Mayberry DSL

When Qwest balked at bringing broadband to a rural town, locals didn’t just get
mad. They did it themselves.

Carl Oppedahl moved from Manhattan to Ruby Ranch, Colo., in 1997 for the typical reasons that city folk light
out for the country: spectacular views, proximity to world-class ski resorts, miles of open terrain. Tucked into
the mountains west of Denver, this small community is home (or at least second home) to some of Colorado’s
most well-to-do residents, with sprawling, luxurious estates. Posh though it may be, the one amenity that Ruby
Ranch lacked was a decent Internet connection.

By: Joe Ashbrook Nickell- Business 2.0

And that’s precisely what wound up turning the normally affable
Oppedahl, a 46-year-old patent attorney, into the local phone company’s worst nightmare.

With only 40 homes here and no sizable city within an hour’s drive, Qwest (Q) and AT&T (T) Broadband, the two
telecoms operating in Ruby Ranch, had for years balked at fronting the steep costs of delivering broadband to
such a remote locale. In fact, thanks to poorly configured phone lines, Ruby Ranch until recently was saddled
with one of the slowest dial-up connections in the country.

Not anymore. Inside a neighborhood horse barn hangs a 12-inch-wide metal box that’s securing a brighter
technological future for the locals. Known as a DSLAM, it’s the hub of a new broadband service that began in
May. The box isn’t owned by Qwest, AT&T, or any other big telecom. Oppedahl and about a dozen of his
neighbors bought it last year for approximately $5,000. Then they scooped up cable modems, routers, and other
equipment (usually for pennies on the dollar on eBay (EBAY)) and spent the past 10 months setting up the first
subscriber-owned DSL co-op in America. While it all might seem unremarkable to outsiders — it serves 12
homes at average DSL data speeds — it does offer a compelling script for rural towns that don’t want to wait
until the next ice age to join the 21st century.

None of it would have transpired without Oppedahl’s do-it-yourself guile. Bored with Qwest’s standard response
to the town’s frequent pleas for broadband access — maybe someday, definitely not soon — Oppedahl began
hatching a plan of his own. First, using microwave antennas, he figured out how to connect the high-speed
Internet pipeline at his office (3 miles away in the town of Dillon) to his home, and then to the DSLAM in the
barn, which itself was wired to Qwest’s "connect box," the electronic junction of the town’s phone lines. Then, last
spring, he and several neighbors organized a nonprofit co-op to run the service.

All that remained was to wire the DSLAM to homes. Alas, as Oppedahl and everyone else knew, that would
require access to about 7 miles of unused — but Qwest-owned — copper lines known as "subloops," which snake
underground into each home. And that’s when trouble began.

According to Oppedahl, Qwest initially refused to negotiate a deal because the new co-op wasn’t licensed by the
state as a voice telephony company. Then Qwest demanded that the co-op purchase an $11 million insurance
policy to cover unspecified liability. Eventually, the co-op and Qwest went before the state’s public service
commission to resolve the dispute. Perhaps not surprisingly, the commission sided with Qwest on most points —
including the requirement for insurance, though it was discounted to $1 million — but the outcome had a copper
lining: Residents finally got their DSL. Each subscriber now pays $60 in monthly fees, and as Oppedahl cheerfully
points out, the rates will drop as more people sign up. "It’s unfortunate it took so much effort to get this going,"
he says. "But hopefully we paved the way for others."

Qwest reports that several towns have inquired about launching similar co-ops, but that’s no guarantee that the
Ruby Ranch model will cross state lines. Terms of service differ between states and telecom providers, and
up-front costs tend to favor other forms of broadband, such as satellite or wireless, over DSL. Regardless,
Oppedahl can take pride in having disproved Qwest’s initial claim about the prohibitive startup costs. The co-op
spent a grand total of $12,000 to get the network launched — legal fees included.

http://www.business2.com/articles/mag/print/0,1643,42126,00.html