Big Sur is broadband on the edge

14 July 2013 by Steve Blum
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Fill up here. Next broadband sixty miles.

California’s rocky, tide-lashed Big Sur coast has tenuous electronic connections to the outside world. At its northern end, there’s an old navy listening post at Point Sur that now serves as, among other things, a cellular site. Head south, though, and it’s more than sixty miles before you’ll see modern telecoms facilities.

AT&T keeps copper-based phone service working for most of the scattered businesses and homes along this isolated stretch of State Route 1.… More

Wireless expertise is built on solid math and science

13 July 2013 by Steve Blum

Passion only gets you so far in the jungle.

I was recently asked for advice on who to send to a wireless Internet technology training course and whether it would be worth the money. My answer was if you send the right people, it’s very valuable, but the wrong people could easily make things worse.

The right people are those with a professional engineering background (including a college degree) or at least accredited information technology (IT) and radio frequency (RF) training and experience coupled with good math skills.… More

Air travellers might soon get a reading break

12 July 2013 by Steve Blum
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Something to read for the rest of us.

The Federal Aviation Administration might finally update fifty year old rules on electronic devices – tablets, computers, smart phones, ebook readers.

The current rules, some dating from the 1960s, are there purely out of momentum. Personal electronics pose zero danger to airplanes. There’s never been an incident where a passenger device has interfered with an airplane’s operation and no one has ever come up with a plausible theory about how one might, given modern technology.… More

Handful of CASF projects ready to move forward

11 July 2013 by Steve Blum
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Sorry, it’s not the popular boys who go to the head of the CASF line.

It’s been more than five months since thirty-two broadband infrastructure projects totalling nearly $250 million were proposed for funding by the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF). Five have been taken off the table for various reasons, leaving 27 still asking for about $223 million in grant money. Not all can be funded – there’s only $158 million left in CASF’s grant account – and not all may, in the end, be eligible.… More

Broadband infrastructure and public housing now a common cause

10 July 2013 by Steve Blum
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Doesn’t matter how many buckets you have if the well runs dry.

The officially amended version of a bill aimed at improving Internet access and increasing its use in public housing projects has been released, and its good news for broadband infrastructure in California.

Assembly bill 1299 would set aside $25 million from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) to wire public housing units and pay for marketing programs to encourage residents to sign up for service.… More

Broadband faces another urban-rural divide in Washington

9 July 2013 by Steve Blum
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Is that a city pork or a country pork?

The fate of federal broadband subsidies in rural areas might hinge on a debate going on in Washington over food stamps. Every few years (five or whenever they happen to get around to it…) congress has to reauthorise the massive and complex system for managing and supporting U.S. agribusiness.

The farm bill, as it’s commonly called, has exploded far beyond crop insurance and commodity price supports. With a price tag approaching a trillion dollars, it’s become a vehicle to, among other things, direct federal funds toward rural development and urban social programs.… More

Primarily is primarily the problem with California broadband subsidies

8 July 2013 by Steve Blum
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I did not have legislative relations with Comcast either.

The fate of the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) might come down to a single word. Last week, when an assembly committee killed senate bill 740, which that would have added money to the fund and expanded the list of eligible applicants, the heat of the debate focused on a single weasel word…

These requirements shall include that projects under this paragraph primarily provide last-mile broadband access to households that are unserved by an existing facilities-based broadband provider.

… More

Benicia, California is ready to invest in its broadband future

7 July 2013 by Steve Blum
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Benicia’s broadband report card shows average or better service in revenue-dense residential areas, but failing grades in its industrial economic engine.

The City of Benicia, in the northern San Francisco Bay Area, is jumpstarting industrial grade broadband development. The city council gave a green light to a plan to put $750,000 the table and ask private companies to come up with ideas for bringing high capacity broadband access to a prime industrial park and the surrounding area.… More

Bell Labs bridges a gigabit over a copper gap

6 July 2013 by Steve Blum
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The case for copper. Source: Alcatel-Lucent.

AT&T and Verizon should think twice about running away from older copper networks. Bell Labs has prototype technology that can already move half a gigabit through legacy wiring. Testing by parent company Alcatel-Lucent and Telekom Austria succeeded in pushing more half a gigabit over multiple legacy copper POTS pairs, using elements of the emerging G.fast standard and mixing in advanced vectoring technology – dubbed Vectoring 2.0 – developed by Bell Labs.… More

Marginal communities losing wireline connectivity

5 July 2013 by Steve Blum
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It’s all fun and games until somebody cuts the cord.

“High potential” areas get fiber, low potential areas lose even copper connectivity. The latest evidence of that trend comes from Fire Island in New York. It’s a barrier island resort area just off the Long Island coast with about five hundred year-round residents and thousands of part-timers and visitors. It was whacked by hurricane Sandy last year, which, among things, swamped Verizon’s legacy wireline network.… More