My preface to this article:
There is one thing I want you to
take away from this article. That is, providers
like Bertram, Mercury.net, and Door County Broadband are “LINE OF SIGHT”
PROVIDERS. IF YOU DO NOT HAVE LINE OF
SIGHT TO A TOWER, YOU CANNOT ACCESS THE TOWER.
Keep this in mind as you are reading about the County’s plan later.
I fully understand there are “underserved
pockets” of residents in Kewaunee County who have difficulty accessing reasonably
priced broadband. My research shows that
several companies have blanketed the entire county with broadband signal with
typical download speeds of 20 Mps and 6 Mps upload. Kewaunee County does not have a broadband
access problem, we have homes in the woods and homes in valleys which I
refer to as an “underserved pockets” problem.
I was one of those homes, located
in the woods South and West of Kewaunee.
I ran a business from my home and had to have fast enough internet service
to run teleconference meetings and handle large data dumps. I was buying service from Verizon, and it was
pricey, about $300 a month on average. I
was not able to take advantage of some of the more competitively priced
packages for broadband as offered by Bertram, Mercury.net, or Door County
Broadband.
You might ask, why could I get
service from Verizon? Well, good
question. The major telecom like
Verizon, U.S. Cellular, AT&T, have paid the FCC billions of dollars for
licensing broadcast bands that are lower frequency that can penetrate through walls
and trees, etc. Companies like Mercury,
Bertram and Door County Broadband through licensing from FCC broadcast at
higher frequency rates, typically operate at 5.1 GHz to 5.8 GHz that do not afford the same penetration.
I actually had the Bertram and Mercury
people (whose towers I could see from my house) come to my home to run
accessibility and speed readings only to be told, “if you cut those trees down
over there, we can service you.” Well
that wasn’t an option. The trees were
one of the primary reasons I built here.
So, I walked the Mercury.net representative about 100 yards to the
Southwest of the house and said, what if we put a post here? From that location we had direct “LINE OF
SIGHT” to their tower. He pulled out his
meter and said, this will be great, as he was getting about 55 Mps of signal at
that point.
I took it upon myself to erect a 22-foot
cedar pole and ran underground electric power to it. Mercury came in and put a receiver (to access
the tower) and transmitter on top the pole.
The transmitter was to move the signal from that pole to the house. I had “LINE OF SIGHT” service from that pole
to the corner of my house, and voila I had great internet service to my house
at consistent speeds of 20 plus Mps download and an average of 12 Mps
upload. Problem solved! And, I am now paying $100 a month for up to
500 GB per month.
My Experience with Government - When
They Take Charge of Anything, they foul it Up!
The most terrifying words in the English language as so well
stated by President Ronald Reagan are: “I'm from the government and I'm
here to help.”
Well, I am now terrified, because I believe that what we have going
on right here in Kewaunee County is the beginning of a mis-guided, wasteful, taxpayer
funded, broadband expansion program.
We taxpayers may be able to change the misguided direction of this
project if we speak up now! This is a very complex topic to explain, but I will
do my best to try to lay it out in a fashion that is understandable by all.
Here are the major items completed so
far on the Kewaunee County Broadband Project
1.
Broadband Committee (put together by
the County Board) meets and discusses needs for Request for Proposal (RFP).
2.
RFP is drafted, approved and sent out
to Vendors (click here to see the County's RFP). Note:
In the RFP, there is no mention of the real problem, that being the “underserved
pockets.”
3.
Providers submit proposals to
Kewaunee County
4.
Presentations are scheduled
5.
Presentations are made by the
respondents
6.
Broadband Committee recommends
providers to partner on PSC grant application
7.
Executive Committee approves
recommendation of Bug Tussel
8.
Bug Tussel and Kewaunee County partner on grant application submitted Dec. 16, 2019, (Click Here)
9.
PSC announces grant awards March 19,
2020 (awarded to Bug Tussel)
Why will the approach taken by Kewaunee
County fail to produce meaningful results?
In a recent news article reported in the Kewaunee County Star
News, you read that “Kewaunee County was awarded $960,000 by the Public Service
Commission (PSC) of Wisconsin to increase its high-speed internet access.”
Perhaps you recall when you received your tax bill this year, the
County put a letter with your bill requesting public input/comments in support
of expanding broadband. A realistic and cost-effective
way to survey the general public. Some
88 people took time to write a letter or an email indicating they wanted faster
service and many wanted a lower price for that service. Surprise, surprise, surprise! In addition to the letters, other people
called Administrator Feldt and expressed the same thoughts. All in, 150 people .0075% of the population responded
and were concerned enough to send in a letter, email or make a phone
call. In my opinion, not a resounding
endorsement for support. Perhaps it
was because the issue was not causing a panic or concern in the general
population. (Note, I underlined email because, for all intent and purpose,
takes very little effort on anyone’s part to complete). (Click here to see all Resident input)
Here is where the mistake occurred. The County is blanketed in coverage from several
vendors. Access is not the problem, but reaching
the “underserved pockets” is the problem.
Remember the LINE OF SIGHT issue! What the County should have done is to have
completed a door-to-door canvass to determine, first hand, what was causing
certain people to say “I have terrible internet service.” Had that been done, the approach to the
alleged problem, I guarantee you, would be totally different. (Read my Sep 26, 2019 article about this topic).
The County then used those public comments as support information
in the PCS grant request. Quite a simple
process, and the PSC came back with a grant of $960,000 to the County. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of work went into
this project, but when you start with bad assumptions you end up with the
incorrect solution.
So now the County has $960,000 grant money from the PSC. Now how
to spend it, along with a matching $960,000 from the County. First let’s understand the $960,000 from PSC. IT IS TAXPAYER MONEY! And, the Kewaunee County $960,000, what are
those funds? TAXPAYER DOLLARS! So, we now have $1,920,000 of TAXPAYER MONEY
to spend. Let’s find the best solution
to expand our broadband access!
The County Broadband Committee then solicited four companies to
come to a meeting and present their company’s structure and capabilities and
listen to a pitch as to how they would improve the broadband in the
County. Those companies were; Door
County Broadband, Bertram, Bug Tussel and Mercury. Of the four companies, three have been
working in Kewaunee County and providing service for a long time, those being
Door County Broadband, Mercury and Bertram.
Bug Tussel, on the other hand, did not have a presence in Kewaunee County.
Apparently, when the date for these interviews was set,
Mercury.net had a conflict and could not be in attendance. Administrator Feldt had discussion with
Mercury saying the committee didn’t have time for the fourth presenter and
would reschedule Mercury’s presentation for another date. Well, that never happened as the Committee
was so baffled and snowed by the Bug Tussel presentation they had bought into
lock, stock and barrel. Mercury
never was given the chance to present. I
bring this up only because it seems that today, Mercury has the widest coverage
in the County and understands the “underserved pockets” issue better than anybody. BTW, I have no dog in this fight, but it
seems to me there should be some loyalty to companies that have been serving
the County residents. (See vendorProposals here).
It was during these presentations
the committee missed something of great importance, and in fairness, probably
didn’t recognize it. Bug Tussel’s core
business is building Cell Phone Towers.
They have a standing contract with AT&T to build out those towers
and equip with cell switching equipment.
So here is how that works. AT&T gets funding from the FCC (taxpayer
money) to build a network of Cell phone towers for handling the switching of
cell phone calls. That has nothing to do
with broadband service. Bug Tussel
builds and provisions these towers to AT&T specifications. So, then, upon the existing AT&T
provisioned towers, Bug Tussel simply affixes Cambium Broadband equipment and thus
provides a broadband LINE OF SIGHT signal is established. So, they double dip with the government
funding. They already are getting paid through
AT&T’s taxpayer funded program, then they have a county like Kewaunee, pay
for the towers again. What a wonderful fail-safe
business model. It works well for Bug
Tussel as the $1.9 Million from Kewaunee County for this project is money that
largely falls to the bottom line for Bug Tussel, but does this work for our County?
Here is the rub. On paper Bug Tussel appears to be financially
solid. However, the actual towers appear
to be owned by Midwest DataCore LLC an entity owned by Bug Tussel. Then Bug Tussel broadband leases space on
those towers to place the Cambium Broadband equipment. So that relegates broadband to being the
secondary business.
There is good reason to believe that Bug
Tussel could, after they consummate the sale of their towers with AT&T, simply
fold their tent and shut down the broadband offering. BUG TUSSEL MAKES THEIR MONEY BY BUILDING CELL
PHONE TOWERS FOR AT&T AND FOR THE CELL PHONE CALL SWITCHING RUNNING THROUGH
THEIR SWITCHING EQUIPMENT ON THOSE TOWERS.
A really good example of this is, Bug Tussel already has AT&T
equipment on the Kohnle Grain elevator in Tisch Mills, and, if you look at
their proposal, they represent having to build a tower in Tisch Mills. Is this tower one in the same as they are
proposing to build? Something seems
fishy here!
Also, according to the Bug Tussel response to the RFP, their
expansion will service 199 businesses and 12,115 residential locations
within its total footprint, as antennas will also reach Mishicot in Manitowoc
County. And why is Manitowoc County
included?
REALLY?
