Author: andy

I was encouraged by the broadband presentation on Tuesday June 30. Both the County’s Broadband Manager, Jerry Smith, and the CTC consultant, Patrick Mulhearn, were knowledgeable and well prepared.

While we should avoid running an obvious push survey, I’d like to use the survey to get the community thinking about issues like privacy, censorship and total budget. The survey is part of an effort to find how County staff can support better broadband for Los Alamos County. To do that, it should tell us:

• What ISP and other communication services are currently used in Los Alamos County
• How much members of the community are currently paying for services
• How satisfied residents are with current service
• What present and future needs are

I offer the following suggestions on the survey as an advocate for broadband in Los Alamos who is a knowledgeable interested citizen rather than an expert.

1. Put a link to the online survey in each of the roughly 8,000 utility bills the DPU sends out. Cover either a sample of or all of the small number who can’t/won’t use an online survey from home by hand-holding at the Municipal building.
2. Allow people to say that they object to County involvement in broadband. Q: Check all that you agree with:
   1. For profit utilities will provide appropriate communication services and Los Alamos County government should minimize its role in the business.
   2. I am satisfied with my current ISP.
   3. Los Alamos County should at least have staff expertise in broadband and electronic communication to oversee franchise agreements and support development of broadband options for the community.
   4. I want Los Alamos County to actively participate in the broadband utility market.
3. Ask how easy it is to find availability and pricing information.
4. Get enough information about each users ISP contract to enable the County to start providing information about what’s available to the public.  Q: If you don’t have Internet service skip to the next question.
   1. What is the name of your ISP?
   2. What speeds does your ISP claim they provide up/down?
   3. How much is your ISP bill per month?
   4. Does that bill include other services, eg, modem rental, phone, cable?
   5. What is the duration of your ISP contract?
5. Get information about the rest of the electronic communication/content budget.  Q: For each service listed here: Indicate if you have the service; How much you pay for the service per month; If it is part of a package:
   1. Landline telephone
   2. Cell-phone (total number and total cost per month)
   3. Cable television
   4. Streaming service, eg, Netflix
   5. News and magazines, eg, Wall Street Journal
   6. Other services delivered electronically
6. Compare your experience with the Los Alamos Department of Public Utilities to your experience with your ISP.
7. Do you trust your ISP with respect to: Privacy; Censorship; Pricing

My name is Andrew Fraser. I live at 197 Taos Street in Los Alamos.  I’ve read Mr. Smith’s slides and the draft survey in the attachments to the agenda. It is critical to do the survey well.  I want to focus on the following three broadband issues:

1. Privacy
2. Censorship and
3. Pricing

With respect privacy, let me ask if after sending email about your vacation in Europe does it bother you to see more adds about ways to spend money in Europe? Beyond reading your email, ISPs can record and monetize the sequence of WEB sites you visit.

With respect to censorship, recall the fuss about net-neutrality a few years ago. ISPs were giving preferential treatment to the traffic in which they had financial interests.  Now, Fox-News does not provide a platform for Nancy Pelosi, and Twitter doesn’t provide a platform for Donald Trump, but Trump and Pelosi can both use the Post Office without any trouble. Fox-News is not a common-carrier and the Post Office is. What about Twitter, and what about your ISP?  I don’t know about Twitter, but I think an ISP should be a common-carrier.

With respect to pricing, I find the DPU rate schedule pretty clear, but I have found it difficult to get firm information about what broadband options are available. That’s the kind of behavior an economist would expect from a discriminating monopolist.

In summary, I would like the survey to ask:

1. Do you trust that your current ISP respects your privacy?
2. Do you trust your current ISP to act as a common-carrier?
3. Do your trust your current ISP to be open, honest and fair about pricing?

Thank you for your attention.

The effort to get better broadband access in Los Alamos County needs community input now. Please show up at the next County Council meeting in person or via the link. The meeting starts at 6:00 PM on Tuesday June 28, and the presentation “Community Broadband Network Study Progress Update” is item B on the agenda.

• Ultimately I want Los Alamos County to own communication infrastructure (fiber).
• However in the interim and even if we never own such infrastructure, I want County staff to be responsible for supporting access to affordable high quality broadband by members of the community.

Yesterday Akkana Peck alerted me by email that Jerry Smith, the County Broadband Manager, will make his presentation to the County Council this week. You can see the slides here  and a draft of a survey for the community is here.  Akkana’s email noted that Mr. Smith’s slides may overestimate what’s available in the County, and they suggest a reduced interest in County owned fiber. I share her concerns.

While members of the community can influence the future of broadband in Los Alamos by contacting the Council at countycouncil@lacnm.us, the survey may be more important. The ISP (Internet Service Provider) business intersects with other electronic communication (cell phone, land line, TV, etc.) and content businesses. The survey should touch on all of that. I believe the goals of the survey are: Find out what electronic communication people are using now; Find out what they use it for; Find out what the County can/should do to help; Get people thinking about what the County can/should do to help.

Here are some thoughts about each of those goals:

* Find out what electronic communication people are using now.

Questions 3 and 5 of the draft ask who is your primary ISP and what do you pay. We should find out about the whole electronic communication business in the County: Broadband; Cell Phone; TV; Streaming Content; Newspaper and Information Service Subscriptions; etc.  In addition to price, we should ask about the quality of service. I believe that I have used four different ISPs in the 17 years I’ve lived in Los Alamos. In each case: I got speed test results that fluctuated over the course of each day; The service sometimes stopped entirely; And with the exception of LA-Net, contacting customer service was difficult and unpleasant.

I know of families that drop service every year and have a different family member restart it with a new name to get introductory pricing. As a consumer, I find it difficult to discover the availability and pricing of broadband service. I would like for the County to post such information. We could use this survey to get started on that.

From anywhere else I access my home network on LA-Net via home.fraserphysics.com. That would violate the terms of service of some other ISPs. I know others use techniques to watch some content in violation of their terms of service. The survey should ask if people find their terms of service onerous and if they honor them.

* Find out what they use it for.

Question 6 asks if the ISP fee includes TV and/or phone, and question 7 asks about several use purposes. While the questions are adequate, I feel they miss some cases. For example, I know people who use the Internet to work (mostly writing code) either for a single employer or on contracts thousands of miles away. And although I’m retired, I’m working on a technical book and attending technical meetings (in person and remotely). Scientists rely on the Internet almost continuously for information. The options in question 7., “Connecting to work” or “Running a home business”, don’t seem to fit. I think “Professional activity” is a better description. And of course there should be a place to say that one operates a blog.

* Find out what the County can/should do to help.

While I want the County to install fiber to the premises, there are other needs. In particular, I noticed during remote Council meetings, that at least one Councilor said that the poor quality of the connection was due to weak infrastructure at home. We should think about how to help people with their home networks.

* Get people thinking about what the County can/should do to help.

I have neighbors who oppose any County involvement in broadband. One opposes government in general, and the other thinks he’s getting a great deal from Xfinity. The survey should ensure that such views are easy to express.

I (an unbiased former Chair of the Board of Public Utilities) think that the County does a good job delivering the other (not broadband) utilities. The survey should ask people to compare the quality of service from the County DPU to the service that they get from their ISP.

Other utilities in the US are either government owned (like our DPU) or regulated as monopolies. The survey should ask if people agree that broadband is a utility, and then ask if it should be: 1. Owned by government; 2. Regulated as a utility; 3. Be subject to market competition; 4. None of the above (the current situation).

Council Chair Ryti told me that Jerry Smith, the County Broadband Manager, would give a presentation to the County Council at their June 14th meeting entitled “Community Broadband Network Study Progress Update”, but the presentation is not on the most recent agenda. I watched the recording of Mr. Smith’s lunch presentation to the League of Women Voters in March which is available online, and I was pleased to see that he understands the technology and the current funding opportunities.

To prepare for Mr. Smith’s presentation, a small group of us have exchanged some email. As a result, I have the following observations and questions:

1. Question for Mr. Smith: Do you believe that you have been assigned the task of establishing a County owned community broadband network? If not, what are your tasks?
2. Question for Council: What do you want Mr. Smith to do?
3. Question for Mr. Smith: What projects are the County pursuing that are eligible for federal and or state funds?
4. I have heard that Comcast has installed fiber to each neighborhood in the County, and I have seen a map of Redinet fiber in the County. Question for Mr. Smith: Does anyone at the County (you?) know what telecommunication infrastructure exists in the County?
5. I have heard both that the County can’t provide broadband service till it has a path off of the hill and that all of Internet traffic in the County now goes via a link owned by Lumen that crosses the Rio Grande at Buckman.   I’ve also heard that that link has plenty of capacity. Question for Mr. Smith: Which if any of those claims are true?
6. I have heard that fiber conduit is not routinely installed either in new developments or when roads are dug up for other utilities. Question for Mr. Smith: Is that true? Is that a mistake?
7. I would like to have the County discover and publish information about the broadband options that are currently available to County residents. As a consumer, I find it difficult to discover the technology and pricing that’s available. Question for Mr. Smith: How difficult would it be for the County to discover and publish such information? (I would not want the effort to discover such information to distract from pursuing projects that have a limited funding window.)