Please pass this link on to all of your contacts and friends in our region, so that we can make this the most complete and accurate map in California!

Direct link to crowdsourcing module: http://mshelton.kattare.com/bbcrowdCSC/bbCSC.html

Susan Crawford is a Professor of Law at the University of Michigan, teaching communications law and internet law. She was a partner with Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering (now WilmerHale) until the end of 2002, when she left to become a legal academic. Ms Crawford recently ended her term as a member of the Board of Directors of ICANN.

Ken Werbach is an Assistant Professor of Legal Studies and Business Ethics at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and the organizer of the annual Supernova technology conference (http://www.supernova2009.com). His research explores the legal and business dynamics of information and communications technologies. Formerly, he served as Counsel for New Technology Policy at the FCC during the Clinton Administration. He has also edited Release 1.0, a renowned technology newsletter, and founded Supernova Group, a technology analysis and consulting firm.

In March, Ms. Crawford had this blunt response to the assertion made by Richard Russell, the White House’s associate director on science and technology policy, that the US rollout of broadband access was going well:

I think it’s magical thinking to imagine that we’re somehow doing fine here, and I just want to make sure that we recognize that even the [International Telecommunications Union] says that between 1999 and 2006 we skipped form third to 20th place in penetration.

At the annual Tech Policy Summit, a gathering of top officials in the world of tech policy, Ms. Crawford made the following observations about the current state of broadband in the US:

We’re not doing at all well for reasons that mostly have to do with the fact that we failed to have a US industrial policy pushing forward high-speed internet access penetration, and there’s been completely inadequate competition in this country for high speed internet access.

This is like water, electricity, sewage systems: Something that each and all Americans need to succeed in the modern era. We’re doing very badly, and we’re in a dismal state.

Since the first step in fixing a problem is the recognition that this is a problem, these choices bode well for increased broadband penetration, especially in under-served rural areas like ours.

You can listen to Susan Crawford discuss telecom policy here, and read Ken Werbach’s columns on tech policy at internet-infrastructure journal Circle-ID.

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070720_002525.html

The plan provides download speeds of up to 768 kilobits per second and upload speeds of up to 128 kbps, matching AT&T’s basic plan.

If you can’t find the plan listed on the website, don’t worry. AT&T wants it that way. They’ve hidden it, according to the AP.

…

To take advantage of the plan, you’ll need to sign a 1 year contract and you need to be a new customer to AT&T broadband. This sounds like a good opportunity for anyone you know who still has dial-up, or for people who don’t need cable internet and want something slower and cheaper. The modem is free.

Keep an eye out for the next concession, so-called “naked DSL.” Within 6 months, AT&T will be required to offer DSL with no local phone service. The treasure hunt to find that one on their site should be equally fun.

Remember that this is for new DSL service only. If anyone reading this tries to get this service, please report on your experience in the comments.

Update: A reference to this program being offered by AT&T Yahoo! in California can be found in their Terms and Conditions, in the section headed AT&T YAHOO! HIGH-SPEED INTERNET.

Also this, reported in comments on another blog:

You can find the info on the att.COM website.

You have to “shop” for it by clicking on the learn more button.

Under Basic Plan for $14.99 click on the link that says “See if you Qualify”.

You have to answer a couple of questions then, put in your existing phone number.

The next page shows if you qualify, if you do the $10.00 deal shows up.

TA DA.

1. the local connection
2. the long distance connection

The logistics are similar to setting up a town with postal service. The neighborhood post office is responsible for moving mail to and from all local addresses. It is also responsible for transferring mail to and from trucks sent by the large regional post office for long distance travel. Note that all in-town mail traffic travels through the neighborhood post office whether it stays in town or travels long distances.

In place of a local post office, broadband service relies on an automated device called a router located somewhere in the neighborhood. The router is so named because it is responsible for routing messages sent over the Internet toward their destination. All Internet messages sent or received by local addresses pass through the neighborhood router. Either wires or antennas must be installed to establish a link between each individual customer and the neighborhood router. It must also have a link to at least one high capacity long distance router to handle Internet messages traveling to or from out-of-town destinations.

Local Versus Long Distance

The equipment and labor required to run a local post office is distinct from what is involved in getting mail between distant post offices. At the local level, postal workers must concern themselves with local street names and addresses. Between post offices, the focus is on the zip code and country name. At the local level, individual letters are sorted by hand and delivered on foot or in small trucks. Long distance mail traffic travels in boxes sorted by regional destination and is carried in large trucks and planes.

The equipment required to maintain broadband Internet service at a local level is similarly distinct from the long distance requirements. At the local level, the neighborhood router is focused on carrying a relatively low volume of Internet traffic between many different customers located in relatively close proximity. Outside the local level, the focus is on high capacity and long distances.

High capacity, long distance, broadband equipment is generally referred to as backhaul infrastructure. To remember this term, I think of hauling lots of stuff and that it takes place in the background rather than in my vicinity. Backhaul routers generally don’t support nearly as many connections as neighborhood routers. They just have to handle a lot of capacity and hand off messages to the next router in line.

Local broadband equipment is generally referred to as last-mile infrastructure. It does not have to support the distance or capacity required by backhaul infrastructure but it does have to support lots of individual connections with all the unique complications of maintaining a reliable connection with each individual customer. These complications are commonly known as the last-mile problem. It is similar to all the local knowledge that an individual mail carrier accumulates about which houses have dogs, where individual mailboxes are hidden, etc.

Economies of Scale

A single postal employee with a sorting table and small vehicle can handle all the mail traveling in or out of a single neighborhood route. The complexity, labor and capital required to operate a regional postal hub is huge by comparison. Despite this greater complexity and capital expenditure, the cost of moving one letter one mile is much lower at the regional level than at the local level due to economies of scale.

The same economies of scale apply to broadband infrastructure. The large cables and high capacity equipment that carry long distance Internet traffic are more expensive to set up than local equipment but per mile and per message sent they operate at a far lower cost than local equipment. The last-mile problem can be solved with less expensive equipment but it must be largely solved one customer at a time.

Risk and Return on Investment

It is generally assumed that the cost of setting up broadband infrastructure will ultimately be paid for by the customers who benefit from the service. On paper, it is not terribly difficult to justify these costs. The required equipment is nowadays produced at amazingly low cost. Once people become accustomed to having broadband service they generally find that the value they receive is well worth the cost. The tricky part is managing the up front investment required to put the infrastructure in place.

We believe that all users deserve free, fast and sanitary online access. To offset the cost of providing the TiSP service, we use information gathered by discreet DNA sequencing of your personal bodily output to display online ads that are contextually relevant to your culinary preferences, current health status and likelihood of developing particular medical conditions going forward. Google also offers premium levels of service for a monthly fee.

Leave it to Google to provide services never before imagined!

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.