Byte Me by Marv Dealy
High Speed Internet for Everyone, We Promise
How many times have we heard the promise that affordable high speed internet was going to be available to everyone in California (we’ll limit the discussion geographically here) as soon as:
• You let me finish this corporate merger
• The year 2010 rolls around
• Seven years from yesterday
The first promise would have been made to the people of California when Pac Bell was begging for permission to merge with AT&T, which of course happened back in 2005.
The second, made in 2003 as part of the “one gigabit or bust initiative,” not only promised one gigabit to every one of our houses in California by 2010, the state-funded Corporation for Education Network Initiatives said in a report on the project that such service would bring two million new jobs to the state.
The third promise is less specific, but hereabouts has been used as a catchall for “we’re working on it” kind of responses from any number of folks who promise to get high speed Internet to your block “soon, really soon.” In my neck of the woods, this has involved no less than four different companies looking at the bones (which is all that is left) of the small cable system in the Big Oak Flat-Groveland area and saying, ‘oh yes, we’ll have this fixed in no time’. To date, this of course hasn’t happened.
Unless you live in one of the areas that is served by either cable TV with Internet included or that is covered by DSL, you’re only option for high speed Internet is terrestrial radio, or wireless ISP services. These aren’t provided by large outfits like Comcast or AT&T with money to burn through, but are instead typically local efforts, often born out of desperation because “no one was doing anything in the area.”
I don’t mention satellite Internet access in the same sentence as high speed Internet, because it’s not high speed. It might have been at the start of the service when there were only a handful of users on the satellites, but trust me, talk to anyone who suffers with either Hughes or Wildblue service – it sucks. It’s slow, barely faster than dialup, it has big time limits on how much of the service you can use (or they dial back the speed even more!), and the quality of service varies dramatically, possibly due to the fact that the services are both overbooked and overburdened.
AT&T, the result of the Pac Bell/AT&T merger four years ago, inherited promises Pac Bell had made years before to provide “everyone” in California with DSL. That hasn’t happened, of course – those of us who choose to live out of a “downtown” environment have, perhaps without realizing it, chosen to live in a “DSL-free” environment as well, as AT&T’s plan (which they won’t reveal) clearly include getting out of ever giving someone DSL service in a possibly remote location.
From a strictly bean-counters’ perspective – which is the only perspective a large corporation has – it makes no sense to provide DSL service to someone down a dirt road with no neighbors. What if, for Pete’s sake, they have to make a service call to that remote house down the dusty road? Why, they might lose profitability on that account for who knows how long, billions of years perhaps.
The same reasoning stands behind why AT&T won’t install DSL further from their central offices – too many feet and the possibility of having to make a – gasp – service call looms again. I believe that DSL could be made much more widely available than it is today, closing somewhat the gap between haves and have-not’s in the chase for high speed Internet access. But AT&T’s policy makers aren’t interested in serving a few stragglers living in the boonies. They are much more interested in groups of people in the same building, or at least the same block.
So here we are today, lagging further behind any number of other countries in the penetration of real high speed Internet to every house or business. I was able to find any number of stories online about the importance of access to high speed Internet for everyone from business people to students, yet the companies who could help solve a large part of the problem are allowed to ignore promises that were made in the heat of the corporate merger embrace.
Some of our elected officials aren’t helping the situation, either. Locally, witness the folks who allowed Comcast to renew their franchise contract in Tuolumne County without holding their feet to the fire to upgrade the system that is in place so it can provide Internet access. Here was a one-time opportunity, but the negotiations were rushed so it could be finished on an artificial deadline. Statewide, call your friends at the PUC and ask what they’re doing to make AT&T perform on promises their parent companies made years ago. Don’t send me the phone bill for the time you’ll be spending on hold.
Where’s the good news here, you’re asking?
Sorry, but when I see the mess that was brought on by bankers being “fixed” by the same bankers that caused the problems – who as we speak are receiving bonuses completely out of proportion to the performance of their respective companies – I haven’t much faith in corporate promises being made or kept.
Despite some news accounts to the contrary, there aren’t enough stimulus dollars to go around to hook up a system that will bring fast Internet to every cave hereabouts, much less every house that isn’t on a ridge top.
In the absence of efforts by companies who own the wires – we’re talking Comcast and AT&T here primarily – your only hope is a local company who can and will invest money necessary to push closer to your neighborhood. Then realize that even these small, local companies are to some extent driven by the same economics that drive the large ones – how long will it take to make the money back?
If one of you smart folks out there has a better idea about how to fix this problem, other than relying on your local, struggling ISP, who may or may not be coming to a house near you, I’d like to hear what you’ve got.
Email questions to Marv at: marv.dealy@throck.com.
Marv Dealy founded Throckmorten Enterprises in San Francisco in 1988 and moved the company to Big Oak Flat in 1996. Open Monday through Friday, 9-ish to 5-ish (209- 962-7308). The company provides technical support for a large Silicon Valley company’s webinars, as well as providing professional website design, and computer and network maintenance. The company also publishes the Yosemite Gazette.
