‘Enormous Progress’ on Gigabit Broadband Deployments Over Last Year, Gig.U Says
Gigabit broadband deployment has made “enormous progress” over the past 12 months, including a “radical change” in incumbent ISPs’ involvement in broadband development, but more work is necessary through 2015 and 2016 to accelerate growth, Gig.U said Monday in a report. Founded in 2011 to encourage next-generation broadband deployment at research universities and elsewhere, Gig.U said a combination of its and others’ efforts have resulted in a “new dynamic” in the market.
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Public and private entities deploying gigabit broadband “are quickly moving toward a moment in which all communities should be examining what they should be doing to assure that in the years ahead, they are served by broadband networks capable of meeting future, and not just current, needs,” Gig.U said (http://bit.ly/1qGoPLr). The group plans to release a second report in the coming months that will examine how the economic and political environment for gigabit deployment has changed since Gig.U’s founding and will discuss how the group may need to evolve given those changes, said Executive Director Blair Levin in an interview.
Incumbent ISPs have taken a “quantum leap” in their interest in gigabit broadband since Gig.U’s efforts began, though the group said the major factor has been Google Fiber’s broadband deployments, which are live in three metropolitan areas -- Austin, Texas; Kansas City, Kansas; and Provo, Utah -- and are planned in nine additional metro areas. AT&T has said it wants to expand its GigaPower fiber network beyond its base in Austin into 100 additional cities, and has already committed to deployments in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Nashville and San Antonio metro areas, along with Overland Park, Kansas, and its North Carolina Next Generation Network (NCNGN) commitments.
Bright House, CenturyLink, C Spire, Cox Communications and Time Warner Cable have also announced expansions into gigabit. ISPs’ new interest in gigabit is a “significant” change from the past, Levin said. Compared to ISPs’ behavior while the National Broadband Plan was under development in 2009, “the world looks very different,” said Levin, who shepherded the plan through the FCC.
Google’s role as a driver of the increased interest in gigabit expansion could also be problematic, Gig.U said. “If Google were to withdraw, or even just indicate that it was not proceeding further, incumbents and others would likely slow down their own efforts and progress would likely stall.” Further momentum could also stall depending on the results of federal regulators’ reviews of Comcast’s plan to buy Time Warner Cable (see separate report above in this issue) and other deals, Gig.U said. “It is not difficult to see that the government’s review could have a positive impact or a negative impact on the barriers to entry and upgrades,” the group said. “If negative, the mergers and their review processes could also lead to progress stalling out.” Changes in municipalities’ interest in broadband deployment could also affect progress, though the group said it hadn’t noticed “significant momentum at the municipal level for stalling gigabit projects,” despite some parties’ concerns that gigabit deployments that don’t reach all parts of a municipality could widen the digital divide.
The Gig.U report highlighted eight community-initiated broadband projects that it said showed the strengths of different investment models, including the NCNGN’s efforts to build a regional broadband network using private investment. Those efforts eventually resulted in AT&T reaching agreements with the six NCNGN communities -- Carrboro, Cary, Chapel Hill, Durham, Raleigh and Winston-Salem -- for broadband deployment, possibly also causing Google Fiber to consider deployments in those areas, Gig.U said. The report noted a public-private partnership in Champaign and Urbana, Illinois -- including the two cities’ governments, the University of Illinois and Illinois ISP iTV3. The partnership means that although Champaign and Urbana “will not have control over the network or collect the revenue, it does not have to absorb the risk of costly infrastructure investment,” Gig.U said. The report also cited Cleveland’s non-profit OneCommunity fiber network, the University of Florida’s broadband partnership with Gainesville Regional Utilities, along with other projects in Blacksburg, Virginia; East Lansing, Michigan; Louisville, Kentucky; and Morgantown, West Virginia.
ISP interest in gigabit has increased, but communities are continuing to lead gigabit deployment efforts, Levin said. Many networks won’t go live until 2015 and 2016, but mayors in cities that still need gigabit deployments have a variety of investment and deployment models to draw from, he said. “You don’t have to be passive” and wait for an ISP to deploy gigabit, Levin said. Economically viable community gigabit projects require a community to organize its resources and stakeholders, and should also seek its existing technology sector’s support, Gig.U said. Project organizers also need to be aware of how existing city laws and assets will affect deployment prospects, the group said. Gig.U also urged communities interested in broadband deployments to start planning as early as possible, which would in turn encourage ISPs to consider their own broadband deployments in the area. Gigabit deployment remains experimental, so interested cities should also plan for projects to not immediately succeed, Gig.U said.