Six Californias, six challenges drawn by broadband adoption map

20 July 2015 by Steve Blum
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Overall, California’s broadband adoption rate isn’t bad, compared to much of the U.S. or other countries. That’s one of the many pieces of good news in a study released last week in conjunction with the announcement of a federal pilot program aimed at increasing broadband access in public housing. The map above shows the pattern, with dark green coastal areas doing best and the red south poorly.

One thing that struck me about the map, though, was that it also does a fair, if rough, job of outlining the six proto-states proposed last year by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Tim Draper in his failed quest to break up California.… More

Cooperative FTTH looks like a low cost option for a lucky few in California

19 July 2015 by Steve Blum
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Southwestern Riverside County just got in line for a fiber to the home (FTTH) upgrade. The Anza Electric Cooperative submitted an application for $2.8 million from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) to run fiber alongside its existing electric system…

Connect Anza will deploy a fiber optic cable on existing poles and rights of way and establish a network of sufficient capacity to establish high speed, quality internet service for Anza Electric Cooperatives existing service territory covering over 500 square miles, located wholly within western Riverside County.

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Mobile operators take federal subsidies and subsidised customers for granted, for now

18 July 2015 by Steve Blum
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Innovative enough for lifeline subscribers.

The Federal Communications Commission runs a lifeline telephone program that provides subsidies to low income people in order to make sure they have access to at least a minimum level of telephone service. It’s more or less technology-neutral – wireless operators, and particularly re-sellers – have been enthusiastic participants. But as the FCC asks for comments on how its lifeline program should be changed, it notes that even as the mobile industry is constantly improving subscription offers and consumers are increasing use, the subsidised side of the business is stagnant…

It has been over three years since the Lifeline Reform Order, and the standard Lifeline market offering for prepaid wireless service has remained largely unchanged at 250 minutes at no cost to the recipient.

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Competition will make or, likely, break Pacific Grove muni FTTH business model

The business case for a muni fiber-to-the-home play is the number one worry as the Pacific Grove city council considers whether to pay SiFi Networks about a million dollars a year for the next 30 years to build and operate a system.

At its meeting on Wednesday evening, the council heard a presentation from Lee Afflerbach, principal engineer with CTC Consulting, who was asked to evaluate the technology. The questions afterward, though, were all about the business model: would the system make enough money to pay the lease, or would taxpayers be on the hook?… More

Public housing gets broadband love from federal government

16 July 2015 by Steve Blum
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Fresno and Los Angeles made the list of 27 cities and one tribal nation that will be getting federal help in extending broadband service to more public housing residents. The ConnectHome program was announced yesterday by U.S. president Barack Obama. The press release was a hodge podge of details, but it seems to boil down to…

  • Some of the communities – but not LA or Fresno – will get discounted, or even free, Internet access in public housing projects from ISPs, including Suddenlink, Cox, CenturyLink and Google Fiber.
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The municipal broadband policy bank is open

15 July 2015 by Steve Blum
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Withdrawals are free, deposits are welcome.

Writing good broadband policy is a lot easier when you start with good examples. So thanks to a nudge from the Monterey Bay Economic Partnership, I finally got around to doing something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time: post a collection of the best local broadband development policies that I know.

The result is the new Policy Bank page on this website. It has several examples – in both pdf and source formats – of dig once policies, specifications for conduit, requirements for newly constructed (or significantly remodelled) homes and businesses, tools for managing broadband assets, permitting practices, master leases for telecoms facilities, broadband master plans and general plans.… More

Charter starts California regulatory approval quest by telling CPUC a whopper

14 July 2015 by Steve Blum
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Blue indicates likely communities redlined by Charter, although analysis is still in progress. Yellow is where Charter offers broadband. Click for a bigger – 8.5 MB – version.

Hoping to get its proposed purchase of Time Warner and Bright House cable systems approved, Charter Communications filed a formal application with the California Public Utilities Commission earlier this month. Technically, it’s a joint filing of all three companies, but in reading through the claims and arguments, it’s clear that it’s primarily a Charter document.… More

Local agencies would be able to challenge cell tower permits in court, under bill in California senate

13 July 2015 by Steve Blum
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Not so fast.

A bill to put teeth in the FCC’s shot clock rule for local review of permit applications for wireless towers and equipment has been watered down a bit in the California legislature. As it reads now – after being amended twice so far in the senate – it basically says that if a mobile carrier or other wireless telecoms company provides all the necessary information, a permit application for a new site has to be acted on by local agencies within five months and a collocation request within three.… More

Frontier tells CPUC it will expand DSL service in rural California


Click for the full-sized version.

Frontier Communications executives outlined the company’s plans for the Verizon wireline systems it intends to acquire – ex parte communications in regulatory jargon – were made public last week.

The meetings confirmed that Frontier will get the retail businesses – “voice, Internet, VoIP and video service”, including FTTH FiOS systems – while Verizon will keep its mobile network and “other businesses”, which presumably include middle mile and commercial fiber. Verizon owns a lot of that in California.… More

Federal regulators will shoot down big cable deals because big is bad, says analyst

11 July 2015 by Steve Blum
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By its very existence, big cable is a barrier to new broadband infrastructure investment by potential competitors, according to Nancy Rose, a senior administrator at the federal justice department in charge of economic analysis. In a speech she gave to the American Bar Association last month, and posted on the BTIG Research blog, she said that the buying power of big cable companies gives them an advantage in creating video packages that would-be competitors can’t overcome…

There was certainly some suggestion made to us that broadband investments are less attractive, at least at present, if you can’t also get access to low cost video programming and put together a cable-like package…to offer customers.

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