Broadband of Brothers

Broadband Adoption

Russ Steele

The Pew Internet & American Life Project has released their Broadband Adoption 2007 report. As you can see from the Summary, rural users are still being left out in the woods by the big telecommunications providers.  Big Telco gets favorable treatment at the state house and rural users get the. . . you add any term you like. We cannot adopt broadband if it is not available.

Summary of Findings
• 47% of all adult Americans have a broadband connection at home as of early
2007, a five percentage point increase from early 2006.
• Among individuals who use the internet at home, 70% have a broadband
connection while 23% use dialup.
• Home broadband adoption in rural areas, now 31%, continues to lag high speed
adoption in urban centers and suburbs.
o Internet usage in rural areas also trails the national average; 60% of rural
adults use the internet from any location, compared with the national
average of 71%.
• 40% of African Americans now have a broadband connection at home, a nine
percentage point increase from early 2006.
o Since 2005, the percentage of African American adults with a home
broadband connection has nearly tripled, from 14% in early 2005 to
40% in early 2007.

AT&T offering $10.00 month DSL for next 2.5 years.

Russ Steele

Paul Norcell writes in an e-mail that AT&T is offering DSL to customers in the 22-state AT&T service region, if you have a local phone and are willing to enter into a one-year contract. It is not advertised,  you have to hunt for the offer under "Term contract plans". It's also revealed when you go into the application process on the web site.  Some good bargain hunting for those who have DSL access. We are still waiting up here on Banner, though the silent RT unit is only a quarter mile from the neighborhood.  It is not a bargain, unless you can get access.

More DSL on Lower Banner Lava Cap

Russ Steele

Scott Matheson reports he can get DSL on his 477 prefix number, which  I believe is a Grass Valley number. Scott reports seeing quite a bit of activity by AT&T over the last three weeks, specifically on Banner, between Gracie Rd. and Idaho Maryland, he has seen AT&T trucks working on the RT at Banner and Valley View twice in the last three weeks. 

So, I tried my 271 prefix on AT&Ts Broadband finder, and  WOW!   Broadband is now avilable in our neighborhood near the intersection of Banner Lava Cap and Gracie.

To check your house by starting here,  and then click on Check Availability, enter your phone number and pick your plan.

UPDATE:  I have been in contact with AT&T Rep and he advised me this is not correct. He is arranging for an engineer to explain how the search engine will indicate the service is available, when it really is not.

Are you getting the speed you paid for?

Russ Steele

When I first installed Comcast Internet, I was getting about 6000K down, it was fast. Over time it has slowed down.  Last night I was only averaging about 555K, which is about DSL Speeds. But, when you read the Comcast ads, or watch them on TV, they promise 4 times the DSL speeds, up to 6000K.  Well in the agreement I signed the promise was for "up to." Which is really from 0 to 6,000K and any where in between. The devil is in the details.  The San Francisco Sunday Chronicle Business section has an interesting story about the FCC looking into broadband speed claims by providers. Details here.

Here is the speed test I use: http://www.speedtest.net/

You can try different servers on the speed test. My slowest was to San Francisco at 357K, Salt Lake at 3300K with several others being between 500K and 1,500K  Faster than dialup but slower than I have been used to.  Please let us know what your speed is in a comment  Are you getting what you are paying for?

Comcast business broadband product report

Russ Steele

At the December ERC Board meeting, LectraMedia reported they are having good success with Comcast’s business broadband.  The were using AT&T DSL, but have switched to Comcast. Document down loads that use to take ten hours, are now being done in one hour.  They have three Comcast connections, and are very pleased with the performance. Speeds have been as advertized.   If you would like more information please send me and e-mail at rwsteele(at)gmail.com  and I will get you in touch with the right person.

Latest DSL Broadband Update

Russ Steele

Here are the turn on dates for more AT&T DSL capability  in Western Nevada County.   AT&T has promised monthly updates, stay tuned!

NEVADA COUNTY :   DSL Availability   

Lake Wildwood 

• Along Pleasant Valley Road beyond John Bourne Road  & down John Bourne :  12/31/06
• Gold Country Road Development :  12/31/06
• Around the lake on Lake Wildwood Drive :12/31/06 
• On Wildflower Drive : 12/31/06 

Nevada County   

• All along Lake Vera Purdon Road 11/30/06
• At 13354 Quaker Hill Cross Road & beyond, including many small roads off of  this road 10/31/06
• At 14087 Banner Lava Cap & beyond, including many small roads off of this road 10/31/06
• At Red Dog Road & beyond, Including many small roads off of this road 10/31/2006 ( There are 37 working DSL lines  out of 73 living units in area)
• At 101 Providence Mine Road  & beyond down Ridge Road 11/30/06
• At 16899 State Highway 49 towards the town of Grass Valley 12/31/06

You need to call AT&T or go to this web site.

Locked up and unmet speed boost

Russ Steele

I am a Comcast broadband and Mac user. This weekend I learned something about my Mac and broadband connection. My son-in-law and I were sharing Mac stories a few weeks ago. He recently bought one of the new Intel base laptops that can run both Windows and OS-X.  He was running speed tests after upgrading his Surewest DSL connection to 10 MHz.  When running OS-X he could not get beyond 4 MHz. But, with the same laptop running Windows his speed test hit 10 MHz.  My guess is it was a Mac operating system limitation. I checked both by dual G-4 and G-4 laptop, and could not get beyond 4 MHz even though my service is suppose to be 8 MHz.  According to the Comcast web page for my billing rate, I should have 8 MHz, with PowerBoost to 16 MHz for down loading large files.

The son-in-law was here this weekend with his new laptop with the latest version of OS-X (10.04.8)  We check my connection, and it was 6 MHz down, with his laptop in both Windows and OS-X. It was under 4 MHz on my desk top, until I upgraded my OS-X operating system, then a little over 6 MHz.  So, we tried Boost.  The son-in-law started down loading a free movie. Time 11 minutes. Speed a little over 7 MHz, which could have been the supply server. Not the promised 16 MHz.  But, what disturbed me the most was the down load locked up the network. No other computer could log on to the Internet.    I tried to log on with my dual G-4 desktop and wife’s laptop. Both were frozen out as long as the movie was down loading at 7 MHz. This is not good.   This feature (?) now explains why Ellen cannot get her e-mail sometimes when I am down loading a large document file. Not good!

I am wondering are other Comcast Internet users having similar problems?  Do you ever get 16 Mhz of PowerBoost?  If you are a Mac and Comcast Internet user, consider upgrading to the latest version of OS-X to get the full speed advantage.

AT&T Hi Speed Internet Update

Russ Steele

Preston Dickinson the AT&T Rep writes in an e-mail:

AT&T will [not] be rolling out our U-verse product in Nevada County for a while. We will be adding Hi Speed Internet to some neighborhoods in that area before years end…and that is good news. 
 
As soon as I legally can, I will let you know which neighborhoods they are.  If you have individuals in those neighborhoods that would like a call, you will be able to provide their name, address and telephone number and I will hook them up with a service representative.

Check out the latest broadband coverage map to see if you might fall in the potential new coverage areas shown in pokadot blue. We have no confirmation that these areas will be turned on by AT&T, but these are the arena that AT&T has installed fiber optics and install DSL remote terminals. The Telcom Committee is betting these are the areas where the new services will be provided. If you have any questions, please e-mail info@ncerc.org, with Telcom Question in the Subject Line.

AT&T Promises, Promises

Russ Steele

I went on the ERC Tour of Nevada County yesterday and was fortunate to meet Preston Dickinson, AT&T’s Area Manager for External Affair.  Preston came down from Chico to learn more about our local export businesses.  His truly a very nice guy, but I took this opportunity to  twist his arm to get AT&T to turn on more DSL services.  He said, by the end of the year we might see the new services turned on, but he just could not tell me more.   I explained the impact the lack of broadband services was having on home based business that needed broadband access to compete and the impact it has on the real estate market, as the number of homes with broadband access is shrinking.

We recently had almost 200 people log on to the ERC broadband map, to check access coverage.   I told Preston that we had located most of the new RT Units and will be posting them on the ERC Broadband map. The next update to the ERC broadband map will have green circles around the RT Units that we have identified, but AT&T has not turned on yet. I warned that this new information might bring some calls to AT&T.  He suggested we might want to get some letters, or have all those folks in the green zones on the map sign a petition.  More as information come available.

UPDATE:  The Governor has signed AB2987 which will allow the phone company to compete with the cable companies, with our negociating a franchise agreement with cities and towns. This is a bad move for Counties and Cities, but maybe good for those of us waiting for more DSL service. It has been my opinion that AT&T was holding up turning on the new DSL remote terminals until they could market package deals of broadband, phone and video. Let's see how long it takes now that AB2987 was signed this afternoon by the Governor.

Is this AT&T's promised surprise?

Russ Steele

AT&T Launches Live Broadband TV Service

By BRUCE MEYERSON

NEW YORK (AP) - AT&T Inc. (T) is launching an Internet TV service where subscribers can watch live cable channels such as Fox News on any computer with a broadband connection for $20 per month.

The AT&T Broadband TV service announced Tuesday features about 20 channels of live and made-for-broadband content. The channel lineup includes the History Channel, the Weather Channel, the Food Network, Bloomberg and Oxygen. Additional channels will be added soon, the company said without elaborating.

Full story here.

The question is when will we get these features in Nevada County?   When will AT&T turn on the new remote terminals they have installed? 

AT&T -- No build out rules!

Russ Steele

The Senate is about to make the final decision on how many rural customers will get their broadband, as required by law, or never.  Here is what an AT&T lobbyist has to say in How to squelch growth of the high-speed Net

At a time when new technologies are constantly changing the way we work and live, the United States Senate is debating whether the market or government regulation is the best way to make sure that these technologies become available to all Americans.

The challenge of getting high-speed Internet in Nevada County

Russ Steele

Laura Brown writes in the Business Section of the Union Internet service inconsistent, August 15, 2006

There is high-speed Internet for everyone in western Nevada County, it just depends how much you want to pay for it.

Many residents are fed up with slow dial-up, and yet for those who live outside city limits, some as little as four miles away, there are no companies who provide traditional broadband service.

Read the whole article, it is a good summary of the challenges facing rural residents who are seeking a high speed connection to the Internet.

Searching for AT&T Remote Terminals

Russ Steele

AT&T has been expanding it’s physical plant in Nevada County by adding fiber optic trunk lines to remote terminal units around Western County. These report units look like those used to bring DSL services to rural areas. We have no proof that the units listed below can provide broadband DSL services, but they look like units that do. 

Here are address and the GPS coordinates of units we have located:

12195 Valley View Rd, N39’14.381, W120’59.599

14087 Banner Lava Cap, N39’14.463, W120’57.934

15876 Lake Vera-Purdon Rd,  N39’16.893, W121’01.347

16753 Lake Vera-Purdon Rd,   N39’17.578, W121’01.915

McCourtney Rd at Old Auburn Rd, N39’12.282, W121’04.654

Here is what these remote terminal looks like:

Click for a larger image.

If you see one in a location other than listed above, please post a comment below.