Bad telecoms regulatory decisions won't be saved by non-existent good will

6 September 2017 by Steve Blum
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The game isn’t over when the California Public Utilities Commission votes to impose conditions on big mergers. Telecoms companies will immediately challenge decisions, administratively and in court, and try to wriggle out of obligations by any means possible.

Comcast is doing that now in Vermont, where that state’s public utilities commission required it to build out 550 miles of line extensions into rural areas. According to an article by Jon Brodkin in Ars Technica…

The company’s court complaint says that Vermont is exceeding its authority under the federal Cable Act while also violating state law and Comcast’s constitutional rights…

Comcast’s complaint also objected to several other requirements in the permit, including “unreasonable demands” for upgrades to local public, educational, and governmental (PEG) access channels and the building of “institutional networks (“I-Nets”) to local governmental and educational entities upon request and on non-market based terms”…

Comcast often refuses to extend its network to customers outside its existing service area unless the customers pay for Comcast’s construction costs, which can be tens of thousands of dollars.

… More

Telco, cable wish list queued up in California legislature

5 September 2017 by Steve Blum
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Two major bills that telephone and cable companies want are set for floor votes in Sacramento, and one they don’t want is in deep freeze, as the legislative session enters its final, hectic two weeks. At the end of last week the senate and assembly appropriations committees okayed assembly bill 1665 and senate bill 649, respectively.

AB 375, on the other hand, remains stuck in the senate rules committee. It’s an attempt to write Internet privacy protections that were scrapped by the federal government into California law.… More

Dumb reasons don't make mobile lifeline plans smart

4 September 2017 by Steve Blum
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Sorry, only one per household.

Lifeline broadband and telephone subsidies can be used to buy either mobile or wireline service. But that could end. Nineteen republican members of the U.S. house of representatives signed onto a draft bill that would scrap that option.

The lifeline program run by the Federal Communications Commission is routinely slammed by republicans – including those on the FCC itself – as a swamp of fraud and abuse, with wireless options frequently singled out as particularly problematic.… More

FINsix Dart universal power adaptor works great, when it works

3 September 2017 by Steve Blum
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From pitch to product, with some bumps in the road.

It’s not often I have the pleasure of actually using a product that’s made it from the fundraising stage all the way to the open market. One of the top finishers at the 2014 Showstoppers LaunchIt beauty pageant, held during the Consumer Electronics Show, was FINsix, which was pitching a small, universal power supply for laptops and phones. It took second place, largely, it seemed, on its personal appeal to the judges who, as I noted at the time, had a “gleam in their eyes as they thought about trading two power bricks for one that’s barely bigger than a plug alone”.… More

Open access does not guarantee open broadband competition

2 September 2017 by Steve Blum
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When national governments run mobile broadband networks, they do not run them well. That’s the unsurprising conclusion of a white paper published by GSMA, the trade association for mobile network operators that rely on GSM standards to one extent or the other – in other words, pretty much all of them.

A trade association that lobbies governments to advance the interests of its members might be expected to oppose what amounts to nationalisation of mobile network infrastructure and operations.… More

Comcast has to defend its bill at will tactics in court

1 September 2017 by Steve Blum

Customer service.

A federal judge in San Francisco said that two northern California men have a legitimate case to make against Comcast, as they pursue a class action suit aimed at stopping Comcast from piling fees on subscribers anytime it feels like it. Dan Adkins and Christopher Robertson say they signed up for an advertised deal, and Comcast can’t change it without their consent.

Judge Vince Chhabria (no typo, that’s how he spells it) said that, depending on the facts, they have a makable case and Comcast will have to fight it out in court…

It is plausible to infer from the complaint that, by clicking “Submit Your Order,” Adkins and Robertson agreed to pay Comcast’s advertised price, plus taxes and government-related fees, in exchange for the services Comcast offered them.

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California senate committee votes to give telcos $300 million for slower broadband

31 August 2017 by Steve Blum
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The California legislature continued its love affair with telecommunications companies on Wednesday. The senate’s energy, utilities and communications committee, chaired by Ben Hueso (D – San Diego), voted 8 to zero to approve assembly bill 1665 in its current form and send it on to the senate appropriations committee for further review.

It wasn’t exactly unanimous. One senator, Mike McGuire (D – Healdsburg), who had opposed the bill, abstained when the vote was taken, as did two republicans, Anthony Cannella (R – Merced) and Mike Morrell (R – Rancho Cucamonga).… More

CenturyLink-Level 3 deal blows past key California deadline

30 August 2017 by Steve Blum
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Too late.

The already poor chance that CenturyLink would get permission from the California Public Utilities Commission to buy Level 3 Communications before the end of September took another steep nosedive yesterday. A 5:00 p.m. deadline came and went without a draft decision – yes or no – being released by the CPUC administrative law judge (ALJ) and commissioner handling the case.

In the normal course of business, proposed decisions have to go through a 30 day public review and comment process before being voted on by commissioners.… More

Draper launches second effort to split California, this time into three states

29 August 2017 by Steve Blum
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What do you do when the public isn’t buying your product? You slap a 50% discount on it, of course. That’s what Tim Draper has done with his Six Californias campaign. In his latest filing with the California attorney general, Draper describes California as “nearly ungovernable” and outlines his new vision for breaking the state up into three parts (h/t to Fred Pilot at the Eldo Telecom blog for the pointer).

His plan splits off a strip of coastal counties, running from Los Angeles County north through Monterey and San Benito counties, and naming it – wait for it – California.… More

California upgrades Altice's fiber, but the favor isn't returned

28 August 2017 by Steve Blum
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California didn’t make the cut for Altice’s fiber to the home upgrades, but it has upgraded one town here to gigabit-level cable modem service. In a press release praising its own FTTH ambitions, Altice was careful to point out that only three contiguous northeastern states are on its fiber list. States which also happen to be where it faces competition from Verizon’s FiOS FTTH service…

Design and construction have commenced for several hundred thousand homes concurrently in areas of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

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