2008
County of Louisa,
Virginia
Phase I Report
A report looking at issues associated with broadband availability in Louisa County
Page 1
Douglas A. Dawson
President of CCG Consulting, LLC
September 4, 2008
Table of Contents
Page
I. Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................3
II. Summary...................................................................................................................................4
III. Needs Assessment ...................................................................................................................8
A. Residential Survey .........................................................................................................8
B. Business Interviews ......................................................................................................12
C. Broadband and Government.........................................................................................15
IV. Computer Training in the County ......................................................................................16
V. Last Mile Connectivity............................................................................................................19
A. Existing Infrastructure..................................................................................................20
1. Towers..............................................................................................................20
2. Public Safety ....................................................................................................20
3. Existing ISPs ....................................................................................................20
4. The Incumbents ................................................................................................21
5. Geographic and Other Considerations .............................................................23
6. Availability of Affordable Internet Backbone .................................................24
7. The Telecommunications Ordinance ...............................................................24
B. Existing Broadband Technologies ...............................................................................27
1. Fiber .................................................................................................................27
2. Copper (DSL)...................................................................................................31
3. Hybrid Fiber Coaxial (HFC) – Cable Modems................................................35
4. Unlicensed Wireless (Wi-Fi) .........................................................................37
5. Licensed Wireless ............................................................................................39
6. Broadband over Powerline ...............................................................................41
7. Satellite Data ....................................................................................................41
C. Future Broadband Technologies ................................................................................43
D. The Right Technology for Louisa County ..................................................................46
Attachment I – The Residential Survey .....................................................................................47
Attachment II – Louisa and Mineral Business Maps ...............................................................55
Attachment III – Exchange Map ................................................................................................57
Page 2
I.
CONCLUSION & RECOMMENDATIONS
Louisa County engaged CCG Consulting, LLC. (CCG) to study issues associated with broadband
availability in the County. The goal of this Phase I study was to perform a needs assessment to
determine if there is a broadband gap in the County and to try to quantify the broadband gap.
CCG reached the following conclusions in the fact-finding portion of this study:





CCG concludes that the County has a serious broadband gap today. There are a
significant number of households, estimated at around 5,400, that have no access to
broadband today except for expensive satellite service.
Over time it’s possible that either Verizon or the wireless ISPs will bring commercial
broadband to some portion of these customers. However, when considering the terrain
and density in the County, it’s CCG’s estimate that some significant portion of these
customers, maybe half or more, will not be offered a commercial broadband alternative in
the next decade or longer. Thus, if the County does not help to find a broadband solution,
some significant portion of the County’s households will not have broadband for many
years to come, creating a permanent broadband gap. .
The businesses in Louisa and Mineral are basically satisfied with the availability of
broadband. However, they are concerned about price, particularly with the price of T1s
and other larger bandwidth products. Businesses outside of these towns in places like
Lake Anna generally have no broadband and are in the same situation as residents in
those areas.
We find that the recently passed Telecommunications Ordinance is perceived to be a
barrier to entry by the wireless broadband providers. The Ordinance seems appropriate
for cellular carriers, but adds an economic burden on wireless broadband providers and
has drastically cut back on expansion of the existing wireless broadband networks in the
County.
There is some computer training available in the County today. However, there are steps
the County can take to better provide training to citizens. The primary role the County
might consider is to act to notify citizens of training opportunities.
CCG makes the following recommendations:


Verizon could solve some of the existing broadband gap by deploying additional DSL.
We recommend that the County form a group to aggressively and repeatedly lobby
Verizon to put in more DSL. We have found that communities who complain the loudest
often get results. Any such lobbying ought to include the findings of this study that
predict that a significant number of customers would buy broadband and thus would
justify the capital outlay by Verizon. Verizon ought to be able to make a profit by
deploying additional DSL.
The existing wireless providers view portions of the recent Telecommunications
Ordinance as barriers to entry. However, the County also has legitimate concerns that
prompted the Ordinance. We recommend some sort of summit or series of meetings
between the County and the wireless providers to work out a compromise amendment to
Page 3


II.
the Ordinance that will satisfy the needs of the County, such as safety, but still promote
the expansion of commercial broadband.
It’s clear that the public is very concerned about the lack of broadband in the County. The
broadband gap demonstrated by the survey is the largest one ever seen by CCG. We
believe the County should proceed with Phase II of the study regardless of getting
funding by the State. We believe citizens know that broadband is being studied and many
of them are hoping for a solution from the County.
The County had previously contracted for wireless studies by CityScape. The CityScape
studies did not include coverage maps that show the expected actual wireless service area
that could be expected due to terrain and vegetation. CCG recommends that the County
request these additional wireless coverage maps before proceeding with Phase II of the
study. These maps will show the effectiveness of a wireless network for reaching remote
parts of the County.
SUMMARY
The County engaged CCG Consulting, LLC. (CCG) to study issues associated with broadband
availability within the County. This Phase I report looks at the results of the research done by
CCG. Phase I of the study concentrates on needs assessment to determine if there is a broadband
gap in the County. Phase I also looks at the need in the County for broadband training. Finally,
the Phase I study looks at existing broadband infrastructure and at possible broadband solutions.
CCG staff looked at broadband demand in the County using several methods. First, CCG
performed a statistically significant sampling of residences that asked a number of questions
about the availability of broadband and about how residents use broadband. This survey
demonstrated a significant broadband gap. Only 36% of County residents have purchased
broadband access today, significantly below the national average of 55% of households. Around
45% of County households still use dial-up access, far in excess of the nationwide average of
around 15% of households. In talking to residents, CCG determined that a significant portion of
the broadband gap is due to the lack of broadband availability. In geographic terms, a very large
portion of the County still has no broadband availability from the telephone or cable company.
Almost all of the customers still using dial-up (90%) expressed a desire to get broadband. The
reason most households don’t have broadband is because of lack of availability rather than cost.
The County does not have a large business community compared to many other counties in
Virginia. The County reported to us that there are approximately 700 businesses in the County,
many concentrated in or nearby to Louisa and Mineral. The vast majority of the businesses are
service and retail businesses that do not generally require as much broadband as manufacturing
and other businesses that employ a lot of people. The economic development people in the
County estimate that there may be as many as 900 businesses when considering all home based
businesses. They are currently conducting a business census to get a better count.
Since there are only 700 to 900 businesses in the County it was impractical to obtain a valid
sample of businesses using a survey. In order to achieve the same level of confidence obtained
with the residential survey it would be necessary to survey between 250 and 270 businesses,
which our experience tells us is impractical. CCG’s experience in other similar studies showed
Page 4
that most businesses are reluctant to participate in these types of surveys. Further, if business
surveys are answered by a non-decision maker at a business, the results of that response are
invalid. Since CCG felt that the business response to a survey would not be sufficient to be
meaningful, CCG instead elicited the County staff’s help in seeking volunteer companies to give
a more in-depth interview. CCG had in-depth interviews with 30 businesses in the County, which
is not untypical for these kinds of studies. The volunteer businesses were highly informed about
broadband issues in the County. They understood the availability (or lack of availability) of
broadband products and they understood prices. In contrast to what we expected to find, the
businesses were almost all happy with their broadband today, except for price. The exception to
this would bethose businesses in places like Lake Anna, and home and farm based businesses
that are still stuck using dial-up Internet access.
The primary issue identified by businesses was that the owners and employees of the businesses
very often had no broadband at home. They felt that the lack of broadband was affecting their
businesses since employees could not do Internet-related tasks outside of the office. This is a
very different finding than CCG has gotten in similar studies and it is further proof the existence
of a big broadband gap in the County.
The County’s major broadband issue is the broadband gap between residents that still have
dial-up access and those who can get cable modem or DSL. Cable modem and DSL service is
approximately 20 to 30 times faster than dial-up access. Dial-up access can get speeds up to 56
kbps at maximum performance. In many places where the copper cable is older, dial-up speeds
are slower. The typical DSL service delivers around 1,000 to 1,500 kbps, a significant speed
improvement over dial-up. Cable modem service typically delivers more speed than DSL,
generally with speeds of 2,000 to 2,500 kbps. Today much of the Internet is impossible to use
with dial-up access, so a home or businesses stuck with dial-up cannot enjoy many of the
benefits of the Internet. Even when dial-up customers can reach the Internet, the response times
are incredibly slow.
If a business can’t get DSL they have one other broadband option. Such businesses can almost
always buy a broadband service referred to as a T1 or a DS1. This is a broadband service that
delivers 1,544 kbps. While a business DSL line costs around $100 per month, a T1 for Internet
access in the County costs around $600 per month. Businesses using T1s are unhappy with the
price. Note that DSL is not always an adequate surrogate for a T1. T1s are symmetrical service,
meaning they have the same speed for upload and download. DSL has slower upload speeds but
faster download speeds compared to a T1. To many businesses upload speeds are just as
important as download speeds.
While the County has a significant broadband gap today, the gap is getting much wider. Verizon
is very actively building a network in some of the urban areas where they provide telephone
service that delivers fiber to homes and business. Verizon markets this new technology and
product line under the product name of FiOS. FiOS delivers a significant amount of bandwidth to
homes and businesses. Generally FiOS is 20 to 30 times faster than DSL, which is 20 to 30 times
faster than dial-up. Thus, broadband over Verizon FiOS is 400 to 900 times faster than dial-up.
Verizon is building FiOS at a furious pace. They have already passed several million homes and
are expected to pass another million homes in the coming year. Generally FiOS is priced a little
Page 5
higher than DSL but delivers a lot more bandwidth. Current residential products on FiOS deliver
5,000 to 30,000 kbps today and businesses can get up to 100,000 kbps. Verizon is expected to
increase these speeds over the coming years.
The broadband gap is going to widen even more in rural areas because places like Louisa County
don’t have the population density to be a likely target for Verizon to build FiOS in the
foreseeable future. Verizon still has to get to many places that are much larger than the County.
Parts of Charlottesville and nearby localities like Spotsylvania County already have some FiOS
and many nearby places will have it in the next few years. The County is rural enough that much
of the County might never get FiOS, depending upon Verizon’s business plan. As the areas
around the County get FiOS, the broadband gap for the County will become even more
significant. Businesses in the County will be at a severe economic disadvantage when compared
to businesses in nearby counties who will have access to broadband that is 500 times more cost
effective and efficient.
In summary, the County today has one of the largest broadband gaps that CCG has encountered
across the country, and this gap is quickly widening due to the availability of fiber-to-the-home
in nearby communities. Today the County has a huge percentage of households still stuck with
dial-up. If the County does nothing, then in the near future, the County will have the same mix of
dial-up and DSL sitting next to areas that have fiber connectivity. This next-generation
broadband gap is going to have a significant effect on the County. One would expect housing
prices to drop over time in those areas with dial-up access. One would expect business to locate
in neighboring communities instead of Louisa and one might also see some businesses leave the
County.
Estimating Broadband Demand
Phase II of this study will be looking at options for solving the broadband gap. While the Phase
II study has not been started, the following general statements about the expected demand for a
County-sponsored network can be made as a result of the Phase I work:
1. Any network solution is going to have to be paid for by bringing broadband to residential
users. There are a significant number of residential households with no broadband
alternative and a significant number of households with DSL, cable modem or satellite
broadband who say they would switch to another broadband source, given a choice. Any
network will only succeed financially by serving residential customers. There are not
enough businesses in the County to justify a business-only network solution.
2. CCG can estimate the number of residential customers that might be interested in a
County broadband network. Here are some basic facts from the residential survey:


45% of households still have dial-up access compared to fewer than 15%
nationwide, and 90% of those households say they would buy broadband if it was
available.
69% of all households say they would consider changing to a County-provided
network
Page 6
CCG staff can translate these survey results into a projected residential market demand.
Today there are roughly 12,000 households in the County. These can be categorized by
Internet usage today as follows:
Use DSL or cable modem
Use satellite
Use dial-up
Use wireless
No Internet connection
17%
15%
45%
2%
21%
2,040 households
1,800 households
5,400 households
240 households
2,520 households
Using the above statistics, and the results of the survey responses the following potential
broadband demand for a County network should exist:
Those with Broadband or satellite who would switch (73%)
Those with Dial-up who would switch (90%)
Those without Internet who would buy broadband (25%)
Total Potential Residential Demand
(Equals 69% of total households)
2,790 households
4,860 households
630 households
8,280 households
The survey reported that 69% of households said they would buy broadband from the
County. This is one of the highest responses CCG has ever seen to this question. To a
large extent this high result is driven by the large percentage of households who still use
dial-up. However, a significant percentage of people using DSL, cable modem or satellite
also said they would switch. We would warn that people made these responses without
knowing the speed or price of a County offering, so real results could be lower. However,
these high percentages show a very high demand for broadband and a fairly significant
dissatisfaction of the current broadband products from those who buy them. We would
note that there is particularly a lot of dissatisfaction with satellite broadband.
3. Our belief is that business demand is not as high as residential demand for broadband in
terms of the percentage of businesses that might buy broadband from a County-sponsored
network. A large majority of businesses in Louisa County are in, or near the towns of
Louisa and Mineral and these businesses have access to DSL, wireless broadband and
other telephone company products like T1s. The main issue with businesses in these
towns is price, so there could be some potential demand for a lower-priced data service.
Also, any businesses outside these towns in places like Lake Anna or elsewhere have the
same lack of broadband as residences in those neighborhoods. Thus, demand for
broadband among businesses would consist of those businesses looking for an alternative
service or those businesses outside the towns with no broadband today. From the
perspective of developing a business plan, we predict that revenues from businesses will
not constitute a significant percentage of revenues of any network.
Page 7
Training
There are some entry level computer training courses offered in the County. The library
effectively gives free ad hoc training while helping people to use the computers in the library.
While the schools have computer training as part of the curriculum, there is no outreach
programs offered to the public by the school system. Parks and Recreation offer a number of
courses at the Betty Queen Intergenerational Center. There also seems to be a lot of training
opportunities in Charlottesville and other nearby places.
The residential survey showed that some citizens are interested in training courses, but not as
many as we have seen in similar surveys. Perhaps the demand is lower here because of the
availability of local courses.
CCG has recommended some steps the County might want to consider if the goal is to promote
more computer training. However, we don’t see lack of available training as an issue in the
County compared to other places we have studied.
III.
NEEDS ASSESSMENT
This section of the report looks at the results of the research done by CCG. Specifically, this
section covers the residential surveys, the interviews with businesses and the existing
infrastructure.
A.
Residential Survey
CCG conducted a residential survey of a statistically valid sample of residents of Louisa
County in March, 2008. In this survey we asked residents questions concerning Internet
usage and computer training. A full copy of the survey and the results are included as
Attachment I.
The first step in developing the survey was to determine how many residents must be
surveyed for the results to be considered statistically valid. At CCG we use tools to help
us determine sample size. For several years we have consulted two web sites,
(www.surveysystem.com/sscalc.htm#terminology) and (http://calculators.stat.ucla.edu/)
that have online sample size calculators. The first site is from the web site for Creative
Research Systems, a firm specializing in market research. The second site is from the
Statistics Department at UCLA. Prior to using these sites, we performed these
calculations manually. For both websites the sample size provided by the website has
always been the same or nearly the same (sometimes varied by 1 because of rounding) as
the results obtained by manual calculation.
In creating the sample size, we first determined, with input from the County, the level of
confidence that we wanted from the results. We selected a sample size that would
produce results with a 95% confidence level. In layman’s terms this means that the
results obtained would be roughly within 5% of the results we would expect to obtain if
Page 8
we were able to talk to every resident in the County. CCG then calculated the sample size
using the results given by both web sites. In the 2000 Census there was 9,945 occupied
homes and the growth rate estimated by the Census would predict around 10,700
households currently. In order to obtain the statistically valid results we needed to survey
375 residents in the County. As we did the study we were given a more recent estimate of
the number of households at around 12,000. This slight increase in households does not
increase the required number of surveys or dilute the significance of the results.
We determined who to call using a systematic sampling approach. We decided to use the
white page telephone listings for the County and we called every twenty-fifth resident. If
we were unable to get an answer we continued with the next household after the one we
missed. This type of methodology isn’t strictly random, but is the approach that almost all
telephone surveyors use and it is a valid sampling technique. Since our callers didn’t
know anybody in the County, we believe this method achieves the same results as using a
pure random calling pattern. We spread the calls to every twenty-fifth resident since we
wanted to make sure to survey the whole County.
Our survey produced some interesting results. Again, for a full copy of the survey and
answers see Attachment I. Here are highlighted survey results by the different sections of
the survey:
Data (High Speed Internet Access)
36% of residences currently have high-speed Internet access, comprised of 7% who use
cable modem, 11% who use DSL, 2% who use wireless and 16% who use satellite.
Another 45% of customers still use dial-up. Only 21% of customers have no Internet
access at home.
We notice one discrepancy in the survey. The survey results show that only 2% of houses
use wireless for broadband. However, discussions with the two wireless ISPs would
indicate that they have more customers than this. This discrepancy can probably be
explained as the result of sampling. Our survey was conducted using random calling. In
doing so, we skipped phone numbers so that we would get residents from all geographic
parts of the County. The customers of the wireless ISPs are not scattered across the
County, but are rather concentrated in small pockets. One of the vagaries of sampling is
that it assumes that the characteristics being tested for are spread throughout the
population. In this case, wireless customers are not widely spread, but tightly
concentrated, and in such a case, our sampling technique almost certainly undercounted
wireless customers. With that said, the overall sample of broadband customers still has a
result of 95% accuracy, plus or minus 5%. What is not as accurate is the subset of exact
types of broadband customers making up that percentage.
The County is trailing the national average of high-speed connections, which is estimated
between 55% and 60% (depending upon which nationwide survey you believe). There
are far more than average dialup customers in the County at 45%, compared to the
national average of between 16% and 18%. In the rest of the country the number of dialPage 9
up customers is declining rapidly, but lack of broadband alternatives leaves many
customers in Louisa with no alternative to dial-up.
52% of the households without Internet access (or 11% of all households) said they have
no interest in the Internet. The remainder of those without Internet access cited cost, lack
of alternatives or other reasons for not having Internet.
90% of customers with dial-up said they would like to change to a high-speed
connection. Most of them don’t have an affordable high-speed alternative available
today.
61% of residents use the Internet for leisure. 50% use the Internet for school. 41% use the
Internet for work.
45% of residential Internet connections cost less than $30 per month. This result is slued
to be lower than average due to the high number of people still on dial-up.
Residents were basically satisfied with the customer service provided by their current
Internet service providers. Only 7% were dissatisfied with customer service. Only 12%
were dissatisfied with getting problems fixed.
However, many more customers were dissatisfied with the speed of the Internet
connections. 34% of residents were dissatisfied with download speeds and 36% were
dissatisfied with upload speeds of their connection.
Only 16% of households believe the market is bringing Internet service that people can
afford. 57% of households thought that Internet was becoming as essential as a utility.
37% said that people wouldn’t be able to enjoy a high quality of life without high-speed
Internet access.
A significantly large 75% of residents said that the County should take a role in bringing
high-speed Internet access to students, while 57% thought the County should take a role
in bringing inexpensive Internet access to all households. Only 44% thought the County
ought to take a role in bringing high-speed Internet access to businesses.
69% of households said they would buy Internet access from the County if it were
offered at a discount compared to today’s prices. Another 13% said they might buy from
the County. This is a surprising number in the fact that this equals 82% of households
while only 79% of households have some form of Internet access today. The people in
the County almost universally want a new option. This is the highest such result we have
ever seen.
18% of households reported that somebody works from home. This is higher than we see
in most other places.
Page 10
We asked how people generally feel about the existing utilities in the County (and with
the County). The following percentages of households either liked or completely trusted
each of the following:
Comcast
Verizon
Dominion Virginia Power
Rappahannock Electric Cooperative
The County
23%
52%
41%
32%
53%
Low and Moderate Income (LMI) Households and Universal Service
Today about 21% of households have no Internet access. Further, we have to believe that
at least some of the homes using dial-up have made that choice because of price. The
County is much like most of rural America in that you have a significant number of low
and moderate income (LMI) households.
Many municipalities have proceeded to study how to use a government-owned network
to bring affordable bandwidth to households without the means to afford broadband. This
is generally referred to as providing universal service, or solving the digital divide,
meaning the ability to get broadband to everybody in a community.
Communities have generally looked at this issue in two ways. First, in order to get
broadband everywhere, a community must first get computers everywhere, so the first
part of looking at digital divide issues is getting computers into more households. We
know of very few examples where the government directly hands out computers. More
often the government works with non-profit groups who find ways to fund computers.
However, there are now some municipalities that give a computer to every school kid,
thus solving the digital divide for families with children.
The second part of solving the digital divide is to offer cheap bandwidth to LMI
households. This is something the County could consider if deciding to build a
municipal-owned network. It’s premature to talk about specific pricing or products until
we get into Phase II of this study, but we ought to consider a digital divide product as part
of any Phase II study. A number of communities with broadband networks are providing
lower cost connections to households that qualify. These communities all believe that
bringing broadband to LMI households will reap great long-term benefits for the
community.
Conclusions
Several conclusions can be drawn from the results of this survey. One has to always be
careful not to over-interpret a survey, but from these results we can reach the following
conclusions:
Page 11





B.
There is definitely a broadband gap within Louisa County. Only 36% of
households have any form of broadband access today compared with the national
average of 58%.
Further evidence of a broadband gap is the fact that 45% of the households still
use dial-up, but 90% of those would like to change to broadband. It’s clear that a
large number of households don’t have a broadband option other than satellite
(which still doesn’t work everywhere and which is expensive).
Even residents with broadband access want to see alternatives. Essentially all of
the customers with any kind of Internet access today said they would buy service
or consider buying service from the County. That is an astounding statistic.
The major role citizens see for the County is to make sure that children get
Internet access for education purposes. At the same time, very few citizens
supported the idea of the County bringing cheaper access to businesses.
The Phase II study ought to consider lower priced bandwidth for LMI households.
Business Interviews
The County does not have a large business community compared to many other counties
in Virginia. The County reported that there are approximately 700 businesses in the
County. It’s hard to get an exact count because many of the businesses there are home or
farm based. The economic development people in the County guess there may be as
many as 900 businesses when considering all home based businesses. They are currently
undertaking a census of businesses to get a better count. Larger businesses that work out
of business addresses are mostly concentrated in or nearby to Louisa or Mineral.
However, there are still a significant number of businesses located in areas like Lake
Anna as well as on homes and farms that are located in areas that do not have broadband
today. The vast majority of the businesses are service and retail businesses that do not
generally require as much broadband as manufacturing and other businesses that employ
a lot of people. However, most of the businesses in the County want broadband.
With only 700 to 900 businesses in the County it was impractical to obtain a valid sample
of businesses through a survey. We would have needed to get a valid survey response
from 250 to 270 businesses to obtain a statistically valid response. CCG’s experience in
similar studies showed that most businesses are reluctant to participate in these types of
surveys. Our experience also has shown that it is often impossible to talk to the decision
maker and survey responses given by a non-decision maker are statistically invalid. Since
we felt that the business response to a survey would not be sufficient to provide a
statistically meaningful response, we instead elicited the County’s help in seeking
volunteer companies to give a more in-depth interview. With the County’s help, and
through calls made by referrals from other businesses, we conducted 30 in-depth
interviews with County businesses.
The volunteer businesses were highly informed about broadband issues in the County.
They understood the availability (or lack of availability) of broadband products and they
understood prices. Almost universally, the businesses we spoke to in the towns had
broadband and were relatively happy with it. If they had any one issue it was price,
Page 12
particularly businesses using T1s from Verizon who reported paying over $600 per
month for 1.5 Mbps service. While the businesses were not unhappy with their
broadband, every business said that the County ought to help solve the residential
broadband gap by bringing affordable broadband options to the County. Generally
businesses were concerned about employees who still have dial-up at home.
Attachment II includes two maps illustrating how businesses are generally clustered
within Louisa and Mineral with some businesses on the feeder roads into the towns. For
the most part, unless businesses are close to the towns, rural businesses in homes and
farms do not have broadband today.
The primary goal of these interviews was to generate discussion on the general
experiences of businesses with broadband or the lack thereof in the County. CCG
addressed questions in the following areas in discussions with the businesses:
 Availability of Services and Opinion of Providers
o The overall experience and satisfaction with existing broadband providers.
o Detailed broadband services that are purchased today, what would be
purchased today if there were no broadband barriers, and what might be
purchased in the future.
o Prices and affordability.
o The availability to businesses of every service that they want and need
today.
o The awareness of competition in broadband today and if they knew how to
look for broadband alternatives.
 Service Criteria
o Factors they considered most important with regard to broadband services,
primarily reliability, price and customer service.
 Service Issues and Problems
o Opinion of current providers’ customer service.
 Role of Government
o Opinion of the government’s role in providing broadband, and if so, what
sort of role
 What more broadband would mean to their business. Would they expand or hire
new employees if they had more broadband?
Following is a summary of the responses and issues uncovered in the course of the
business interviews:

Availability of Services and Opinion of Providers. First, the businesses in the
County were very aware of broadband (or the lack of it). Their number one complaint
was that many of them had broadband at the business but did not have it at home,
which they found a hindrance to running their operations. The businesses universally
understood the available broadband products and the prices. All businesses CCG
spoke to were located within the towns had broadband today. All the businesses were
aware of the few competitive options they have available and every business had put
in an effort to determine if any alternatives were available to them. Interestingly,
Page 13
every single business was generally satisfied with the service and their provider, other
than price. CCG has never seen this much satisfaction in other communities and our
conclusion is that this result was obtained because the businesses are mostly retail or
otherwise don’t need much broadband.
Businesses with broadband access are getting services from three different providers,
including Verizon, the telephone company or the wireless providers. We did not talk
to anybody who had service from Comcast, and it’s possible that Comcast does not
offer business services in the County. While CCG did not interview any business that
uses satellite, one would expect that there are at least a few businesses outside of the
towns that use HughesNet or WildBlue. We certainly saw a significant number of
satellite users in the residential survey. Most of the businesses we interviewed use
Verizon DSL or T1s.
Following are some of the issues raised during the business interviews:
a.
Lack of broadband at home for their employees was the biggest concern to
all businesses. They felt this hindered them in running their business.
b.
Some businesses wanted more than one option for redundancy.
c.
Businesses felt that T-1 prices are too high and quoted prices for Internet
T-1s from $600 to $700 per month, for 1.5 Mbps connectivity.
d.
Most businesses said that they would want faster speed if it were
available.
e.
We got some comments about the slow upload speeds available on their
broadband service.
f.
Small businesses can’t afford a T-1, but they would like very high
bandwidth at a reasonable price.
g.
100% of the businesses interviewed said that they wish the County would
provide alternatives to what is currently available.

Service Issues. The businesses generally did not have any complaints about service.
Following are representative comments from businesses:
a. Many businesses expressed a need for redundancy.
b. A few said that getting problems fixed was sometimes slow.
c. Every business interviewed would consider using a municipal-owned
network.
d. Businesses found customer service difficult because they can never talk to
the same person twice.
e. Some said they would like local customer service.

Role of Government. All respondents were encouraged that the County was studying
broadband alternatives and said they would support the County getting involved in
the broadband business. All said that they would consider the County or another
alternate provider’s service offerings. Following are representative comments from
businesses concerning the role of government:
a. All businesses are happy that the County is serious about providing
broadband alternatives.
Page 14
b. They would be much more comfortable with a local service provider.
c. They generally thought that the government ought to step in since private
providers have not stepped up.
d. Businesses have commended the County for recognizing the importance of
the issue.
e. Businesses thought that the County needs to educate the public about the
broadband issue.

What Companies would do with More Broadband. We asked companies what they
would do with more broadband. One specific question we asked was if the business
would expand or hire more people if they got more broadband. The responses we got:
a. No business said they would hire more people if they got more broadband.
Note that for the most part all of the businesses in the towns who want
broadband have it and are basically happy with the service.
b. A few businesses said they would do more web commerce with more
bandwidth.
Overall these business interviews showed some common theme across the spectrum of
businesses. The main impression we got was that businesses in the towns are not unhappy
with their broadband service. They were universally unhappy about lack of broadband for
employees. Every business was supportive of the County fixing the broadband gap.
The interviews also showed a business community that has a clear understanding of the
marketplace. Businesses were very aware of the broadband issues in the County and were
aware of the products and prices available to them. Generally the businesses seemed to
have the mindset that something needs to be done now in the County, but more for
residents than for themselves.
The reactions received were not typical. CCG has performed similar interviews all over
the country and two things stood out in Louisa. First, businesses here are very aware of
the broadband situation, which is unusual. Secondly, all the volunteer businesses were
basically happy with the incumbent products, something we rarely see.
C.
Broadband and Government
While businesses were mostly satisfied with broadband, the government agencies in the
County were almost universally dissatisfied with existing broadband in terms of both data
speeds and price.
The school system has T1s or DS3s connectivity to each of the five schools in the County
and they report that often this is not enough speed. They are currently looking at
alternatives to get more broadband to schools. They get some discounts due to E-Rate, a
federal program to bring affordable bandwidth to schools, but they would still like to see
cheaper rates.
Page 15
The library is very unhappy with their bandwidth. They operate 16 computers for the
public which they say are busy from open until close, and the network often bogs down
and is very slow.
The County building is served by T1s from Verizon. The main issue with these is cost
and the County would like to see a better value. The County shares this bandwidth using
a fiber with the medical building next door and with the Circuit Courthouse. The medical
building reports they are generally happy with the bandwidth but that speeds bog down at
times.
What CCG has seen in other communities is that government can be transformed if they
can get cheap bandwidth. Today the County is using bandwidth in much the same way
that other businesses in town use it – for email and Internet access. However, there is a
host of ways that the County could improve services to citizens if you had access to large
amounts of cheap bandwidth. In Phase II of the study we will look to see if there is a way
to bring faster and cheaper bandwidth to the government. However, it probably will only
be practical to improve government bandwidth if it looks like there is a way to improve
public bandwidth.
IV.
COMPUTER TRAINING IN THE COUNTY
CCG’s was tasked with the RFP to investigate computer training courses held within the
County. CCG’s residential surveys showed that some citizens desire and would take
advantage of computer training courses if they were available. 27% of respondents stated
that they would take a computer training course if it was locally available and affordable.
51% of respondents said they would like the County to take a role in getting more
computer training courses in the County.
In addition to the residential interviews staff interviewed the schools, libraries and a
number of businesses to learn about training issues. CCG found that there is some vary
basic training available today within the County. The existing training consists of:
 Basic courses are offered through Louisa County Parks and Recreation at the Betty
Queen Center.
o The Betty Queen Intergenerational Center offers a variety of courses
throughout the year at the Louisa County High School. The courses appeal to
people of all ages and computer skill levels. They host classes for people who
have never used a computer and need basic training to classes for people who
want to learn more about specific software such as Microsoft Excel. The
following classes are held one day a week for three weeks and cost $60.00
 Introduction to Computers - covers basic information about computer
hardware and software.
 Microsoft Office Excel – teaches students how to use a spreadsheet.
 The Internet – you will learn about the basics and uses of the Internet.
It also covers emailing, searching, downloading. A free email account
will be set up for you.
They also teach a one day class for PowerPoint that costs $40.00
Page 16

Microsoft Office PowerPoint – You will learn how to prepare a
presentation.
They offer a one day Internet class for $25.00
 Internet Safety and Protecting Your Computer – You will learn how to
protect your computer from viruses and also how to protect yourself
from identity theft. They give students free antivirus software.




Louisa County Library.
o The Louisa County Library is part of the Jefferson–Madison Regional Library
system that has eight libraries and is headquartered in Charlottesville, VA.
The library gets broadband from a Verizon T-1 that they say has sporadic
reliability. Sometimes it is fast and sometimes it is slow. The library also gets
wireless broadband access from the High School. This broadband is used to
feed three school computers in the library. The library reports that the two
school computers are heavily filtered and aren’t always able to meet student’s
needs. The library houses 13 public access computers in addition to the three
high school computers, and reports that all computers are in constant use.
o The library currently offers ‘unofficial’ training because many of their patrons
have never used a computer. The Director of the Library sees a great need for
free training to be available since many of his customers cannot afford to pay
for courses. The Director is currently working on a plan to host some formal
classes in the evening.
The public schools have computer training as part of student curriculum, but they
offer no classes to others.
The businesses that we spoke with generally train employees internally or send them
out of County for training.
Numerous courses are available online through the Internet, which could be utilized
by residents and businesses in the County. Of course, taking these courses requires
some knowledge of computer use in order to take the course. On-line courses
typically require broadband access. While many on-line courses are for fees, there are
some good free on-line training courses. The most comprehensive free courses are
offered by HP and include such courses as:
o Computer security
o Protecting personal data
o Firewall basics
o Printer Management 101
o Troubleshooting and repairing laptops
o Linux 101
o Advanced Photoshop
o Microsoft Word
o Microsoft Excel
o Microsoft PowerPoint
While there are only a few courses within the County, there appears to be a significant
number of trainers and training options available in nearby communities like
Charlottesville.
Page 17
How does the County’s training compare to other municipalities across the region and the
rest of the country? What we see is that a number of municipalities offer free training
courses whereas most of the available training is Louisa today is for a fee. A significant
number of libraries offer free courses. We also see training for seniors offered by
governments at numerous senior centers.
Following are just a few examples of the kind of training being offered by other
government entities:





Chesterfield County Virginia Public Libraries - The libraries in Chesterfield
County offer courses free that are similar to the fee courses in Louisa, offering
mostly beginning computer skills.
City of Richmond, Virginia - Richmond offers free courses to seniors through a
program called Senior Connection. These courses are free to seniors, paid for by
the City, and held at a commercial location, the Computer Training Center.
Anne Arundel County, Maryland offers free courses at the Russett Library. In
addition, the librarians will work with patrons one-on-one for basic computer
skills, setting up email accounts, etc.
Numerous large city library systems in places like New York, Philadelphia,
Baltimore, etc. offer free training courses at the libraries.
The City of Miami Florida has the most creative training program we could find.
The City will donate the computers to any charitable organization that will agree
to hold classes. They have donated computers to a wide range of organizations
including churches and community centers. There are a large number of
volunteers who teach classes at these various sites.
There are two basic differences between the training in Louisa today and what other
municipalities are doing today for training. First, there are numerous library systems with
training courses, and the Louisa Library is contemplating adding training courses.
Second, many governments offer free courses while the courses in Louisa are for fees
(although modest).
Specific Recommendations for Computer Training
Educating the community and building a demand for broadband would require easily
accessible courses of short duration at differing levels of experience. Courses targeted to
specific audiences are especially important. For example, seniors will require a different
educational approach than teenagers. Basic computer classes need to address how to use
computers including how to upgrade them and what types of security measures are
available, applications available with broadband, and use of different types of software.
More advanced courses should be made available for more experienced users and
businesses would often require customized courses targeted to their specific needs.
Page 18
The residential surveys showed an unfulfilled need for computer training in the County.
But we note the demand is lower than what we have seen in other surveys. What steps
can the County take to make it easier for people to get training?
V.

It seems like there is already basic training through the Betty Queen Center.
Perhaps the easiest route to get more training in the County is to fund or otherwise
assist the center to offer more courses. Perhaps the County might want to cover
the tuition cost for some of the introductory classes.

It appears that there are a number of trainers available in nearby communities like
Charlottesville, so training could be expanded as needed to courses beyond the
basics. Other communities have also fostered volunteer trainers and there are
probably a number of people in the County qualified to teach courses.

Another valuable role for the County might be to actively publicize the
availability of courses and providers, through dissemination of written
information in public venues such as the libraries and public schools; inclusion of
information on the county’s web site and public outreach through civic,
community and business organizations.

The County also seems to have an opportunity to add and expand training in the
Library from the ad hoc training that happens today to more formal classes. This
might be the right venue to offer free of very inexpensive training. Other
communities have found that introducing computers to everybody in the
community benefits the community as a whole.

Finally, if these options don’t seem sufficient, the County could take a direct role
in setting up training courses. The County could seek private training companies
to come teach specific courses in the County. A number of such trainers are
available in Charlottesville. Trainers could be sought who would be willing to
offer courses that are not available elsewhere, of short duration, and preferably at
low to no cost. The best way to find the right trainers would be by issuing a
Request For Proposal to find strategic partners who would be able to offer the
desired training.
LAST MILE CONNECTIVITY
In this section we will look at issues involving existing infrastructure within the County that
might be useful when looking at broadband solutions. Later in this section we also include an indepth discussion of the various broadband technologies in use today in the US to better let the
County understand the technologies offered by the incumbents and any technologies that might
be useful in finding solution to the broadband gap in the County today.
A.
Existing Infrastructure
1.
Towers
Page 19
The County doesn’t own radio towers. However, there is a wealth of towers existing
in the County. The County had commissioned a study by CityScape, a wireless
consulting firm, who identified that the County had 43 existing towers. These towers
are owned by a number of different firms ranging from small tower companies to the
very large wireless carriers like Verizon and AT&T.
One issue that was identified when talking to the existing wireless providers in the
County is that the cost of getting access to existing towers varies widely from under
$100 per month to $1,500 dollars per month. The existing ISPs have found that the
more expensive towers are not cost effective for them. The County has addressed this
issue looking forward and you now require that the County is allowed to get an
affordable connection for public safety on any new towers being built. However,
there still remains the issue of getting affordable tower attachments for purposes of
broadband.
2. Public Safety
The County does not have a County-wide wireless public safety network. We know
that this has been considered, but the County has wisely deferred making that
decision until this study and its recommendations are complete.
It is too early in the study process yet to know the best solution to get broadband to
the citizens of the County, but any contemplated solution to the broadband problem
ought to also consider a public safety network. It may turn out that a network can be
constructed that will help to solve both issues, meaning the County can save money.
This also means that perhaps some public safety funding could be used to help
construct the base infrastructure that could be used for both purposes.
We are aware that most public safety networks do not want to be commingled with
other networks. However, it is still possible to share infrastructure without sharing the
actual networks. There are many engineering solutions that would allow two
networks to share base infrastructure and still be separate distinct networks. For
example, two networks can use separate frequencies. Networks can be separated
using scrambling and encoding schemes. Finally, networks can be separated by using
the same techniques used by the incumbents to separate customers on their carrier
class networks.
3. Existing ISPs
While the County doesn’t have any existing wireless infrastructure, there are several
existing Internet Service Providers (ISPs) working in the County using unlicensed
wireless technology. These ISPs have made investment in wireless base stations and
in antennae at customer locations that can deliver wireless broadband. The results of
the residential survey suggest that these ISPs don’t have a lot of residential customers.
The ISPs report to us that getting onto existing towers is an issue for them and they
Page 20
report that they would expand their coverage more if they had cheaper access to
towers.
What is good to recognize is that these are commercial companies who see a viable
business plan in providing bandwidth inside the County. These firms have already
made investments in the County in broadband infrastructure and report that they will
expand in the future.
The biggest problem with these ISPs and with any commercial firm is that they are
only going to serve where they find it to be profitable. Such firms will evaluate the
placement of any wireless equipment based upon the revenues that can be generated
to support that specific new investment. The wireless ISPs are never going to cover
100% of the County. The County has a lot of rural areas that will never get
commercial broadband service without some sort of assistance from the County.
Phase II of the broadband study will be taking a harder look at these existing ISPs and
will look to design a solution for the broadband gap. These ISPs have the potential to
be good partners with the County.
4. The Incumbents
Comcast serves only a very small geographic area in Blue Ridge Shores, and in and
around the Towns of Louisa and Mineral and does not serve much more of the
County. It is extremely unlikely that they are planning to expand cable coverage
(along with cable modem).
The County is served by two telephone incumbent providers, Verizon and Embarq
(formally known as Sprint). Attachment III shows the area served by each of these
incumbents. The shared areas in the center are the County boundaries. As can be
seen, Verizon serves the vast majority of the County with a tiny sliver in the central
west part of the County served by Embarq.
As can be seen from the map, Verizon serves the majority of the County out of four
different central offices – Louisa, Mineral, Gordonsville and Buckner. Verizon has
DSL service in Louisa, Mineral and Gordonsville. They do not provide DSL to
customers in the eastern end of the County in the Buckner exchange. The DSL used
by Verizon has a theoretical service distance of 18,000 feet from each central office.
A central office is the physical building where Verizon has their equipment in each
exchange. The 18,000 feet distance in measured in cable feet, meaning how far the
cable reaches to get to a customer (as opposed to a straight line). Realistically, the
DSL probably gets to most customers who live within about 2.5 miles of each central
office building, with perhaps a few customers past that distance getting DSL service.
Verizon is able to expand their service area by deploying DSL in remote huts in the
field. With this technology, customers who live past the new hut (as opposed to living
Page 21
between the hut and the central office) can get DSL using the same 18,000 foot
limitation.
Verizon currently does not provide any DSL service out of remote huts within the
County. However, they are considering putting DSL into the Spring Creek
neighborhood (near to the intersection of Route 14 and Interstate 64). Verizon
estimates that such a hut would offer DSL to around 1,100 more households.
In the urban areas of Virginia and other states, Verizon is now building a fiber
network that goes past each home and business in many neighborhoods. Verizon is
using a technology that is referred to in the industry as Fiber-to-the-Premise (FTTP).
Verizon markets the fiber product under the name FiOS. The FiOS network offers
some of the fastest Internet speeds in the country. For example, residents can get
download speeds on FiOS of 5 Mbps, 15 Mbps or 30 Mbps. Businesses can get
speeds of up to 100 Mbps.
Verizon doesn’t build FiOS to every house in a town, but rather they build it to
neighborhoods. Verizon seems to choose neighborhoods based upon both
demographics and physical characteristics. For example, they might build to an older
subdivision with overhead wires on poles while bypassing a nearby newer
subdivision where they would have to dig up the streets. Thus, the Verizon fiber
network is a real hit-and-miss hodgepodge network with some neighborhoods with
very fast Internet and nearby neighborhoods without.
The introduction of Verizon FiOS has created a new digital divide. In Louisa County
our study is focusing on the digital divide between customers who can get DSL or
cable modem compared to customers who are still stuck with dial-up. However, from
an economic development perspective, Louisa County is now competing for
businesses and jobs with areas that have fiber connectivity. In this new digital divide
we are comparing a situation where a business in Louisa must pay $700 per month for
a T1 (1.5 Mbps) while businesses in Richmond can buy a shared 100 Mbps service
for around $200. While Internet connectivity is only one of the many factors that
businesses consider when locating (or staying where they are), it’s becoming a more
and more significant factor over time. Businesses not only want fast and affordable
Internet connectivity for themselves, but they increasingly want workers to be able to
access data from home. Areas without FiOS are at a huge disadvantage to areas with
FiOS – and thus we are seeing a new digital divide between areas with fiber and areas
without.
Verizon maintains a list of areas they are considering for FiOS construction. They do
not have Louisa County on this list for consideration in the next five years. From
Verizon’s perspective Louisa County is too rural for FiOS deployment and Verizon is
not planning on building FiOS to many other areas similar to Louisa. Verizon has
built the suburbs of the major cities and is spending the next few years bringing FiOS
into the downtowns of the larger cities. We would also point out that even if Verizon
were ever to bring FiOS to Louisa it will probably only be to the town of Louisa and
Page 22
perhaps Mineral. Other parts of the County are going to be stuck with the same
infrastructure you have today for a very long time to come.
Verizon reported to us that they were thinking about deploying additional DSL that
would have brought broadband to about 1,000 additional households. However, they
have now said that they have not funded this for the coming year.
CCG strongly recommends that the County form a permanent group of some sort to
step up the lobbying effort with Verizon. When we look at the results of the survey
we see that over 60% of households say they want broadband. This means that if
Verizon makes any DSL investments, that as long as they make this known to the
households affected, that Verizon ought to be able to get enough customers to justify
the investment. Verizon should be deploying broadband in field cabinets in the
County. Today they deploy DSL only out of three of the four central office buildings
serving the County. However, Verizon also owns a number of field fiber huts where
DSL could be added that would bring DSL to perhaps 2,000 more households. As
they only incumbent provider of broadband for these areas Verizon has a social
obligation to bring DSL to these sorts of areas. In this case it looks like they also
ought to have an economic incentive.
The County needs to vociferously lobby Verizon to deploy DSL in the County. We
believe they have an obligation as a monopoly provider to deploy broadband in places
where customers have shown enough demand that should make the DSL profitable.
We have seen that governments who make the effort and who make the most noise
are often rewarded by results. The County also needs to start lobbying for FiOS fiber
or else you may never get it.
5. Geographic and Other Considerations
If we are to consider a wireless network to serve the County, then there are two major
hurdles to ubiquitous wireless coverage. There are several large hills and numerous
valleys in the County that must be taken into consideration in any wireless design.
The rolling hills in the County create small valleys and pockets of low areas that
might not have a direct line of sight to a wireless transmitter. The types of hills in the
County create a challenge, but one that can be overcome for most parts of the County.
Of greater concern in Louisa County is the foliage. The County is full of many older
and mature trees, both pines and deciduous trees. Trees can block or weaken the
signal from an unlicensed wireless system and are a definite concern when
contemplating a wireless network. The most likely wireless technology that will best
fit the County will use unlicensed frequencies, and these frequencies require line-ofsight between the transmitter and the customer.
The County recently had a study of wireless infrastructure done by CityScape, a
Virginia wireless consultant. The CityScape study identified every tower within the
County. The County also had CityScape look at potential wireless coverage from
Page 23
some of the key antenna locations to see the wireless coverage that might result from
building a wireless network. However, the coverage maps developed by CityScape
are theoretical coverage based upon the characteristics of the various frequencies.
These coverage maps did not take into consideration the hills and the foliage issues in
the County and thus vastly overstate the real coverage that can be obtained from the
various antennae. We strongly recommend that the County get CityScape to run one
final set of maps that look at wireless coverage that considers geography and foliage.
This is invaluable information needed to see if a wireless network is really the right
solution for solving the broadband gap.
6. Availability of Affordable Internet Backbone
The final infrastructure issue identified by CCG is the lack of availability of
affordable Internet backbone. Internet backbone is the physical connection made
between a broadband provider and the Internet. The Internet in the US is a huge
network of fiber routes and huge servers that transport and process all of the vast
information carried today on the World Wide Web. The routers are mostly owned by
companies like MCI, Sprint and AT&T. Many more companies provide the physical
fiber routes needed to disseminate the Internet to all parts of the Country. In addition
to Verizon, AT&T, MCI and Sprint, such companies a Qwest and Level3 offer
transport to the Internet to most parts of the County, depending upon the availability
of fiber.
We do not believe that there is much, if any, backbone fiber in Louisa County today.
We draw this conclusion after talking to the local ISPs. They report that they must go
outside the County to get affordable Internet backbone.
The issue is one of cost. Today in the County we have reports that access to the
Internet costs approximately $400 per month per raw megabit. To contrast this with
metropolitan areas, in the DC metro Internet backbone costs around $80 per megabit.
The cost of Internet connectivity is one of the major cost components to anybody
offering broadband in the County. If the backbone costs more in the County then the
commercial providers are going to respond by either offering less speed or by
charging more for access. If the County can bring cheaper Internet backbone to the
County, then data products in the County will get faster and more affordable.
Many rural counties in the US share this same problem. In other CCG studies of rural
areas we have often recommended that the County build a fiber backbone in order to
get to cheaper Internet access. It is preliminary to say that this will be one of the
recommendations for Louisa County, but it is one of the issues that will be explored
in Phase II of the study.
7. The Telecommunications Ordinance
The County recently passed a Telecommunications Ordinance in September 2007 that
established some new processes and procedures for wireless companies to follow
Page 24
when building or modifying towers in the County. Many other jurisdictions have
passed similar ordinances in recent years in order to stop the proliferation of antennas
in residential neighborhoods without some review process.
Much of this Ordinance is similar to what CCG has seen in other jurisdictions,
although there is one exception. Most ordinances like this one create a process for
reviewing the construction of new towers, but this Ordinance goes further to regulate
adding or modifying equipment on existing towers – something CCG has never seen
before.
While this ordinance was undoubtedly needed, and while the County has valid
reasons to want parts of the Ordinance, parts of this Ordinance are viewed by the
existing broadband wireless ISPs as a barrier to new investment. There is already
evidence that this Ordinance has stopped companies from deploying wireless
broadband. It’s not unusual for a new ordinance to have some unforeseen
consequences and the County might want to revisit parts of the ordinance. It appears
that the practical effect of this Ordinance is in direct conflict with the goal of getting
broadband to more citizens.
In practical terms the Ordinance affects two different types of companies – the very
large cellular companies and the small wireless ISPs. The large cellular companies
like Verizon or AT&T ought to be able to comply with this sort of ordinance. These
are very large companies who derive a huge amount of revenue from cellular traffic
and customers in the County.
However, parts of this Ordinance have a direct and negative impact on wireless ISPs.
Following are some of the ways the Ordinance is having an effect on wireless ISPs:
The networks of wireless ISPs are very different than the networks of cellular
companies. Cellular companies typically only have their equipment on large towers.
The spectrum used by cellular companies is good at penetrating foliage and in rolling
over hills and through buildings, so cellular companies can reach their customers
from strategically placed large towers. However, wireless ISPs use spectrums that
require line-of-sight. This means that their transmitter needs to be in a direct visible
line with their customers. Some recent technology innovations have made it a little
easier for this spectrum to ‘peek’ around obstacles, but for the most part these
networks are mostly line-of-sight. Further, the spectrum used by wireless ISPs has
trouble penetrating foliage and passing through buildings. This means that the
spectrum can’t travel as far from the base station at the tower and the wireless ISP
will need transmitters that are closer to customers than cellular transmitters.
In practical terms, the wireless ISP networks are designed neighborhood by
neighborhood. Since the transmitters on the large towers are often unable to see
customer locations or else can’t penetrate the foliage from trees, the wireless ISPs
must rely on additional antenna sites and not just upon the large towers. In real life
terms the wireless ISP must have smaller ‘tower’ sites directly in each neighborhood
Page 25
to be served. The term tower is in quotes because in many cases these neighborhood
towers are nothing more than a tall telephone pole, a rooftop or on top of a
commercial sign. While the Ordinance has specific requirements for major towers, it
also has compliance requirements for these smaller neighborhood repeats such as
requiring landscaping and non-chain link fence around smaller sites. There is nothing
specifically wrong with such requirements, but the existing wireless ISPs report that
the requirements in the Ordinance make the County an unfriendly place for them to
do business. For the most part they have slowed down investment in the County.
The wireless ISPs also report that the Ordinance requires them to pay fees to the
County that duplicate the fees paid to the tower operators. The tower operators charge
a fee to get an engineer’s opinion on the effect any installation has on a tower. This is
detailed
at
the
web
site
of
American
Towers
at
http://www.americantower.com/atcweb/SiteServices/USSites/WirelessTowers/7+Steps+to+G
et+On+Air+Fast.htm. Other tower owners have similar requirements. The Ordinance
has the wireless ISPs paying for engineering again supplied by CityScape. The
wireless ISPs point out this is a duplication of the fees and effort.
So how is the Ordinance specifically affecting wireless ISP deployment of new
broadband in the County? Following are some examples of the practical
consequences of the Ordinance on wireless ISPs:


Cavalier Wireless, a division of Cavalier Telephone Company wanted to
deploy towers to serve around 1,000 households near to Lake Anna. They had
constructed three towers in violation of various building codes. When the
County confronted them with the violations, Cavalier elected to take down
the three towers and decided not to do business in the County. Even though
these violations by Cavalier were before the Ordinance, Cavalier is aware of
the Ordinance and they say that they view the County as unfriendly to ISPs.
The practical effect of this is that a significant number of households have
lost the opportunity to get broadband. This is probably not what the County
had in mind when this Ordinance was enacted, although Cavalier was not the
best corporate citizen in this case and had County violations even before the
Ordinance.
One of the other wireless ISPs report that the fees charged under this
Ordinance are a practical barrier to deployment of new equipment and of
serving new customers. They cite a total cost of around $5,000 to get
connected to a tower or for collocation. They must pay a County fee of
$2,000 and another fee of $3,000 to the tower providers. The wireless
providers claim these two fees are largely duplicative. They further claim that
these costs are a barrier when compared to the small investment in electronics
they often make at a tower in those cases where they want to serve a
relatively small number of customers.
If the County wants to see more broadband for citizens, then it must consider
amending this Ordinance to make it easier for wireless ISPs to serve customers. At
this point in time, the wireless ISPs see the Ordinance as a practical barrier to making
Page 26
new investments in the County, thus stopping deployment of wireless broadband to
many homes. The County has many valid goals with the Ordinance such as stopping
the proliferation of towers and to make sure that structures are safe. Since the County
also has the goal to get as much commercial deployment of broadband as possible,
CCG is recommending that the County and the wireless ISPs meet to negotiate some
amendment to the Ordinance that will satisfy the goals of both parties. Without any
amendment it appears there will be limited additional wireless investments made by
the wireless ISPs.
B.
Existing Broadband Technologies
Before looking at the specific best solution for Louisa County, this section will look at
the various technologies available today for the last mile solution.
1. Fiber Technologies
The Technology. Fiber optic communications uses light instead of electricity to
transmit bandwidth through cables made from glass. Fiber optics is currently the most
efficient long distance communications method because it provides much faster data
transfer speeds when compared to traditional technologies such as copper wire. Fiber
is clearly the best technology available today for transmitting data.
Following is a description of the fiber optic products that are available today:
SONET Point-to-Point and Ring Fiber. The traditional use for fiber has been in pointto-point applications using the SONET (Synchronous Optical Network) technology.
Since fiber can be built in long runs and since the signal can be sent for a long
distance without a repeater, fiber has become the preferred technology for sending
signals for long distances. Sprint was the first company to complete a coast-to-coast
fiber network, but today almost all telephone and cable TV long haul is done using
fiber. This is the technology used by Verizon. With SONET technology bandwidth is
delivered as a T1 (synchronous 1.55 Mbps) or multiples of T1s.
Ethernet Point-to-Point and Ring Fiber. Newer fiber electronics is based upon
delivering native Ethernet. In this system bandwidth is not delivered in multiples of a
T1 as listed above. Rather the entire fiber is one continuous data stream. With
Ethernet technology there is more intelligence built into data routing. With SONET
technology each piece of data is assigned to a specific T1 equivalent time slot. With
Ethernet, each piece of data has routing information built into the packet and thus all
bits of data can use any part of the data pipe. Ethernet routing is what allows the
Internet to work – packets of data contain the needed routing information regardless
of what network they are carried on.
Ethernet routing is far more efficient and lower in cost than SONET based routing.
With SONET, a T1 channel is dedicated to each transmission path, even if there is
Page 27
nothing being used on a given T1 at a given moment. With Ethernet all data bits are
free to grab the first available space, and thus an Ethernet pipe can carry much more
data than a T1-based path.
Another advantage of Ethernet systems over SONET is the relative cheapness of the
electronics needed to interpret the signals. SONET equipment must be able to
segregate signals into the equivalent T1s while Ethernet equipment needs merely
understand and route the data. Ethernet routing has greatly reduced the cost of fiber
optics terminal equipment and Ethernet routing is quickly becoming the standard
form of data transmission.
Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH).
Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) technology takes advantage of relatively cheap lasers that
allow the delivery of significant bandwidth to multiple locations. FTTH technology
can be divided into two distinct technologies – active optical networks and passive
optical networks. These two technologies use the fiber in very different ways.
The Active Optical Network (AON) dedicates a fiber from each user back to the
electronics. This means each customer has a dedicated path to the electronics and
does not share bandwidth directly with another customer in the neighborhood. An
AON network has many more field lasers than a passive network since there is a 1 to
1 ratio between field lasers and customers. In an AON network, everything is
encoded as data between the electronics and the customer. This means all services
must be digitized and delivered as an IP data stream to the user. The AON uses only 2
wavelengths on each fiber - one for transmittal of data to the users and one for
transmittal of data from the users.
The current vendors making Active Optical Network equipment includes Pannaway,
World Wide Packets, Occam, and PacketFront.
The Passive Optical Network (PON) uses passive hardware to "split" the signals so
that a single high-powered laser can be shared by up to 64 customers (more typically
by 32 customers). This technology requires less fiber than an AON since many
customers in a row share the same single fiber. In construction, one fiber is weaved
through many houses.
PON technology uses bandwidth on the fiber differently than the AON. The PON
electronics divides up the optical wavelengths on the fiber to allow 1 wavelength to
transmit data and voice to the users, another wavelength to receive data and voice
from the users and a third wavelength to transmit RF video (like normal broadcast
CATV video) to the users over one fiber strand.
Because the PON can transmit video at the RF level, the PON has the option of
delivering video as an analog (RF level) or digital (IPTV) signal. This means that a
PON does not require a settop box to deliver analog cable TV. A PON also uses
Page 28
existing home wiring more easily since the signal is delivered and split on the outside
of the home, rather than at the settop box. This gives easier access to existing
telephone and cable wiring.
The current vendors for PON equipment include Alcatel, Motorola, Tellabs, Calix,
Wave7 and AllOptic.
Within a PON network there are three additional options for delivering signal to
customers – knows as BPON, GPON and EPON.
Early PON systems used BPON (Broadband Passive Optical Network) technology.
This technology uses a form of signaling called ATM, which is based upon the T1
architecture such as used by the incumbent telephone companies. The use of ATM
did not allow for the full utilization of the fiber’s capabilities. In a BPON system
there are separate segments of customer bandwidth assigned for voice, Cable TV and
data. The biggest drawback of the BPON technology is that it used up transmission
space sending empty data. For example, during a voice call, a BPON system would
send an empty signal for those times when nobody is talking. Newer technologies are
much more efficient.
Today passive optical networks use either EPON (Ethernet Passive Optical Network)
or GPON (Gigabit Passive Optical Network) technologies. These technologies use
native Ethernet signaling for the customer delivery path, meaning that the bandwidth
to the customer can be used more efficiently. In a GPON or EPON system there are
still two separate data streams – one for cable TV and a second for voice and data. If
a BPON and an EPON system were to carry the same amount of total bandwidth, the
EPON system would actually deliver much more practical bandwidth. At full capacity
the EPON system could use every available bit of capacity while the BPON system
would devote a lot of transmission time to sending empty data paths.
The major difference between the three technologies is the amount of data that is
delivered. Following is a chart of the maximum amount of bandwidth that can be
delivered to a node of houses (32 homes):
BPON - 622 Mbps downstream, 150 Mbps upstream
EPON - 1 Gbps downstream, 1 Gbps upstream
GPON - 2.4 Gbps downstream, 1.2 Gbps upstream
FTTH technology is expected to continue to grow in available bandwidth. The
limiting factor is the development of cheaper lasers. Already in the lab are systems
that will deliver a terabyte of download speed and such technology upgrades will be
introduced as laser prices drop.
In the marketplace, many municipalities and Verizon are building FTTH networks.
Verizon markets their residential fiber product as FiOS and they have built a fiber
network past more than 5 million homes. However, Verizon does not seem to have
Page 29
plans to deploy FTTH technology to areas of low density like Price George County,
at least not in the foreseeable future. Verizon is taking full advantage of the
technology and is supplying some of the highest speed and most affordable
bandwidth in the nation over the FIOS systems. Verizon’s current FIOS data products
and prices are:
5 Mbps Download / 2 Mbps Upload
15 Mbps Download / 2 Mbps Upload
15 Mbps Download / 15 Mbps Upload
30 Mbps Download / 15 Mbps Upload
$ 42.95
$ 52.99
$ 64.99
$139.95
Bandwidth. The theoretically maximum bandwidth available on fiber is astronomical
in the mega terabit range. In practical terms the amount of bandwidth that can be
delivered over fiber depends on the lasers being used. Generally, the greater the
bandwidth, the more expensive the laser. For residential customers, the real limitation
on bandwidth is the chip sets in PCs. Very few PCs can accept a signal at a speed
greater than 30 Mbps today. A few vendors now have FTTH chip sets that allow 200
Mbps deliver to the home.
SONET lasers are designed to deliver bandwidth in multiples of a T1. Again, SONET
networks are the traditional networks deployed by TDS and other telephone
companies. A T1 is a data path of 1.544 Mbps in both directions. Following are the
amounts of bandwidth that can be transmitted over a single fiber pair using the proper
SONET electronics.
T1
DS3
OC3
OC12
OC48
OC192
DWDM
1.544 Mbps
45 Mbps
155 Mbps
622 Mbps
2,488 Mbps
9,953 Mbps
159,248 Mbps
28 T1s
3 DS3s
4 OC3s
4 OC12s
4 OC48s
16 OC192s
28 T1s
84 T1s
336 T1s
1,344 T1s
5,376 T1s
86,016 T1s
While no fiber is designed to deliver only a T1 or a DS3, there are standard lasers and
electronics available that can deliver the other listed bandwidths today. As the chart
shows, one fiber pair using DWDM can deliver the equivalent of 86,016 T1s over one
pair of fiber (but at a huge cost).
There are also several standard Ethernet lasers that can be purchased today:
10-Base T
100 Base T
Gig Ethernet
10 GIG
10 Mbps
100 Mbps
1,000 Mbps
10,000 Mbps
Page 30
In comparing these bandwidths to SONET bandwidths, once would think that a 10Base T system would be the equivalent of roughly 6.5 T1s. However, since Ethernet
is so much more efficient than SONET, in practical terms a 10-Base T system is
equivalent to something closer to 20 T1s. An Ethernet system uses all of the available
“space” on the laser to deliver data. SONET systems use a technique called Time
Division Multiplexing (TDM). With TDM, much of the bandwidth is used to send
empty signal. For example, during a telephone call, a TDM system transmits the
entire signal when there is no talking. An Ethernet system delivers on the signal when
there is sound.
FTTH technology today can deliver as much as 2.4 Gbps per data path using GPON
technology (two separate data paths). Future laser improvements are expected to
boost PON speeds tremendously and there are terabyte lasers being tested in labs
today.
2. Copper (DSL)
The Technology. Verizon and other telephone companies historically have deployed
copper technology. With copper technology each customer is served either by copper
entirely between the customer and the telephone company office, or by some
combination of copper and fiber. In all cases the speeds that can be delivered to
customers is limited by the copper portion of the network. Telephone companies
sometimes build fiber directly to large business customers. To date, there appears to
be no Verizon fiber built directly to customers in Louisa.
Verizon and other telephone companies deploy a technology called DSL (Digital
Subscriber Line) to achieve greater bandwidth out of copper. DSL works by utilizing
a different portion of the copper than is used to make normal telephone calls.
There are a number of different types of DSL in use. These are often referred to as
the various “flavors” of DSL. They are typically marketed under the acronyms
ADSL, ADSL2+, SDSL, HDSL, VDSL, IDSL and G-Lite. The following is a brief
description of each of these types of DSL.
Deploying DSL is capital intensive for the service provider. The DSL network begins
at a telephone company central office with a transmission device referred to as a DSL
Access Multiplexer (“DSLAM”). A DSLAM is, in essence, a small data switch that
can support multiple DSL users. Each customer must also have appropriate hardware
to receive DSL. Most brands of DSL use a DSL modem at the customer location that
is referred to as an IAD (Integrated Access Device). DSL also requires that the
relevant copper be stripped of all signals other than the DSL signal. In the telephone
industry, this is referred to as “deloading the line.” The copper in the telephone
system was often built using a system of power boosters and signal repeaters that
allow the normal telephone signal to be carried with greater strength and for greater
distances. In order to deploy DSL, such repeaters and boosters must be physically
Page 31
disconnected from the copper pair, and this usually requires a field crew with bucket
trucks to trace the pair and to physically strip the copper pair.
The hardware cost of deploying DSL varies widely by brand purchased and by the
specific flavor of DSL being deployed. G-Lite can now be purchased for as little as
$250 per customer for both ends of the hardware. Some of the variations of ADSL
and VDSL can cost as much $800 per customer. In any case, the telephone company
must make a significant investment to deploy DSL. In addition, most flavors of DSL
require customers to buy Ethernet modems for their computers – something most
computers are now equipped with.
DSL is not readily available everywhere for a number of reasons. First, DSL is
subject to distance limitations. DSL can reasonably be served up to 18,000 feet from a
central office switch in the most favorable conditions, but poor copper wiring in most
exchanges realistically makes this limit closer to 10,000 to 12,000 feet, depending on
the brand of equipment. This distance limitation is further shortened in reality, since it
is measured in cable feet rather than “as the crow flies” in a straight line. The copper
wiring coming out of a central office often wanders up and down streets and rarely
runs in a straight line to reach areas away from the switch. Realistically, in many
exchanges, this 10,000 to 12,000 foot distance limitation creates a potential delivery
circle of only about a mile-and-one-half around the switch.
There are two solutions to DSL’s distance limitations. First, as newer generations of
DSLAMs are developed to deliver higher bandwidths, the DSL delivery range will
increase. DSL bandwidth delivery over copper is not linear, meaning that the amount
of bandwidth that can be delivered drops off quickly with distance from the
transmission point. Where a 1-Meg modem today might fall off to a 128k signal at
10,000 feet, a future 5-Meg modem might be able to deliver 1 Meg at that same
distance. Thus, over time, the distance issue might be overcome to some degree
through improved technology.
The second solution to DSL distance limitations results from what are referred to as
“remote” or “mini” DSLAMs. This technology allows DSLAMs, or central DSL
hubs, to be moved into more remote locations in the network – e.g., to the cable
junction in front of a housing development or a business park. From this remote DSL
origination point, the DSL signal could still be delivered for the same distance, but
this distance is now measured from the new field-installed hardware and not from the
central office. Such technology should mean that DSL can be made available to most
customers, but as will be described elsewhere in this paper, TDS seems to be
deploying DSLAMs in all of its remote terminal locations in Monticello.
The second problem with DSL delivery is the existing copper network. Copper plant
was not originally built with DSL in mind, and there are many places in current
networks where DSL will not work, regardless of the distance from the central office.
In some cases, the copper is too small in gauge or thickness, since the thicker the
copper the better that DSL will work. In other cases, there are signal leaks into the
Page 32
system or there are other reasons why some copper pairs will not readily accept DSL
signals. There is very little that can be done to fix stray “noise” problems, other than
to replace the portions of the network that have such problems. Replacement is an
expensive solution that often means re-wiring an entire neighborhood.
Third, DSL is a copper-only technology. This means that if any path to a customer
includes even one foot of non-copper cable, such as fiber, then DSL will not function.
For many years, Verizon and other telephone companies have been building new
feeder cables using fiber. Feeder cables are large capacity cables that carry signals
from the central office to large neighborhood clusters of homes and businesses. Fiber
is cheaper and more reliable for this use, and almost all new subdivisions and
business parks built in the last ten years are fed with fiber feeder cables. Additionally,
phone companies have been replacing older copper feeder cables with fiber cables as
they do routine upgrades. This has led to the strange phenomenon that the newer the
neighborhood, the less likely that DSL will be available. Older neighborhoods that are
built throughout with copper may be good candidates for DSL, whereas in newer
areas with fiber feeds, DSL will not work without field deployment of the DSLAMs,
a more costly way to provide service. This phenomenon is not favorable to rapidly
growing communities in which a large percentage of homes and businesses have been
built in the last ten years.
Bandwidth. A bare copper wire is limited, without enhancement, to delivering 64
Kbps of information for voice. However, when delivering data some of this path must
be used for signal overheads, and a bare copper wire is limited to delivering 56 Kbps
of data. This is the fastest speed that can be achieved by dial-up Internet service.
In order to achieve higher data speeds over copper, telephone companies use one of
two technologies. First, they can deliver a T1 to customers if they use two copper
pairs. A T1 is 1.544 Mbps, or 24 times faster than dial-up Internet. A T1 is also a
synchronous 2-way data path meaning that it can download and upload data at the
same 1.544 Mbps speed. The problem with T1 service is generally an issue of cost.
T1s require a fairly expensive piece of equipment at the end to receive the signal. T1s
also require two copper pairs (or paying for two lines). T1s can generally be delivered
to almost any customer. However, a T1 connected to the Internet can cost between
$700 to $800 dollars per month in Louisa.
The second bandwidth product is DSL. Various DSL products offer different
bandwidths. Following are some examples of the bandwidth available through each
type of DSL:
ADSL
ADSL2+
Paired ADSL2+
SDSL
HDSL
VDSL
Up to 2 Mbps downstream, small upstream
Up to 12 Mbps downstream, small upstream
Up to 24 Mbps downstream, small upstream
Synchronous 2 Mbps
Synchronous 1.544 Mbps (Same as a T1)
12 Mbps for 3,000 feet. 6 Mbps to 6,000 ft.
Page 33
IDSL
G-Lite
Synchronous 128k
2 Mbps downstream, small upstream
Problems and Issues with Copper. There are a number of problems with copper
networks that create problems for customers:






In older neighborhoods the copper is probably also old. Older copper develops
problems. Water can leak into the sheath. The copper wiring can degrade from
age and weather. Generally older copper can not transmit as much data as
newer copper.
Different sizes of copper wires. Many residential neighborhoods were built
with relatively thin copper wires. The thinner the wire the less data that can be
carried. A DSL signal will travel farther over a 22-gauge copper wire than it
will over a 24-guage copper wire (22-gauge being larger).
Electrical Interference. Copper wire is subject to interference from electrical
signals of all sorts, and this interference can cause problems with the signal.
Repeaters. Copper is only capable of delivering a signal up to a few miles
without the need for signal repeaters. Repeaters are electronic devices
installed on the telephone lines that repeat and boost the signal. The repeaters
generally interfere with DSL signals, and this is one of the factors that limit
how far DSL can travel. In order to get DSL to work, a technician must climb
poles and disconnect the repeaters for a DSL pair – a costly process.
Inherent DSL distance limitations. DSL signals degrade with distance. Today,
from a practical basis, a telephone company can’t offer DSL for any customer
more than 18,000 feet from the DSL transmitter. This distance represents
physical feet of copper, not distance as the crow flies. Thus, customers within
roughly a 3-mile circle around any telephone central office might be able to
get DSL (depending on the other problems listed). Customers outside of these
circles generally cannot get DSL. Another distance-related issue with DSL is
that customers close to a telephone central office get more bandwidth than a
customer who is further away. A customer who lives 1 mile from a central
office can get much better DSL bandwidth than a customer living 3 miles
away.
Different download and upload speeds. DSL is almost always configured to
have a much higher download speed than an upload speed. Lower upload
speeds limit the value of DSL for business customers and telecommuters.
Uploading files will become a bottleneck for anybody trying to work at home
or in an office with these limitations. The upload speeds are often drastically
lower than the download speeds and it is not unusual to see a 2 Mbps
download speed paired with a 256 Kbps upload speed (one tenth of the speed
of the download).
Page 34
3. Hybrid Fiber Coaxial Systems (HFC) – Cable Modems.
The Technology. Comcast deploys HFC coaxial cable technology in Louisa. HFC
networks are bi-directional RF distribution systems capable of transmitting from 550
to 1,000 MHz of bandwidth. This technology, deployed by most cable operators and
some telephone companies is an evolution of the traditional cable distribution
networks, thereby inheriting the term “Hybrid”.
Cable systems were originally designed to deliver through sealed coaxial cable lines
the same radio-frequency signals that residents with good reception could obtain from
television broadcast towers over the air. Over the years, cable operators have
upgraded their networks to Hybrid Fiber Coaxial (HFC) systems by replacing some of
their coaxial cables and associated facilities with fiber optic lines. They have also
increased the bandwidth capacities of their systems from 330-450 MHz to 750-860
MHz (or more), adopted digital compression technologies, and added infrastructure to
support Internet networking. As a result, a growing number of cable systems have the
capacity to provide hundreds of television and music channels as well as high-speed
Internet access. Many cable systems are now also providing or experimenting with
telephone service.
Cable systems that provide cable modem service generally use one cable television
channel (6MHz) for downstream signals and another channel for upstream signals. At
the cable company headend, a cable modem termination system (CMTS) uses these
channels to create a virtual local area network with cable modems attached to
computers at subscriber residences. Depending on the transmission technology used,
cable operators can theoretically send up to 36 Mbps per channel downstream from
the cable headend, and users can send up to 10 Mbps per channel upstream. This
upstream and downstream bandwidth must, however, be shared by all active users
connected to a network segment called a “node.” The level of usage at a node at any
point in time can have a significant effect on the performance that individual users
experience, as downstream speeds can drop from 1.5 Kbps to 500 Kbps or less as the
number of simultaneous users increases. Upstream capacity is even more limited, as
cable operators typically do not allocate as many channels for upstream use as they do
for downstream use. In fact, some cable providers limit users to upstream speeds of
128 Kbps.
If congestion occurs because of high usage, cable operators can add additional
channels or run fiber-optic lines deeper into neighborhoods, reducing the number of
users per node. Years ago, cable systems often served up to 2,000 – 5,000 homes per
node. That number has decreased significantly, with new systems generally designed
to serve 500-1,000 homes per node.
Currently, cable modem service is not a viable option for many, if not most,
businesses. For one thing, cable service is not generally available in commercial
areas. This is in large part a historical phenomenon – cable operators typically did not
build their systems out to commercial areas because few, if any, businesses
Page 35
subscribed to cable television service. Most cable companies would now be willing to
extend their systems to commercial establishments if they could solve an even more
significant problem – cable systems do not currently have the bandwidth or the
expertise to support widespread business usage of their systems. For example,
businesses typically cannot obtain web hosting services from cable companies. This
may change over time, but it is not likely to change in the near future.
Cable systems are capable of delivering significant amounts of bandwidth to
customers. However, what we see in the marketplace is that cable providers seem to
have the goal of just staying ahead of DSL in capability. Most cable providers are
very leery about dedicating too many channels for data service unless they have to –
they would rather keep the channels for TV programming. Cable providers are
wrestling today with the desire to carry High Definition TV channels (HDTV) since
these channels require much more bandwidth than traditional channels.
The cable TV providers have all banded together nationwide and created a firm that
they all use to do research and product development – called Cable Labs. Cable Labs
develops the specifications for cable modems and all of the cable providers have
agreed to only use products that are Cable Labs compliant. Through this process the
cable providers have been able to really get low prices for such things as cable
modems and settop boxes.
Cable providers are not going to introduce products to their network that do not use
Cable Labs standards and approved equipment. Thus, if some cable provider wanted
to offer a 50 Mbps cable modem product they would be unable to find equipment.
The industry sticks together and they will advance as a group.
With that said, competition will drive Cable Labs and the providers to develop faster
cable modem products. For example, Verizon is currently offering a baseline 10
Mbps product on its FiOS Fiber-to-the-Home network for residential customers.
Mediacom responded by rolling out a 15 Mbps cable modem (but only in those areas
that are competing with Verizon’s FiOS service). In general, cable companies could
offer greater amounts of bandwidth, but economics means we won’t see great
breakthroughs in cable modem speeds unless the market demands it.
Bandwidth. Coaxial cable systems can deliver much more bandwidth than copper
systems. This is mainly due to the much larger size of the wire being used.
The amount of total bandwidth available in any HFC system is dependent upon the
electronics of the system. Generally only a discrete amount of bandwidth is carved
out of an HFC system for data delivery, with the remaining bandwidth used for cable
TV channels. Today cable modem systems typically deliver up to 3 Mbps for data.
Some metropolitan systems have been upgraded to deliver as much as 6 Mbps
(although much of the 6 Mbps product is more hype than speed). In metropolitan
New York City, Cablevision has launched a 15 Mbps modem in order to compete
with Verizon GTTH. One feature inherent in an HFC system is that upload speeds are
Page 36
generally far slower than download speeds. This is due to the electronics used in the
system and cannot be changed today.
However, one has to always be cautious when looking at data speeds on HFC systems
since data is shared among many households. When the cable company advertises a
speed of 3 Mbps, this represents the maximum speed that a customer can receive. The
maximum speed generally can only be obtained at off-peak hours, like the middle of
the night. During the day and evening when there are many customers sharing the
network the speeds often get much slower. There are many reports nationwide of
cable modem systems that slow down to dial-up speeds during peak evening usage.
Problems and Issues with Coaxial Cable. There are a number of problems with
HFC systems as follows:



Age of the wire. Just as with the telephone system, old degraded wiring will
degrade the signal.
Interference. Coaxial systems are extremely susceptible to interference from
electrical sources. Interference can be seen on the TV signal as snow or noise.
Coaxial connections are susceptible to interference at each place where there
is a physical connection. In many houses there are many connections and thus
many opportunities for the introduction of noise. A coaxial system with one or
more open ports acts as a large antenna that can introduce interference into
entire system. Noise in your house affects all of your neighbors.
Shared nature of the System. HFC systems architecture is by nodes, meaning
some fixed number of households in a neighborhood share the same local
network. This means that that all customers in a node share the bandwidth for
the node. Customers also share in noise and interference problems, and a
problem with one customer usually affects other customers in the node.
Shared bandwidth means that the amount of data available over a cable
modem will vary according to how many customers in a node are using the
data system. It is not untypical for a cable modem system to bog down at peak
hours as many customers are trying to use the shared bandwidth.
4. Unlicensed Wireless
The Technology. Unlicensed spectrum in the Country includes Wi-Fi and several
other spectrums. This report will refer to this spectrum as Wi-Fi, although this also is
meant to include 900 MHz along with the next generation WiMax bandwidth at 5.8
GHz. Wi-Fi is short for wireless fidelity and is meant to be used generically when
referring of any type of 802.11 network, whether 802.11a, 802.11b or 802.11g. Any
products tested and approved as "Wi-Fi Certified" (a registered trademark) by the WiFi Alliance are certified as interoperable with each other, even if they are from
different manufacturers. A user with a "Wi-Fi Certified" product can use any brand of
access point with any other brand of client hardware that also is certified. Typically,
however, any Wi-Fi product using the same radio frequency (for example, 2.4GHz
Page 37
for 802.11b or 802.11g, or 5.7 GHz for 802.11a) will work with any other, even if not
"Wi-Fi Certified."
Wi-Fi is sold in the marketplace in several applications. Bluetooth is a Wi-Fi
application that is meant for very short connections. Generally Bluetooth is used to
connect devices together within a network, within the same building or room.
Bluetooth is used for such devices as wireless keyboards, wireless mice and smart
appliances. Bluetooth speeds are relatively slow at around 720 Kbps.
More common is wireless networking. With 802.11b Wi-Fi can deliver up to 11
Mbps for distances up to 300 feet. With 802.11g Wi-Fi can deliver up to 54 Mbps up
to 150 feet. Both of these applications are used to create wireless LANs inside
businesses and residences.
Another use of Wi-Fi is for public hotspots. Many cities have deployed wireless
hotspots in key public locations like City hall or libraries. Wi-Fi hot spots can deliver
relatively low bandwidth, typically less than 1 Mbps to laptops and handheld devices
within a relatively short distance, usually no more than 600 feet with a full signal, or
up to half a mile for a greatly diminished signal. Louisa County has deployed several
such hot spots.
The final technology using Wi-Fi is deployment of outdoor networks. The Wi-Fi
spectrum can be used to connect a central transmitter to multiple locations. There are
three general network architectures that can be deployed with Wi-Fi today:



Point-to-Point Connections. A point-to-point connection can be used to
connect only two locations. This is a very expensive way to provide Internet
connections and this technology is generally used more as part of a network as
an alternative to fiber.
Point-to-Multipoint systems. This technology allows one transmitter,
generally mounted on a tall antenna, to deliver bandwidth to many locations.
The limiting factor with point-to-multipoint systems is that the receiver must
be within the line of sight of the transmitter. In areas like Monticello this kind
of system has problems with trees and foliage.
Mesh Network. This newest Wi-Fi technology is a point-to-multipoint
technology with a twist. Each receiver at a customer location can be used in a
mesh network to retransmit data to other customers. This solves the line of
sight problem in that a customer does not need to see the base station
transmitter as long as they can see one of more other customers on the
network. However, mesh networks can’t retransmit data forever and in the
perfect network no customer would be more than 3 hops away from the base
station transmitter.
Bandwidth. The amount of bandwidth that can be delivered using Wi-Fi depends on
the specific vendor and depends even more on the backhaul network that feeds the
wireless network. On a point-to-point basis (between only two points) Wi-Fi can
Page 38
deliver up to 17 Mbps. In a point-to-multipoint system there is generally a shared 17
Mbps that can be divided up among the customers hanging from a given antenna (or
sector of an antenna). Wi-Fi networks are generally shared bandwidth meaning that
all of the customers within a given access point share whatever data is available.
On a commercial basis, a Wi-Fi network can be designed to deliver a fairly high
amount of bandwidth to a few customers or a modest amount of bandwidth to many
customers. The typical Wi-Fi deployment delivers DSL-like speeds.
5. Licensed Wireless Spectrum
There are three primary spectrums in use to deliver wireless broadband over licensed
spectrum - Local Multipoint Distribution Service (LMDS), Multichannel Multipoint
Distribution Service (MMDS) and wireless loops using Personal Communications
Service (PCS). Each has certain advantages and disadvantages.
LMDS
LMDS is a broadband wireless point-to-multipoint system operating between 27.5
GHz to 31.3 GHz that can be used to provide digital two-way voice, data, Internet,
and video services. With current equipment, this is primarily a delivery mechanism
for large business customers because of the relatively high price of customer premises
equipment (CPE) associated with the bandwidth. However, we believe that current
Wi-Fi gear is going to be migrated into this bandwidth, and several large players are
now investing in this bandwidth.
The LMDS spectrum is robust because of the 1150 MHz of bandwidth available with
an A license. There is also an LMDS B spectrum license for every US market with
150 MHz of bandwidth. The spectrum is interesting in that it can be used for both a
point-to-point delivery signal like traditional microwave systems and can also be used
on a point-to-multipoint basis to serve large numbers of customers from one central
transmitter. With the structure of the spectrum, a provider could deliver as much as
DS3 (45 Mbps) of data to a customer through the air.
On the negative side there are several transmission characteristics that limit the use of
LMDS. The most significant of these is the practical delivery distance of the signal,
and the distance decreases with greater bandwidth and also decreases due to humidity
and bad weather. In dry parts of the country, such as the desert west, LMDS can
deliver bandwidth for 3 - 4 miles from a central transmitter. In humid, rainy places
like Florida, the maximum distance could be as short as 1.5 miles. LMDS also has
limitations due to foliage and obstructions, and a clear delivery path must be available
for its use.
The FCC auctioned this spectrum more than seven years ago, but there are only a
handful of systems that are operational today. In classic chicken-egg fashion, the CPE
is expensive because there have not been many installations, and there have not been
Page 39
many installations because the CPE is expensive. Small investors own many LMDS
licenses and until recently there has been no large nationwide providers pushing the
development of equipment to utilize this spectrum.
MMDS
Another useful spectrum for data delivery is MMDS. This frequency, from 2.15 GHz
to 2.68 GHz, was auctioned years ago and was originally intended for delivering
wireless Cable TV. This did not materialize because the equipment took many years
to develop, and more importantly because the cable TV industry evolved. MMDS
systems can deliver approximately 30 channels of cable TV, which is no longer
economically viable for cable TV in most markets.
In 1999 the FCC changed the rules for the spectrum by allowing it to be used for 2way communications, thus opening it up for data and voice providers. Compared to
LMDS, MMDS offers a solution for small and medium customers. With current
CPE, it can deliver several megabytes of data along with voice lines on one small
antenna. There are a few manufacturers of CPE that can currently deliver a customer
antenna for under $1,500. At this price, this is a good solution for small business
customers and maybe also for very high-end residential customers.
At one time there were high hopes for this spectrum. Licenses covering about 2/3 of
the US population have been purchased by Sprint and MCI, and both companies
announced aggressive plans to roll out MMDS beginning in early 2001. Both
companies stopped the rollout in 2001 and there has been very little activity since
then with this spectrum.
Wireless Using PCS Spectrum (EVDO)
Another wireless data technology is wireless using the PCS spectrum. The PCS
spectrum is most normally used for delivering typical cell phone service, and the big
license holders are companies like Sprint, Verizon and AT&T Wireless. Each of these
providers is now delivering data to customers in most urban markets. In most cases
they are delivering data using PCS spectrum, but in larger markets they are now
experimenting using additional frequencies as well.
The Verizon PCS data product is marketed under the name of EVDO. There are
several issues with PCS data delivery:


First, the amount of data from a given cell site is dependent upon the amount
of voice traffic. Voice for cell phones is given priority, and during peak times
the amount of bandwidth available for data gets greatly diminished.
Second, PCS data is never going to be very fast. A typical urban deployment
is looking at peak speeds of around 750 Kbps downstream, very tiny
upstream. This bandwidth is mostly being targeted to add enhancements to
Page 40


cell phone service to let customers read emails and get simple graphics. Data
on this bandwidth is not intended as a DSL replacement.
You can’t get EVDO where there is no cell phone coverage. CCG noticed in
driving around Louisa County there are many areas with no cell phone
coverage or only a few bars of coverage. Such areas will be able to get no or
greatly reduced EVDO coverage.
EVDO is currently expensive. Most cell providers charge a lot for the service
with typical prices for full-time access at around $80 per month.
In rural areas some providers are using PCS spectrum to deliver “fixed wireless”, a
service that delivers both voice and data to homes with fixed antennas. Because such
markets are rural, the amount of bandwidth is greater, as much as 2 Mbps. The data is
also enhanced because of a powerful antenna installed at each customer’s location.
The largest provider of fixed wireless loops is Western Wireless. This technology is
used much more extensively in the rest of the world, and the largest single use is in
Japan and sold under the name Handiphone.
6. Broadband over Powerline (BPL)
Broadband over Powerline (BPL) technology is a method of transmitting data over
electric lines. BPL is currently widely deployed in Europe. However, the electric
systems in the US use different protocols and standards, and the European product is
more robust than the US one.
BPL is being considered as a direct competitor to DSL; however, early versions of
BPL don’t deliver more than 1 Mbps. Expectations are that BPL will be improved
and within a few years be capable of delivering as much as 10 Mbps.
The big promise for BPL is as a tool to deliver bandwidth to those customers without
other data alternatives. Cable modems and DSL are primarily deployed in urban and
suburban areas and there are many rural areas without any high bandwidth options.
BPL has some distance limitations, but it can deliver a data signal much further than
DSL. Electric companies, particularly rural electric companies are considering BPL.
It will require some re-engineering of existing power lines, but overall BPL systems
require modest investments per customer, since the electric companies already own
all of the lines and the right-of-ways to customers.
The only logical providers of BPL are electric companies since nobody else has
access to electric lines.
7. Satellite Data
There is a general opinion among wireline carriers that satellite broadband as an
access technology is inferior to other sources of Ethernet. The perception is that
satellite broadband has serious latency problems (time delays) and jitter issues which
make it inadequate to support advanced applications, particularly VoIP. There is also
Page 41
a general perception that satellite Ethernet is costly to establish and that it is rarely
price competitive with other sources of Ethernet, except in very remote locations.
To some degree these observations still apply to much of the satellite industry. This
industry has been historically focused on serving only very large backbone transport
for carriers in very remote locations or the video broadcast industry where more than
of 70% of their revenue is still derived on an annual basis. The major vendors of
satellite data have been very slow to react to the general explosion of Ethernet in the
world and they have not seized upon more mainstream opportunities in the landline
world. To some degree we can compare the large satellite data providers to the large
telephone companies – they are large incumbents who are satisfied with their market
niche and not particularly open to change. Their behavior is geared towards selling
wholesale transponder space as opposed to delivering value-added network services.
The satellite industry has historically been controlled by a handful of very large
providers who both own and operate satellites or who have contracted for much of the
usage on satellites. Companies like Hughes and Spacenet have created very stable
businesses by selling large data pipes to remote locations. The customers for such
data tend to be governments and large businesses that have large data needs in remote
locations. These data connections have always been expensive compared to normal
terrestrial data prices, but the remoteness of the sites has given the satellite providers
a virtual monopoly of service. The hardware for satellite data delivery has historically
been very expensive and most satellite data users typically purchased large amounts
of bandwidth at a given site.
Residential and Small Business Data over Satellite. In recent years a number of
companies have started selling satellite data to the residential market. The two
primary companies marketing today are Hughes and WildBlue. Satellite products
generally offer less speed at a greater price than cable modem and DSL connections.
However, the fact that satellite data is available almost everywhere means that remote
customers often find satellite as their only alternative.
The standard and technology used today for residential data delivery from satellites is
DVB (Digital Video Broadcast). DVB was designed to deliver one-way downstream
MPEG video signal and the application of this standard to data has been an
afterthought. However, DVB is the standard of choice in the marketplace for data
delivery since it is a simple standard that can be supported with low cost and easily
available chip sets.
A new standard has also been developed for upstream satellite data – DVB-RCS
(Return Channel via Satellite). This standard allows for two-way data services. Early
satellite data products required a dial-up connection for outbound data, which
basically defeated the whole purpose of having a high-speed connection.
Problems with Satellite Data
Page 42
Satellite systems have some inherent issues that make it hard to design competitive
data products. Some of these problems include:





Propagation delay. Satellites have an inherent 280 msec propagation delay
due to the location of geo stationary orbit of satellites.
Jitter. Jitter quantifies the effect of network delay of packets arriving at the
receiver in any Ethernet system. Jitter is calculated by measuring the interarrival time of successive packets. Advanced data services need low jitter.
Packet loss. Packet loss causes degradation of any real time service. Packet
loss is measured using BER (Bit Error Rate) – and advanced services needs a
low BER.
QOS and traffic prioritization. Packet switched networks are subject to
congestion since data traffic is typically “bursty”. Congested networks wreak
havoc for real-time services.
Compression techniques and standards. The standard encoding scheme used
with most satellite data uses very inefficient overheads and headers and
wastes valuable data space.
However, the biggest issue with satellite data is always going to be price. Today an
Internet T1 over satellite costs at least $900 per month and that price is not likely to
drop in the near future. Satellite is becoming a viable competitor in rural locations,
but it is never likely to compete directly with any urban or suburban network.
C.
Future Broadband Technologies
What is the likely migration for each of the existing technologies in the future? Also, are there
any new technologies on the horizon that might bring broadband affordably to consumers?
Future of DSL
DSL speeds are expected to increase over time with new innovations. In the labs there
have been DSL technologies tested with speeds up to 200 Mbps. However, the high
bandwidth DSL variants tend to have characteristics that drastically shorten the
bandwidth with distance. Distances for very-high-speed DSL is 1,000 feet or less and is
expected to be useful in conjunction with Fiber-To-The-Curb (FTTC) deployments. A
FTTC system would still require fiber traversing every street, but use copper drops and
DSL instead of fiber drops. FTTH costs more than a FTTC system today, but can deliver
tremendously more bandwidth.
Today, AT&T, in the old BellSouth area, is testing a DSL product that can deliver as
much as 24 Mbps for up to 6,000 feet. This product consists of paired ADSL2+, meaning
that the DSL is delivered over two lines. The biggest problem with this technology is that
most neighborhoods were not designed with many spare copper lines. Traditional copper
engineering has only provided 10% to 15% spare lines for a neighborhood, so there are
not many households that can get this service. Also, 6,000 feet is a very short distance
Page 43
when looking at real streets. This is not distance as the crow flies, but distance as the
cable runs.
Development labs are working toward DSL that might be able to generate as much as 200
Mbps. However, in real life all of the problems with copper would greatly diminish such
speeds in the real world. However, one would think that in looking out over a 30-year
window that DSL with speeds of 50 Mbps might be possible. Thus, 25 years from now
DSL might grow to deliver 1/50 as much bandwidth as FTTH can deliver today.
Future of Cable Modems
Cable operators always have to balance the need for TV channels with the demand for
data speeds. Today most cable providers are much more concerned about how to fit more
HDTV (High Definition TV) channels onto their system than they are about increasing
cable modem speeds. The industry expectation is that cable providers will use any future
increases in overall system bandwidth, or from increased CATV compression
improvements to offer more channels rather than drastically increase data speeds.
As an industry we expect cable providers to deliver just enough data to stay ahead of the
telephone companies and DSL, their predominant competitor. This is the expected nature
of duopoly competition where competition is more based upon rhetoric than upon any
real product differentiation. Cable executives are often cited as saying that they already
deliver all of the speed that consumers need.
There are already cable modems tested in the lab that can deliver as much as 100 Mbps.
However, cable providers are going to stick to products that can be mass-produced and
sold in the mass market. Today cable modems are inexpensive since so many are
produced. Cable providers are always going to be leery about increasing speeds since this
will require all new hardware and massive rearrangements of their systems. Cable
providers also will want to support only a few different modems in a given system, and
the reluctance to swap modems will hold down innovation. Cable providers will upgrade
modems only when competition forces them to do so. This is evidenced by Mediacom in
New York City. They have introduced 15 Mbps cable modems to compete against
Verizon’s FTTH. However, they are the only cable company to do this and no other cable
companies have announced any plans to even think about testing 15 Mbps modems.
Thus, the long term expectations for cable systems is that they will always offer products
that are a little better than DSL, but not drastically better. The merger mania in both the
telecom field and the cable TV field means that future competition is going to be mostly
between a few big cable providers and a few big telephone companies. Cable companies
have an inherent advantage in the battle since they already have full deployment of
CATV programming and an advantage with cable modems compared to DSL. Since
cable modems are inherently a little faster than DSL, cable companies have no incentive
to be innovators.
Page 44
WiMax Wireless
The next generation of unlicensed spectrum technology is referred to as WiMax.
Originally promised for 2005, it now looks like true first generation units just started
hitting the streets in 2007. One would not expect a mature product until 2009, at the
earliest.
The first generation of WiMax is being touted as having as much as 70 Mbps of shared
bandwidth available to users. However, realistically we don’t expect to see systems
delivering that much bandwidth to customers for quite some time. WiMax has some of
the same limitations as a cable modem system. The users on any WiMax antenna are
sharing the bandwidth. The biggest challenge that a WiMax provider will have is getting
the bandwidth to the transmitter. A fiber network is needed behind a WiMax system to
feed the needed bandwidth to each antenna. A WiMax antenna needs as much as two
DS3s of underlying broadband in order to serve customers. In most markets, getting that
much bandwidth delivered to multiple antennas is going to be very challenging, and
costly. In most markets the only vendor with this much bandwidth is the telephone
company, and telephone company bandwidth is still very expensive. Additionally, the
telephone companies are generally not equipped to deliver native Ethernet.
Our expectation is that WiMax is going to be used for wireless backhaul, meaning the
delivery of data between two locations. We expect that Wi-Fi will continue to be the
delivery mechanism to customers.
Gigabit Wireless
There are wireless technologies on the drawing board that may be able to deliver as much
as one Gigabit of data (1,000 Mbps) over very short distances. For example, this
spectrum could deliver bandwidth from a pole in front of a house to the computer and
TV.
This type of bandwidth will only make sense when coupled with a fiber system. If the
transmitters and receivers of this technology were made at a low enough cost, such a
wireless technology could replace the drop to the house and act just like having a fiber to
the house. Such a system would enable a customer to serve multiple TVs and computers
and move them around at will without reliance on wires. However, only a fiber system
can deliver enough bandwidth to make such a system work, so only FTTH or FTTC
systems could support this breakthrough. This technology will depend on the availability
of poles near houses, which will be a problem in the new neighborhoods with
underground utilities.
Comparing Future Technologies
The following table shows our best estimate at the commercially available bandwidth that
is available today and in the future with the primary commercial technologies. It is clear
Page 45
that fiber is today, and will remain for the foreseeable future as the most robust
technology.
Data Download Delivery Speeds
Today
10-years
25-years
FTTH
2,400 Mbps
10,000 Mbps
25,000 Mbps
DSL
Up to 12 Mbps
Up to 50 Mbps
Up to 100 Mbps
Cable modem
Up to 15 Mbps
Up to 50 mbps
Up to 200 mbps
N/A
70 Mbps
200 Mbps
3 Mbps
50 Mbps
100 Mbps
WiMax
BPL
D.
The Right Technology for Louisa
The broadband surveys and interviews demonstrate a significant broadband gap in the
County. The CCG research uncovered the following issues that were considered in
determining a solution to solve the broadband gap:
Currently, Louisa County has:
 Significant numbers of residents with no broadband access.
 No major telecommunication company point of presence (PoP) or SONET Ring;
 No major private sector telecommunication network that can insure uninterrupted
service.
 A non-competitive environment in which telecommunications customers are
forced to pay higher rates for service than their counterparts in the metropolitan
areas.
The primary broadband gap for the County is geographic, and areas outside of the towns
have no broadband except expensive access to satellite broadband. Thus, residents and
businesses outside the towns either still suffer from using dial-up or else they spend a lot
of money for inadequate and troublesome satellite broadband. Households with children
today need broadband if they are to keep up with modern education. Citizens who want to
work at home or take work home require broadband. It is critical for the County to find a
way to get citizens and businesses connected for economic and educational advancement.
Phase II of the broadband study will look at possible solutions for solving the broadband
gap.
Page 46
ATTACHMENT I - THE RESIDENTIAL SURVEY
Louisa County, VA
Residential Survey Results
Total Surveys - 375
High Speed Internet
1. If you have access to the Internet at home, what kind of service do you have?
Number
Percent
DSL
36
10%
Cable Modem
25
7%
Satellite
55
15%
Wireless
6
2%
Cellular
2
1%
DSI & Dial-up
2
1%
Satellite & Dial-up
2
1%
Cellular & Dial-up
1
0%
Dial-up
167
45%
None
79
21%
1a. If you don’t have internet access, why don’t you have service?
Number
Percent
Not Interested
41
52%
Only dial-up available
10
13%
Price
8
10%
Use at free sites
3
4%
Too old
3
4%
Too slow
2
3%
Use at work
2
3%
No answer
10
13%
1b. If you use dial-up Internet access today, have you considered changing to high-speed Internet access?
Yes
No
Maybe
Don't know
No answer
Number
151
6
2
2
6
Percent
90%
4%
1%
1%
4%
Page 47
2. Is the Internet service in your house used primarily for:
Number
Percent
Leisure
76
20%
Education
45
12%
Education and leisure
17
5%
Work & leisure
16
4%
Work/work at home
15
4%
Other
12
3%
Work & education
4
1%
All of the above
120
32%
No Answer
70
19%
3. How much do you pay for Internet service each month?
Number
Percent
$20 or less
102
27%
$21 - $30
68
18%
$31 - $40
18
5%
$41 - $50
23
6%
$51 - $60
32
9%
More than $60
31
8%
Don't know
22
6%
No answer
79
21%
4. Please rate your Internet service provider regarding the following from 1 to 5, where one is ‘extremely
dissatisfied’ and five is ‘extremely satisfied’
Courtesy and Friendliness of Staff
Number
10
16
74
100
75
18
82
Percent
3%
4%
20%
27%
20%
5%
22%
Amount of time it takes to get problems fixed
Number
Extremely Dissatisfied
23
Dissatisfied
23
Neutral
90
Satisfied
83
Extremely Satisfied
45
Don't know
29
No answer
82
Percent
6%
6%
24%
22%
12%
8%
22%
Extremely Dissatisfied
Dissatisfied
Neutral
Satisfied
Extremely Satisfied
Don't know
No answer
Page 48
Download Speed
Number
69
60
67
53
46
0
80
Percent
18%
16%
18%
14%
12%
0%
21%
Number
77
58
67
39
53
1
80
Percent
21%
15%
18%
10%
14%
0%
21%
The value I get compared to the price I pay
Number
Extremely Dissatisfied
42
Dissatisfied
59
Neutral
100
Satisfied
56
Extremely Satisfied
34
Don't know
3
No answer
80
Percent
11%
16%
27%
15%
9%
1%
21%
Extremely Dissatisfied
Dissatisfied
Neutral
Satisfied
Extremely Satisfied
Don't know
No answer
Upload Speed
Extremely Dissatisfied
Dissatisfied
Neutral
Satisfied
Extremely Satisfied
Don't know
No answer
5. Please indicate if you agree or disagree with the following statements where one is ‘strongly disagree’
and five is ‘strongly agree’
The competitive marketplace currently offers high-speed Internet at prices that everyone can afford.
Strongly Disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly Agree
Don't know
No answer
Number
144
57
61
34
27
50
2
Percent
38%
15%
16%
9%
7%
13%
1%
Page 49
High-speed Internet is (or will soon be) as essential as water, sewer and electricity.
Number
Percent
Strongly Disagree
41
11%
Disagree
43
11%
Neutral
64
17%
Agree
89
24%
Strongly Agree
125
33%
Don't know
11
3%
No answer
2
1%
In the near future most people won’t be able to enjoy a high quality of life unless they have highspeed Internet access.
Number
Percent
Strongly Disagree
92
25%
Disagree
37
10%
Neutral
93
25%
Agree
83
22%
Strongly Agree
58
15%
Don't know
10
3%
No answer
2
1%
The County should take a role to insure that all students have access to low cost Internet access for
educational purposes.
Number
Percent
Strongly Disagree
28
7%
Disagree
8
2%
Neutral
48
13%
Agree
93
25%
Strongly Agree
189
50%
Don't know
7
2%
No answer
2
1%
The County should take a role to insure that all households have access to low cost Internet access
.
Number
Percent
Strongly Disagree
53
14%
Disagree
34
9%
Neutral
62
17%
Agree
98
26%
Strongly Agree
115
31%
Don't know
9
2%
No answer
4
1%
Page 50
The County should take a role to insure that all small and medium businesses have access to low cost
Internet access for educational purposes.
Number
Percent
Strongly Disagree
71
19%
Disagree
63
17%
Neutral
67
18%
Agree
85
23%
Strongly Agree
78
21%
Don't know
7
2%
No answer
4
1%
6. Would you buy high-speed Internet from the County if it could get much faster upload and download
speeds at an affordable price?
Number
Percent
Yes
259
69%
No
64
17%
Maybe
47
13%
Don't Know
5
1%
No Answer
0
0%
General Questions
7. Do any of the adults in your household work from home?
Number
Percent
Yes
69
18%
No
306
82%
8.
Please give your overall perception of the following organizations in terms of how much you like and
trust them, ranking your response from 1 to 5, where one is ‘don’t like or trust them at all’ and five
is ‘completely like and trust them’
Comcast
Don’t like or trust at all
Don’t like or trust
Neutral
Like and trust
Like and trust a lot
Don't know
No answer
Number
30
28
82
65
24
61
85
Percent
8%
7%
22%
17%
6%
16%
23%
Page 51
Verizon
Don’t like or trust at all
Don’t like or trust
Neutral
Like and trust
Like and trust a lot
Don't know
No answer
Number
13
17
108
108
88
11
30
Percent
3%
5%
29%
29%
23%
3%
8%
Number
12
11
76
78
75
57
66
Percent
3%
3%
20%
21%
20%
15%
18%
Number
9
5
39
55
62
133
72
Percent
2%
1%
10%
15%
17%
35%
19%
Number
16
19
118
104
95
14
9
Percent
4%
5%
31%
28%
25%
4%
2%
Dominion Virginia Power
Don’t like or trust at all
Don’t like or trust
Neutral
Like and trust
Like and trust a lot
Don't know
No answer
Rappahannock Electric Cooperative
Don’t like and trust at all
Don’t like and trust
Neutral
Like and trust
Like and trust a lot
Don't know
No answer
The County
Don’t like and trust at all
Don’t like and trust
Neutral
Like and trust
Like and trust a lot
Don't know
No answer
Page 52
9. What voting district do you live in?
Cuckoo
Green Springs
Jackson
Louisa
Mineral
Mountain Road
Patrick Henry
Don't Know
No Answer
Number
41
21
54
53
64
21
45
72
3
Percent
11%
6%
14%
14%
17%
6%
12%
19%
1%
Training
10. Do you feel like you could use more training on how to use a computer?
Number
Percent
Yes
135
36%
No
243
65%
11. What kind of training would be most useful to you?
Number
General
75
Spreadsheets / Word
13
Programming
12
Any
3
Photo
3
Presentations
1
Web site design
1
Don't know
103
12. Have you ever taken a computer training course while living in the County? If so, what kind?
Number
Percent
No
328
87%
Yes, unspecified
13
3%
Yes, in school
1
0%
Yes - spreadsheets
13
3%
Yes - web design
2
1%
Yes - work related
6
2%
Yes - general
6
2%
Yes - PowerPoint
1
0%
Yes - programming
3
1%
No response
2
1%
Page 53
13. Would you like the County to take a role in getting more computer training courses in the County?
Number
Percent
Yes
190
51%
No
105
28%
Maybe
58
15%
Don't know
22
6%
14. Would you take a computer training course if it was locally available and affordable?
Number
Percent
Yes
103
27%
No
201
54%
Maybe
62
17%
Don't know
9
2%
Page 54
ATTACHMENT II – LOUISA AND MINERAL, VIRGINIA BUSINESS MAPS
Page 55
Page 56
ATTACHMENT III – LOUISA AND MINERAL, VIRGINIA BUSINESS MAPS
Page 57