This is something I’ve been watching unfold as AT&T swallowed up Cingular and Bell South so it could become the huge company it was before it got broken up. Ok, maybe not quite as huge, but pretty big.
It has been amazing to see AT&T which seemed to be dying a slow death burst back to life so robustly.
But what I’ve been watching are promises of rural broadband to the former Bell South service area.
My personal interest is because I would like to see broadband more universally available so people in rural and small towns have the ability to work at home more easily.
The question has been… AT&T promised “universal broadband access” to the old Bell South service area. My question has been … how are they going to pull that off?
Here’s an interesting article from the Tennessean. It’s about AT&T’s desire to pass legislation that lets them offer Digital TV services without getting local approval like all the cable companies had to.
Under the orginial federal approval to merge with Bell South, AT&T promised to deliver broadband service to it’s traditional service area. 15% of that could/would be as “satellite broadband” … I don’t like satellite broadband because most home based CSR positions and other telework positions don’t jibe well with satellite. I also wonder how they coun’t the “15%”… by square miles or head count?
Let’s say that the 15% is by head count. Nashville TN has 1.5 million people.
If the areas surrounding nashville have an additional 265,000 people, then under a “head count” plan, the suburbs would never have to be served by wired service.
These aren’t real numbers (except for the 1.5 million in Nashville), but simply illustrate a point. How are the 15% counted?
Legislators who are for the bill “hope” it would give AT&T incentive to provide real broadband to the other “15%” so they could sell digital TV too.
But if rural dollars haven’t attracted the cable companies after all these years, who’s to say they’ll attract AT&T now?
The local cable companies are trying to bundle cable tv, VOIP phone and Internet here for $100 per month so there is some incentive for AT&T to possibly serve more people than the cabel companies did, but as the article notes:
The bill does not require AT&T or other TV competitors to offer TV service to entire cities or counties, as typically is the case with local cable franchise agreements. AT&T argues that it would be impractical to require it to serve its entire service territory in Tennessee, which encompasses much of the state, with its new digital TV service.
Rhonda on May 1st, 2008 at 2:14 pm
I have a question that I think is already on the minds of a lot of people who live in the “boonies”. Here is my problem, first. We live about 30 miles east of Nashville in Lebanon, but not in downtown Lebanon. We live near the Nashville Super Speedway, but getting anything out here is like trying to fly without wings! We have had to fight for everything from a paved road, city water and now, internet is an issue. No DSL is offered even after all these years of being promised DSL. No cable is offered…the line stops about 5 miles from us and they have no interest in extending the lines or service because it is not “financially constructive” to do so. The only options for internet service is extremely slow dialup (even our phone lines out here are horrible due to being at the butt end of the line between Wilson and Rutherford counties….no one wants to invest in the area because it is not financially sound to do so! I can get T-1 lines…..if I wish to pay a charge of around $900 per month!! And, then, there is the currently not-so-popular satellite internet services, Hughesnet and Wildblue, both of which we have experienced and HATE! My question, now, is….what is everyone else doing for internet for a home based rural area business? I need internet on several computers in my home business and for my kids to do homework, etc. I am being punished right now by Wildblue, even though we pay a premium (overpriced amount!!) for their “best” service, but are being slowed down and even our service dropped because they say we are “using too much bandwidth” when we know we aren’t because most of the time, we can’t even GET ONLINE to use the bandwidth! It’s horrible. We would love to start a class action lawsuit, but don’t have the funds to do so. It is all we can do to stay above water here and just pay the bills, buy gas and food. The home business is an evil necessity because we need more income than my husband’s “day job” to make it. I am disabled and can’t work and in the long and impossible fight to try and get disability, but finding dead ends everywhere. I just want decent internet, just like the city folks, for a decent fair price. Anyone have any help on this? Thanks!