Telecommuters in Point Reyes Station are grumbling
about Internet-service blackouts over the past month.
"It’s coming to the point now where it’s
affecting me economically," said Gabe Lipman, a web designer who
works from his home in Point Reyes Station. "When you talk to customers
on the phone and you’re a web professional and you say, ‘my
Internet Service Provider is down,’ it just doesn’t look good."
The main Internet Service Provider for Point Reyes
Station is Horizon Cable, which also serves Novato, Inverness, Dillon
Beach, Olema, and Stinson Beach. Horizon is a small company, with five
full-time employees, based in Novato. Owner Kevin Daniel said the interruptions
began in November, when A-Link, a subcontractor for Horizon, began updates
to their equipment in West Marin.
A-Link is a "backbone" provider that routes
Internet signals outside of the area immediately covered by Horizon’s
cable network.
"They ran into some trouble in terms of converting
over to the new equipment," Daniel said. "Things just kind
of snowballed into things not working as they should. Unfortunately
for us, our hands were kind of tied – it was equipment we don’t
have any capacity to troubleshoot.
Horizon learned of the problems from angry customers.
A-Link president Darin Scott said this was because a glitch in his company’s
customer database resulted in Horizon not being notified that the maintenance
would take place.
The Internet blackouts, he said, have been caused
by problems with equipment compatibility.
"It’s clearly our fault," Scott said.
"Horizon should not take a bum rap." Scott said that Internet
problems here should end after this weekend, when the last of the upgrades
are scheduled to be completed.
Horizon sent out an email to its customers here last
Wednesday apologizing for the Internet failures. Lipman said the company
should go further, and offer a month’s service free of charge.
Rural telecommuter society
Keith Matthews, a computer technician and Internet
consultant who lives in Point Reyes Station, said that West Marin, an
attractive region removed from the centers of commerce, is especially
dependent on the Internet.
"We rely on [the Internet] more than people in
the city, because this is our connection to the city," Matthews
said. "It makes it possible for us to live here and work. I mean,
we don’t have a factory."
Lipman said that Internet service has reached the
status of a public utility. Service providers like Horizon, he said,
should be held up to the same standards as companies like PG&E.
"We’re not in the 90s anymore where if your
Internet was down you missed a couple of emails and couldn’t browse
web pages," he said. "It’s now to a point where Internet
service is almost as essential as power and water."
But federal law prohibits local governments from regulating
Internet service providers as they would other utilities. "The
county doesn’t have any kind of regulatory power," said Liza
Crosse, aide to Supervisor Steve Kinsey, adding that she had nevertheless
called Horizon after hearing of service interruptions and been assured
that the problems were being fixed.
Customers want options
Lipman said that the antidote to what he views as
poor Internet service is not governmental interference, but competition
from other companies.
Horizon now has a virtual monopoly on Internet service
in West Marin. One other company, TeleScience Networks, provides wireless
Internet service to a small number of people in West Marin. The company
was started last year by Inverness artists Tim Edwards and Katherine
Williams, and has received high marks from its customers. Its rates,
however, are significantly higher than those of Horizon.
Satellite service is also offered in West Marin, but
installation can cost up to $600. The download speeds are a quarter
as fast as cable and upload speeds are slower than a dial-up connection.
In Bolinas, satellite is the only semi-high-speed option, since there
is no DSL or cable-Internet access.
Those in West Marin who get good cell-phone reception
can also use new cellular Internet service. Verizon and Cingular now
offer wireless internet access through laptop cards.
"When you introduce competition that’s serious
competition into a marketplace, I think issues like this tend to be
self-correcting," Lipman said. "When you have a monopoly you
don’t have to make a good product."