Sprint took megabuck subsidies for inactive lifeline customers, federally and in California

30 September 2019 by Steve Blum
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Sprint mwca 2018

Sprint could be collecting payments from California’s broadband and telephone lifeline subsidy program for hundreds of thousands of inactive accounts. A Federal Communications Commission press release accuses Sprint of taking “tens of millions of dollars” for 885,000 federally subsidised customers who weren’t using the service anymore. That represents 30% of Sprint’s national lifeline customer base, says the FCC.

Sprint is the 500 pound gorilla of the California Public Utilities Commission’s lifeline program, which supplements the $9.25 monthly federal subsidy with up to $15 per month.… More

CPUC approves DSL upgrade subsidy for Frontier at $4,700 per home

27 September 2019 by Steve Blum
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Weimar casf project

The California Public Utilities Commission approved a $693,000 grant to Frontier Communications from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) for a DSL equipment upgrade in the Placer County community of Weimar earlier this month. It was a considerably smaller grant than Frontier requested.

The project originally included the somewhat larger town of Colfax and called for a CASF subsidy of $2.3 million to reach 1,400 homes that, Frontier said, lacked access to broadband service at California’s pathetic minimum of 6 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload speeds.… More

Proposed California initiative would toughen and lock in consumer privacy rules

26 September 2019 by Steve Blum
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The man behind California’s new privacy law doesn’t like what lobbyists are trying to do to it in Sacramento, and plans on taking his case directly voters. In 2018, Alastair Mactaggart and his organisation – Californians for Consumer Privacy – collected enough signatures to get a tough privacy law on the ballot, but withdrew the initiative after a deal with was cut with lawmakers to enact most of its provisions. But anything the legislature can do, it can also undo, so Mactaggart is going back to the voters.… More

Fewer complaints, so far, as California utilities cut power to reduce wildfire risk

25 September 2019 by Steve Blum
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Update: PG&E shut off power this morning, as previously announced. As of this evening, it had restored power in north Bay Area counties, and some of the affected Sierra foothill communities. SCE turned power back on for the Riverside County homes affected by Tuesday’s cuts. Public reaction to PG&E de-energisation moves remained as relatively muted as it did on Tuesday. The San Francisco Chronicle spoke to one upset Sonoma County supervisor, but on the whole there was very little NIMBY outrage.… More

FCC’s weed whacker work fails another court test

24 September 2019 by Steve Blum
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The Federal Communications Commission’s republican majority is now 0 for 2 in federal appeals court challenges to its weed whacker campaign to prune back telecommunications and media regulations. In an opinion released yesterday, the third circuit federal appeals court, based in Philadelphia, voted 2 to 1 to overturn an FCC ruling that loosened restrictions on media ownership, because republican commissioners blew off concerns about the effect it would have on women and minorities. In August, Washington, D.C.-based… More

T-Mobile waters down California job pledge as it refiles for Sprint merger permission

23 September 2019 by Steve Blum
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Tmobile san francisco 18may2019

T-Mobile (and Sprint, but it’s T-Mobile running the show) refiled and amended its application for merger approval with the California Public Utilities Commission on Thursday, as directed by the administrative law judge managing the case. Generally, the changes add a bit more detail about how the settlement T-Mobile reached with the federal justice department’s antitrust enforcers changes the promises it made to the CPUC earlier in the proceeding.

The core of the settlement involves transferring most of Sprint’s prepaid customers, along with retail outlets, cell sites and spectrum, to DISH, in order to create a new competitor in the mobile broadband market.… More

Huawei’s U.S. troubles jumpstart push for new mobile operating systems

20 September 2019 by Steve Blum
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Huawei press conference ces 5jan2019

With the impact of a U.S. trading ban growing, Huawei launched its own operating system, initially aimed at Internet of Things devices but with the potential to compete with Android in the mobile phone ecosystem. Branded HarmonyOS (and called Hongmeng in China) it is designed to be lightweight and very secure. Huawei isn’t installing it in its smart phones, but that could change.

A deep dive into Huawei’s relationship with Google by The Information’s Juro Osawa highlights how Chinese companies have flirted with developing independent operating systems, but ultimately backed away from investing in a risky corporate strategy that could find no executive champions…

In 2016, a top Huawei executive passed on an opportunity to partner with the maker of an Android alternative called Sailfish, seeing little need for a Plan B…

After the meeting, [Huawei consumer division chief Richard] Yu didn’t follow up on the idea of working with Jolla.

… More

California’s consumer data privacy law survives lobbyist blitz, more or less intact

19 September 2019 by Steve Blum
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Sf naked the streets

Big tech, big telecom and big business made a big push in the legislature to water down California’s landmark data privacy law, AKA the California consumer privacy act. They won some minor victories as the 2019 session ended, but did not succeed in making major changes.

A blog post by Christina Hyun Jin Kroll in the National Law Review has a good run down of the bills that did and didn’t make it out of the legislature and onto governor Gavin Newsom’s desk.… More

5G phone prices start high while 5G availability is low

18 September 2019 by Steve Blum
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5g mwca 12sep2018

The first 5G capable smart phones are beginning the hit the market, and already there’s wailing about sticker shock – a Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Plus 5G will cost $1,300 and only be available through Verizon, at least for the next few months. That’s a lot of money for an Android phone (although not exactly nosebleed territory for iOS fans). But it doesn’t say much about what it’s going to cost the average consumer to upgrade to 5G, by the time the average consumer can find 5G service.… More

Long shot broadband infrastructure financing option approved by California legislature

17 September 2019 by Steve Blum
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East garrison conduit 625

A bill that has the potential to funnel California public employee retirement fund money toward broadband infrastructure investments is heading to governor Gavin Newsom’s desk. AB 1212, carried by Marc Levine (D – Marin) , requires state agencies to send a list of priority infrastructure projects to various public employees retirement boards for their consideration. “Telecommunications” is included in the list of eligible infrastructure types, along with “power, transportation, ports, petrochemical, and utilities”.

The catch is that the lists would come from agencies that are “responsible for infrastructure”.… More