Broadcasters delay spectrum auction for at least year, but hey, they're entitled

28 October 2014 by Steve Blum
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Ten years isn’t so long. Unless you’re a dog. Or the Internet.

The possibility of converting prime spectrum from TV broadcasting to mobile broadband use has been pushed off another year. The FCC is delaying the planned auction of 600 MHz broadcast frequencies until 2016, instead of next summer.

It’ll take that long to sort out a lawsuit filed by the National Association of Broadcasters – the primary lobbying organisation for TV and radio station owners – according to the FCC…

Earlier this week, the court issued a briefing schedule in which the final briefs are not due until late January 2015.

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Cities can still use positive incentives to influence wireless broadband builds

27 October 2014 by Steve Blum
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Cities and counties are still in control of their own property, at least concerning decisions about where to install wireless broadband facilities. In a recent ruling that tightens the limits on how local governments may regulate cell towers, antennae and other wireless infrastructure, the FCC said those rules don’t apply when cities are simply acting as landlords…

Courts have consistently recognized that in “determining whether government contracts are subject to preemption, the case law distinguishes between actions a State entity takes in a proprietary capacity— actions similar to those a private entity might take—and its attempts to regulate.”…Like

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Mobile broadband gets faster in California, but maybe not fast enough

26 October 2014 by Steve Blum
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Click for a bigger version.

Mobile broadband is better in California, and improvements have been made quickly. That was one of the takeaways from a meeting of Central Coast Internet service providers and California Public Utilities Commission staff in Seaside last week. Jim Warner, a network engineer at U.C. Santa Cruz and chair of the Central Coast Broadband Consortium’s technical expert group, discussed his analysis of results from the latest round of the CPUC’s mobile broadband field testing.… More

Comcast seems to think there's a difference between complete or just overwhelming market control

25 October 2014 by Steve Blum
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Comcast could end up with half of the broadband subscribers in the U.S. or maybe only something more than a third, if it’s allowed to take over Time-Warner and swap markets with Charter Communications. Whether it’s a half or just a third (or a bit more), depends on your definition of what broadband is and is not.

A Bloomberg article by Todd Shields and David McLaughlin breaks down the dilemma. If you take the FCC’s current minimum standard – speeds of 4 Mbps down and 1 up – then Comcast would only own 35.5% of U.S.… More

Rural broadband needs are low and highly confidential, AT&T says

24 October 2014 by Steve Blum
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AT&T knows what rural broadband customers need. And it’s not nearly as much as what people living in high potential urban and suburban communities need, according to arguments AT&T and DirecTv are making to the FCC, in support of their proposed merger…

Within its wireline footprint, AT&T will extend its ultra-fast, fiber-to-the-premises (“FTTP”) GigaPower wireline broadband service with speeds of up to 1 Gbps to at least 2 million locations. At the same time, in rural, often underserved areas, AT&T will deploy fixed wireless local loop (“WLL”) broadband to an additional 13 million locations.

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California shut out of rural community broadband grants, again

23 October 2014 by Steve Blum
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Can’t see California from here.

For the third year running, the U.S. department of agriculture passed over California while handing out Community Connect grants, a program run by the Rural Utilities Service. The agency released a list of 8 relatively small broadband projects that will be getting a total of $13.7 million. None of which are in California.

It’s possible, of course, that there were no applications submitted from here. I’ve been looking around on the web to see if that info has been published anywhere, but no joy so far.… More

FCC narrows scope for local review of wireless build outs

22 October 2014 by Steve Blum
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The FCC’s decision to tell local governments that if they don’t approve permit applications for relatively minor modifications to wireless infrastructure within 60 days then permission is automatically “deemed granted” is a bit less than absolute. Local governments can still go to court to stop installations, and there’s a narrow set of reasons that permit applications can be rejected.

But make no mistake: the FCC is severely limiting the scope for local review of “collocation, removal, or replacement of transmission equipment on an existing wireless tower or base station,” or other work on on that infrastructure if it doesn’t involve a substantial change to its existing dimensions.… More

Overhead costs for California's broadband subsidy program steady at almost $4 million

21 October 2014 by Steve Blum
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Second verse, same as the first.

Administrative costs will take the same amount of money out of the California Advanced Services Fund next year as this year, assuming the California Public Utilities Commission approves the proposed budget that is scheduled to be on the table at its next meeting on 6 November 2014.

The $3.8 million overhead proposed is in line with the ballpark estimates I made back in August. There will still be something like $160 million left to spend on actual construction of broadband infrastructure, although that money will only go something like half as far as it might, given that the governor and the legislature decided that union pay scales and work rules apply to all CASF-subsidised projects.… More

FCC says wireless permits automatically granted if local goverments don't act in 60 days

20 October 2014 by Steve Blum
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If local governments don’t approve certain permit applications for wireless broadband facilities within 60 days, then the FCC says permission is automatically “deemed granted”. That’s one of the new rules limiting how local and state agencies can regulate wireless broadband infrastructure issued by the commission on Friday.

The 60-day time limit affects permit applications for “collocation, removal, or replacement of transmission equipment on an existing wireless tower or base station,” so long as it doesn’t involve a substantial change to the existing structure’s dimensions.… More

Wearables need network neutrality, of a sort, to thrive

19 October 2014 by Steve Blum
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Cord cutting is easy if you live in a signal rich environment. Or at least easier – anyone who has experienced the frustration of trying to make a mobile call from an interior room in a central business district hotel knows it isn’t a slam dunk. But once you move out into suburban and rural areas, reliable indoor phone and Internet service usually means keeping the wire. (And yes, I know, fixed wireless is a potential solution, but usually not – at least according to the FCC.… More