Cheap and easy access to California streetlights queued up in Sacramento

12 May 2017 by Steve Blum
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It’s not the complete takeover of municipal property that mobile carriers originally wanted, but the latest published version of senate bill 649 would still require California cities and counties to allow on-demand access to street lights and other “vertical infrastructure” they own, often at a steep discount on the going market rate for leases…

A city or county shall not preclude the leasing or licensing of its vertical infrastructure located in public right-of-way or public utility easements…Vertical infrastructure shall be made available for the placement of small cells under fair and reasonable fees, terms, and conditions, which may include feasible design and collocation standards…Fees shall be tiered or flat and within a range of $100 to $850 per small cell per year, indexed for inflation…

A city or county shall not discriminate against the deployment of a small cell on property owned by the city or county and shall make space available on property not located in the public right-of-way under terms and conditions that are no less favorable than the terms and conditions under which the space is made available for comparable commercial projects or uses.

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CenturyLink takeover of Level 3 challenged in California

11 May 2017 by Steve Blum
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The proposed purchase of Level 3 by CenturyLink faces two formal protests in California. One comes from a coalition of consumer advocacy groups – TURN, the Greenlining Institute and the California Public Utilities Commission’s office of ratepayer advocates – and the other from the California Emerging Technology Fund. Both generally focus on the impact that rolling together two of California’s four major fiber companies would have on broadband availability, on both a wholesale and retail basis.… More

California broadband subsidy bill fertile ground for monopoly mushrooms

10 May 2017 by Steve Blum
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The attempt to redirect California’s broadband infrastructure subsidy program toward incumbent telephone and cable companies and away from independent, gigabit class projects and public housing communities is descending into Alice-in-Wonderland territory. The amended text of assembly bill 1665 is posted, and it begins with a stirring call to action for the greater good of California…

The availability of high-speed Internet access, referred to generically as “broadband” and including both wired and wireless technologies, is essential 21st century infrastructure for economic competitiveness and quality of life.

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FCC denies challenge to San Francisco open ISP access law

9 May 2017 by Steve Blum
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San Francisco’s open access rule for Internet services providers in apartment and condo buildings is legal according to the Federal Communications Commission. Or at least, a federal law originally written for satellite television viewers doesn’t make it illegal.

The FCC summarily denied a challenge to the San Francisco law from a lobbying front organisation that represents companies, mostly small ones, that make a living signing exclusive broadband service deals with landlords and homeowners associations, who then force their tenants and members to use it and, usually, get a cut of the action.… More

CPUC, California lawmakers need to be as rational as a telecoms monopolist

8 May 2017 by Steve Blum
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Update: the CPUC delayed action on the Gigafy Phelan project, and rescheduled it for consideration at its 25 May 2107 meeting.

Frontier Communication’s request to the California Public Utilities Commission to squash a potential competitor is economically rational – it has a monopoly and wants to keep it – which is why it should be rejected. Utility regulators exist to moderate monopolist impulses, not turbocharge them. If the CPUC rejects a $29 million infrastructure grant request from Race Telecommunications for its Gigafy Phelan fiber to the premise project, it will be handing over effective broadband ownership of 8,000 San Bernardino County homes to Frontier, which in turn will redline 3,000 of them because they haven’t been blessed with federal subsidies.… More

Don't force us to subsidize wireless companies, cities ask FCC

7 May 2017 by Steve Blum
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The Federal Communication Commission’s move toward preempting local and state review of wireless infrastructure building plans and locations, and, potentially, their ability to control public right-of-ways and real estate they own, has produced a useful primer on the issues involved, as cities and counties see it. A coalition of more than 1,800 communities filed a joint response to a request from Mobilitie, a mobile infrastructure company, that asked the FCC to give it free rein to install tens of thousands of towers, which it tries to pass off as 120-foot steel utility poles, along public roads (h/t to Omar Masry at the City and County of San Francisco for the pointer).… More

Broadband customers love the message, hate the messenger

People in the U.S. love big shopping, food and consumer electronics brands, but are not high on utility, telecommunications and food delivery companies and banks. That’s one take-away from the spring 2017 edition of the list of “America’s most loved brands” by Morning Consult. What was published was only a partial list – intended to draw you in and sign you up for their service – but even so it offers some interesting insights into the way consumers view the companies and industries that compete for their affections.… More

Back door white house influence voids FCC decisions, says judge

5 May 2017 by Steve Blum
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Who’s controlling whom?

This week’s decision by the federal appeals court in Washington, DC to stand by an earlier ruling that okayed the Federal Communications Commission’s reclassification of broadband as a common carrier service contains an interesting warning to the Trump administration and current FCC chair Ajit Pai. Judge Janice Brown, who dissented and argued that the FCC order was illegal, lambasted off the record interference by the white house in regulatory processes…

If the means by which the President seeks to shape the agency’s deliberations transgress legal procedures designed to ensure public accountability — like notice-and-comment requirements and rules regarding ex parte communications — he undermines the accountability rationale for confining executive Power to the President…Acting with concern for public accountability seems especially salient when the President “and his White House staff” seek to exert influence over the direction of an ostensibly-independent agency…

This Order shows signs of a government having grown beyond the consent of the governed: the collapsing respect for Bicameralism and Presentment; the administrative state shoehorning major questions into long-extant statutory provisions without congressional authorization; a preference for rent-seeking over liberty.

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Fresno broadband subsidy proposal scores two major, welcome firsts

4 May 2017 by Steve Blum
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Update: the CPUC unanimously approved the grant for the CalNeva project in Coalinga and Huron at its 11 May 2017 meeting.

For the first time, a cable company is in line for a broadband construction subsidy from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF). The California Public Utilities Commission is expected to decide whether or not to give CalNeva Broadband a $511,000 grant to upgrade former Comcast cable systems in Coalinga and Huron in Fresno County and provide broadband and television service to 5,500 homes.… More

Frontier makes the case, California's AB 1665 is double disaster

3 May 2017 by Steve Blum
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Frontier’s admittedly “late-filed” attempt to kill grant funding for the Gigafy Phelan fiber to the home proposal in San Bernardino County does a much better job of demonstrating why assembly bill 1665 is a bad idea than it does of effectively arguing against the project.

In addition to reinstating a tax on phone bills and adding $300 million to the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF), AB 1665 would lower California’s minimum broadband service standard to 6 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload speeds.… More