Trimmed Salinas Valley broadband project heads back to CPUC


Building jobs and a better economy.

A 91-mile fiber optic middle mile network reaching from Santa Cruz deep into the Salinas Valley is back on track, after discussions between the California Public Utilities Commission and Sunesys, LLC – the company applying for the project – led to a $388,000 cut in proposed grant funding.

A revised draft resolution, offered as an alternative by CPUC president Michael Peevey, was posted this afternoon and is scheduled to be considered by commissioners on Thursday.… More

Opposition to Comcast-Time Warner deal yet to spark a rally

7 April 2014 by Steve Blum
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Get ready for a juicy pitch.

The Comcast-Time Warner merger game officially opens on Wednesday when the U.S. senate’s judiciary committee holds a hearing for no immediate purpose except to talk about it. Judging by a story in the Philadelphia Inquirer by Bob Fernandez, the debate will quickly drop into the snooze zone of economic jargon…

The hearing likely will be a forum for a word most people – cable customers or not – will find unfamiliar: monopsony.

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AT&T wants Google's deal in San Antonio, but not for anything in particular

6 April 2014 by Steve Blum
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Oh, all right. You can have a press release too.

AT&T is about to get the same lease terms in San Antonio that Google got. On Thursday, the city council will look at a draft agreement that would give AT&T almost exactly the same access to city property to install fiber huts that it offered Google last month.
If you lay the Google fiber hut site master lease and the draft of the AT&T version alongside each other, they match word for word, except for the rental rates charged and a couple other minor details.… More

Microsoft CEO chooses long chase over head on attack

Winning depends on the pitch staying playable.

The launch of Microsoft Office apps – Excel, Word, Powerpoint – for the iPad has been hailed by some as a turning point for the company and a bold leadership stroke by new CEO Satya Nadella. If anything, the excitement is a fair measure of Microsoft’s problem: the best it can do is port thirty year old software to the market leader’s tablet.
Ironically, Excel and Powerpoint were originally developed for the Mac OS.… More

To nimby or not to nimby is the dilemma for Seattle and Portland broadband upgrades

4 April 2014 by Steve Blum
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Not every emerald city has a wizard to rely on.

Broadband doesn’t arrive by magic. It needs stuff. Like poles and towers and boxes that don’t necessarily match the neighborhood decor. That simple fact is often lost on nimby homeowners who want to be able to watch four channels of Netflix HD movies at once, but don’t want a small, green box planted anywhere nearby.

Seattle and Portland are two cities where it’s difficult, if not impossible, to install telecoms street furniture.… More

Wealthy city discovers Google Fiber has the power to say no, too

Google plays through when Overland Park misses its tee time.

Google Fiber’s take on cherry picking seems to be to leave rich but stroppy communities to the tender mercies of cable and telephone companies, while building where the municipal welcome wagon drives out to meet them. Overland Park, a Kansas City suburb with lots of prosperous people and good paying jobs, appears to have to permanently gone to the back of the fiber construction line – if not out of it completely – because the city council dragged its feet when it came time to sign a contract.… More

California lawmakers vote to raise broadband construction costs

2 April 2014 by Steve Blum
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One more way to stop broadband competition.

It’s becoming likelier that subsidised broadband projects will be more expensive, if not impossible, following a vote by a California assembly committee this afternoon. The labor and employment committee approved assembly bill 2272, which would put projects paid for by the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) under the jurisdiction of the state’s prevailing wage law.
That means that union scale pay and work rules would apply to CASF projects, regardless of whether the companies that build and operate the systems are union shops.… More

California bill would protect broadband incumbents by raising competitors' and consumers' costs

1 April 2014 by Steve Blum
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The empire strikes back.

Broadband infrastructure construction subsidies would be rolled back in California, if a bill pending in the state assembly is approved. Tomorrow – Wednesday 2 April 2014 – the assembly labor and employment committee will consider assembly bill 2272, introduced by assemblyman Adam Gray (D – Merced), which would bring all work funded by the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) under the state’s “prevailing wage” law. It would impose union scale wages and work rules on CASF projects – in many cases mandating metropolitan rates and benefits even in remote rural areas.… More

Illinois says Gigabit Squared lied repeatedly, wants $2 million back

Once upon a time, it was strictly formal dress for sunrise.

The company that sold magically cheap fiber and a business case built on fairy dust to Seattle, then left town owing fifty grand is in even bigger trouble in Chicago. The state of Illinois gave Gigabit Squared a $2 million grant to deploy “ultra high speed” Internet access on the city’s south side and, to say the least, isn’t seeing results, according to a story in the Chicago Sun-Times (h/t to the Baller-Herbst list for the pointer)…

Gigabit Squared, a Cincinnati-based company that last May touted the high-speed project in nine South Side communities, “has lied repeatedly” about its intentions and may have spent only $250,000 of the grant money for legitimate purposes, said David Roeder, spokesman for the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, which issued the grant.

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Zuckerberg wants fill planet's toughest broadband gaps with drones

There’s a huge difference between some Internet access, no matter how poor, and none at all. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is looking at drones as economically sustainable broadband infrastructure where conventional technology doesn’t cut it. In a white paper published on Internet.org, Zuckerberg frames the question…

Our research has shown that approximately 80–90% of the world’s population lives today in areas already covered by 2G or 3G networks. These environments are mostly urban or semi-urban, and the basic cell and fiber infrastructure has already been constructed here by mobile operators.

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