Broadband consortia funding moves ahead in California

3 November 2011 by Steve Blum
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California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) staff have finished their initial review of the 15 regional consortia grant applications that were filed in August. Seven consortia have been conditionally approved and the full commission will vote on a formal funding resolution on 1 December.

Legislation approved last year and implemented by the CPUC this year sets aside $10 million from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) to support regional groups that promote broadband deployment and adoption in rural and urban areas.… More

Embedded impulses

12 October 2011 by Steve Blum
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The machine-to-machine sector is getting a lot of attention this week at the CTIA Enterprise and Applications conference in San Diego. The growth of M2M figured into CEO keynote speeches and panel discussions. AT&T’s Ralph de la Vega called connected devices “the next big thing for mobility.”

The growth is driven in part by the decisions taken by service providers to back out of the hardware and hosting ends of the M2M business, and just provide connectivity.… More

Public perception of broadband rights and dangers challenges regulators, industry

11 October 2011 by Steve Blum
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“Broadband has become to the 21st Century what electricity was the to last century,” said Amy Levine, a special counsel at the FCC and the legal advisor to the chairman, Jules Genachowski. That expectation of universal access was one of the major telecommunications policy drivers identified at the CTIA Enterprise & Applications show today in San Diego.

Levine joined with other regulators and industry representatives for a wide ranging discussion of what each expects from the other.… More

Winners and losers in wireless CEO industry leadership pageant

11 October 2011 by Steve Blum
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CEOs from the big three U.S. mobile phone companies gave keynote speeches at the CTIA Enterprise and Applications conference in San Diego this morning.

It’s a chance for CEOs to step out as industry leaders. Or it’s a chance for them to deliver their sales pitch of the day.

Dan Hesse, the CEO of Sprint Nextel, took the high road. As CTIA chairman this year, he had some extra incentive to play the industry statesman role, but others have had that opportunity and taken a pass on it.… More

4G is not 4G without the backhaul to support it

10 October 2011 by Steve Blum
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“4G is not 4G without the backhaul to support it,” said Sara Kaufman, an analyst who follows mobile operator strategy for Ovum, speaking today at the CTIA Enterprise & Applications conference in San Diego. Mobile carriers have to start by connecting cell sites to fiber networks when they upgrade their networks to 4G speeds using LTE technology.

She predicted robust growth for LTE-based 4G mobile data service in the U.S., but had trouble explaining exactly why.… More

M2M: sell the service, not the machine

10 October 2011 by Steve Blum
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Verizon’s approach to the machine-to-machine business is to stop selling hardware and just sell the service. Duncan Sensenich, from their M2M unit, was one of several mobile executives who spoke at Ovum’s M2M seminar at the CTIA Enterprise and Applications conference in San Diego today.

In this case, low expectations might have been the breeding ground for a lower cost, potentially higher profit way of doing business. The M2M segment was traditionally buried in Verizon’s financial reporting and its management structure.… More

Update on California regional broadband grants

9 October 2011 by Steve Blum
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It’s looking like late October or early November for a preliminary decision by the California Public Utilities Commission on the first round of regional broadband consortia grant applications. On that timetable, formal approval by the Commission could come in early or mid-December.

Applications for the initial funding round closed on 22 August 2011, with 15 consortia submitting proposals. Most were for non-overlapping geographic regions. Given that the regional consortia funding kitty can theoretically pay for them all, it’s a good bet that most, perhaps all, will move ahead in the process.… More

Most California Counties Represented in Broadband Consortia Grant Applications

6 September 2011 by Steve Blum
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The California Public Utilities Commission has released some information about the regional broadband consortia that filed applications in the initial round of funding from the California Advanced Services Fund. Fifteen consortia made the 22 August 2011 filing deadline, and are in line to be considered for planning and organizational grants totaling $150,000 per year for up to three years. 

The applications come from all over the state. Of the 58 counties in California, only nine – Napa, Marina, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura and Orange – have been left out completely.… More

Mesh WiFi coverage depends on what you mean by coverage

7 July 2011 by Steve Blum
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WiFi is great as the last link between the network and the user. It’s high enough bandwidth that it’s not a bottleneck, people know to look for it and the available hardware and clients are well advanced. Consumers will pay for casual access, but in that case they expect performance. They love free WiFi and will put up with a surprising amount of hassle to access it. Companies like Meraki have made it very cheap and easy to get a “drinking fountain”, amenity grade WiFi service up and running, on a paid or free basis.… More

Final CPUC regional broadband consortia grant documents released

28 June 2011 by Steve Blum
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The California Public Utilities Commission posted the final versions of the application documents for the broadband consortia grant program approved last week. The final documents are posted on the community broadband resources page of my website:

https://www.tellusventure.com/community/resources/

CPUC hasn’t posted a hard deadline for submissions yet, but it’s supposed to be 60 days after the effective date of the decision. That date was 23 June, so adding 60 days to that means a presumed deadline of 22 August 2011.