Cities matter to broadband investors

19 March 2014 by Steve Blum
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Just looking the same isn’t enough

The quality of your broadband service depends on whether or not you live in an incorporated city. A study I recently completed for the East Bay Broadband Consortium – East Bay Broadband Report Card – found that broadband infrastructure is generally worse in unincorporated communities than in adjacent and economically similar cities.
Western Contra Costa County is an economically disadvantaged area, on the whole. The major city – Richmond – has a high crime and poverty rates, as do several of the unincorporated communities that surround it.… More

Broadband infrastructure gets another green light in Santa Cruz

18 March 2014 by Steve Blum
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Come on. Don’t you want more cute kitten videos?

Santa Cruz County supervisors edged closer to opening up a fast track for broadband infrastructure development this morning. With four yes votes and a no, they blessed a progress report from the planning department, which is trying to get out of the business of deciding whether broadband facilities meet arcane and contentious land use rules. That process is better suited to figuring out where to build businesses and homes, for example, than designing broadband networks.… More

CPUC gets enthusiastic support for Salinas Valley broadband project

Once upon a time, Silicon Valley looked pretty much the same.

Community leaders from California’s central coast have weighed in on a grant application in front of the California Public Utilities Commission that would pay for a large portion of a 91-mile fiber optic backbone for the region. The project, submitted by Sunesys, LLC would provide disadvantaged communities in the Salinas Valley with the kind of broadband infrastructure Silicon Valley takes for granted. Not surprisingly, there is tremendous local support for CPUC president Michael Peevey’s proposal to raise the allowable percentage of the construction costs that can be subsidised by the California Advanced Services Fund.… More

East Bay Broadband Report Card published by Tellus Venture Associates confirms benefits of competition


Download the full report.

I’ve published the final report on regional broadband resources, prepared for the East Bay Broadband Consortium. The East Bay Broadband Report Card gives a community-by-community assessment of core broadband infrastructure in Alameda, Contra Costa and Solano Counties, on the eastern side of San Francisco Bay.

The top line conclusions are…

The best consumer-grade broadband service is in central Contra Costa County, in the City of Concord (A-). It was the only one of the forty cities studied that rated an “A” level grade.

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Android is the best hope for making wearables into sellables

15 March 2014 by Steve Blum
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Good intentions meet the harsh light of day.

The buzz this week around the announcement that a reasonably high profile fitness band – Jawbone’s UP24 – is finally supporting Android as well as iOS phones is a bit overheated. Launching without Android support is a huge minus for any wearable device. Unless the feature set, connectivity and server-side support is limited. And that’s a good description of the Jawbone UP24. It’s a simple product that’s attractively designed, but it doesn’t do anything particularly innovative.… More

San Antonio makes a fast move for Google fiber

14 March 2014 by Steve Blum
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Open the gates. It’s Google.

Wasting no time in working through Google Fiber’s checklist, the San Antonio city council approved a master lease agreement yesterday that would give Google the right to build 40 or so fiber huts – 12 by 26 foot shelters for the electronic equipment that powers fiber-to-the-home systems – on city property at an annual lease rate of $2,250 per site.
“It will probably be difficult to overstate the importance of this vote – akin to turning on the lights in San Antonio” said councilman Ron Nirenberg.… More

Online ride sharing companies adapting to Californian rules


If Lyft’s customers were this happy before there were rules, just think how they must feel now.

California’s pioneering attempt to regulate online ride sharing services such as Lyft and Uber seems to be going as smoothly anyone could expect. The California Public Utilities Commission was briefed this morning on progress made since it adopted rules setting safety, training, insurance and other operational standards for transportation network companies, as it now calls them, including…

Obtain a permit from the [CPUC]…require criminal background checks for each driver, establish a driver training program, implement a zero-tolerance policy on drugs and alcohol, and require insurance coverage.

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AT&T invests in California broadband, but very selectively

12 March 2014 by Steve Blum
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Be grateful for what you have.

AT&T wants you to believe that they’re investing billions of dollars in Calfornia to upgrade your broadband service. And it’s true, if you’re the right sort of customer. Even so, reading between the lines of the latest AT&T press release, the assumption has to be that your wireline service is as good as it’s going to get for the foreseeable future. On the other hand, if you have an AT&T mobile phone account – particularly 4G – and you live in a large metro area or in a nearby medium-sized market, your speeds probably did get faster last year, and you might see more improvements as time goes on.… More

CPUC commissioner proposes modest haircut for Cressman

11 March 2014 by Steve Blum
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Update 13 March 2014: The CPUC delayed the vote on the Cressman project to 10 April 2014.


It doesn’t have to look good to look better.

Commissioner Michel Florio wants to trim five homes from a project proposed by Ponderosa Telephone Company in Fresno County, and save the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) $373,000. The project in and around the remote community of Cressman has been stalled for months, at Florio’s request, and now it’s clear why…

The fiber optic extension from Lower Cressman to…Rush Creek will cost $621,700, or 36% of the total project costs.

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If you don't believe Google Fiber is serious about city cooperation, maybe you'll listen to AT&T

10 March 2014 by Steve Blum
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The odds of attracting FTTH investment depends on a lot more than luck.

AT&T was jolted into finding a fiber-to-the-home business case in Austin after Google Fiber said it was making the Texas capital and surrounding suburbs its next stop after Kansas City. But regardless of how it happened, AT&T is now singing in the FTTH choir. According to Fierce Telecom, CEO Randall Stephenson told an investment conference audience that the initiative, branded “Gigapower” is ready to roll out in Dallas this summer and other cities where it makes sense…

The market adoption and the performance of our U-verse Gigapower technology has been very, very encouraging…in fact, we’re so encouraged that we want to begin taking this to other communities.

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