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BBR: Municipal Report
Vonage goes muni, Qwest territories revolt

Vonage strikes a deal with a muni-cable operator, while Washington State becomes a hotbed of debate between county-backed utilities and Qwest. -

Vonage announced today that the company has struck a deal with the Coldwater Board of Public Utilities, allowing the Michigan muni-cable provider to resell Vonage VoIP services over their network. It's an interesting union between two technological trends that both exist as alternatives to incumbent providers.

Al Bonnyman's Community Broadband Network Blog tracks the muni-movement taking place in Washington State. Apparently a fiber optic cable in the region was sabotaged, knocking 60,000 Qwest customers off-line. The outage is the second since 2001, raising questions about Qwest's dedication to redundancy in the area. 911 services were knocked off-line, and several area banks were apparently forced to shut down.

Meanwhile, Qwest continues to fight tooth and nail against municipal and utility broadband operations in the state. Elaine Davis, a representative for the Fair Competition Alliance (which represents Qwest and Verizon), recently showed up in Grant County, Washington to warn area residents about the dangers of Muni-operations. Naturally, Davis is concerned about the local decision to allow Puget Sound Energy a slice of the broadband pie (the company is considering FTTH in cooperation with the county).

At one of the meetings, Davis apparently opined, "We expect the public sector to make good, conservative decisions. I don't think this qualifies." Davis adds "There is not consensus in the telecommunications industry that fiber optics is the next best medium for data transfer. Even those who push for fiber can't guarantee something better won't come along. If that happened, those who invested heavily in fiber would be left with outmoded technology."

It doesn't get a whole lot better than fiber to the home, Ms. Davis. We're sure if Qwest has a secret plan to unveil 45Mbps connectivity via water pipes, under-served area residents would be happy to hear about it.

You can check out the council meeting minutes here in pdf format. As Mr. Bonnyman points out, Davis is no stranger to lobbying against publicly owned power companies. She's done so across the country, from Bonneville Power to small municipal utilities in Nebraska. The irony is that many of these areas were given no consideration as viable target markets before such operations became popular. Now that the municipal trend is growing wings, the interest has shot through the roof on the part of incumbent lobbyists and representatives.

The same story is playing out in Windom, Minnesota. Area leaders, tired of Qwest's "foot dragging", have decided to launch the first muni-telco the region has seen in 80 years. The City Council in Windom, which is home to 4,500 residents, voted last week to bring some competition to Qwest's door (they've been conducting feasibility studies since 2000). Apparently Qwest had promised area leaders in 1999 that they were close to bringing high-speed connectivity to the region, but have yet to follow through.
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AthlGrond
Premium Member
join:2002-04-25
Aurora, CO

AthlGrond

Premium Member

Via La Broadband!

I hope Qwest tries to compete with this fiber installation (rather than trying to legislate it out of existence), too bad my community is not doing something similar.
53059959 (banned)
Temp banned from BBR more then anyone
join:2002-10-02
PwnZone

53059959 (banned)

Member

axing the fiber

althought I don't think it could be cut with an axe... still interesting to see a story where the fiber was easily deliberately cut.
shuubz
A Good Kind Of Pain
join:2001-02-12
White Rock, BC

shuubz

Member

Blunt Force Trauma


One would think a hammer would be a good means to this end.

Fiber strands are still a glass medium (until they switch to plastic in a few years), and will shatter when exposed to high levels of vibration, strain or shear forces, a 90-degree bend, or just a hearty whack.

DaveDude
No Fear
join:1999-09-01
New Jersey

DaveDude

Member

Re: Blunt Force Trauma

Thats alot of people down. Makes me wonder which is less reliable, cable-voip, telco-voice.

lazarus_
join:2002-08-31
Resolute, NU

lazarus_ to shuubz

Member

to shuubz
"One would think a hammer would be a good means to this end.

Fiber strands are still a glass medium (until they switch to plastic in a few years), and will shatter when exposed to high levels of vibration, strain or shear forces, a 90-degree bend, or just a hearty whack."


you should see the sheilding that underground fiber goes in...(repeated hits w/ the hammer would be needed to wreck the fiber.)
1 vibrations aren't usually a factor when they a burried.
2 I dont think you can bend copper wires 90 degrees without causing major strain..(anyways in fiber can be bent quite a bit w/ out causing extra attenuation..)
3 a (un-intentional)hearty whack will not break the fiber
4 Plastic FO will never replace glass FO for high bandwidth backbones over long haul.. (I dont think Single mode FO will ever be invented..)

Maybe your thinking of FO that comes on a spool.. That stuff is un-sheilded looks like fishing line and is usually used for lab settings and is very fragile like that...

This was definitely vandalism and when(if) the person is caught they should be forced to pay the repair costs...
shuubz
A Good Kind Of Pain
join:2001-02-12
White Rock, BC

shuubz

Member

Fiber v. 2

Recently heard about some work that's due in production within 18 months or so.

Fiber made from plastic combined with another material (don't remember what that was), that has the same capacity as multi-mode fiber, but with less diffusion. It is much easier to deploy (flexible, durable), doesn't require as much cladding as old-style outdoor lines, and is trivial to terminate.

I think it uses different connectors though...it's been a few weeks since I had this info handy.

devrandom
I got a pot, full of random stuff here
Premium Member
join:2003-06-28

devrandom

Premium Member

Redundancy

Karl, are you working overtime or something?
This is a long one

Anyway, this makes you think how safe you are in the world, when only a cord of fiber optics has all your communications in it and can be cut at any time and at any moment.

Strange to think about how we really are reliant on power, and technology (as seen in the east coast blackout) and that when we don't have it, we are in a monkier and a total stage of panic.
bonnyman
join:2003-04-16
Rome, GA

bonnyman

Member

Here they go again -- Qwest outage today in Wyo.

"Cell service shuts down:
Thousands of Cellular One phone customers and others in Gillette and around Wyoming lost service when a contractor cut through a fiber-optic cable Wednesday."

»www.gillettenewsrecord.c ··· ews4.txt

Transmaster
Don't Blame Me I Voted For Bill and Opus
join:2001-06-20
Cheyenne, WY

Transmaster

Member

Re: Here they go again -- Qwest outage today in Wyo.

In todays Casper Star Tribune newspaper (9/5/2003)
it was revealed the construction company that cut the line
had called the "call before you dig" line twice and where assured both times by Qwest there were no active line in their area and the active lines ones next to the construction site where flagged. The Fiber that was cut Qwest didn't even know it was there, and it was one of their lines. I am sure glad Qwest isn't in charge of mapping mine fields we would all die.
Transmaster

Transmaster

Member

Har-de-har-har

Oh I think this is great. Qwest has been very good at keeping others out of it's service area's by tying it up in court. Now there are other technologies the are going bypass them. Using power company rights of way.

Wyoming is like so many other areas in Qwest's empire has had nothing but promises. When a township pins one of these clowns down they get the Qwest PR type telling them;

"oh the parahelion of the quantum wireloola is
preventing us from bringing forth
the network viability of the copper farady shield inductance
routing. We need 1,2 billion to install the voltimoony capacitance hat, and the fiber diet processor server. We
also need to develop the technology to improve the
flow of carpo tunnel guark vectors. But we think we can
roll out the technology in 3 years, Uranus time.

By this time the commissions eyes are glazed over, and they are in a coma.

batageek
Slave To The Duopoly
Premium Member
join:2003-01-25

batageek

Premium Member

GAG...idiocy rules

At one of the meetings, Davis apparently opined, "We expect the public sector to make good, conservative decisions. I don't think this qualifies." Davis adds "There is not consensus in the telecommunications industry that fiber optics is the next best medium for data transfer. Even those who push for fiber can't guarantee something better won't come along. If that happened, those who invested heavily in fiber would be left with outmoded technology."

This must explain why all the Bells have been working on an agreement concerning ftth standards. I believe this is it...»Carrot on a Stick

What a line of garbage, Ms. Davis....
Talis
join:2001-06-21
Houston, TX


1 recommendation

Talis

Member

Re: GAG...idiocy rules

said by batageek:
This must explain why all the Bells have been working on an agreement concerning ftth standards. I believe this is it...»Carrot on a Stick

What a line of garbage, Ms. Davis....

ravital
Just Another Pesky Independent Nh Voter
Premium Member
join:2001-07-19
Merrimack, NH

1 recommendation

ravital to batageek

Premium Member

to batageek
said by batageek:
What a line of garbage, Ms. Davis....

Don't know about you, but it makes me want to write a book, "1,000 uses for a dead lobbyist."

batageek
Slave To The Duopoly
Premium Member
join:2003-01-25


1 recommendation

batageek

Premium Member

Re: GAG...idiocy rules

Substitute the word "Lobbyist" for "Consultant."

zabes63
join:2003-04-05
Batavia, IL

zabes63

Member

More of the same...

Why is it that the incumbents have never used their record of quality service as a means to combat the threat of Muni proliferation?
shuubz
A Good Kind Of Pain
join:2001-02-12
White Rock, BC


1 recommendation

shuubz

Member

Look, it's Santa!

They seem fond of making stuff up, why not that?

Not even a bribed official will buy that one. They'll believe in the Easter Bunny first.

It's a shame when you can't say anything about your QoS, b/c you're afraid people will laugh at you.
[text was edited by author 2003-09-04 21:17:21]

batageek
Slave To The Duopoly
Premium Member
join:2003-01-25

batageek to zabes63

Premium Member

to zabes63

Re: More of the same...

Zabes:

Is is just me or wasn't Coldwater, MI termed a failure by Comcast in their ads during the TriCity Broadband referendum? That ad can be found at »www.tricitybroadband.com ··· tad2.pdf

I think the Comcast ad was shot down pretty well at »www.tricitybroadband.com ··· ures.htm and again with this Vonage partnership.

Lying Cheating B*st*rds! Can't even run on their OWN service record.

Transmaster
Don't Blame Me I Voted For Bill and Opus
join:2001-06-20
Cheyenne, WY

Transmaster

Member

Bring unto me Ms. Davis I will change her world

Me Thunder Thighs....You Davis I am going to pump you up
arrrrrrrrrrgggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
mooty
join:2001-01-28
Riverdale, GA

mooty

Member

Thar's gold in thar 'dem hills! Right down Yonder!

quote:
Oh I think this is great. Qwest has been very good at keeping others out of it's service area's by tying it up in court. Now there are other technologies the are going bypass them. Using power company rights of way.

Wyoming is like so many other areas in Qwest's empire has had nothing but promises. When a township pins one of these clowns down they get the Qwest PR type telling them;

"oh the parahelion of the quantum wireloola is
preventing us from bringing forth
the network viability of the copper farady shield inductance
routing. We need 1,2 billion to install the voltimoony capacitance hat, and the fiber diet processor server. We
also need to develop the technology to improve the
flow of carpo tunnel guark vectors. But we think we can
roll out the technology in 3 years, Uranus time.

By this time the commissions eyes are glazed over, and they are in a coma.
LOOOOOOOL !

And I thought my cable provider was giving me the runaround.
quote:
You can check out the council meeting minutes here in pdf format. As Mr. Bonnyman points out, Davis is no stranger to lobbying against publicly owned power companies. She's done so across the country, from Bonneville Power to small municipal utilities in Nebraska. The irony is that many of these areas were given no consideration as viable target markets before such operations became popular. Now that the municipal trend is growing wings, the interest has shot through the roof on the part of incumbent lobbyists and representatives
Do you remember the story of the race between the turtle and the hare? Just asking, because (in classic Sam Kinnison shouting voice) I FORGOT WHO WON! (intended sarcasm).

So alchemists at one time or another tried to invent gold (which can be done - can't it? - although the process is too cost prohibitive, right ?)

Municipally controlled broadband is quite the gold, and story after story of several municipalities churning out their own gold, well it's no wonder those CLECs, ILECs, and their lobbyists are crying "wolf" but to cry "wolf" at the LOCAL municipalities? The public has been crying "Wolf" - to the FCC - for years!

Does anyone actually live in the hottest remote regions in Death-Valley, CA. ? I understand that is THE HOTTEST place in the U.S. Even heard it gets so hot that whole sections of intrastate road in the desert are closed to prevent even the slightest possibility of someone should they get stranded, if their car or vehicle breaks down in the middle of nowhere, miles from nowhere, when the temp. is 120'F. Don't know if that's true, but I heard it.
And in some similar, really rual places, like in Arizona, Nevada - You can traverse for miles in the desert areas, marked by county lines and still not see a single person.

Or some remote Alaskan village (I think I recall at least one article from DSLR that mentioned this from a while back) where more than half the time the temp. dips -40' below freezing F. AND THEY HAVE BROADBAND (NOT Satellite), as far as I know probably municipally owned and/or operated (as best as I can recall from that long, lost(?) article) that no CLEC or ILEC would dare think as being an economically viable broadband market target for them to setup shop there.

I saw this one evening - it actually made the evening news that Bank of America set up an ATM (that's Automatic Teller Machine) at, of all places, the SOUTH POLE for the hundreds(?) or thousands(?) of scientists and researchers to withdrawl cash while on their monthly, maybe yearly stints in Antarctica. (Is there a Taco Bell there too by any chance? Just wondering). I don't recall (or know) what kind of BroadBand if any is deployed at the South Pole - Satellite and Wi-Fi would make the most sense in such an environment, I think - I'm almost (LOL) sure they are NOT using 56k's. HAMs are a sure thing. I don't think PLB would be too welcome in a place like Antarctica - doesn't matter, too cold, too remote.

On the other hand, my name is Java Joe, I live at 2468 HELLSOUTH-Controls-My-Broadband's fate Court (doesn't that just sound like a dead end street?) in the town of "2-miles-from-City Hall", GA. - where cars almost literally, EVERY NIGHT, play an unintentional game of chicken on this badly engineered, CANNOT SEE SQUAT over the horizon, narrow 2-way, 1 lane road that cuts right thru a cemetary, with grave headstones on both sides of the road - on the way, but not the only way, to City-Hall. If HELLSOUTH could just setup shop a DSLAM or CO on just ONE side of that road, so that the other side still had a cemetary, it would make for a great picture for a horror film.

And what would the name of that horror picture film be? Bueller? Bueller? Anyone? Anyone? -Looking for some creative minds here.

puperscuper
@wdc-dc.osd.concentri

puperscuper

Anon

Re: Thar's gold in thar 'dem hills! Right down Yonder!

QUOTE:
On the other hand, my name is Java Joe, I live at 2468 HELLSOUTH-Controls-My-Broadband's fate Court (doesn't that just sound like a dead end street?) in the town of "2-miles-from-City Hall", GA. - where cars almost literally, EVERY NIGHT, play an unintentional game of chicken on this badly engineered, CANNOT SEE SQUAT over the horizon, narrow 2-way, 1 lane road that cuts right thru a cemetary, with grave headstones on both sides of the road - on the way, but not the only way, to City-Hall. If HELLSOUTH could just setup shop a DSLAM or CO on just ONE side of that road, so that the other side still had a cemetary, it would make for a great picture for a horror film.

END QUOTE

OH MY GOD! Did I write this? This sounds like me! Only, I would have brought up the dead road kill everywhere, the lack of adequate street lighting on every road, much less 285, and can't see a damn thing with all the trees and dead bugs everywhere. Rains every g_-_amn day and there's a rattle snake in my back yard that I just heard an hour ago and I'm afraid to go outside.

And what the hell is up with all the roads cutting through and around cemetaries?! I've never held my breath so much in my life since I've moved here. LOL!

I'm a fellow GA resident. Don't get me started on the shopping centers, pizza joints, mexican restaurants, restaurants in general, and minivans with the soccor ball stickers on them, ok!
mooty
join:2001-01-28
Riverdale, GA

mooty

Member

Re: Thar's gold in thar 'dem hills! Right down Yonder!

Road kills ? That's affirmative, but you know it's all part of a well balanced eco-sytem here.

Buzzards, black crows, and other vermin and scavenger birds take care of the road kill (after it's been slammed, sliced, and diced a few times by Ginsu-quality vehicles' bumpers and wheels - sounds much like the way you can get your hashbrowns done at any Wafflehouse) - and be it a dog, cat, or a squirrel - seen waaaaaaaay too many squirrels - and the cannot-get-enough-of-that-awesome-smelling oppossum - be it out of the woods, or even someone's pet. The wind and rain wash the rest away, since I'm sure a scavenging bird like a black crow won't take too long to enjoy every last morsel from his road-side served meal before he himself becomes roadkill.

Those vehicles, again affirmative, bearing the soccer seal (what, only mini-vans nowadays, no more station-wagons like the good 'ole days?)

Streetlighting - Hey, there's a thought! What a great historic idea it was to install street lights at a T-intersection after so many 1-car nightly accidents when drivers, probably not familiar with the area, wrongly assumed that the road they were traveling straight on continued straight ahead past the one stop sign - (IF they had bothered to come to a full stop at all!) - untill they found out the hard way! They probably hit their noggen on the car ceiling after their car plunged nose first into a soft, but deep shoulder - not a medical emergency in most cases, but it kept the tow truck buiness owners smiling.

Mexican restaurants ? Welcome to the New South! Or is that Nueva South ? Some places are better than others.. You got your perfect-for-a-movie-going-gang world famous 5-star Taco Bells, (take a sandwich with you while you wait camp in line at the drive-thru at 1:30 a.m. on a Fri./Sat. night) and then you got your real enchillada, hot-tamale true 4-5 star Mex. restaurants. And Buford Hwy. ? That was recently rated "The Most International Street in the whole U.S." by some nationaly-recognized U.S. newspaper, cannot remember which one. Maybe some euro-restaurants, but all of S. American and S.E. Asian restaurants, Indian/Paki - some Middle-Eastern, restaurants and businesses - taste of the whole road, can be found up and down Peachtree St. and especially Buford Hwy.

So what do so many of these "internalies", especially the Hispanics, do for fun on the weekend, when or if they are NOT working ? They are kicking my ass at soccer, or foooooootball on Sundays, since they are usually the ones who get the impromptu pick-up games going - that's right, 30 vs. 30, or better improvised 11 vs. 11 games - before and AFTER the usual 1st-field priority league games.

Ok, I won't get you started on the 'other' stuff that you said you would have included in this Atlanta, Georgia dissertation that strikes a resemblance to your writing.

I just thought I would elaborate on those points that stick out the most. Oh, and let me throw in HellSouth again just to make this dissertation germaine to the whole topic from the beginning. LOL

"And then there are all those malls (more than 10 of them) all within 10-20 miles of each other. And the Mall of GA. did you know that th.... (stopped)"

Private
Premium Member
join:2002-01-04
000000

Private

Premium Member

This is scary plus They are gonna sue

The effect of that outage -- the line was cut twice in two days -- was limited to Whatcom County and underscored the vulnerability of the county's 911-dispatch system.

---------------------------------------------
That is scary. Imagine the mayhem if something like that happened in a major city like LA? No ATM machines, No Phone for 911.. going back to the days after Rodney King and the Koreans w/ Shot guns on top of their store roofs. That would be a self infliceted Terrorist activity that would be a wise terroristic move. Mayhem an menace that US people are responsible for.

#2.. I have saying for ever and ever and ever that the Telecoms and Cable want Vonage regulated so they can sue.
Everytime I hear these stories I think of that.

If it is not true, then Why is Vonage involved in reselling partnerships with smaller cable systems?

calvoiper
join:2003-03-31
Belvedere Tiburon, CA

calvoiper

Member

Re: This is scary plus They are gonna sue

Indeed. What this really does is put the lie to all the RBOC spittle about 9-1-1 reliability. As reported in the article with the "sabotage" link, the fiber was cut 60 miles south of Bellingham--yet it totally isolated Bellingham for LD and 9-1-1. Why in the world is Qwest routing 9-1-1 calls 60 miles away?

Another shining example of RBOC's saying "our competitors don't have reliable 9-1-1", when it fact it is their own house they need to clean up.

I'll be interested in hearing more about the cause of this outage--currently it is being called sabotage as having been "deliberately caused". Such attacks are inexcusable. Is Qwest currently under going any labor relations strife?

Calvoiper