behold, a VRAD

A "VRAD" (Video Ready Access Device) is what AT&T uses to provide U-Verse high speed internet and high definition television service to homes. In the past, there have been attempts to map out, unofficially, the locations of VRAD in order to figure out where AT&T is offering U-Verse (AT&T won't disclose this information for competitive reasons).

We did a lot of driving around downtown and midtown Sacramento over the past few days and managed to find 3 of them. I'm sure there are more, but they don't jump out at you. Below is a short video clip of what they look like. Telltale signs are a dedicated power meter and an actual address on the box (do they take pizza deliveries?). You'll notice too that they make a slight humming noise.

The VRAD is where AT&T brings in fiber optic lines. The digital signal from these lines is converted from optical to electrical and then sent to homes through a neighboring box called a "cross connect."

An article earlier this year suggested that AT&T is winding down its U-Verse expansion, which is bad news for Sacramento, but we did find one location where they were actually installing a new VRAD, so perhaps it's not over yet.

Why Idaho has the slowest internet speeds

Should internet service be profitable? If so, how profitable? That's a question nobody seems to want to talk about. Instead, we just plod along, letting large telecom companies decide where they are going to offer service based on profitability rather than equity. That could change somewhat under FCC Chairman Genachowski's proposed Universal Service Fund (USF) reform. But all of the discussion these days is about rural areas. Urban areas area also lacking capacity and coverage, as you can see from a previous post about AT&T service dragging down the average throughput rate in Sacramento.

An article in yesterday's New York Times focused on the abysmally slow internet speeds in Idaho, where the average population density is 19 people per square mile.

It's no surprise that providers have no incentive to extend their networks in very rural areas to just a few homes. This is why the upcoming "Broadband Blindness" is exploring why, given the economic realities of investing in costly networks, we refuse to change how we pay for network infrastructure and leave investment decisions in the hands of public companies who run the risk of plummeting stock prices if their eyes stray from the bottom line.

Wall Street Journal, NY Times now TV stations

You were wondering what "Toast" was all about, right? Well, wake up and smell the roses. Everything is going video, even though it may not be readily apparent here in our neck of the woods in Sacramento. A recent report by Knowledge Networks shows that online viewing continues to eat into the time spent watching cable or network television. See http://tinyurl.com/6gt88sc.

And it's not just Gen Y. Boomers are also watching more shows online that were traditionally viewed on cable or network television.

Yesterday, the New York Times reported that the Wall Street Journal has expanded its daily video offering to 3.5 hours of live programming and has plans to add to it. This is in direct competition with the New York Times' own TimesCast, which offers short video summaries of certain news events.

President's Broadband Plan is A Pipe Dream

In his recent speech on the American Jobs Act, President Obama included "a deficit reducing plan to deploy high-speed wireless services to at least 98 percent of Americans." This would be done by auctioning off spectrum to wireless carriers with the condition that they use that spectrum to cover parts of the United States that do not currently have internet access.

This may seem like a marriage made in heaven - using wireless carriers to pay down the deficit AND expand internet access - but it's not. Here are two reasons why:

1) Where's the money to pay for the network, and
2) Wireless isn't a long-term solution

Expanding wireless to 98 percent of Americans could cost many billions more than the US Government receives in revenue from the spectrum auction. So, what's in it for AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile? Clearly, if there were enough revenue potential in the uncovered, primarily rural, parts of the United States, they would already have wireless coverage by now. They're not covered right now because there's not enough revenue to justify offering service there.

So let's assume that the wireless carriers get the spectrum and start building out their networks to meet the 98 percent goal: at what point do they go back to Uncle Sam and demand major subsidies?

Secondly, wireless is not a long-term solution. In wireless technology, capacity and coverage work in opposite directions. You add more capacity, you get less coverage. Covering 98 percent of America with a low capacity wireless network doesn't get you very far. In five years' time or less, the radio equipment will need to be completely replaced as new radio technology comes out.

Rather than combining deficit reduction with broadband expansion, President Obama needs to consider other ways to finance a more future-proof, robust national broadband infrastructure that can meet the needs of the coming decades, and that should focus primarily on landline networks with fiber-optics, which can be used for decades and handle ever-increasing capacity demands without needing an upgrade. We did this for rural electrification, and we can do it for broadband.

AT&T dragging Sacramento down

Given the choice, most people would choose the express train over the slow train. In Sacramento, and, unsurprisingly, across the nation as a whole, it seems that AT&T Internet Services is the slow train for internet access.

Judging from data collected by M-Lab that is publicly available, one wonders how aggressively AT&T has been expanding their U-Verse network and converting DSL users to their "faster" service.

The visualization below shows average download throughput by provider for Sacramento. The red Sacramento line is the average of the two.

Sample sizes are not radically different between the two providers, and it's clear that average throughput for AT&T hasn't changed much. One takeaway is, if you want fast internet, your only bet is Comcast. There really is no competition here in Sacramento unless you live in one of the few areas where AT&T has recently invested in more capacity.

Earlier this year, AT&T's CEO, Randall Stephenson, made an offhand remark saying that AT&T deployed DSL in the 1990s to fight off Comcast and that the technology was obsolete. This seems to be true here in Sacramento.

Mobile is the cash cow in the telecom business. Fixed line is not. Is AT&T plowing its money primarily into its mobile business, including the T-Mobile buyout?

It would seem that way, given UBS Research's take on AT&T slowing down expansion of their faster U-Verse service.

toast coverage of Chalk It Up now online

Shot on Sunday, September 4.

Chalk It Up Sacramento 2011 from Robert Osborn on Vimeo.

market research at Chalk It Up Sacramento

It was an amazing day at Chalk It Up out at Fremont Park between 15th & 16th / P & Q streets in midtown. So many great people, so many great ideas, and the sidewalks were covered with beautiful art. The event is going on through tomorrow, so stop by and check it out. Live music too from local bands, and good grub to boot!