Federal broadband funding guide is mostly old news

3 October 2015 by Steve Blum
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Click to read it for yourself.

A new booklet published by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration outlining ways to finance broadband projects contains no surprises. It’s a summary of federal programs that fund, or might fund, broadband infrastructure and it’s useful as a reference. But there’s no new money on the table, and many of the programs listed are either restricted in scope – Appalachia or tribal areas, for example – or are narrowly focused on specific users, such as libraries or public housing residents.… More

Wireless local loop is looking faster, says AT&T

2 October 2015 by Steve Blum
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Might work fine here.

AT&T is starting to position its wireless substitute for wireline broadband service as able to meet the Federal Communication Commission’s 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload standard. According to a story in FierceWireless…

AT&T said it is currently testing fixed wireless local loop (WLL) technology in select areas of the country with local residents who want to try the service, including in Alabama, Georgia, Kansas and Virginia, and is seeing speeds of around 15 to 25 Mbps.

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FCC muni preemption decision could limit California broadband oversight

1 October 2015 by Steve Blum
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CPUC’s broadband authority depends on federal law.

Tennessee and North Carolina are challenging the FCC’s ruling earlier this year that preempted state restrictions on municipal broadband. The central argument is whether congress gave the FCC sufficient authority to override what is usually reckoned to be the ironclad state responsibility of telling local governments what they can and can’t do. The FCC based its ruling on section 706 of the telecommunications act of 1996, which says…

The Commission and each State commission with regulatory jurisdiction over telecommunications services shall encourage the deployment on a reasonable and timely basis of advanced telecommunications capability to all Americans…by utilizing, in a manner consistent with the public interest, convenience, and necessity, price cap regulation, regulatory forbearance, measures that promote competition in the local telecommunications market, or other regulating methods that remove barriers to infrastructure investment.

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Charter CFO paints rosier than real merger schedule for investors

30 September 2015 by Steve Blum
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Sure, dude. How fast do you want it?

You gotta love optimists. Christopher Winfrey, the chief financial officer of Charter Communications, is telling investors that the proposed purchase of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks will be done and dusted by the end of the year. That jet propelled schedule is fuelled by the assumption that the Federal Communications Commission and the California Public Utilities Commission know everything they need to know already, because it’s the same bunch of companies that were involved in the failed Comcast mega-merger, minus Comcast.… More

No surprises as CPUC begins review of Charter-Time Warner-Bright House deal

29 September 2015 by Steve Blum
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Charter Communications is asking the California Public Utilities Commission for permission to buy cable systems belonging to Time Warner and Bright House Networks. Yesterday saw the opening round of wrangling over the transaction, with a CPUC administrative law judge hearing from lawyers representing the companies involved on the one side, and representatives from the CPUC’s office of ratepayer advocates, consumer lobbying groups and a couple of cities on the other (full disclosure: one of those representatives was me).… More

Santa Cruz muni fiber threat forces Comcast upgrade

28 September 2015 by Steve Blum
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After years of blowing off customers, sandbagging local governments and stonewalling regulators, Comcast has finally upgraded its Santa Cruz County service area to what appears to be the same broadband speeds enjoyed to the north in Silicon Valley and to the south in Monterey County. All it took was a single word: competition.

Comcast hasn’t said so, but it’s no coincidence that the upgrade came barely six weeks after the Santa Cruz City Council voted to move ahead with building a city-wide fiber-to-the-home (and business) system in a public/private partnership with Cruzio, a local Internet service provider.… More

There's more network traffic at 4K levels, but can growth be sustained?

27 September 2015 by Steve Blum
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Home field advantage.

The prospects for widespread adoption of 4K television technology and programming – often referred to as ultra high definition – are slowly getting better in the U.S. According to Akamai, which just released its State of the Internet report for the second quarter of 2015, about a fifth – 21% – of U.S.-based users on its network are running at 15 Mbps or better, which ranks 18th best in the world. That’s the minimum service level needed to stream 4K programming.… More

Energous technology promises wireless charging at a distance

26 September 2015 by Steve Blum
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Big charger with a small beam.

The easiest way to charge a wearable gizmo is to do it while you’re wearing it. Taking off a fitness monitor, say, every night is a fast route to leaving it behind every morning. Energous Corporation has a way to make that happen.

The company demoed its short range wireless charging technology at Pepcom’s Mobile Focus event in San Francisco in May. The idea is to use 5 GHz WiFi transmissions, pinpoint focused by a Bluetooth steering beacon, to charge handheld devices.… More

From a global perspective, California's Internet speeds are pretty damn good

25 September 2015 by Steve Blum
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California has the 11th fastest average Internet speed in the world, according to the latest Akamai State of the Internet report, which looked at Internet traffic over its content delivery network during the second quarter of 2015. Clocking in at 13.7 Mbps, the Californian average is ahead of the U.S., which finished 18th overall with 11.7 Mbps, but behind several European countries – Sweden (16.1 Mbps), Switzerland (15.6 Mbps), Netherlands (15.2 Mbps), Norway (14.3 Mbps), Latvia (14.2 Mbps), Finland (14.0 Mbps) and the Czech Republic (13.9 Mbps) are fourth through tenth – and way behind the top three finishers, South Korea (23.1 Mbps), Hong Kong (17.0 Mbps) and Japan (16.4 Mbps).… More

Tennessee says FCC can't step on states' authority over cities

24 September 2015 by Steve Blum
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Rock solid sovereignty.

The State of Tennessee has offered its basis for challenging the Federal Communications Commission’s decision to preempt state restrictions on local broadband initiatives, making its case in a brief filed with a federal appeals court in Cincinnati.

Tennessee’s top line argument is that congress has no authority under the U.S. constitution to tell states how to manage or delegate authority to subordinate units such as cities and counties. On its own, that probably won’t fly – states have broad but not unlimited discretion.… More