$25 monthly FTTH tax proposal fades away in Utah

4 March 2016 by Steve Blum
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Roads yes, fiber no.

An everyone pays, everyone gets plan to pay for completion of the Utopia fiber to the home network in Utah appears to be dead (h/t to Fred Pilot at the EldoTelecom blog for the pointer). The financing package was proposed by an Australian company, Macquarie Capital, as a way to finish building out the network in participating Utah cities. The deal that was on the table would have every home and business pay a mandatory utility fee of $25 a month – a tax, in other words.… More

FCC accused of rolling over for Obama

3 March 2016 by Steve Blum
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Click for the big picture.

Republicans in the U.S. senate published a report this week that slammed the way Federal Communications Commission developed and adopted net neutrality rules last year, particularly the influence that president Obama exerted over FCC chairman Tom Wheeler. There is certainly partisan intent behind the report, but along with the rhetoric it also includes emails and other documents that back up what newspapers had already reported: Wheeler’s cherished no lobbyist left behind approach – leave net neutrality rules open to ongoing wrangling by Beltway insiders – was deep sixed after Obama publicly endorsed a comprehensive common carrier approach.… More

California's broadband tax on phone service poses hard choice

2 March 2016 by Steve Blum
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Is it a rock or a hard place?

The ban on state or local Internet access taxes creates a dilemma for policy makers in California. Right now, some broadband infrastructure construction is subsidised by the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF), which gets its money from a relatively small tax on telephone bills.

In other words, telephone customers are paying to improve service and, presumably, reduce costs for broadband subscribers. Nearly all people who buy broadband service are also telephone customers – the CASF tax is applied to mobile and VoIP service too – but the reverse isn’t true.… More

Google might motivate taxpayers to back FTTH

From a city’s perspective, Google Fiber’s new business model – lease existing wholesale fiber, light it up and sell retail service to subscriber-dense buildings – is both an opportunity and a problem. The opportunity is clear: rapid deployment of fast, cheap fiber to the home (and business) service for the lucky few that can get it.

And that’s also the problem. The lucky few part anyway, particularly if municipally-owned fiber is involved. One of the fundamental tenets of city government is that municipal services are available to everyone.… More

Google adopts Santa Cruz muni fiber model in Huntsville

29 February 2016 by Steve Blum
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The City of Huntsville, Alabama is following Santa Cruz’s fiber lead: building a fiber to the home (and business) network and leasing it out to a private operator. In Huntsville’s case the private operator is Google Fiber, while in Santa Cruz the partner is a local independent Internet service provider, Cruzio.

The lead consultants on the Huntsville project – CTC Technology and Energy – applied the lessons they learned working for the City of Santa Cruz…

The partnership model announcement today between Huntsville and Google Fiber is on the model of that pioneered by Westminster, Maryland in 2014 and by Santa Cruz, California last year…

This innovative, shared-risk partnership model puts the locality in the business of building infrastructure, a business it knows well after a century of building roads, bridges, and utilities.

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Broadband tax ban isn't as complete as you might think

28 February 2016 by Steve Blum
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Taxable.

From a subscriber’s point of view, there is no state or local tax, sales or otherwise, on “Internet access service”. It’s banned by federal law. But that doesn’t mean Internet service is completely tax free. Accord to a report by the congressional research service, the Internet service tax ban only applies to end users…

Internet access service is defined as “a service that enables users to access content, information, electronic mail, or other services offered over the Internet and may also include access to proprietary content, information, and other services as part of a package of services offered to consumers”.

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Satellite TV's special circumstances are history

27 February 2016 by Steve Blum
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For more than 20 years, satellite television companies have gotten a pass on many of the federal regulations that apply to their cable competitors. There was a lot of righteous rhetoric in those days about why Direct Broadcast Satellite was unique and should be allowed to live by different rules. But the underlying thinking was that satellite companies were small, cable companies were big and it was in everyone’s interest to foster a competitive alternative.

Those assumptions no longer hold.… More

Google Fiber radically changes its business model

26 February 2016 by Steve Blum
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Evolution happens faster than you expect.

Google Fiber is steering away from the massive capital investment required to build fiber to the home networks – even just in cherry picked fiberhoods – and going after targets of opportunity where someone else is paying for the glass. This week it’s signed a deal with Huntsville, Alabama to be the anchor service provider on a fiber to the premise system that the city will build and followed it up with an announcement that it’ll be using other people’s fiber to offer a very limited kind of service in San Francisco…

By using existing fiber to connect some apartments and condos, as we’ve done before, we can bring service to residents more quickly.

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Verizon hates copper but still loves glass

25 February 2016 by Steve Blum
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Pennsylvania is the latest state to begin an investigation of the condition of Verizon’s wireline networks. It’s in response to a complaint filed by the Communications Workers of America, the union representing Verizon’s employees. According to the petition…

For many years, [Verizon’s Pennsylvania subsidiary] has intentionally failed to maintain its physical plant in non-FiOS areas of the Commonwealth. The state of deterioration is now so advanced that poles are literally falling over, cables are sagging to the ground, animals and insects are infesting broken wiring cabinets…

[Verizon] is failing to provide safe facilities by refusing to 1) replace damaged, bent, and broken poles; 2) repair or replace damaged cross-connect boxes and remote terminals; 3) repair or replace damaged cable; and 4) properly control falling trees and vegetation near its facilities.

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Bipartisan support for simplicity at the FCC

24 February 2016 by Steve Blum
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The Federal Communication Commission’s decision to move ahead with writing new rules for set top boxes was made on a party line 3 to 2 vote. But that’s not the way the vote on the final rules will necessarily go.

FCC chair Tom Wheeler is all for the draft rules as written – no surprise, his office wrote them. So is Mignon Clyburn, a fellow democrat. The third democrat, Jessica Rosenworcel is not as enthusiastic, though…

This rulemaking is complicated…The most successful regulatory efforts are simple ones.

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