http://effaustin.org

March 24, 2010Google Inc.1600 Amphitheatre ParkwayMountain View, CA 94043Dear Google,EFF-Austin is a local non-profit dedicated to promoting civil liberties in thedigital frontier where technology meets society. We are a group of technologists, legalprofessionals, academics, political activists, and concerned citizens working to protectdigital rights and educate the public about emerging technologies and theirimplications. We are very excited about Google’s Fiber for Communities project andwould like to formally nominate Austin, Texas for your fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) openaccess network. We believe that Austin is the ideal community to build and test anultra-high-speed broadband network.

Insufficient competition, looming usage caps, and a prohibition on municipalbroadband make Austin the perfect proving ground for open access networks.

American broadband suffers from a dire case of insufficient competition. Ournation has become a patchwork of unregulated duopoly Internet access markets. Thisalmost total lack of competition infects the entire Internet access ecosystem and hascaused American broadband speeds to stagnate, deployment to stall, and has led torampant consumer abuse. Not until broadband transmission returns to a“telecommunications service” and competitive service providers are once again allowedto connect to the dominant broadband providers’ open networks, will we ever see thetype of competition that is needed to drive broadband innovation and deployment.Austin has been hit particularly hard by the effects of insufficient competitionand would provide an ideal test case to demonstrate the benefits of an open accessbroadband network. Both the local DSL provider (AT&T) and the cable broadbandprovider (Time Warner Cable) seem to have come to a tacit arrangement where neitheris willing to improve their broadband product, yet continually raise their prices. In fact,each has recently tested metered service and usage caps in Texas, demonstrating an

2apparent desire to force their customers to consume

less

broadband. Last year, TimeWarner Cable went so far to as publicly announce a plan to impose a 40GB per monthusage cap on customers in Austin and three other cities. Only after a public outcry andthreatened congressional investigation did Time Warner Cable grudgingly put this planon hold, vowing to reinstitute the caps once its customers had been sufficiently“educated.”This year, AT&T once again raised its DSL prices, yet has made no effort toimprove its speeds in Austin. Time Warner Cable, for its part, appears to have nointention of upgrading its Austin network to DOCSIS 3.0 and is instead only rolling outthese improvements in markets where the company competes with FiOS. It seems thatwhen these companies come together in one market, as they have in Austin, theybecome complacent and users languish with inferior broadband access.One potential source of competition for AT&T and Time Warner Cable, the Cityof Austin, was excluded from the market fifteen years ago. In 1995, the City launched aninitiative to build a municipal FTTH network throughout Austin. In response, an armyof AT&T lobbyists descended upon the state capitol in an effort to convince thelegislature to put a stop to the City’s plans and to prevent any other Texas communityfrom ever undertaking municipal broadband again. The result was a state law thateffectively prohibits all Texas municipalities from offering broadband service. TheCity’s efforts to bring FTTH to Austin died and the community’s broadband market istoday almost entirely insulated from any wireline competition.Austin’s paucity of competition and inadequate incumbent broadband servicepresent a great opportunity for Google to demonstrate the benefits of open accessnetworks. The status quo of government-enabled duopoly broadband access has failedand nowhere is that more evident than in Austin. Austinites are hungry for ultra-high-speed broadband and will flock to an alternative provider with a better product. Asuccessful Fiber for Communities trial in Austin would prove that, even in the mostdysfunctional of urban broadband markets, open access is tenable and will bring with itthe benefits of robust competition.

As a national technology hub, Austin is the perfect community to demonstrate theviability and demand for ultra-high-speed broadband.

Austin is a nexus of gaming, film, video, music, and technology that providesfertile ground for the seeds of new ideas to flourish. As a community, Austin is young,educated, highly tech-literate, and brimming with sophisticated Internet users. Fewcities can match Austin’s capacity for artistic and technological inspiration. Becausebandwidth is a capability that drives innovation, Google’s Fiber for Communities planshould seek out a community that is full of innovators. To demonstrate the demand forultra-high-speed broadband and open networks, Google could not choose a better