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Upgrades topic at broadband summit [The Dominion Post, Morgantown, W.Va.](Dominion Post (Morgantown, WV) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Nov. 05--GOOGLE PROPOSES balloon system to solve broadband access issues in rural areas. Page 8-A. West Virginia's hills and hollows will present an obstacle to broadband expansion for years to come, a panel of experts said Monday. Service providers are spending money, they said, but some places are just too remote for fiber lines. Microwave towers and satellites may be the answer. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and the Discover the Real West Virginia Foundation -- backed by corporate and nonprofit sponsors -- held the West Virginia Broadband 2013 Summit at the Waterfront Event Center. This was the third summit held since 2006. Summit moderator and foundation president Tom Heywood summed up the optimism behind the event: "Access to broadband is really exciting." For instance, businesses with a web presence are expected to grow 40 percent faster than those without in the next three years. Broadband access for West Virginians -- access, not actual hookups -- has grown from less than 72 percent at the time of the 2009 summit to about 91 percent now. Panelists described their employers' contributions to broadband expansion so far, and looked at the challenges for connecting the final 9 percent. "It changes lives every day," said Kathleen Quinn Abernathy, executive vice president of External Affairs for Frontier Communications, the company contracted to connect 1,000-plus anchor institutions under the $126 million Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) federal grant. Frontier has invested $360 million of its own money, she said, but 43,000 people still remain unserved. Future funding will cut that number to 20,000. Mark Reilly, senior vice president of Government and Regulatory Relations for Comcast, observed, "It's easy to upgrade the existing network. We have to get it out to the farm." Inside its service area, 99.5 percent of the places its lines pass have broadband access, and Comcast is working to give full access and expand to other areas. Community leaders need to reach out and let Comcast know what they need. Michael Kelemen, director of Government Relation for Suddenlink, said fiber lines aren't feasible to every area. It will cost too much. Providers need to look at new technologies and alternate methods. And WVU is exploring new methods, said John Campbell, associate provost for Information Technology. WVU has a presence in all 55 counties, and is at once a service provider, a consumer and innovator -- a living laboratory. Wireless technology is a likely answer for areas too costly to reach with fiber, he said, and WVU is experimenting with providing service form TV towers. They have a five-mile range. Of course, getting service to the towers is another issue. Looking ahead four years, to the next summit, Campbell said, "We will still have uncovered areas." Average access speeds statewide may be up to 20 megabits per second (mbps), well above the current state standard of 4 mbps (a standard not reached in many areas). "The bar will continue to shift over time." Keleman predicted that the continued explosion of mobile devices and improvement of Long Term Evolution (LTE) wireless technology -- many cellphones now have 4G, fourth generation LTE -- will help many get and stay connected. "Wireless will be the preferred method." And Abernathy said a bigger problem will be "adoption" -- getting people to sign up. Even in areas with broadband service, not everybody hooks up, and it doesn't seem to be connected to price. Frontier is still trying to figure that out. An audience member asked the panel if regulating Internet providers as a utility would help the access issue. Reilly said phone service has been tightly regulated for more than 100 years, and many still don't have phones. But for broadband, he said, the cable industry has invested $1.2 trillion, while wireless providers have spent $53 billion. "We 've got a pretty good thing going in terms of investment." It's too early to know exactly what to regulate. "I'd worry about the chilling effect it would have." ___ (c)2013 The Dominion Post (Morgantown, W.Va.) Visit The Dominion Post (Morgantown, W.Va.) at www.dominionpost.com Distributed by MCT Information Services |