Deny the Comcast merger, don't try to fix it with conditions urges CPUC ratepayer advocates

10 March 2015 by Steve Blum
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If it’s that broke, trash it.

Comments are coming thick and fast regarding the proposed decision by a California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) administrative law judge to approve, with conditions, the mega-merger and market swap between Comcast, Time-Warner and Charter Communications. I’m still working my way through the stack – the CPUC posted the documents yesterday – but one of the filings, from the CPUC’s office of ratepayer advocates (ORA) jumps out.

As it has all along, ORA is urging outright rejection of the transactions…

As the [proposed decision (PD)] correctly concludes, the Joint Applicants [i.e.

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UTOPIA tests everyone pays, everyone gets muni broadband model

9 March 2015 by Steve Blum
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At a crossroads.

The latest report issued by Macquarie Capital as it pushes ahead with an effort to bail out the sinking multi-city UTOPIA municipal fiber-to-the-home project in Utah confronts an inevitable collision between public policy and profitability.

Good public policy requires muni FTTH service to be available to all, whether or not they want it now, or whether their neighbors want it. It’s a defining characteristic of any government-provided service. On the other hand, good business practice – indeed, the defining feature of capitalism – calls for money to be spent where the return on investment will be the highest.… More

Last mile Internet service grows from northern California middle mile project

8 March 2015 by Steve Blum
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Click for a bigger version.

Another state and federally subsidised middle mile project is spawning last mile service in northern California. Plumas-Sierra Telecommunications (PST), which is a subsidiary of the Plumas-Sierra Rural Electric Cooperative, provides Internet service to rural communities in Plumas, Sierra and Lassen counties. It recently filed an application for a $677,000 grant from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) to build out last mile service to 4,400 homes and businesses using middle mile fiber it built using money from the 2009 federal stimulus program and CASF.… More

California's Lost Coast found in a Frontier CASF proposal

7 March 2015 by Steve Blum
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The western edge of Humboldt County is known as the Lost Coast. The name comes from both the wave of depopulation the area experienced during the Depression, and from the fact that its rugged terrain left it largely ignored by state highway construction plans. The area was likewise bypassed by telecoms infrastructure.

Frontier Communications is the local phone company, having taken over the original rural telco that served the area. Don’t even ask about cable.… More

People don't need fast broadband, senator tells FCC

6 March 2015 by Steve Blum
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I wonder if he knows what he’s up against?

While browsing through the FCC’s recently released documents today, I came upon a gem of an exchange between chairman Tom Wheeler and senator Orrin Hatch (R – Utah), regarding the proposed mega-merge and market swap involving Comcast, Time-Warner and Charter. Last month, Hatch wrote a letter to Wheeler and the federal justice department’s top anti-trust attorney, explaining why it would be okay if “a post-merger Comcast would control a substantial proportion of the national fixed Internet broadband market, perhaps as high as 65 percent”.… More

Broadband UTOPIA starts at $23 a month for cities that remain in the game

5 March 2015 by Steve Blum
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Click for the full report.

Only six of eleven Utah cities involved in the UTOPIA fiber-to-the-home system chose to move ahead with a bail out plan proposed by Macquarie Capital, an Australian investment company. As a result, the proposed monthly tax bill (characterised as a “mandatory utility fee”) for homeowners in the reduced project area has jumped from $18 to $20 per month to the current estimate of $22.60 and a cap of $25. That’s just to pay for building out the network to every home and business in those cities.… More

Effort to give FCC all of California's data on Comcast deal

4 March 2015 by Steve Blum
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Adding better dirt to the pile.

The California Public Utilities Commission has amassed a stockpile of proprietary information and confidential analyses regarding the proposed mega-merger and market swap that would put all of Time-Warner’s and nearly all of Charter Communication’s cable systems in California in the hands of Comcast. A utility consumer advocacy group, The Utility Reform Network (TURN), wants all that information turned over to the FCC for its consideration as it likewise evaluates the deal…

TURN recommends…the CPUC provide the FCC with copies of the full confidential versions of the briefs, including all attached declarations and exhibits, and data requests questions and responses of all parties in these consolidated proceedings, giving the FCC the benefit of the analysis and recommendations of all of the parties on the issues that are critical from a California-centric perspective.

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FCC says the dingo ate my decision

3 March 2015 by Steve Blum
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I’ll do it after my nap.

A thousand word blog post explaining why the FCC hasn’t released the text of its decision last week that brings Internet service and infrastructure under common carrier rules boils down to one feeble excuse: we haven’t finished writing it yet.

The explanation, offered by FCC general counsel Jon Salet, is nonsense. It goes on at length about the need for robust internal discussions at the FCC and the necessity of preparing a final document that responds to the points raised by dissenting commissioners…

Commissioners often prepare individual statements expressing their opinions on the order, and those statements are generally first shared with the other Commissioners and staff.

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California legislature considers raising broadband standard to 25 Mbps

2 March 2015 by Steve Blum
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Californians can and should go faster.

While we’re waiting for the FCC to let us know what it actually did in its net neutrality and muni broadband decisions last week, let’s take a look at new broadband development bill that’s in the hopper in Sacramento: assembly bill 238, introduced by assemblyman Mark Stone (D – Santa Cruz).

Stone wants to raise the minimum broadband speed in California to meet the FCC’s recently adopted 25 Mbps down/3 Mbps up standard.… More

Saving the environment doesn’t have to mean choking off local infrastructure and economic growth

1 March 2015 by Steve Blum
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You can protect the coast without littering it with red tape.

To keep Santa Cruz’s tech economy growing, basic infrastructure has to get better. Broadband is a big part of it, but so is housing, transportation and office space. A day long conference in Seaside in January – the kick-off event for the Monterey Bay Economic Partnership – brought business and government leaders together from Monterey, San Benito and Santa Cruz counties to talk about creating the right conditions for an entrepreneurial culture to grow.… More