Austin Begins To Show Us What Broadband Competition Was Supposed To Look Like

from the unfamiliar-territory dept

As we've stated more than a few times, so many of the problems that plague Internet and telecom markets could be remedied if we simply had healthy competition between broadband operators. Net neutrality, for example, would rarely be a problem in a market where broadband ISPs were seriously afraid that their subscribers could actually leave. However, what most markets usually have is "wink wink, nod nod" non price competition between two incumbent operators (if you're lucky), with little to no incentive to excel on price or service -- or even upgrade the network or improve customer service.

While Google Fiber may never be a nationwide broadband presence, the company's entry into a handful of markets has at least given us a hopeful glimpse at what healthy broadband competition should actually look like. In Austin, for example, Google Fiber expects to start connecting users later this year, offering symmetrical 1 Gbps connections for just $70 a month. They also offer a free (what a concept) 5 Mbps tier if you pay a one-time $300 connection fee. Google's market entry in turn prompted AT&T to promise $70 1 Gbps connections in order to save face. More recently, a cable operator by the name of Grande Communications joined the fun, promising 1 Gbps lines for $65. Even Time Warner Cable, not known for aggressive or even pro-active deployments, is now offering 300 Mbps in Austin.

The result is a market that in fairly short order should show us what actual broadband competition in the United States was supposed to look like:

"Grande's entry suggests it isn't only large, national businesses that can compete when it comes to offering high-speed broadband. Austin is fast becoming the site of an arms race among broadband providers at a time when many U.S. communities are dominated by one or perhaps two companies. But there's a good reason for that: The city is already known for its forward thinking. Thanks in part to conferences like SXSW, university students and big health-care centers, Austin has become "a mecca for creative and entrepreneurial people," according to Google."

Granted this isn't all sunshine and roses. It should be noted that at the moment nobody in Austin is actually signed up for a 1 Gbps connection yet. This being AT&T, their version of competition (since it's so unfamiliar to them) is also a little, uh, creative. The company will only offer you that 1 Gbps line for $70 if you agree to be snooped upon by AT&T's "Internet Preferences" deep packet inspection technology, which monitors and monetizes all of your browsing data. Otherwise you'll pay $100 a month, which AT&T amusingly insists is a "$30 savings." AT&T's 1 Gbps connections are also actually 300 Mbps connections until upgrades are finished later this year, and they're mostly being aimed at higher-end developments under the pretense of a broader deployment.

That leads me to the fact that while Google Fiber has resulted in some real competition in the very-limited number of locations they operate, they've also spawned a new phenomenon I've affectionately labeled "fiber to the press release." That's where a company proudly crows that they're offering 1 Gbps lines in a press statement, without actually saying where, when or to how many users. Our press being as they are, nobody bothers to actually ask those questions. This effectively has resulted in several companies proclaiming they're investing in cutting edge networks without actually, uh, doing much of that. The announcements are a bit theatrical in nature but tend to be entirely ambiguous when it comes to hard data (the branding for these phantom services, however, is usually lovely).

At the same time the 1 Gbps mark seems to have captured the nation's imagination, even if most people have no idea what to do with that much speed (which is a good thing). Still, Austin's going to see more robust broadband competition than 90% of the nation, and it's all thanks to a search engine that was pissed off about the state of broadband competition and decided to do something about it. Hopefully there are a few more deep-pocketed dreamers out there that are unwilling to settle, because the country needs a lot more help lighting a fire under all-too-comfortable mono/duopolies.

Filed Under: austin, broadband, competition, isp, texas
Companies: at&t, google, time warner cable

School District Still Using Default Login For Admin Account Surprised To Learn Its Site Has Been Hacked

from the the-password-is-'password'-but-with-a-1 dept

A Texas school district is learning the hard way about website security basics. If you'd like to keep your site from being compromised, the very least you can do is reset the default login. According to a post at Hackforums, the Round Rock Independent School District of Austin, TX was using the following name and password for its admin account. (h/t to Techdirt reader Vidiot)

hacked - idiots used default login/pass

u; admin
p; admin1

Once compromised, the hacker(s) dropped sexual terminology, racist statements and a few memes all over the Round Rock ISD site. The "Welcome" splash screen was altered to deliver the following "warning:"

ATTENTION PARENTS AND STAFF: REDDIT HAS BEEN RAIDING ALL OF THE WEBSITES IN ROUND ROCK ISD AND POSTING PORNOGRAPHIC IMAGES. PLEASE REFRAIN FROM USING ANY ROUND ROCK ISD WEBSITES UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. THANKS

Needless to say, this wasn't an official message from the school. Additional text next to the principal's photo noted that Caldwell Heights Elementary was a "Jewish Internet Defense Force (JIDF) World School" and that the school's goal was to "develop strong partnerships" with parents and "touch every child -- especially the littler ones." The "statement" was signed by "moot."

Another page features an apology from the principal ("Sorry for the AIDS") and a copy-pasta spinoff of the Navy SEAL rant meme that takes the memorable posturing and sweary proto-military threats and spins them into a defense of every slighted non-white male ever.

The district's reaction to this hacking has been particularly hilarious and prone to over-sensitive overstatements, especially if its hands-off approach to security provided the hole for the hackers to waltz on through.

"We have a third party managing the site (SharpSchool) and we have instructed them to take their time getting everything back up and running," said JoyLynn Occhiuzzi from the Round Rock ISD. "We want them to pull everything together and protect as much information as possible about how this happened so we can make sure it doesn't happen again."

Well, I would assume changing the login and password was at the top of the To Do list. This may not entirely be the district's fault. SharpSchool likely bears some of the blame here, especially if it never bothered to ensure the admin login was something stronger than admin/admin1.

"It's disappointing that someone would take the time to hack into our websites…"

Yes, it's "disappointing" that someone would have to try more than a handful of variations of the World's Dumbest Passwords before being granted access to the back end.

The site remained down for a few days, replaced with a placeholder image and a somewhat cheery apology. Local police say they will press charges if they manage to find the hacker(s) behind the defacement. The school district has also made statements along the same lines, but finding who's responsible will be a considerably harder than accessing the site without permission.

The altered message on the welcome screen pinned the blame on Reddit, but considering its obviously fake origin, it probably shouldn't be trusted.

The Houston Chronicle article contains this sentence which strains credulity to its breaking point.

Many of the pages can't be printed but one did name a group "9gag'' as being behind the "raid" that came from their "mother's basement."

Given Reddit's antipathy towards 9gag, this would seem to swing the finger of blame back on the Front Page of the Internet. Of course, the internet is filled with people and groups who hate 9gag, so that's hardly conclusive. The faux signature appended to the principal's photo ("moot") would seem to implicate 4chan, but Not Your Personal Army doesn't really sign its work. And the fact that the actual principal (Barbara Bergman) wasn't doxed and scattered across the internet would seem to indicate that the Internet Hate Machine didn't perform this particular defacement.

The details that have been made public indicate a rather amateurish job. There's a lot of namedropping going on, but a school site with an unfortunate login/password combination is hardly the sort of target these "groups" would expend much energy hassling.

Considering no real damage was done (other than a few people being offended), perhaps the district should just count its blessings and change the damn password. No data was lost and whatever downtime resulted from the defacement should be borne cost-wise by the third party paid to run the site(s). Prosecuting some low-level vandal for this temporary inconvenience won't prevent anyone from doing this sort of thing in the future. The easiest way to dissuade bored hackers is to put up at least a tiny bit of resistance in the security department -- something a simple login/password change months ago would have ensured.

Filed Under: austin, hacked, passwords, round rock school district, school district

With Google Fiber On The Way, AT&T Fiber Customers Receive Free Boost To Connection Only 976 Mbps Slower Than Google's Connection

from the loosening-the-artificial-cap dept

With the threat of Google's fiber expansion making real competition a reality in some markets (rather than the perceived competition where multiple cablecos and ISPs offer middling service while offering small discounts or limited time price breaks), AT&T is now being forced to upgrade its existing service in the affected area, or at least, to pay it some lip service. Its press release following the news read more like a Bart Simpson quote: "We can't promise to try. But we'll try to try."

It appears AT&T is actually doing at least a little something for its existing fiber customers in Austin. Austin members of the DSLReports boards are reporting that AT&T has removed the governor (or loosened it, anyway) on its fiber connections, bumping the speed up to nearly 2.5% of Google's offering.

I called to cancel U-Verse because Time Warner offers Docsis 3.0 speeds for far cheaper in the Austin area. Uverse told me that select FTTH customers can now get 24/3 instead of the previous cap of 18/1.5. They just have to send a "special" technican to upgrade my equipment. I am letting them come and try because I don't believe it.

Why aren't these fiber customers already enjoying vastly improved speeds over other U-Verse subscribers? Why has it taken the threat of a real competitor to remove the artificial cap AT&T installed? Apparently, it's because AT&T wants to treat all of its customers fairly and ensure they receive the same lousy connection speed.

While AT&T took the cheaper route when upgrading portions of their network to fiber to the node, the company has historically offered fiber to the home to a few locations (less than a few hundred thousand), primarily in upscale housing developments. While those lines are capable of significantly higher speeds, AT&T has traditionally capped those users at the same speed as other U-Verse users. The company told me in 2007 this was to create a "more consistent experience."

Consistent under-performance is consistent.

That means you have users on cutting-edge fiber infrastructure, in some places seeing downstream speeds of just 6 Mbps -- and upstream speeds of just 1.5 Mbps.

So, while this speed bump may be appreciated, it is long overdue. The fact is fiber customers should have surpassed 24/3 a long time ago, rather than making do with a small, tossed off bit of faux largesse from AT&T. An incremental boost like this, especially on a fiber connection, isn't going to be enough to keep AT&T customers from lining up for Google Fiber. Even if AT&T begins making more aggressive moves, it's highly doubtful its customers believe it will ever match Google's connection speed. As Karl Bode says:

Given these past speed issues, this is why most AT&T customers will believe 1 Gbps only when it's up and running.

Exactly. Time Warner Cable, facing direct competition from Google Fiber, flat out stated there was no demand for this connection speed and that it would certainly be happy to provide 1Gbps connection should anyone prove they actually needed it. Translation: probably never. AT&T's slippery press release "nailed down" pretty much the same approximate timeframe. It's clear competition will have some positive effect for those in the covered areas. I'm sure TWC and AT&T are both happy a nationwide Google expansion would be prohibitively expensive, allowing them to continue providing subpar connection speeds and terrible customer service.

Filed Under: austin, broadband speeds, competition, fiber
Companies: at&t, google

Hours After Google Announces Google Fiber In Austin, AT&T Pretends It, Too, Will Build A 1 Gigabit Network There

from the so...-competition-works? dept

As you've probably heard, this morning Google confirmed the rumors that Austin, Texas would be the second city in which Google Fiber is rolled out. Google still appears to be treating this as an experiment, rolling it out in just a few areas, but it's still worth watching what happens. For example, within hours of Google making the announcement, AT&T rushed out a somewhat hilarious press release insisting that it, too, would build a 1 gigabit fiber network in Austin. No one actually believes this is true. What you're seeing is a bit of gamesmanship, but which reveals something interesting. First up, AT&T is clearly using this to complain about the deal terms by which Google got the rights of way in Austin. Google, famously, got Kansas City to kick in all sorts of concessions that made it extra favorable for Google to build its network there. No doubt, the city of Austin offered similar benefits to Google to be city number two. And, so, within AT&T's press release, there's this little tidbit:

Today, AT&T announced that in conjunction with its previously announced Project VIP expansion of broadband access, it is prepared to build an advanced fiber optic infrastructure in Austin, Texas, capable of delivering speeds up to 1 gigabit per second. AT&T's expanded fiber plans in Austin anticipate it will be granted the same terms and conditions as Google on issues such as geographic scope of offerings, rights of way, permitting, state licenses and any investment incentives.

In other words, sure, sure we'll build a 1 gigabit fiber network. Just give us the same favorable terms you gave Google. Basically, AT&T's announcement has little to do with actually offering a competing service, but much more about calling attention to the favorable terms that cities are giving Google to get Google Fiber. Now, this is something that deserves reasonable scrutiny. Some are quite understandably concerned that it's not right if Google gets extra-favorable terms. But, let's look at the real history here. Municipalities have been giving AT&T and other incumbents incredibly favorable deals for years, and AT&T has tended to return the favor by providing the bare minimum in quality of service to its broadband customers, while focusing most of its efforts on trying to block any hint of competition from showing up.

Google, on the other hand, seems to be using these incentives to offer a much higher level of service, and the early reviews from Kansas City have been fantastic. In short, both companies have been able to squeeze concessions and favorable deals out of the cities in question. One of them pocketed the cash and gave customers the bare minimum. The other focused on providing a truly impressive level of service.

The other oddity in all of this is just how much this press release makes AT&T look bad. Beyond the petty "hey, give us what Google got" statement, this press release more or less confirms exactly the message that AT&T has been trying to deny for years: that when there's real competition, then AT&T will invest in making a better service. Without the competition, AT&T is happy to provide crappy service. But within hours of real competition showing up, it suddenly claims it'll offer a better level of service? Is that really the message it wants to send? If I'm any city, state or federal government in the US at this point, I look at today's announcement and say, "well, AT&T just admitted that they'll offer better service if there's real competition, so how do we make sure there's real competition?" Given how hard AT&T has fought back against real competition in the broadband space for the past decade, it's not clear this is the message AT&T really should be spreading.

Filed Under: austin, broadnbad, competition, fiber, rights of way, sweetheart deals, texas
Companies: at&t, google

The Internet Puts Up A Billboard In Front Of Lamar Smith's Office: Don't Mess With The Internet

from the will-he-notice? dept

You may recall that, back in March, on a whim based on a discussion at SXSW, Alexis Ohanian and Erik Martin (from Reddit) teamed up with Holmes Wilson (from Fight for the Future) to crowdfund a billboard to go up in Lamar Smith's district in Austin. It turns out that you internet people don't mind paying after all, and helped fund two billboards which have now gone up in Smith's district, including one across the street from his office in San Antonio, and a second one on "Lamar Blvd" in Austin Oh, and Ohanian's BreadPig is selling a "Don't Mess with the Internet" t-shirt, where each sale will help fund Fight for the Future and its new Internet Defense League -- which you should join, in part because if you do cool things to help defend the internet, they hand out totally awesome medals.

Filed Under: alexis ohanian, austin, erik martin, fight for the future, holmes wilson, lamar smith, reddit, san antonio, sxsw

Surveillance Nation: Austin Library Won't Let You Wear Baseball Caps Because Cameras Can't ID You

from the freedom-to-wear-caps dept

JJ sends over the latest news of our surveillance society gone nutty. It seems that the Austin Public Library in Texas has officially decided to ban baseball caps, sunglasses and hoodies. What does that have to do with surveillance? The Austin American-Statesman has the word:

The library came up with the rule so that customers can't hide their faces, said Toni Grasso, the libraries' administrative manager in the office of programs and partnerships.

"We have security cameras in place, so like banks and courthouses, we're asking people to remove sunglasses and anything that hides the face, for the security of staff and customers," Grasso said.

As someone who (really, not kidding) frequently goes to my local library wearing all three of these "banned" items, I'm hoping this sort of thing doesn't become a trend.

Filed Under: austin, caps, hoodies, library, safety, sunglasses, surveillance

Austin Police Chief To Go After Anonymous Commenters

from the you-need-a-thicker-skin dept

Slashdot points us to the news that the police chief in Austin Texas is so upset about anonymous commenters, or commenters pretending to be police officers, on various internet websites that he's going to start going after them. His complaint? Those comments "erode public trust in the [police] department." Funny, I would think that wasting public resources going after a bunch of random internet commenters rather than focusing on actual crime prevention and solving would do a lot more to erode the public trust in the police department.

Filed Under: anonymity, austin, commenters, texas

Yes, A Newspaper Can Survive If It Focuses On The Community

from the well,-look-at-that... dept

When it comes to newspaper business models, we've been saying over and over again that the problem has never been about "free" vs. "paid" but the fact that newspapers have never done a very good job enabling their communities. It comes from the fact that many newspapers incorrectly think they're in the business of selling news to people. That's never really been true. They've always been in the business of selling their community to advertisers. And if they do things to drive that community away (or to fail to keep up with other, competing communities) they shouldn't be surprised that their business disappears as well.

As evidence of how focusing on the community can work wonders for newspapers, just check out this recent column by David Carr (who just a week or so ago had jumped on board the "all newspapers should collude to start charging" bandwagon). In it, Carr talks about the success of the Austin Chronicle, the local newspaper in Texas that has been able to weather the "newspaper business model crisis" just fine while (get this!) giving away its newspapers for free. But, it's also built up the famous South by Southwest event that just happened in Austin, and has become a huge community builder for Austin. In fact, many now identify the city with SxSW -- and that only helps the Chronicle. While others are shutting down, the Austin Chronicle isn't looking to lay anyone off. Business is off a bit due to the general downturn, but the paper doesn't have massive debts and seems to have a really loyal following among locals who recognize the overall value it adds to the community. Meanwhile, it's the newspapers that haven't bothered to really connect with their communities that are suddenly demanding those community members pay -- and are suddenly offended when people tell them "no thanks"?

Filed Under: austin, community, newspapers, south by southwest
Companies: austin chronicle

Teacher Threatens Linux Distributor: No Software Is Free

from the corrupting-the-youth-with-linux dept

Rich Kulawiec writes in to point to the rather amusing story of a teacher in Austin, Texas who supposed sent a threatening letter to the HeliOS Project, which builds and provides Linux computers to disadvantaged or "exceptionally promising" students. The letter complains that in distributing free software, the teacher believes it's likely that something illegal is happening, and everyone should be using Windows. To be honest, the letter is so over-the-top that it almost makes me wonder if it's real. It feels a bit like a put on of the drug wars (especially the whole "I along with many others tried Linux during college..."). However, if it's real...

....observed one of my students with a group of other children gathered around his laptop. Upon looking at his computer, I saw he was giving a demonstration of some sort. The student was showing the ability of the laptop and handing out Linux disks. After confiscating the disks I called a confrence with the student and that is how I came to discover you and your organization.

Mr. Starks, I am sure you strongly believe in what you are doing but I cannot either support your efforts or allow them to happen in my classroom. At this point, I am not sure what you are doing is legal. No software is free and spreading that misconception is harmful. These children look up to adults for guidance and discipline. I will research this as time allows and I want to assure you, if you are doing anything illegal, I will pursue charges as the law allows. Mr. Starks, I along with many others tried Linux during college and I assure you, the claims you make are grossly over-stated and hinge on falsehoods. I admire your attempts in getting computers in the hands of disadvantaged people but putting linux on these machines is holding our kids back.

This is a world where Windows runs on virtually every computer and putting on a carnival show for an operating system is not helping these children at all. I am sure if you contacted Microsoft, they would be more than happy to supply you with copies of an older verison of Windows and that way, your computers would actually be of service to those receiving them..."

The guy's response to the letter is equally over-the-top. But, if the letter is true, he's right that supporters of free software still have quite a long ways to go in their education campaign. Perhaps they should start suing. After all, the RIAA and MPAA have been telling us that lawsuits=education campaign for years now...

Filed Under: austin, free software, helios project, linux, teacher