BTOP’s Fiber Investment, Social Value & the Special Access Market

07 Apr 2016

BTOP’s Fiber Investment, Social Value & the Special Access Market

During the past few days I’ve been: 1) reviewing the BTOP program evaluation study’s final report prepared in 2014 by ASR Analytics and; 2) doing some homework aimed at better understanding issues related to the FCC’s pending special access study and proceeding. The former relates to a pending Quello Center research project, while the latter was prompted by release of a paper written by Mark Cooper, Director of Research at the Consumer Federation of America (CFA). Cooper presented the paper, entitled “The Special Problem of Special Access: Consumer Overcharges and Telephone Company Excess Profits,” at an April 5 event sponsored by […]

13 Aug 2015

I got my Gig!

After thinking and writing about the benefits of fiber-to-the-premise (FTTP) networks for a number of years, I’m happy to report that I’ve finally joined the small but growing population of U.S. households connected to the Internet via fiber networks delivering symmetrical gigabit speeds. I’m getting service from LightSpeed, a Lansing-based company deploying its network on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis (see this map for more details on the status of its network and service rollout). The installation happened yesterday (the fiber drop was installed the day before). It went smoothly, with Jeremy and Chris connecting the drop to a fiber network interface in […]

09 Aug 2015

Using ICT to Develop Infrastructure Systems for the “Digital Anthropocene”

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the design and management of society’s core infrastructure systems (which I define broadly to include things like healthcare, education, housing and “money”) in an era marked by several important trends (for reasons suggested below, I refer to this as the “digital anthropocene”): substantial (and currently destructive) impacts of human activities on natural systems, a planetary phase referred to as the Anthropocene; continued and arguably mounting evidence that the status-quo dynamics within our dominant political and economic systems are aggravating rather than reducing inequalities in wealth and related factors; the dramatic expansion in scope, content […]

24 Feb 2015

Fiber Coming to Detroit’s Downtown…and Perhaps to Other Parts of the City

2015-02-24
Mitchell Shapiro
Blog

From the Detroit Free Press (bolding is mine): Businessman Dan Gilbert is not only buying dozens of buildings in downtown Detroit, he’s also linking them with some of the fastest Internet connections anywhere. Gilbert, founder and chairman of Quicken Loans and Rock Ventures, said this weekend he has formed a new “community investment initiative” called Rocket Fiber LLC to provide faster Internet connections in downtown Detroit…Construction is already underway…in the greater downtown area. Eventually the goal is to expand the service to other parts of the city. Even if Gilbert’s venture decides it’s not economical to extend fiber to every (or […]

fiber networks