Without competitive pressure, fiber can be as slow as copper

26 May 2014 by Steve Blum
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A new home development on the back side of the former Ft. Ord in Monterey County is getting fiber to the home. But don’t confuse that with fiber-to-the-home service, which so far doesn’t appear to be in the cards.
The East Garrison development has been in the making for several years. It was ready to move forward just as the Californian housing crash came in 2008, which put it and several other nearby developments into a deep freeze.… More

Broadband construction cost hike slides toward California assembly vote

26 May 2014 by Steve Blum
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Assembly bill 2272 is primed for approval by the California assembly. It would jack up the cost of subsidised broadband infrastructure projects – nearly double in some cases – and make it harder, perhaps impossible, for independent Internet service providers to get money from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF).

On Friday the appropriations committee, by a 13 to 4 margin, sent the bill forward to a vote on the assembly floor. It didn’t quite split along party lines – republican assemblyman Eric Linder, who represents the Corona area, joined the dozen democrats on the committee in voting aye.… More

Senators enjoy a clubbing from patent trolls

Patent reform legislation is dead in Washington right now, killed by senate majority leader Harry Reid as a favor to trial lawyers, who have given him as much as $4 million in campaign contributions in the past 5 years, and pharmaceutical companies. The senate has backed off from anti-troll measures passed last year by a wide, bipartisan majority in the house.

The heart of the package was a loser-pay provision, which would have given judges the power to make patent trolls pay defence costs when the verdict goes against them.… More

eBay wants to reassure you that it's your fault

24 May 2014 by Steve Blum
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Meet our new chief security officer.

I’m still waiting for my email from eBay telling me I should change my password. I checked my spam folder – that’s where all the other emails that tell me to click here and enter my password end up. Not a peep from the peeps at eBay, though. Of course, they only got around to flagging that advice on their home page yesterday. In an understated, be-sure-to-floss-daily sort of way…

We take security on eBay very seriously, and we want to ensure that you feel safe and secure buying and selling on eBay.

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Broadcasters descending into madness, says CEA president

23 May 2014 by Steve Blum
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Gary Shapiro, the president of the Consumer Electronics Association, has published a blistering attack on U.S. broadcasters, characterising their rear-guard opposition to new technology as the madness and nonsense of Alice’s Wonderland and urging congress to yank the licenses of television stations that act against the public interest. Not just in what they put on the air, but also their business practices. Shapiro points to a decision by CBS executives to suppress a news story that didn’t fall in line with their business goals…

Last year, CBS leadership reversed a decision by 40 CNET editors who voted the DISH Hopper Sling the best innovation at the 2013 International CES®.

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Major ISPs are a major consumer fail

22 May 2014 by Steve Blum
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Outside of arms reach of desire.

Big Internet service providers have the worst customer satisfaction rating of any of the 43 industries rated by American Customer Satisfaction Index in the past year, and Time-Warner is rock bottom of the bunch. Comcast and Charter aren’t much better.

A three-way merger of the bottom feeders is likely to lead to less customer satisfaction, not more…

“Comcast and Time Warner assert their proposed merger will not reduce competition because there is little overlap in their service territories,” says David VanAmburg, ACSI Director.

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Silicon Valley cities offer few concessions for Google Fiber

21 May 2014 by Steve Blum
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Five Silicon Valley cities made Google’s list of 34 fiber candidates, the only cities in California to do so. The deadline to complete the Google Fiber checklist was 1 May 2014. Each city responded, or not, in its own way.

Mountain View: Google’s home town likes the idea of fiber, but says it doesn’t review proposed construction plans as quickly or comprehensively as the company wants. Its solution is to hire more staff at Google’s expense.… More

Smart decision 15 years ago brings $40 FTTH to Brentwood now

20 May 2014 by Steve Blum
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The biggest independent Internet service provider in northern California is building a fiber-to-the-home (and business) system in Brentwood. The eastern Contra Costa County city gave Sonic.net permission to use more than a hundred miles of conduit…

In 1999 the City implemented a requirement that all new development in the City be constructed with conduit to the home/business via the joint trench. The conduits were then dedicated to the City for future use. The City now has approximately 120–150 miles of City owned conduit reaching over 8,000 homes in addition to all commercial areas constructed over the past 15 years.

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DirecTv's installer network is hidden gem in AT&T deal

19 May 2014 by Steve Blum
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AT&T intends to expand its high speed broadband footprint with wireless service, a goal that’ll be much easier to achieve if its acquisition of DirecTv goes through. There’s a lot of talk about the television side of the deal – and rightly so – but wireless broadband is a core element too, according to AT&T’s announcement…

AT&T will use the merger synergies to expand its plans to build and enhance high-speed broadband service to 15 million customer locations, mostly in rural areas where AT&T does not provide high-speed broadband service today, utilizing a combination of technologies including fiber to the premises and fixed wireless local loop capabilities.

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Bay Area Council expert roundtable finds common ground on broadband challenges

18 May 2014 by Steve Blum
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A wide ranging conversation on Californian broadband development policy last week amongst a diverse collection of policy makers, academics, consultants and Internet businesses ended with broad, if not unconditional, agreement that making progress requires meeting four major challenges.

The first is extending the diversity and capacity of network connections that are clustered in the San Francisco Bay Area, coastal Los Angeles and, to a lesser extent, San Diego and Sacramento into smaller inland metro areas and rural communities.… More