Cynthia Dill’s recent OpEd piece on high-speed Internet in Maine was an example of one more Maine politician’s technological ignorance. ( “Maine’s massive Internet project crucial to job creation,” July 30 BDN). The reporter she scolded, Matt Drange, was in fact right when he said that the project’s impact on Maine jobs is still in the future. The much-touted Three Ring Binder project has yet to create more than a handful of jobs.
It’s sad to see in Ms. Dill yet one more politician who has no idea how high-speed Internet actually functions. Her statement that “now more than 100 communities from Skowhegan to Perry are connected to an information network fast enough to download a two-hour movie in half a second” is a prime example of this technological ignorance. Mainers can’t download a two-hour movie that fast in Portland, let alone in Perry or Skowhegan. Virtually no reader of this article can do any such thing. Ms. Dill blasted Matt Drange for “not visiting the areas of rural Maine or talking to real Maine people.” If she herself had ever done anything of the kind, she would know that the Three Ring Binder has made little difference to anyone’s Internet connection in rural Maine. It’s a highway without on-ramps.
Here’s a one-sentence primer on the Internet that Ms. Dill desperately needs: Your Internet is only as fast as your connection to it.
Here’s something else Ms. Dill may not know: There were already rings of high-speed telecommunications fiber in the same places where her pet project now runs. None of the fiber rings, the preexisting ones or Three Ring Binder, are doing rural Maine much good, because rural customers are not linked to them by high-speed connections, and many not connected at all. Most Maine telecoms today are not connecting their customers with fiber. Instead, they are still connecting them with DSL, cable and fixed wireless. These are utterly outmoded technologies. For example, in the first quarter of 2012 alone, 1.5 million AT&T and Verizon customers in other states dumped DSL in favor of fiber.
But it’s worse than that. If Ms. Dill were truly informed, she would know that telecom companies are looking on average for twenty-five homes per mile before they will expand their networks. Three Ring Binder has not changed that math.
Maine’s politicians need to understand this: Every home and business in the state needs to connect to the Internet by high-speed fiber. Fiber to the home and business is the only future-proof technology capable of providing the superfast Internet we need to compete in the global economy. Here’s proof: Recently the city of Lafayette, La., ran fiber to every home and business.
Two data centers moved into town, as well as numerous tech companies from California. Thousands of jobs were created.
Maine is in the enviable position of creating that economic revival here while still maintaining Maine’s pristine environment and natural beauty, by empowering the over 171,000 microbusinesses that are in Maine already, businesses that employ between one and four workers. There are countless entrepreneurs scattered all across this state. These microbusinesses and entrepreneurs simply cannot compete in the global economy using our outdated Maine Internet connections.
What’s just as bad as Ms. Dill’s boondoggle is that the waste is continuing. State agencies like ConnectME have spent over $8 million public dollars so far expanding obsolete DSL, cable and wireless networks in Maine. Our politicians are eagerly giving away our money to fund outdated, job-killing technology.
And by the way, the ability to download a movie in 0.5 seconds is hardly what Maine’s small businesses need to compete in this global marketplace. They need to get their information and products up to the Internet at high speed.
It’s long past time for us to connect every home and business in Maine to the existing fiber networks. If that ever happens, we will see an economic boom like the one residents of Lafayette, La., are enjoying today. If that ever happens, we will actually be able to download a two-hour movie in half a second, as Ms. Dill seems to think we are already doing — or better still, we’ll be able to upload our information and products for the world to buy.
But you can bet that if uninformed politicians like Ms. Dill continue to represent us, that day will never come.
Daniel Sullivan is an IT manager and chair of the Washington County Fiber Initiative, a grassroots organization trying to bring high-speed internet and jobs to Washington County and all of Maine.
What “Mr. Daniels” doesn’t understand is that people can read right through the fact that he works for, or with, or is a heavy investor in Time Warner Cable. Probably has his own little set up in Washington County where he and his small group of friends, or so called “grass roots organization”, are stealing peoples money for a basic lower speed “high speed” connection while he and his rich buddies take advantage of higher speeds.
What Mr. Daniels cannot comprehend is that people people can read through “agendas” such as his. For instance, I will look forward to “Mr. Daniels” Op-Ed on how the rich should pay even less taxes than they do now, while the poor should be forced to go fight wars for them.
Don’t worry “Mr. Daniels”, the people aren’t hungry enough to eat you yet. However, there is a drought on “Mr. Daniels”. “Mr. Daniels” would do us all some good if he just keeps fattening himself up with slanted Op-Eds such as this previous attempt to slander someone in public.
What say you “Mr. Daniels”? Are you really concerned that she misspoke about upload/download times? Aren’t you really worried that Time Warner’s monopoly over Mainers is in jeopardy?
My name is Brian. I am not a Dill supporter, but you sir are most obviously a Republican with an agenda. Perhaps Tea Party? Grass roots do not grow from inside the clubhouse, so please don’t use that phrase as if you represent “The People”. You clearly only represent your own self-interest.
The awful thing is, there are BDN readers to whom this diatribe will make sense. And we’ll be hearing from them shortly. However, Mr. Sullivan is spot on about user connections being the unavoidable chokepoint – and he’d be spot on if he were a combination of Glenn Britt and Beelzebub Himself.
What he also misses is the very public fact that since the 3 Ring-to-Home still isin’t being used to connect to the rural areas of Maine that it was intended for, there have been a huge increase in the number of satellite dish’s going up. Hughes is making a killing on the satellite Internet service up here since the 3 Ring Project has proven to be in actuallity a huge bust since it’s nothing more than a huge fiber-optic line stringing demonstation. So much for 3 Ring’s supposed helping and increasing competition.
I have satellite internet service. Better than dial up. Expensive.
SUCKS in every other way.
Well this was certainly an interesting comment. I am your “Mr. Daniels” and would like to take this opportunity to explain the facts to you. I have no association with Time Warner or any other telecom. I live in rural Maine with a lousy .5 mb wireless connection, that is probably one of the last areas in Maine that will ever receive a decent Internet connection. I have worked all my life in Maine as in independent IT consultant, I am by no means rich, not even close. I have not ever, nor do I plan to become a Republican, Tea Partier or Democrat. This article was intended to bring to light what Three Ring Binder has NOT done for Maine. There is no other agenda.
What?
What is also gonna be very interesting as far as the 3 Ring Binder Project goes, is the fact that the Project has to be completed, ACCORDING TO THE TERMS OF THE DEPT OF COMMERCE GRANT, by no later than Sept 30 of this year. I wonder just how many town’s are gonna start asking Fairpoint, since they are the one’s who are responsible, with ConnectME and Maine Fiber, for getting the system up and running, just where this supposed Internet ‘miracle’ is.. Baileyville, Princeton, Lee, Winn, Springfield, Orient, Weston, Mattawamkeag, Chester, Howland, Haynesville, Amity, Danforth are all gonna start asking those question’s. That and ‘Is this what a $ 3 million dollar Federal Grant gets us ?’. Someone had better get ready to pony up either a check or start looking for a way to sneak thru the Forest City Border Station.
Kiernan,
Why do you keep peddling the same false information? It was a $25 million grant from NTIA, with $7 million private money. The project is complete, ahead of schedule and under budget. FairPoint and ConnectME (a state agency, I believe) had nothing to do with it — FP actually fought it, unsuccessfully. From the Maine Fiber website you will see that there are many ISP lit connections already. Your “facts” are worse than Sullivan’s, which aren’t very good either.
I wonder what this has to do with the announced GWI gigabit service….
Lots of sound and fury… Let’s get a few things straight. The 3-Ring Binder was always described as a “middle mile project”, a backbone for really wide fiber-based and copper-based broadband, the last mile of which will be put in place by retail ISPs. Said ISPs could be any of the existing smaller outfits to FairPoint. All get the fiber bandwidth wholesale for the same cost and on an open access basis.
The project is long-term, building a really wide base. Without the open backbone, there is no really wide broadband to the home, the office, the plant. While FairPoint has some fiber infrastructure in place it is not available on a competitive basis to other potential ISPs. Moreover, cash-strapped itself and tied down by legacy obligations, FP doesn’t look to be in any hurry to meet upward spiraling broadband expectations.
Whatever cable companies have, it is much less widespread even than the FP fiber, and concentrated in more populous areas which often, though not always, have better than average connectivity already.
Cynthia Dill’s mistake is in claiming that the broadband fiber access job is done when only the necessary first step is done. Now it is time for the private sector to step up, GWI and others, to sprout fiber branches off the 3RB. In less densely populated areas, the role of ConnectME will continue in financially aiding such extensions. The Binder should make last mile work much easier and cheaper than it otherwise would be.
The 3RB is almost certainly a very good long-term thing for Mainers, Maine businesses and Maine jobs. It is not a panacea. Panaceas don’t exist. Hype that surrounds a good thing should be considered critically, but the accomplishment so far should not be devalued just because the PR folks have gotten out ahead of last-mile development.
Chill.
Chill,
There is no dispute that Three Ring Binder in the very long term is a good investment. Fiber will continue to be a good investment. That is one of the points of the article. Fiber, not copper, not coax cable, not wireless. Those technologies are being dumped like a hot potato across the world and in Maine through organizations like ConnectME Maine is expanding it! Check out what is referred to as Moore’s Law. Technology expands exponentially every 18 months to two years. If we leave connecting the rural areas to the ISP’s Maine will never catch up. As for these ISP’s expanding in our rural areas I have spoken personally to many of them. None of them are coming to rural Maine anytime soon. Same old problem, not enough people to make it profitable for them. The one exception right now seems to be GWI. GWI is not building out laterals to Three Ring Binder however, GWI is using Three Ring Binder to compete with the existing ISP’s that built their networks with private funds. It is going to take politicians and others who truly understand the future proof possibilities of fiber to use our public ConnectME and Connect America funds to finish this project with fiber. The main backbone to the Internet is FIBER, Three Ring Binder is FIBER and what are we doing in Maine? We are finishing the highway with the dirt roads of DSL, cable and fixed wireless. It is like getting to drive your car on a six lane highway and when you are almost home your drop down to a dirt road. It is time to stop wasting dollars and make the true future proof investment for Maine businesses and citizens. Finish the last mile with fiber and be done with it. Continuing to invest in copper, coax and wireless is a proven recipe for failure.
It is way too early to bemoan the dirth of fiber branches off the 3RB. The hanging of fiber of the umpteen thousand utility poles was only completed this summer. If nothing has happened by this time next year in terms of fiber to the home/business then it will be time to raise a ruckus.
As to ConnectME, their charter is to bring the best broadband connectivity to the most people who are currently unserved by anyone in the shortest amount of time. What this boils down to is a choice between a really nice connection for very few people, or a way better than current connection for a great many more people. Absent sufficient funds to cover everyone in Maine with top-notch fiber service — and one can count of those public funds being absent — an incremental balancing act gets decent but not terrific service to a lot more people. The perfect should not be the enemy of the good, as they say.
That being said, I agree that these intermediate steps should never be mistaken for final goals. The only truly adequate connectivity for business and industry, for self-employed entrepreneurs and professionals, and increasingly for the average consumer, is full-bore fiber to the premises. Little bandaids that serve the truly connectivity-bereft is one thing, but big money and big policies should not delude anyone into thinking a couple megabits/sec will serve far into the future.
I think the key things for the future are:
1. Bandwidth — 10 or 20 Mbps minimum. For businesses probably 100 Mbps. Adjust as applications evolve. This can be done with copper to the premises, fiber to the pole. However, incremental cost of fiber all the way in probably isn’t much more.
2. Symmetrical Bandwidth — Busines and job creation means running servers and getting users to come to your site and services. This DSL business of encouraging download and discouraging local siting of servers has got to go!
3. No Usage Caps — The instinct of utilities is to meter usage and price service on that basis. When it comes to communications intensive businesses, this punishes success. The whole point of a hugh-capacity backbone is to make this kind of nickel and dime business unnecessary. Or, at the margins where a firm really threatens to saturate even a very large pipe, at least allow for reasonable pricing for usage above a really high threshhold.
Just my $.02 worth…
You are so right, Danny. I too live in a rural community which is located just 15 miles west of Bangor, and even though a ConnectME map showed that I had high speed Internet access available, the map information was wrong. I tried out HughesNet Internet service and found it to be terrible, with download speeds less than 1/4 their advertised speed of 1Mbps (which can hardly be considered “high speed Internet”), and upload speeds even worse. Since my actual speeds were not much better than dial-up service, I ditched Hughes and relied on dial-up until 4G wireless became available here. The 4G service gives me download and upload speeds a bit faster than DSL, but is costly and there is a 5GB limit per month on data usage which severely limits my ability to watch or download videos, or to upload videos I have created. Thus, I feel that my available Internet connectivity choices impose an undeniable and costly handicap upon me, and long for the day to come when true, synchronous high speed Internet over a fiber network becomes available to us rural Mainers. If politicians and Internet service providers are left to decide when that will happen then I hope that none of us are holding our breath while waiting. It will only happen through the efforts of grassroots organizations and the hard work of dedicated individuals like yourself, Danny.