ISP Profile: MSTAR

From dialup to DSL and now to fiber, this provider knows how to shine on open networks.

by Gerry Blackwell [May 29, 2007]

MSTAR, originally launched in 1997 as a dial-up ISP in Utah, is today at the very leading edge of the broadband services industry. About 20 months ago, MSTAR started offering triple-play services—internet, TV, phone—over two municipally-owned fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) networks in Utah.

The two networks are iProvo, owned and operated by the city of Provo, and MetroNet, built and operated by UTOPIA (Utah Telecommunication OPen Infrastructure Agency), a consortium of 14 small cities, including Brigham City and Orem. Fiber to the home means network operators bury cable along residential and commercial roadways. When a home owner or business orders service, the network operator extends fiber the rest of the way to their premises.

In the iProvo and UTOPIA business models, the network operators offer no direct services to subscribers. Instead, they charge commercial service providers such as MSTAR for access to the network. Any service provider can apply to offer services.

There are currently three others on the UTOPIA network: Nuvont Communications (internet and phone) and AT&T and Xmission (both internet only). On iProvo, MSTAR is currently sharing the network with Veracity Communications, which offers business services directly and partners with Nuvont to provide residential triple-play services. MSTAR claims to be the biggest on either network and the only one to offer triple-play services on both.

According to president and CEO Ben Gould, the two networks grew out of frustrations in the communities at decline in bandwidth availability. Gould says an International Telecommunication Union (ITU) report showed the U.S. as fourth in the world in terms of access to bandwidth in 2001—and 16th in 2005. And within the U.S., Utah was in a group of ten states, all of them states where Qwest was the incumbent, at the low end nationally.

"Forward-thinking municipalities could see that not only was the country falling behind, but their communities were falling even further behind," Gould says. "They were approaching third world status." UTOPIA initially tried to work with Qwest to lease fiber rings. "But in the end [the member communities] said, 'That's enough of that. It's infrastructure. We're going to go ahead and provide it ourselves.'"

Gould applauds the decision—naturally. The availability of reasonably-priced fiber to the home from a network provider that, unlike Qwest, does not compete with it makes a huge difference. "From an ISP perspective, it means we can offer really great internet," he says. "Our basic internet offering is 15 megabits per second both ways."

Bandwidth and convergence
And 15 Mbps of high-speed internet access—mind boggling as it sounds to bandwidth-starved ISPs and their customers—is just the beginning. iProvo and UTOPIA MetroNet both deliver 100 Mbps of bandwidth to each home, enough for pay TV, including HDTV channels, and VoIP (Voice over internet Protocol). And both networks will support additional services. MSTAR is looking at adding broadcast-quality video conferencing and home security services.

"Our objective is to create a totally converged environment," Gould says. "That's why we want to bring on those additional services, because it allows us to provide a more converged experience. The obstacles to this in the past were mainly bandwidth. We have enough of it now. The biggest challenge is to find technologies that take advantage of it."

Most vendor solutions compress media to fit down narrower pipes. Aggressive compression puts a greater burden on computers and other devices at each end and often results in degraded quality in streaming media applications such as video conferencing. "We're working with companies to un-compress their solutions so we can move that [processing] overhead on to the bandwidth instead," Gould says. "That will give us a better quality solution in the end."

It also means FTTH providers will have a decided advantage when it comes to offering converged services. Subscribers will be able to display multiple video sources in windows on a TV screen, for example. If a video call comes in while they're watching television, they'll be able to see the caller in a picture-in-picture (PiP) window. Or they could display video from a surveillance camera at their front door, or web pages. Because all the signals are IP-based, they'll be able to do this even if the TV doesn't have a native PiP capability.

"If you look at our competitors, the incumbents," Gould says, "they can't offer that."

Or at least not now. Cable companies use broadcast standards for pay TV and IP for internet and phone, making it more difficult to combine TV with internet or phone in converged services. Phone companies, which use circuit-switched voice for phone and IP for internet and TV, face a similar challenge. But cable companies are beginning to experiment with IPTV and phone companies with VoIP. Some speculate that eventually all network services will be IP. In the meantime, though, FTTH providers like MSTAR have a clear advantage.

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