creating regional broadband opportunities
Rural groups plow ahead with broadband plans
Published on Friday, March 30, 2007
by: Efrain Viscarolasaga Mass High Tech
The day before Boston Mayor Thomas Menino announced his intention to file incorporation papers for OpenAirBoston, the city's wireless Internet initiative, a group on Cape Cod made the same claim -- beating Boston as the state's first nonprofit community-wireless entity by 24 hours.
But while OpenCape and Open-AirBoston may look similar on the surface -- both aim to provide low-cost broadband access to help build local business and bolster emergency communications -- the driving forces behind each are very different: Rural communities find themselves developing their own networks out of need, while urban areas (which often have a variety of broadband options) aim to expand on existing infrastructure, officials say.
"There are very few broadband options here (on Cape Cod)," said Dan Gallagher, information technology director of Cape Cod Community College and project supervisor for OpenCape. "And if carriers were going to consider bringing new high-speed services here, it would be very expensive."
In Greater Boston, companies and residents have a choice of broadband services, from landline providers such as Verizon Communications Inc., Comcast Corp., RCN Corp. and Covad Communications Inc., to wireless broadband providers such as Verizon Wireless, Cingular Broadband (which is now part of AT&T Inc.) and Sprint Nextel Corp.
Because broadband is a network service, it requires a large amount of upfront capital, say industry experts. Groups such as OpenCape, Berkshire Connect in western Massachusetts, ConnectME in Maine and the Rhode Island Wireless Innovation Networks (RI-WINs) are necessary to bring broadband where carriers haven't.
"We would much prefer that there was an outlay of high-speed fiber (by carriers), of course, but we understand the business and that we will have to do it ourselves," said Gallagher. "If other areas want to have more options, they will probably have to do it themselves as well."
Such groups may have found a new evangelist -- in Massachusetts' new broadband czar, Stan McGee. McGee has singled out the Berkshires, Cape Cod and the Pioneer Valley as areas that need to be looked at more closely by state officials for rural broadband access.
"For-profit companies sometimes cut out areas of lower density because it is not economical for them," said Nicholas Vantzelfde, founder of CMA Capital, a telecommunications consulting and equity firm in Boston who has consulted on the wireless projects of Boston, Cape Cod and Rhode Island.
An example occurred earlier this year, when Verizon Communications sold its wireline properties in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont to FairPoint Communications Inc. for $2.7 billion. Verizon, which is focused on the rollout of its fiber-to-the-home product, FiOS, could not make the economics of the service work in low-density areas, according to analysts, so it transferred the region to a company, FairPoint, that specializes in rural areas.
On the Cape, Comcast last year took over the network previously owned by Adelphia Communications Corp., which filed bankruptcy in 2002.
But despite some carrier interest in such areas, community projects continue to move forward.
OpenCape, for example, recently installed the first link of its wireless network between University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and Woods Hole, and hopes to have five links spanning the "spine" of the Cape by the summer.
This story appeared in Mass High Tech http://masshightech.bizjournals.com/masshightech/stories/2007/04/02/story10.html