Carroll County Times Articles
Telecommunication Options Remain Limited
by Mike Shelah – January 24, 2010
A good friend of mine asked me one day, "When will FiOS come to Carroll County?" My answer was, "not any time soon." I am sure this question, along with many others regarding telephone service and high-speed internet in the Carroll County area, come up often. I hope to address them here.
FiOS is a bundled communications service, including Internet, telephone, and TV, provided by Verizon that operates over a fiber-optic communications network.
FiOS is a residential product targeted to individual homes rather than companies; business applications using FiOS are only a minor consideration to Verizon.
Verizon stated in a January 7 article on www. Fiercetelecom.com that it will not deploy any additional FiOS infrastructure and are now focused on generating a 40 percent market penetration. Simply put, they have already chosen the densely populated areas where they could realize the maximum number of customers.
Consequently, the thing we love most about Carroll County is the biggest reason we won't get the service in our area: not enough densely populated areas.
OK, so if we can't get FiOS, why can't we get DSL? There are two issues slowing this installation process: first, DSL, or digital subscriber line, is a distance-sensitive product. Your home must be within 18,000 feet of the Verizon central office your telephone service comes out of. To further complicate things, that 18,000-foot baseline is not measured in a straight line; it's based upon a "wire route." Your home may only be 5,000 feet away from the closest Verizon central office, but because of how the infrastructure is designed, your specific phone service may run under 18,000 feet and still knock you out of service range.
To further complicate matters, newly constructed communities face a different issue in getting DSL access. General contractors may have installed the necessary fiber links in newer neighborhoods to allow for future fiber access. In theory, this is a great idea, but if the wire isn't used for fiber-based Internet access, then it's useless.
So what's left?
Not much.
Your choices come down to a cable's broadband service or satellite. Cable may be a good overall option because service is provided in the majority of Carroll County. The bad news is that broadband pricing isn't competitive. Satellite can be an excellent alternative, but it suffers from its own shortcomings. Monthly fees are almost always more expensive than cable (for Internet access), and satellite usually requires an upfront expense to buy the dish.
Carroll County will not attract new services until our demands convince alternate providers that there is an opportunity for them to be profitable. Contact your local government as well as the governing boards of these providers, and together we can make our voices heard and attract new, efficient and competitively priced alternatives for our telecom needs.
About the Author
Mike Shelah is a Senior Account Executive with XO Communications. He is a member of the Tech Council's board of directors and is also chair of the Ambassador Committee. He can be reached at 443-340-8029 or mikeshelah@yahoo.com. To learn more about the Tech Council, visit the website at www.carrolltechcouncil.org
