Everyone is asking us about TV service. We need to pass at least 1,000 homes in Blacksburg with fiber before we think we will be able to offer a package of TV--which we absolutely want to do.

But we are also watching the death of cable TV and satellite services. A new report from Nielsen, the TV tracking firm, shows that 40% of American homes are streaming video over the Internet. This represents a 10% year to year increase. At that rate, there will be few subscribers left on cable and satellite in five more years.

But wait! There's more! The amount of TV being watched live, unsurprisingly, is also down, which makes sense. If you have a Netflix and Hulu subscription, why worry about watching something at a particular time?

What does it mean for Blacksburg? Fiber is going to be very important as more and more programming comes over the Internet. Fiber in a community is not just about economic development--it is also about quality of life, and young professionals want to live in a place with great connectivity, not old-fashioned copper networks. We want Blacksburg to have the world's best network---one that future-proofs your home and your neighborhood from obsolescence. Our fiber network, on the first day we connect your home, will have the capacity to handle HD video (5 meg per video stream), 4K video (10 Meg per video stream), and 8K video (25 Meg per video stream). It will also be able to handle any level of business class video conferencing that you might want to do from home--two way, three way, five way....need more participants? Our network can handle it. And if you want to connect to the Tech campus, it will be as if you are sitting in your office on campus...from home.

If you live in Oak Manor, Pilgrim's Point, or Mission Hills, we are working on a strategy to get fiber into those neighborhoods more quickly than in some other parts of town. If you would like a Gigabit fiber connection and live in one of those neighborhoods, fill out our survey and let us know.

We have added the Village at Tom's Creek as an option in our Neighborhood list. If you live in VATC and have already filled out a form, that's fine--no need to fill it out again. But if you want fiber in the Village at Tom's Creek and have NOT filled out the survey, stop by our survey page to let us know your interest.

Young people in the 18 to 34 age group continue to ignore traditional cable and satellite TV packages in favor of Internet-based Over The Top (OTT) packages like Netflix and Hulu, among others. With ESPN and HBO joining the OTT revolution, cable and satellite TV are dead, dead, dead, as live sports and specialty programs (think HBO offerings like the hugely popular Sopranos) are now available without that bloated and over-priced cable TV subscription.

The cable companies response to losing market share has been to simply switch their tired old "annual rate increase" strategy to their Internet package, while trying to cram more bandwidth onto the creaky old 20th century copper coax cable.

We have a different strategy: Build modern fiber networks and operate them as a Local Transport Provider (LTP). We are separating the infrastructure from the services completely, which opens the local network up to multiple providers and hundreds of commodity and niche services--customers pick and choose the provider and the services they want. It's called shopping for the best product at the best price. Cable TV and telephone companies are offering the 1950s Soviet economy style of business: "One product, take it or leave it, and we'll tell you what you are going to pay us."

Old model: command economy run by the giant incumbent companies with mediocre service.

New model: free market economy where the customers decides what they want to buy and how much they want to pay.

How can we do that? It's simple. The key concept is the switch to understanding the local network as the Local Transport Provider, completely separate from the Service Provider. We are unbundling the network, completely and unequivocally, which was the original goal of the 1984 and 1996 Telecom Acts.

Trust me...it's finally here, and we are revolutionizing broadband.

Welcome to the world where the Local Transport Provider puts customers first.

Thanks to everyone in the Deer Run and Indian Run neighborhoods who have already filled out a survey! We still need more responses, and if possible would like to hear from as many as possible, even if you say "No" to fiber right now.

People are asking, "What is the next step?"

Once we are reasonably certain we have heard from most of you in a neighborhood (or as many as seems reasonable), we will organize a neighborhood meeting so we can tell you more about our plans and how we would go about building the fiber out in your neighborhood. We will hold the neighborhood meetings in our offices in Blacksburg on a weekday in the early evening--we know folks are busy, and want to make it as easy as possible for you to get the information you need to make a decision.

Thanks again for the enthusiastic response, and be sure to tell your friends and neighbors.

Best regards,
Andrew Cohill
Manager and Founder, Blacksburg Broadband LLC