Locking down home automation means locking out success

The best thing to do if you’re developing a home automation product is to allow it to be controlled by someone else, Ryo Koyama, CEO of Weaved, told Parks Associates’ San Francisco Connections conference this week. Hardware designers need to harness the brain power of app developers. “Let them define the killer app that sells your product”, he said.

Koyama was speaking on behalf of Qualcomm and its AllJoyn platform, which is an attempt to create a common interoperability protocol for the Internet of Things.… More

FCC chair offers guaranteed income to lobbyists and lawyers

16 May 2014 by Steve Blum
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The 99 page dissertation on Internet regulation released by the FCC yesterday only contains 2 pages of actual draft rules, which rely almost entirely on what the FCC considers reasonable on any given day. For example…

A person engaged in the provision of fixed broadband Internet access service…shall not engage in commercially unreasonable practices. Reasonable network management shall not constitute a commercially unreasonable practice.

Actually, that’s not an example. That’s the sum total of chairman Tom Wheeler’s proposed net neutrality rule.… More

FCC opens public debate on a vague draft of Internet rules

15 May 2014 by Steve Blum
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Wheeler lays out his position.

The FCC voted 3–2 along party lines today to start the formal debate on whether and how Internet access and traffic should be regulated. Looked at another way, though, the deck is pre-stacked in so far as the discussion starts with a proposed set of poorly defined regulations that would have the FCC managing the Internet on a day to day basis.

That doesn’t mean the outcome is predetermined. The broad range of questions the FCC is asking – including whether consumer Internet access or interconnection and traffic handling for content providers should be regulated as a traditional common carrier utility – leaves the door open to substantial changes before anything is finalised.… More

Comcast keeps pay-per-byte consumer metering option open

14 May 2014 by Steve Blum
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Pay on the way in and pay on the way out.

Comcast’s chief staff lobbyist – executive vice president David Cohen – spoke at an investment conference today, covering a wide range of topics, including an update on usage-based pricing experiments in a handful of markets. He said that Comcast is looking for a way to bill subscribers for monthly downloads over a certain amount, without making them mad or driving them to competitors.… More

Developing countries take the lead in global broadband adoption

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By the end of the year, 3 billion people will be on the Internet, according to the latest projections by the International Telecommunications Union. Of those, three-quarters will be getting broadband access via mobile networks (with or without wireline access, too), a five-fold jump since the end of 2008. The majority of Internet users will be in the developing world, according to the report…

The new figures show that, by the end of 2014, there will be almost 3 billion Internet users, two-thirds of them coming from the developing world, and that the number of mobile-broadband subscriptions will reach 2.3 billion globally.

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Filling more holes in California's broadband consortia map


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Two more regional broadband consortia are in the pipeline for coastal California. The California Public Utilities Commission has a draft resolution in front of it that proposes putting $550,000 into broadband planning in two new regions: the Pacific Coast consortium for San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties and the North Bay/North Coast consortium for Marin, Napa, Sonoma and Mendocino Counties. Both would be funded for two years, getting a total of $300,000 and $250,000 respectively.… More

Coalition of the thinking emerges at FCC

11 May 2014 by Steve Blum
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The typical – and intentionally designed – division within the FCC is partisan. Democrats and republicans control two commission seats each, with the chairman’s job going to whichever party holds the White House. So it’s interesting when another kind of split develops.

Republican Ajit Pai and democrat Jessica Rosenworcel both called on chairman Tom Wheeler to delay consideration of new Internet regulations that would allow network operators to sell fast lanes to content companies willing and able to pay the price.… More

Linux marches to the beat of broadband growth

10 May 2014 by Steve Blum
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Most of the world’s personal computers run on Microsoft Windows. Gartner, a tech industry research group, says that the 280 million Windows boxes shipped last year swamped 12.5 million Macs and 2.9 million Chromebooks. But Gartner is also predicting that the Linux-based Chrome operating system will overtake the Mac OS by 2016.

According to a BBC story…

“There’s a couple of reasons – one is the number of vendors who are now pushing a [Chromebook] device,” explained Ranjit Atwal, research director at the firm.

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San Francisco tells AT&T where to put its equipment cabinets

9 May 2014 by Steve Blum
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Some people in San Francisco seem determined to fight a last ditch battle against broadband infrastructure upgrades proposed by AT&T. San Francisco supervisors are considering a new ordinance that would put a dump truck load of restrictions in front of any request to put broadband equipment cabinets in the public right of way. One sample…

The following locations are disfavored, and the Department shall not issue a Surface-Mounted Facility Site Permit in these disfavored locations unless the Applicant can show that no other option is available:…On Public Right-of-Ways that the San Francisco General Plan has designated as being most significant to City pattern, defining City form, having an important street view for orientation or as having views that are rated “excellent” or “good”.

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Portland tells Google we'll get back to you on that

8 May 2014 by Steve Blum
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Even though Google says that all 34 cities it’s considering for FTTH expansion have more or less completed their fiber-ready checklist and remain in contention, it’s becoming clear that not all of them are bending over backwards (or forwards) in the process.

Portland is a good example. The city has posted its response to Google online and in many respects, it is simply saying no, albeit in a properly bureaucratic way.

The city’s bureau of transportation, which controls access to streets, essentially handed Google its standard policy for installing infrastructure in public of right of ways, which doesn’t actually meet Google’s requirements.… More