Comcast apologises for beating up customers, all the way to the bank

23 July 2014 by Steve Blum
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You want to cancel? Squirt a few first.

Comcast’s senior management had a mommy/daddy moment this week. On Monday, COO Dave Watson sent a memo to employees saying basically that the viral recording of a Comcast customer service rep browbeating a subscriber who wanted to cancel was a wee bit over the top, but hey, we understand…

The agent on this call did a lot of what we trained him and paid him — and thousands of other Retention agents — to do.

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Comcast's broken promises detailed in letter to FCC

22 July 2014 by Steve Blum
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“Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.”

The California Emerging Technology Fund and a long list of affiliated groups want the FCC to force Comcast to live up its own commitments, if the proposed merger with Time-Warner Cable and the market swaps with Charter Communications are approved. In a letter to the commissioners and supporting documents, CETF blasts the way Comcast has handled a program – called Internet Essentials – it claimed would give $10 per month Internet service to low income families with children…

In 3 years, Comcast has signed up only 11% of the eligible households in California and the nation.

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New season for broadband infrastructure subsidies in California

21 July 2014 by Steve Blum
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It’s time to close the door on the last round of applications for broadband construction subsidies from the California Advanced Services Fund. Of the 32 proposals submitted on 1 February 2013 – nearly a year and a half ago – 17 were funded for total of $48.6 million in grants and $127,000 in loans. The final two were approved by the CPUC in June – an FTTH project in Mono County and a fixed wireless system in Shasta County.… More

If you're wondering how much it costs to use existing poles and conduit, it's public information

20 July 2014 by Steve Blum
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The most difficult and costly part of any wireline broadband infrastructure project is getting cable from point A to point B. There are two primary ways of doing it: stringing it on poles or running through buried conduit. Since the chances of getting permission to build a new pole route in California is only slightly better than the odds of getting approval to drill for oil in San Francisco Bay, your only independent alternative is to start digging, at the rate of $30 to $60 a foot or more.… More

Job cuts show Microsoft CEO is serious about new direction

19 July 2014 by Steve Blum
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Microsoft’s new CEO, Satya Nadella, has gotten it right. His 10 July 2014 email to Microsoft employees set out a clear path forward for the struggling giant and this week’s announced layoffs of 18,000 employees turned that vision from clear into ruthless. Which is the only way the company will survive as a major tech player in the 21st century.

Star legacy businesses – Windows OS, Office productivity software, Xbox – will survive, but primarily as stepping stones to cloud and mobile services, which are intended to reach customers regardless of whether they’re using Microsoft products…

All of these apps will be explicitly engineered so anybody can find, try and then buy them in friction-free ways.

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Six Californias are really one conversation piece

18 July 2014 by Steve Blum
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The Six Californias campaign had some good news and some bad news for its supporters. The good news is that it gathered 1.3 million signatures in its petition drive – half a million more than the number necessary to get it on the ballot. The bad news is that the proposal to split our state six ways won’t go to a vote in November. Instead, the initiative’s backers intentionally slipped the 26 June deadline for filing the petitions – the advice they gave to circulators was to mail signatures back by 7 July.… More

States rights invoked as muni broadband grandstanding continues in Washington


Blackburn’s not shy about extending a helping hand, particularly towards money.

States would be free to ban municipal broadband projects, under under language inserted into a bill and approved by the U.S. house of representatives (h/t to the Baller-Herbst listserv for the heads up). Since bills that get passed by the republican-controlled house seem to have a rocky time in the democrat-controlled senate (and vice versa), it’s unlikely have any practical effect. But the idea is to pre-empt FCC chairman Tom Wheeler’s (likely empty) talk about stepping in between local governments that want to get into the muni broadband business and states that want to ban it.… More

Independent ISPs have a shot at California public housing broadband program

16 July 2014 by Steve Blum
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Fast, focused, low cost and sustainable projects are the answer to the problem of how to extend modern Internet access into publicly supported housing. That’s the conclusion of a report prepared by California Public Utilities Commission staff that lays out recommendations for implementing assembly bill 1299 – approved last year – which spends money from the California Advanced Services Fund on broadband facilities and marketing programs in public housing.

The report carefully draws boundaries. Inside wiring and networking equipment would qualify for CASF subsidies, backhaul fiber installed out in the street gets squat.… More

Benicia fiber deal puts industrial broadband plan into action


Click for the full presentation.

The City of Benicia is working with Lit San Leandro LLC (LSL) to bring a gigabit-class fiber network to the Benicia Industrial Park and the adjacent Arsenal area. That’s the top line from a status report I gave to the Benicia City Council this evening.

Benicia issued a request for proposals last year, asking interested service providers to submit ideas for delivering industrial and commercial-grade broadband service. Among the resources the City put on the table was $750,000.… More

Only telephone companies can take part in rural broadband experiments


Eligible areas in the California, per the CPUC (click to get a bigger map).

The FCC today released the full details on the rural broadband experiments approved by the commission on Friday. Of legal necessity, the program is limited to regulated telephone companies, although independent ISPs can either partner with one or go through the process to become one.

Eligibility is pretty much what was expected, with one new twist. The money can only be given to “Eligible Telecommunications Carriers” (ETCs) and projects have to include voice service and meet all the rules that pertain to it.… More