Update: The July 18 OPALCO Board Meeting will NOT discuss the purchase of the wireless spectrum, due to an absent board member and a new board member.
By Margie Doyle
Ever felt you wasted your time trying to get better service from CenturyLink? It seems, from over 30 recent responses (orcasissues.com/did-internet-outage-affect-your-business?) that many contributors to the island economy have been crippled by, not just power outages and failures on the CenturyLink system, but also by the customer DIS-service encountered when trying to “work” with CenturyLink customer service personnel.
It’s obvious that CenturyLink has put the cart before the horse in changing their name from CenturyTel, emphasizing telephone service, to CenturyLink, emphasizing internet service. But relying on DSL and copper lines, they have over-promised and under-delivered.
I hate to sound smug, but here in the San Juans, we take the opposite approach, of underpromising and overdelivering. Starting with OPALCO’s investment in fiber optics in 2001, and with the ball carried forward by the San Juan (Island) Community Foundation and the County Economic Development Council, providing better internet service has been a goal of our “small, remote islands.” At monthly meetings of the Eastsound Planning Review Committee (EPRC) in the past two years, EPRC member — and now County Councilman — Rick Hughes has joined with other EPRC members to push the increased internet capacity (broadband) through linkage with OPALCO’s fiber optic infrastructure.
CenturyLink has resisted the internet advancement on the grounds that our small population and remote location makes a poor investment. And so, when CenturyLink’s copper-based linkage system is “saturated” or “exhausted” we country bumpkins are out of luck.
But the results of system exhaustion or not limited to the convenience of chatting online, keeping in touch through social media like Facebook or learning of ferry service disruptions. In the 21st century, reliable internet connectivity is essential to making a living. We have the luxury of “doing business” with an in-person meeting, a smile and/or a handshake , but we have the critical need of being able to use the internet, and to have productive service, even if it’s an admission of inadequacy, when we can’t use the internet.
Which brings us to the decision before the OPALCO board this Thursday morning, July 18.
OPALCO’s broadband goal has always been to improve its co-op members’ access to internet service countywide.
OPALCO explored expanding its fiber-optic network to serve the county, at a cost of $74 million, and dismissed that solution as being too expensive. It proposed a $34 million hybrid solution of expanding the fiber optic lines to distribution locations where wireless connectivity can be made possible; that solution had two results:
1) CenturyLink became engaged in the business venture and began discussions with OPALCO
2) OPALCO member input modified the plan so that OPALCO is now taking an “infrastructure provider” approach for providing members with better access to OPALCO’s data communication infrastructure.
“The main areas for potential deployment include, but are not limited to, fiber-optic backhaul support for [Internet Service Providers] ISPs (e.g. CenturyLink, Rock Island, Orcas Online, Island Network, etc.), wireless infrastructure and direct fiber optic connection (fiber to the premises—FTTP)” (From the draft OPALCO board minutes, June 2013
In addition to providing this “backbone” infrastructure for current ISPs and negotiating lease agreements with CenturyLink, the OPALCO Board will tomorrow discuss findings and decide upon the purchase of a licensed wireless frequency that the county could own through OPALCO.
As approved in a 4-to-1 vote at the OPALCO Board’s June meeting, the board will discuss the “purchase of the 700 MHz licensed spectrum as a backbone infrastructure component and explore potential leasing options with ISPs.”
At the public forum in June, OPALCO leadership emphasized the importance of the wireless component in reaching more remote areas in the County for improved public safety communication (two-way radios) and with true high-speed Internet. Where DSL cannot serve and fiber direct to homes and businesses is too costly, wireless solutions will level the playing field and give access to those in the outlying areas. Without wireless infrastructure in the mix, the digital divide status quo will continue: a county of haves and have nots.
The vote included a directive to obtain financial information regarding costs associated with using the spectrum. That information will be presented in summary at the Thursday meeting.
We see this investment potential as a responsible step towards improving Internet connectivity that, like it or not, is essential to our Orcas Island and our County economy.
We urge the OPALCO Board, on behalf of its members, to approve this purchase, in the spirit of investment and promise, from the rural electric cooperative that maintains its reputation of customer service delivery.
We also encourage the public to attend the meeting at 8:30 a.m. in the OPALCO conference room on Mt. Baker Road, in order to better inform themselves of the considerations in making this investment. Public comment will be taken.
Thank you OPALCO Board, Administration and Staff.
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I could not live here and would not have moved here 3 years ago without an internet connection because I telecommute for a living. Had I known how poor the CenturyLink DSL service actually is, I may have looked elsewhere to live.
I love the island and the people, but my tenuous connection to the internet makes me frustrated and anxious about how vulnerable my livelihood is to the whims of off-island corporations. This theme is no different than those islanders who fought hard to bring electricity to the island only 76 years ago.
Margie: Your editorial answered my questions. Thank you for a clear, concise explanation!
I personally could not agree more with the need to follow through with this purchase. I was annoyed and frustrated when the decision was taken to move ahead with the bigger plan presented early this year, simply on the grounds that I believe the county needs to do collectively all it can to control it’s own destiny. I can only encourage OPALCO to be brave enough to take a lead and help drive the necessary change. The support is there in the community.
Thanks for your thoughtful editorial Margie.
Originally, OPALCO was planning on using the 700 MHz broadband spectrum to provide state of the art wireless broadband to those in the county that might not be near the fiber network. It was a cost effective way to reach the remote and dispersed population around the county.
In addition, we find that major segments of our population are no longer using landlines (old fashioned copper for phone calls and DSL), and are just using their cell phones, smart phones, and other mobile devices to talk and connect to the internet. In fact, about 60% of people aged 20 to 30 don’t even have any landline service. They use their smart phones. And this is trending up for all age groups.
So mobile broadband is essential not just for cost-effective reach, but for serving the needs of an increasingly mobile population. Especially young people.
Our county is already tilted toward a more aged demographic. We need to bring some balance to that and make sure we provide services that young and mobile people are looking for.
The 700 Mhz spectrum was the old UHF TV spectrum, and in this century, in this Information Age, it can find new purpose as an essential ingredient for our economic wellbeing.
PLEASE call or write your OPALCO reps about this. We have had an awful time with Century Link, for years have had very bad telephone and very bad internet, but worst of all very bad customer service. (Not the local workers. But anyone at the end of an 800 number.)
CenturyLink cannot be trusted to do this themselves; they have proved themselves incapable of serving the islands. Our good local providers should be provided access at reasonable rates and let us get on with our businesses. This is a real challenge to green businesses.
I’m completely in line with Craig Abolin, and most of the other comments here: I have embarrassed myself to my clients on more occasions than I care to recount due to CenturyLink failures. This past two weeks has been the worst yet! I’ve had something close to 20% up time, and consistent dropouts. As Craig said, if I had known how bad this was going to be before moving here, I would have thought twice. Now I own a place, and am in for the long haul, and the future of my livelihood depends on a solution. Let’s do this, and do it right, and fast!
I am in exactly the same position as Craig and Jake. I work remotely as a software engineer and moved my family here and bought a house. If I can’t work remotely due to Century Link (DSL is the only internet option I have at my location), I will be eventually forced to sell and move off-island. There are ways to reverse that tide and get more people in my work situation moving TO the island rather than be forced out of them, and this purchase could be a good step in making that possible.
There are three issues here. 1. 74 million for fiber? let’s see who bid and for what. 2. OPALCO has no standards for extending the Member owned fiber network, so guess what? It isn’t being extended. It could be by individuals, businesses, competitors or collaborators. That’s a policy mistake and has been at least 10 years. Its accomplished one thing only. That is putting OPALCO in the monopoly seat for fiber connections. That is a mistake that must be corrected today and costs nearly nothing and attracts innovation. 3. Mobile wireless has to be compatible with Smartphones. Is this 700 mhz block OPALCO wants to lease going to connect with my iPad? IPhone? Galaxy Note?
The reason Google abandoned Wireless after fighting so many years to get something is that Telco/Cellco 700 mhz wireless is expensive to lease, expensive to operate, limited in performance and an ongoing drain for constant equipment upgrades – beyond the ugly antennas, poles and citizen push back on 700 mhz microwave beams.
So we have some great options. First, let’s make our existing network completely open and documented so any competitor, innovator, community or individual can buy, in an open market the cable, connectors and trenching equipment to place their own fiber wherever they’d like. That is basic American good business, driven by customer demand and intelligent choice.
Second, let’s find out who in the world bid 74 million on a fiber plan and what that RFP looked like, and why it seems completely off the charts compared to national costs. Thirdly, let’s get the dozen or so $2,000 mini towers built on the hills around the Islands that have radio line of sight to 90% of Islanders. Then, like the US Forest Service/USDA demand, write a short, concise Site Management plan that encourages multi-tenant use of those towers. That will attract open competition, cellular companies and fix 90% of our problems today, offering 100 megabit wireless to those who like wireless within a matter of *weeks* not years.
I’ve built these networks. I’ve worked with the USDA and Forest service on land use. I’ve help write Site management plans. I’ve met and discussed at length broadband issues with Google’s broadband leader. I’ve shook hands with FCC Chairman Genachowski in Colorado 2 weeks ago.
I’ve traveled 3 times around the world meeting with heads of Cellular companies as well as market research organizations on contract with the largest software company in the world – Microsoft Corporation.
Its really odd, but I have received no phone call from OPALCO with any question, request to review or comment on the details of this massive, expensive, approach to setting a plan for our telecommunications future. That makes little sense to me, but then, a plan to build a telcom monopoly that operates outside good American small business free market innovative policy doesn’t make any sense to me either.
Perhaps that’s why anything that starts with encouraging local, free market, innovative solutions, in a freely competitive and demonstrable way puts me out of the zone of interest at OPALCO.
As I recommended before, spend 0.5 % of the USDA Loan OPALCO arranged to offer a free market planning process, open to local innovators and others to *show* Islanders what is possible, practical, high value at lowest cost for now and the long run. That’s very low risk, high benefit for the community and that is, after all who OPALCO serves.