Joan Engebretson

Facebook has achieved broadband transmission of 20 Gbps over an eight-mile distance using millimeter wave technology. The Facebook millimeter wave broadband wireless technology could be used for several different applications, eventually including connecting the company’s Aquila communications drones with ground stations, the blog post said. Other applications might include providing backhaul connectivity for Facebook’s OpenCellular wireless access initiative or as backup to free space optical communications. “One of our goals is to provide connectivity in areas without traditional infrastructure and reliable power sources,” said Facebook.

A good idea for small carriers pursuing gigabit networks comes from 11 carriers in South Carolina. The carriers, who already work together on the Spirit Communications statewide fiber network, have undertaken a new initiative dubbed GigUP South Carolina that aims to spur economic development through gigabit network deployment. An impressive 60% of South Carolina residents and 80% of businesses in the state have gigabit service available to them, according to the Spirit Communications GigUP web page. Those are important numbers for other small telcos to consider as they pursue gigabit networks. Rather than touting just your own capabilities, wouldn’t it be a good idea to see what other carriers in your state or your part of the state are doing and consider banding together to determine the combined achievements you could highlight?

This week brings two more announcements involving small town gigabit networks. One comes from LS Networks, a company formed by a consortium of electric cooperatives, which will offer broadband at speeds between 100 Mbps and 1 Gbps in rural Maupin (OR). The other announcement comes from MaxxSouth Broadband, a company that operates fiber-to-the-home networks in three Mississippi markets and plans to launch gigabit service in Oxford (MI) – a college town with a population of 20,000. Smaller town gigabit networks are more common than one might expect, because many of the smaller carriers that serve those towns had previously deployed fiber-to-the-home networks, which in many cases can be easily upgraded to support gigabit service. Neither the LS Networks nor the MaxxSouth Broadband announcement today involved a network upgrade, however. Both companies are making their initial fiber-to-the-home deployments in the announced communities.

The Federal Communications Commission plans to vote in Nov on a proposal for a Universal Service/ Connect America mobility fund that FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler shared with other commission officials recently. A fact sheet about the FCC mobility fund proposal released to the public raises some important questions about the fund and how it would be implemented. Also last week, Chairman Wheeler circulated a proposal regarding data and VoLTE roaming within the commission – another proposal scheduled for a vote next month by the full commission.

One question I would ask about that is whether there are any currently subsidized areas that are high-cost for the landline provider but not for the wireless carrier. If so, it would appear that a wireless carrier who doesn’t really need funding might still get it if all of the 4G LTE carriers serving an area were previously collecting high-cost funding. That carrier would have to underbid the other carriers to continue to collect funding, but might not actually need funding at all. It also isn’t clear whether the proposed budget is sufficient to achieve what the FCC wants to accomplish, as the budget seems to have been calculated based on historical support for wireless carriers, rather than on an examination of the funding needed to achieve program goals.

AT&T launched what the company says is the first LTE-M enabled commercial site, which will support an Internet of Things pilot involving several companies, including PepsiCo, Samsung and others. “We think LTE-M will be the workhorse for low-power wide area” connectivity, said Cameron Coursey, AT&T vice president of product development for IoT solutions, in an interview.

So what is LTE-M? The term low-power wide area (LPWA) is a category of wireless communications optimized for IoT applications. Low power requirements are important to IoT because long battery life is critical. AT&T claims battery life of up to 10 years for some types of LTE-M devices. Excellent range also is important because IoT devices may be installed in remote areas. According to an AT&T white paper, LTE-M offers seven times the range of traditional LTE communications. As Coursey explained, another way of describing this is to say that LTE-M provides 15 decibels better coverage, which means that it also does a better job of penetrating walls and floors – another important capability for IoT applications, where wireless sensors or other devices may have to be located in basements or other environments that can be challenging for traditional cellular communications.

The average price for basic cable TV service increased 2.3% to $23.79 for the 12-month period ending January 1, 2015, driven in large part by soaring costs for video programming, according to a new Federal Communications Commission pay TV price survey. Expanded basic cable service rates increased by 2.7% between 2013 and 2014 to $69.03. Those are substantial increases, considering that the overall inflation rate was essentially flat for that time period.

FCC data also suggests that soaring retransmission consent fees were a key driver of the price increases. The average pay TV provider paid nearly $12.7 million to local broadcast stations for retransmission of broadcast programming in 2014 – up from $7.8 million in 2013. That’s an increase of 63.2% in one year. The monthly fee per subscriber per broadcast station was $1.07 in 2014, up from 75 cents in 2013 – a 43% increase. The FCC survey was based on information provided by cable TV providers and telecom companies offering video services but did not include input from satellite TV providers or AT&T U-verse. Survey results were published in the FCC’s “Report on Cable Industry Prices” released October 12.

5G wireless technology could be an important technology for mid-sized and rural markets, as news about US Cellular 5G testing illustrates.

The company said it had collaborated with Nokia to test 5G and demonstrate 5G in a fixed wireless configuration. US Cellular and Nokia plan additional collaborative work and are focusing on indoor and outdoor environments using spectrum in the 28 GHz band. The companies used the spectrum through an experimental license from the Federal Communications Commission. At least one other tier two broadband provider – C Spire – also has tested 5G in a fixed configuration. That testing also used Nokia equipment in the 28 GHz band. The 28 GHz band is one of several that the FCC hopes to make available for 5G use. And it is the band that the FCC has proposed auctioning on a county by county basis – a plan that could make it economically feasible for small carriers to acquire spectrum whenever a 5G auction is held.

AT&T revealed that it is trialing a 100 Mbps competitive fixed wireless broadband service to “multiple” apartment complexes in Minneapolis, a CenturyLink market. The AT&T broadband wireless offering is particularly noteworthy in that it is being offered outside the company’s traditional local service territory in competition with other providers for fixed broadband – and according to a press release, the company hopes to expand the offering to other out-of-footprint markets. The AT&T broadband wireless offering initially will support speeds up to 100 Mbps per customer using millimeter wave spectrum in a point-to-point configuration. But the company said it plans to make faster speeds available – “likely a speed tier of 500 Mbps” – in the trial properties. Additional out-of-footprint broadband wireless service plans will depend on the success of the Minneapolis trial, AT&T said. Other markets under consideration for possible expansion include but are not limited to Boston, Denver, New Jersey, New York City, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Seattle and Washington D.C.

AT&T asked the Federal Communications Commission to address what it called “nefarious” inter-carrier compensation (ICC) practices including unusually high tandem switching and transport access charges and non-competitive 800-number database dips.

AT&T noted that such practices are counter-productive to FCC efforts to phase out the traditional approach toward inter-carrier compensation in favor of a “bill-and-keep” approach in which carriers will pay few, if any, charges to one another for exchanging voice traffic. The unusually high tandem switching and transport access charges come into play for competitive local exchange carriers who terminate calls to companies engaged in access stimulation, also known as “traffic pumpers.” The traffic pumpers traditionally have included companies offering services such as free or low-cost conferencing and chat lines that receive a high volume of calls. Such companies traditionally have chosen local carriers that charge other carriers large fees for terminating calls. The benefit for the traffic pumpers is that they traditionally have received a portion of ICC revenues from their local carriers.

News of five new municipal gigabit networks is a reminder that the recent municipal appeals court decision will have little or no impact in some states or for certain municipal network operators.

A recent decision by the Sixth Circuit US Court of Appeals was bad news in states that had passed legislation limiting publicly-owned municipal broadband networks because it upheld the states’ authority to make such laws. Some pundits worried that the court ruling may slow down municipal broadband investment and launches, but specifics vary by state.

Five new municipal gigabit networks are now underway or operational in Colorado, Iowa, and Tennessee, according to an announcement from Calix, whose equipment will be used in all of the deployments:

1. A Rio Blanco County (CO) fiber network will use an open access model with multiple retail service providers. More rural areas will get service via a wireless solution.
2. Independence Light and Power, Telecommunications in Independence (IA) is upgrading an existing HFC network, which in addition to supporting voice, video and data services will also support managed Wi-Fi.
3. A Bellevue (IA) deployment will support high-speed broadband and video services.
4. In Osage (IA) Osage Municipal Utilities is replacing an HFC network with GPON to support high-speed broadband and voice.
5. Columbia Power and Water Systems in Columbia and Spring Hill (TN) is migrating from a DOCSIS network to a fiber network that will support triple-play services.

The appeals court decision likely upheld a Tennessee law saying municipal power companies could not expand beyond the territory they serve for power – something power company EPB wanted to do outside Chattanooga. But Columbia Power and Water Systems apparently is building in its municipal service footprint or may have been grandfathered in because of its legacy DOCSIS network.