Santa Cruz tech companies need housing to draw talent to attract investment

8 February 2015 by Steve Blum
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Talent and attitude are the key to building a high tech economy in Santa Cruz and Monterey counties. That’s the message from executives at four of Santa Cruz’s hottest start up companies, speaking at the kick off conference for the Monterey Bay Economic Partnership (MBEP) on 29 January 2015.

“There’s not a thriving scene of professionals in Santa Cruz yet,” said Carolyn Hughes, VP of talent and culture at Looker. Her company maintains a shared work space in San Francisco, allows employees to work remotely two days a week, and pays for rooms in a local hotel so commuters can work in Santa Cruz the other three.… More

FCC makes a good call to follow the market and not manage it

7 February 2015 by Steve Blum
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I want to catch up on developments at the FCC this week. The big news, of course, is chairman Tom Wheeler’s press release saying he’s going to put broadband under common carrier rules. If it flies – and all indications are it will – it’ll mark a major turning point in the history of the Internet. I say that with all the authority a bachelor’s degree in history (specifically the historical nexus between California and Japan, if you’re curious) bestows upon me.… More

A tentative first step toward broadband construction policy reform in California

6 February 2015 by Steve Blum
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The California legislature has broadband development – particularly, government obstacles to infrastructure construction – on its agenda this year. Assemblyman Bill Quirk – who represents a swath of the east bay area from San Lorenzo, through Hayward and Fremont, to Sunol – introduced the beginnings of a bill that’s aimed at making it easier to build both wireline and wireless facilities.

At this point, the language in assembly bill 57 is not specific about what it’ll do.… More

Five questions about broadband rules the FCC left hanging

5 February 2015 by Steve Blum
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FCC chairman Tom Wheeler released a summary yesterday of the new, common carrier rules he’s proposing for the broadband industry. His overall intent is clear: bring cable companies, wired and wireless telcos and independent ISPs under one common carrier umbrella, at least as far as broadband is concerned. But it was just a summary. The details won’t be made public until the commission votes on 26 February 2015. There’s a lot that’s not clear. My top concerns are…

Muni broadband systems – public utility law generally treats privately owned utilities differently than publicly owned ones.… More

Radical – and imminent – changes in broadband regulation revealed by FCC chair

4 February 2015 by Steve Blum
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A turning point in the battle.

“Retail broadband service Americans buy from cable, phone, and wireless providers” and “the service that broadband providers make available to ‘edge providers'” will be classified as common carrier services, according to a press release from FCC chair Tom Wheeler this morning. The draft ruling that’s circulating at the FCC now would regulate pretty much any kind of Internet access or service using both title II (the common carrier section) and section 706 (the current source of the FCC’s broadband authority) of federal telecoms law.… More

$55 million in rural broadband grants cancelled by FCC

3 February 2015 by Steve Blum
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FCC avoids a “resource-intensive effort”

The FCC chopped 16 more applicants from its rural broadband experiment program. By removing uncertainty as to the outcome, FCC staff is making a mockery of the experiments, creating the appearance that they want an easy ride, rather than a rigorous process designed to test prospective rural broadband systems and business models. Without the possibility of failure, it’s not an experiment and the lessons learned will be meager.

Last month, 37 winning bidders in the subsidy competition were announced.… More

Billions to be spent replacing Iridium satellites – will the business fly this time?

3 February 2015 by Steve Blum
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A flood of cash was ploughed into building telecommunications systems in the 1990s, with generally bad results for the original investors. Some companies went through bankruptcy, but more or less came out the other side still functioning. Others collapsed completely, with the assets selling at fire sale prices.

The most glorious of those failures had to have been Iridium. Backed by Motorola, it launched a low earth orbit constellation of 66 satellites that were designed to communicate with brick-sized phones from any point on or over the planet.… More

California dreaming is fine, but it doesn't need to end in Texas

2 February 2015 by Steve Blum
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Policy statement.

What’s the crazier idea? Inventing a pod that will carry people hundreds of miles through airless tubes at supersonic speeds, or thinking that hundreds of miles of anything can be built in California in the span of, say, a human lifetime?

Even Elon Musk, who unveiled his plans for the former last year, might find the latter beyond his reach, let alone his grasp. Musk has a team of volunteer engineers working on the technology, and by all accounts they haven’t hit a show stopper.… More

AT&T discovers North Carolina

1 February 2015 by Steve Blum
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It’s tough work chasing Google.

AT&T is going on a hiring binge in North Carolina. According to a press release it issued on Friday…

AT&T today announced it is looking to fill nearly 100 new technician positions in North Carolina…

In North Carolina, AT&T launched U-verse with AT&T GigaPower Dec. 8 in Carrboro, Cary, Chapel Hill, Raleigh and Winston-Salem, and also plans to bring the service to Durham, Charlotte and Greensboro. U-verse with AT&T GigaPower provides customers access to the fastest Internet available from AT&T, featuring speeds up to 1 gigabit per second.

… More

Don't worry about congressional broadband bills, it's up to the FCC and courts

31 January 2015 by Steve Blum
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Towering Hoover.

Congress won’t help or hinder the FCC as it makes the most radical government intervention into the workings of the Internet since Al Gore invented it. Broadband is about to be turned into a regulated public utility, run by common carrier rules that go back to the age of the railroad robber barons. And to round it off, states will be told that municipal broadband must be allowed.

Congress critters from both sides of the aisle are looking at next month’s FCC agenda with shock and awe, waving bills that would either double down on federal broadband intervention or strangle it in the cradle.… More