

Comcast Contract Follow-Up

Network Sierra member Bob Ingalls writes:

I had an action item from our first Network Sierra meeting to talk to Greg Applegate regarding the Comcast contract. Greg referred me to Marian Jackson (Government Affairs) of Comcast.

Marian told me that after Comcast upgrades their network, they will be offering Internet and telephone service. The key word is AFTER the upgrade as their current network does not have the capacity.

She also stated that they do stick to their 40 connections per cable mile. Their standard is that they have to cover the cost of installation in 60 months or the customer can pay for the cost for the connection. She estimated to get Comcast cable into Lambert Lake Estates would cost $100,000.

Bob notes that at such a cost, it is highly unlikely that a subdivision such as Lambert Lake Estates will be served. He has also forwarded this information to the Board of Supervisors.

How A Neighborhood Gets On The Internet

Getting Connected

It is Network Sierra's mission to get Tuolumne County better connected to the Internet. To make this happen, it is helpful to understand how any individual computer or any local community becomes connected to the Internet in the first place.

I hope that the following basic description of Internet infrastructure provides some understanding without being so oversimplified that it runs roughshod over important details. I welcome any critique that might help us connect people the basic ideas in addition to getting computers connected.

How the Internet is Organized

How is the Internet Organized? The smart aleck answer is that it isn't. The Internet was designed not to require a centrally planned structure. Instead, it was designed to adapt to whatever connections happen to exist at any given time.

The following link provides a visualization of a portion of the Internet:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Internet_map_1024.jpg

This illustration gives a sense of a pattern that exists despite the fact that the Internet is constantly changing as people add or move connections.

Nodes and Connections

Each connection in the Internet can be visualized as a line between two points referred to as nodes. One task that does require some centralized coordination is the assingment of unique addresses to nodes so that each node can be distinguished. The nodes themselves are responsible for communicating with thier neighbors about who they are connected to. They update this information to adapt as connections come and go.

Nodes that have multiple connections are called routing nodes. When a routing node receives a message, it is responsible for passing it along. It must choose from among its immediate connnections which path is going to move the message closer to its final destination.

Nodes that have only one connection are called leaf nodes, as in the leaves of a tree. Leaf nodes are where individual computer users connect to the Internet. When information is sent between two computers it has to find its way from one leaf node to another. The first leg of this trip is easy to choose because there is one route out of a leaf node.

Attaching One More Computer

Attaching one more computer to the Internet is a matter of finding a nearby routing node that can support one more connection. By "nearby" we mean close enough that either a wired or wireless method of connecting can be achieved at a reasonable cost.

If you want a new Internet connection for your home, it is fairly easy to have a local Internet Service Provider (ISP) set you up with a modem and dialup account. Dialup service works over regular phone lines but is relatively slow. The term "broadband" commonly refers to any Internet service that is at least 20 times faster than dialup. Many of the latest and greatest web sites assume a broadband internet connection. Because of this, many people consider dialup service as too far out of date to be a real option.

Most ISP's offer broadband service in various wired and wireless forms. To get broadband service in your home, you have to live close enough to a routing node to make the final "last mile" connection practical. If there is no such routing node available in your neighborhood, you are out of luck. This is a common problem in rural areas.

Internet service via communications satelites is one alternative that people often turn to in rural areas. This type of service solves part of the capacity problem posed by dialup. Unfortunately, the distance that the signal must travel between earth and satelite is far enough that the turn around time on messages cannot keep up with many of the applications that people have come to use the Internet for.

Attaching A Whole Neighborhood

Routing nodes capable of supporting broadband service exist only in the more densely populated areas of Tuolumne County. Network Sierra aims to help ISP's justify the infrastructure that will bring routing nodes within reach of more neighborhoods. There are two key technical pieces to this puzzle:

• The "last mile" problem
• Backhaul

We touched on the "last mile" problem when discussing how to attach an individual computer to the Internet. It is essentially the means used to attach a leaf node to a routing node. In remotely situated areas, the last few routing nodes closest to the leaf nodes are sometimes also lumped into the "last mile" category.

Backhaul refers to the routing nodes and connections that tie locally situated routing nodes to the rest of the internet. It would be slightly oversimplified but appromimately correct to say that "last mile" infrastructure consists of leaf nodes plus routing nodes that touch a leaf node and that backhaul infrastructure consists of all other routing nodes and connections.

Cell Tower Maps

The following maps show the locations of cell towers in Tuolumne County, excluding those on Forest Service lands. A request for those maps is pending.

Map 1 (437 KB PDF): http://www.networksierra.org/pdf/cell_tower_1.pdf
Map 2 (409 KB PDF): http://www.networksierra.org/pdf/cell_tower_2.pdf

Final Comcast Agreement

Below is a link to the agreement signed by Tuolumne County and Comcast, on 12/19/06. Thanks to Supervisor Teri Murrison for providing it and to Ed Fernandez for requesting it. Ed notes the following:

After a quick perusal I noted two significant things:

It calls for an update completion date in five years.

It obligates service to be provided where there are a minimum of 40 connections per cable mile. Connections not meeting the 40 minimum can still be made at Comcast's option. This probably exludes most of the rural areas and high end subdivisions like Curtis Creek, Lambert Lake Estates, Ridgewood, Whispering Woods, etc.. Consider that a square parcel of 300 by 300 feet is just over two acres. Assuming connections on both sides of a road this equates to about 35 connections and does not take into account the miles of cable that are needed just to get to the development. (Most of the lots in the above mentioned developments probably have footage well in excess of 400 feet.)

Document link (1295 KB PDF): http://www.networksierra.org/pdf/agree-comcast.pdf

Google Calendar

Another in an occasional series about online applications that I use regularly.

Google Calendar has become one of my mainstay applications. I use it to manage all my appointments and also to keep track of my wife and son (no easy task). Google Calendar excels at working with multiple calendars, even those that aren't part of the same Google account. Since my wife has allowed me to view (but not change) appointments on her calendar, they show up on mine too. Any entry from someone else's calendar is highlighted in a different color. At right is the display for managing calendars. Each one can be shown or hidden, as you choose.

Google makes extensive use of AJAX technology throughout the Calendar, making it more like a desktop app. For example, clicking on any date displays a popup in which an appointment can be entered without having to reload the page. Using artificial intelligence techniques, a meaningful calendar entry can be created by typing "7pm Dinner at Pancho's" into the popup's textbox (provided of course that you actually are going to dinner at Pancho's).

If you're planning on meeting up with a group, you can send multiple invitations to an event. The recipients can then confirm and even leave comments about the event ("if I'm late, order me the won ton soup"). After you've entered an appointment, Google Calendar can help to get there on time by sending you a reminder via email or SMS.

If you've entered a street address in your appointment, clicking the Map link will bring up the appropriate Google Map. The Calendar also integrates with Gmail, by offering to create a calendar entry for any date that appears in your email messages.

Google took an innovative approach to printing, outputting calendars in PDF format on-the-fly. This allows for precise layout control without the need to download, save and print a PDF file. Ironically, we print out a calendar around the first of each month, stick it on the refrigerator and then scribble on it for the rest of the month.

Lastly, you can export your calendar(s) in ICAL, XML or HTML formats. Using Google's configuration tool, you can embed your calendar in a web page and any changes you make to it will be reflected in real time.

FCC Supports VOIP Connections To Phone Network

A recent ZDNet article reports an FCC ruling that requires regular phone companies to cooperate in allowing VOIP services to connect with their networks. This is of particular interest to rural customers who want to switch to VOIP to help justify the cost broadband access.