Wakeup calls and wind power: seeing straight comes after waking up. Usually

America's Network, Jan 15, 2004 by Art Brothers

It was 03 hundred Sunday when I called it a day. Sleep 9 a.m. Z, my three-year old, was being quiet. She wanted to see if I really was asleep. Mom showed a finger across lips. Shush. Z quietly lifted the sheet to see if my eyes were open. There was a hand in front of Dad's eyes. She very carefully lifted a finger. Then thought to lift an eyelid.

It reminded me of our customers. They want a different kind of telephone service than what we are used to. And they want it now! And DSL is not broadband. The eyes hiding behind fingers could be any of us. But like that three-year-old, our doing something can be measured in minutes.

Are regulators in this picture? Mom? Dad? The blankets? Desire? Wants?

$23,000 PER CUSTOMER

A year ago May, SBC's Nevada Bell asked if I'd buy some rural areas out from Austin. Seems the old Canadian multiplex rural subscriber radio to 65 ranchers carried a gawd-awful maintenance cost. Crappy service. Bell wanted out. Chuck offered them a buck, providing they get out of the way. No joy.

Bell's regulatory guys told me it was not Texas that nixed the deal. Rather it was PUC regulatory. Their solution: Bell invests $800 thou, and without a public hearing, Staff would OK using a half mil in state-controlled dough totaling $23K/sub to upgrade phones to 63 remote dwellings for dependable fiber main line voice grade telephone. SBC Nevada Bell earns $12 per month/sub.

LANDER COUNTY, NEVADA

Was not asked for an opinion on this deal. They have filed petitions asking alternate solutions for less dough be considered. County-wide EAS is mentioned. Tiny fingers are prying at the eyelids of SBC's Nevada Bell and the PSC. It's going to be interesting to see who wakes up and when.

WIND GENERATORS

Depending on size and location, modern wind farms are generating electricity for four to six cents per Kwh. With advances in generators, costs should drop to 3-cents in a few years. GE has standardized production units starting around $800,000 for a 750kw Turbine. The housing on top of the pole is about the size of a Greyhound Bus! DOE has some neat maps showing where high potential steady wind is anticipated at www.eren.doe.gov/wind.> BLM folk say they won't block windpower construction on government lands. It helps if you are an RUS borrower. Assume the usual arrowhead hunt would be needed for associated roads, and ROW to get the electricity from the turbine to somewhere else.

TAQUA TIMING

Fifteen years ago the tandem behind my Wendover Operator office started life as a two cabinet 600-port Harris. Eight years ago, a 2000-port Harris replaced it. Normal switch life is 8 years. This time Taqua sent me a 40,000-port replacement. Same size as the 540-line box. Wow! I call it Tiny Tim. This thing is maybe three feet square! It takes multiple T-1/E-1 and DS-3. It has a packet interface card, allowing VoIP.

NETWORKING

Frontier and Qwest each have one or more tandems between me and the IXC network. By and large, we're in good shape with the exception of being choked by limited capacity from AT&T and Nevada's Frontier. I suffer from the Stone Age mentality of Frontier, which refuses to provide OC-3 the last mile. "Art, you gotta break it down to T-1's so we can run it on copper."

I've offered glass and will give them the OC-3/12 interface. "No Art we don' wanna." They've lost 10% of their customers to cell and they are going to lose my transit access cause I'm also going to bypass.

Art Brothers (awb@beehive.net) runs Beehive Telephone Co., Wendover, Utah.