TRANSFORMING INTERNET ACCESS TO

EMPOWER SUBSCRIBERS, COMMUNITIES, SERVICE PROVIDERS, INNOVATION

TRANSFORMING INTERNET ACCESS TO
EMPOWER
SUBSCRIBERS
COMMUNITIES
SERVICE PROVIDERS
INNOVATION

TRANSFORMING INTERNET ACCESS TO

EMPOWER SUBSCRIBERS, COMMUNITIES, SERVICE PROVIDERS, INNOVATION

TRANSFORMING INTERNET ACCESS TO
EMPOWER
SUBSCRIBERS
COMMUNITIES
SERVICE PROVIDERS
INNOVATION

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How Broadband Networks
should work

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Request a
No obligation consultation

ENTRYPOINT WORKS WITH COMMUNITIES TO BUILD AND OPERATE  COMMUNICATIONS NETWORKS THAT SERVE THE PUBLIC INTEREST

EntryPoint Provides

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Consulting Services - Strategy, Feasibility, Planning

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Project Management - Design, Fund, Deploy, Grow, Stabilize

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Advanced Automated Open Access Management Technologies

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Network Monitoring, Customer Support, & Operational Management

EntryPoint offers community leaders a turnkey “Easy Button” approach to deploying advanced communications infrastructure that will provide robust connectivity for ALL, finally solving the Digital Divide.

Networks Managed by
EntryPoint’s Automated Open Access Technology Platform

Deploying Open Access Networks as
Essential Utility Infrastructure

Municipal utilities exist to provide essential services critical for societal success. Today, internet access is an essential service in the modern economy, just like roads, sewer, and electricity.

Providing internet access as an open-access public utility promotes competition among ISPs and provides the maximum level of service at the lowest possible cost.

The need for a utility-based approach stems from the fact that ISP-controlled internet access has led to gaps in affordability, availability, and quality.

ENTRYPOINT’S
PARTNERS CAN COUNT ON​

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Ubiquitous Fiber-Optic Deployments

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Symmetrical Network Speeds (Gig speeds up and down)

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Dedicated Non-shared Networks (You won’t share with your neighbors)

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Subscriber Choice of Multiple ISPs (Switch your ISP in 40 Seconds)

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Cost Savings Through Dynamic Competition and Network Automation

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Changing the
Definition of PPP

(P3 Public Private Partnerships)

Traditional PPP Definition

A municipality partners with a private company to extend connectivity in their community. The municipality and private company fund the new infrastructure that becomes the property of the private partner.

EntryPoint’s New PPP Definition

A municipality partners with EntryPoint to extend ubiquitous fiber connectivity throughout their community. EntryPoint brings together the financing, design, construction, operations, and service provider partners. Some measure of local ownership and governance is preserved long term. The infrastructure is operated as an open-access fiber utility for the benefit of the community.

4 SIMPLE STEPS​

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Partner

Municipality partners with EntryPoint to deploy open access fiber optic infrastructure to ever home and business, with zero financial risk to the community.

Deploy

EntryPoint finances, designs, builds, and deploys fiber utility infrastructure throughout the community.

Stabilize

EntryPoint manages subscriber enrollments, customer service, and the physical infrastructure on behalf of the community.

Convert

Once the network is a financially self-sustaining utility the municipality has the option of transfer the network from private to public ownership.

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Partner

Municipality partners with EntryPoint to deploy open access fiber optic infrastructure to ever home and business, with zero financial risk to the community.

Deploy rocket ship icon

Deploy

EntryPoint finances, designs, builds, and deploys fiber utility infrastructure throughout the community.

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Stabilize

EntryPoint manages subscriber enrollments, customer service, and the physical infrastructure on behalf of the community.

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Convert

Once the network is a financially self-sustaining utility the municipality has the option of transfer the network from private to public ownership.

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Find these steps logical?
So do we, Let’s talk

EntryPoint’s
Mission

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Affordable for All

Internet access can be significantly more affordable if we simply introduce true competition into the system and begin treating the infrastructure as utility (essential) infrastructure. Private broadband providers want to continue to manage internet access as an amenity or luxury item because luxury items command luxury pricing. An underlying assumption for utilities (water, heat, electricity) is that the utility service will be available to everyone, and public utilities are not-for-profit.

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Available to All

An essential service must be available to everyone. For those who have a reliable and affordable internet connection, the digital divide does not exist. For those who cannot afford a wired connection or have unreliable service, the digital divide is a major barrier to essential services and diminishes full participation in society and the economy. The Harvard Business Review reported that during the pandemic, one in five teens, ages 13 to 17, reported being unable to do their homework “often” or “sometimes” because of unreliable Internet access. Twelve million children were without internet access altogether during the pandemic. The digital divide is a solvable problem with the right business model and incentive structure.

 

Both Affordability and Availability issues have led to what many refer to as the Digital Divide in America.

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An Engine for Tomorrow’s Economy

Digital infrastructure is the road system in a digital economy and is now critical to nearly everything that is strategic for a municipality.

In an information economy, the importance of fiber optic infrastructure will continue to grow in significance. With this infrastructure, municipalities will be in a much stronger position to attract high wage, high skilled jobs to support start-ups and entrepreneurial companies dependent on high speed, high capacity, and low-cost digital access. Digital infrastructure that is open to new services and applications and capable of evolving to support next generation applications will become an increasingly important differentiator.

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Why communities Should
Own Digital Infrastructure

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PUBLIC UTILITY INFRASTRUCTURE

Fiber is a public utility because it is the construction, operation, and delivery of essential infrastructure and services in the modern economy. Municipal utilities exist to provide essential services critical for societal success. Like water, sewer, and electricity, internet access is crucial in today’s modern economy. Providing digital access as a public utility will result in maximum service at the lowest possible cost. The need for a utility-based approach stems from the fact that ISP-controlled internet access has led to gaps in affordability, availability, and quality.

ALIGNMENT WITH SUBSCRIBERS

Subscribers want maximum value for minimum cost. Municipal leaders want to enhance livability, increase economic development, enable important anchor institutions like healthcare and education, and be a good steward supporting natural and human resources. As digital infrastructure becomes increasingly important to each of these things, the significance of alignment with the network owner and operator also increases. Municipalities are aligned with the interests of subscribers in enabling a network that delivers maximum value for the minimum cost.

DIGITAL EQUITY

The 2021 bipartisan Congressional infrastructure bill (H.R. 3684, Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act) defines digital equity as “the condition in which individuals and communities have the information technology capacity that is needed for full participation in society and economy of the United States.”

Persistent barriers to universal internet access, availability, affordability, and adoption are now public domain concerns.  The internet has moved from being a luxury item to a necessary feature of modern life—like other utility infrastructure.  The incentives for private industry are not aligned toward resolving persistent gaps and the solutions advanced by private industry have not addressed these critical public needs or provided effective sustainable solutions.  Informed public policies coupled with targeted investments are needed to provide lasting solutions.  These public policies must be informed by the fact that reliable internet is now necessary for access to educational systems, economic activities, healthcare, public safety systems, and many other cultural and societal interactions.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

We live in a digital economy.  Communication infrastructure is now fundamental to commerce and economic development because it provides the foundation for the economy.  Historically, economic development has followed investment in infrastructure for all major systems including transportation, water, sewer, or communications.  Until now, municipalities have mostly remained independent of a governance role over digital infrastructure, allowing private companies to decide where they will build, what they will build, the cost of services, and the kind of innovation that will happen on these systems.  However, the network is now so fundamental to modern life and commerce that municipalities are increasingly taking a more active role over governance of this infrastructure.

OPEN ACCESS NEUTRAL HOST

Open Access is a model that divides the infrastructure and services into two separate systems. The infrastructure is shared by multiple service providers, like road systems and airports. A key goal of an Open Access system is to lower costs and improve service by increasing choice and competition. For an Open Access system to realize its potential, the infrastructure owner must be a Neutral Host. This means the Neutral Host is not incentivized to privilege one service provider over another. Instead, the incentive is to focus on enabling robust shared infrastructure operated on a non-discriminatory basis.

LOCAL CONTROL

Local control over critical infrastructure allows for the needs of residents and business owners in a community to drive policy and regulations.  Today’s dominant ISPs are nationwide companies that are not organized to align the network with local needs and interests.  Digital infrastructure will be positioned to increase local value when it is owned and controlled by a local neutral host.  The digital divide, education, economic development, public safety, and healthcare are all examples of local variables that can best be understood and addressed locally.  Control over network infrastructure will allow a community to leverage the power of the network in advancing communication solutions for these important issues.

NEXT GENERATION NETWORKS

In the next 10 – 15 years, the technologies that are in their infancy now will move from science projects to mainstream society. These are things like self-driving cars, the blockchain, a grid that is dominated by renewable energy, education and healthcare automation and virtualization, and virtual reality technologies. The construct that is “the internet” is going to look very different in 10 years than it looks today. Many of the large technology companies (Tesla, Apple, Facebook, and Google) are focused on a different set of fundamental technologies than we have today. An important question every municipality should be asking is what kind of network will be needed to support these emerging technologies and how can the community anticipate these emerging technologies?

The technologies and models used in municipal networks today have seen very modest changes in the past 20 years. Most networks built today still follow the model established decades ago of shared infrastructure (neighbors share a network connection), asymmetrical (much slower upload than download speed), using very little network automation and virtualization, suffering from vendor lock-in, and are hardware defined rather than software defined. These networks are organized for profitability rather than utility and the lack of a competitive threat has allowed incumbents to preserve the status quo.

Further, in legacy hardware-defined networks, the network is siloed, and you must build a new physical silo for every problem you want to solve. With a Software Defined Network, problems get solved in software at a much lower cost and much faster speed.

A key economic development value differentiator for networks going forward will be resilience to future technology. Networks that are software defined, open to any service or innovation, organized as utility infrastructure, and designed with a data center architecture will likely offer distinct economic development advantages over static networks missing these attributes.

A municipally (publicly) owned fiber network provides the resilience, flexibility, and cost savings needed to attract and foster businesses dependent on advanced digital infrastructure. This also allows municipal leader to put in place long term solutions to lower costs and connect all residents and businesses. The key enabler to connect everyone is for municipalities to own and control its digital infrastructure. Setting policies and utilizing powerful technological tools gives community leader the ability to drive desired outcomes.

Municipal utilities exist to provide services that are critical for societal success. Like water, sewer, and electricity, internet access is crucial in today’s modern economy. Providing digital access as a public utility will result in the maximum level of service at the lowest possible price. The need for a utility-based approach stems from the fact that ISP-controlled internet access has led to gaps in affordability, availability, and quality of service at the lowest possible price. The need for a utility-based approach stems from the fact that ISP-controlled internet access has led to gaps in affordability, availability, and quality.

MODELS THAT WILL NOT SOLVE THE DIGITAL DIVIDE

  1. Rent Seeking
    • Monopoly / Duopoly Control
    • Cartel Pricing
    • Treated as an Amenity
    • Unreliable Legacy Infrastructure
    • Vertically Integrated Systems and Services

    MODELS THAT CAN SOLVE THE DIGITAL DIVIDE

    1. Seeks Highest Value at Lowest Cost
    2. True Competition Among Service Providers
    3. Competitive Market Pricing
    4. Treated as am Essential Service
    5. Dedicated Fiber Optic Connections (not shared)
    6. Infrastructure and Services are Separated
    7. Infrastructure Managed as a Utility