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Stimulus could expand broadband west
The effort to bring broadband access to all of Loudoun County has been nearly a decade in the making.For those on the front line of the effort, the announcement of possible federal stimulus money for the project is welcome.
“Am I excited about this? Yep, I am,” said Del. Joe May (R-western Loudoun), who has worked at the state level for years to expand broadband coverage to the northwestern part of the state.
“Here we are in the IT capital of the world ... and I have dial-up,” he said.
Out of the $787 billion under the federal stimulus act, $7 billion will be put toward broadband expansion. Of this, $4.7 billion will go to counties like Loudoun nationwide. The rest of the stimulus money will go to very rural areas of the country.
The guidelines for using other stimulus funding have become a headache for state and local leaders. In the case of broadband stimulus, the federal Commerce Department has not yet dictated rules to Virginia and its localities on how the money is to be allocated.
“I'm a little concerned that there will be some strings attached” that would make spending difficult, May said.
The state, however, is looking forward and already has plans to form a broadband panel to discuss the advantages of local applications for funding.
For Loudoun's business community and workers, expanding broadband west is good news.
“Loudoun County is sort of -- when it comes to broadband access -- a story of two counties,” said Loudoun County Chamber of Commerce President Tony Howard. “There is a digital divide and it's in the west, but it's not just the businesses, it's the employees.”
Howard said having broadband access in the west would promote telecommuting, so employees could work from home.
“Telecommuting is such a crucial element to the community,” he said, adding that being able to work from home decreases traffic and environmental concerns caused by commuters, and increases the productivity and quality of life for employees.
Howard said that aside from dial-up, wireless Internet access -- transmitted via towers -- also is currently available to some residents of western Loudoun. This, he warned, might decrease Loudoun's competitiveness in the fight to get broadband stimulus funding.
Scott Bashore, who heads the county's department of broadband services, said he receives about three calls a week from mostly western Loudoun residents complaining they don't have broadband coverage.
The areas that are underserved or receive no broadband coverage are roughly north of Leesburg and west of U.S. 15 and along the Route 7 corridor around Purcellville and Round Hill, Bashore said.
Not having broadband access “precludes people from working from home,” he said, adding that the county has arranged a meeting with the federal Commerce Department to find the best way to apply for the broadband funds.
“The big thing is for both the Commerce [Department] and the state to come up with rules for you to apply,” he said.
Bashore said the county has made great strides toward eliminating dial-up – going from 28 percent of residents using dial-up in 2005 to about 11 percent in 2007, according to a county quality-of-life survey.
“Is it going in a positive direction? Yes,” he said. “Are we across the finish line? Not yet.”
Broadband stimulus funding, which could be made available through public-private partnership usage, could help achieve this goal.
May said, at the state level, “there are a number of us pushing for it to go to the localities. I would think it is much more desirable to give it to the locals for them to create their own broadband [system].”
Contact the reporter at hhobbs@timespapers.com
There are so many items that need to be corrected in this article but I will try to point out a few of the important ones. For starters, Western Loudoun DOES have broadband internet access available to most of the residents and businesses. Wireless broadband companies like Roadstar, Loudoun Wireless and Lucketts.net are providing REAL broadband to thousands of homes and users in the western Loudoun, Clarke, Fauquier and Prince William County right now. Unfortunately, the local politicians cannot get beyond their overt love affair with the idea that local governments getting into the broadband industry is the only way to improve broadband coverage and the speeds offered. These folks will say/do just about anything to further their desire to see the government spend your $$ to get them into the broadband business.
Providing broadband service to western Loudoun is not a huge technical challenge as much as it is an economic challenge. The reality is that if folks in the west want to have the same level of broadband as those that live in the east, and at the same price, SOMEONE will have to provide a subsidy to cover the actual real cost to provide the service. Its that simple.
--continued comment 2.
Posted by martydougherty
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Why is it cost prohibitive to provide the service to these remote homes today? Mostly the problem is density per mile. The cost of the equipment to provide the service becomes overwhelming when you can only place a small number of users on the system. We have deployed over 70 micro-pops in the county already. Some of these POPS serve as few as a handful of customer and have been subsidies' by the end users on those systems. In order to get more areas online we would need to deploy more of these sites that would only cover a small number of users. Who will cover the cost if the end users fees wont?
There is another issue that prevents us from deploying even more broadband. The banks WILL NOT loan money to ISP's like Roadstar for broadband equipment without collateral. Collateral is required for ALL bank loans. Since the broadband equipment would be deployed on towers, rooftops and other high points the banks do not consider it to be collateral- they would not be able to easily repo the equipment should we be unable to make the loan payments. While the investors/owners of Roadstar HAVE put up our homes as collateral, that will only take us so far.
--continued comment 3
Posted by martydougherty
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So what advise would we give if the politicians and "broadband experts" actually asked us what should be done to help ? The first thing we would tell them is to get behind the providers that have already made a commitment to Loudoun. These providers, just like Roadstar, have been waiting for help from the County for a long time. With just a little help we can make a big difference. As an example, Mr. Bashore mentions in the article he gets several calls every week from folks looking for broadband but its been a couple of years since Mr. Bashore has talked with us, much less set up a mechanism for us to get the information about these folks looking for broadband. I wonder how many of them can get service right now from one of the existing broadband providers. We have techs and installers available right now- no backlog of any kind. Another item I would bring up if asked is the Loudoun's personal property tax on our equipment. Right now we are sending a lot of money to Loudoun County to pay the personal property tax bill on the equipment located in our network and at the end users homes and businesses. This "tax" on broadband is reducing our ability to add customers. For every $1,000,000 in equipment we deploy we have to send the county $67,000 to cover this broadband tax. At one time the County BOS started an effort to eliminate this broadband tax but they decided to drop the effort when it came time to "put up". So we continue to pay this tax with dollars that could be used to expand our service. This forum is to short to mention the many many more things that could be done to help us but we would be glad to discuss them with anyone who has an interest.
Roadstar will continue to be here- providing broadband to residents of the west and the east. We will continue to provide FREE service to community groups like Loudoun Free Clinic, Habitat for Humanity, Volunteer Fire Departments in the west and other worthy charities. Perhaps the county and the local politicians will contact us and offer to help us help you so that the local government doesn't need to take over the internet in Loudoun.
Unlike Mr. May, many of us don't think it is "much more desirable for locals (government) to set up broadband systems" and still believe in the free market approach. We just need some real help from those that represent us.
Regards,
Marty Dougherty
CEO
Roadstar Internet Inc.
Posted by martydougherty
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Marty,
I'm one of your customers.
While RoadStar beats dial-up, it is slow, expensive, and unreliable, when compared to the "real" broadband service available in most other areas.
Areas that have competition offer reliable broadband, with 10X the speed of RoadStar, at a lower cost. (I know - I moved here last year and gave that quality of broadband up. I had no idea when I moved to Loudoun that access was so poor, or I may have reconsidered buying where I did.)
How will this "bailout" money (assuming that any of it filters down through the politicians to the problem areas) help you provide competitive broadband?
This is not meant to be critical. Your service is the only option for many of us in western Loudoun, and is appreciated. It is just that it is a long way from being suitable broadband. I worry about how the government will/can help. If it was possible to provide profitable quality broadband, the big guys would already be doing it here!
I tired of doing web seminars for work from my car, parked outside of a coffee shop!
Posted by BRP
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The biggest hurdle for real broadband to overcome in the west is the sight of the infrastructure.
Everyone wants it but how many come out to speak in favor of it?
If you leave the meetings to the folks who don't want to look at the towers then you get what you've got: no real broadband and no prospect of any soon.
How many people who want it spoke up for it when the Board was turning down the towers last year that a private company would have built?
Posted by observer
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I'm another Roadstar customer. I understand and agree with Mr. Dougherty that private enterprise should have a strong involvement in telecommunications. However, the free market works best when there is competition. I hope stimulus funds will provide improvement in broadband service, selection and price. And I truly hope Roadstar continues to be ONE of Loudoun's broadband providers!
Posted by LoudounPatriot
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I believe that the solution is for the county government to stop "cherry picking" by phone and cable companies, where they only wire the most profitable areas.
In the last century, when phone service was deployed, the government forced telcos to wire ALL homes in an area, as part of their licensing. It was recognized that doing otherwise would have left many without service. That approach worked well, providing nationwide phone service.
In licensing negotiations, county and local government has a LOT of power to force coverage to improve. I suspect that lobbying and campaign contributions convince county supervisors to allow cherry picking. Essentially, regulators have sold out to the lobbying of the big telco and cable companies. You can bet that any money thrown at the problem finds its way to the big guys, not to Mr. Dougherty.
In addition, the the federal government was serious, it could change regulatory policy to prevent areas being left out of coverage areas. This would cost the taxpayer NOTHING. In addition, the big providers would very likely find creative ways to solve the cost and engineering problems of servicing low-density areas.
Posted by BRP
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