Steve Blum's Blog

Money talks or AT&T broadband walks, CPUC study shows

25 July 2019 by Steve Blum
ab1366, att, cpuc, public policy, uc berkeley

How much money you and your neighbors make determines whether or not you have access to modern broadband service and infrastructure. The network practices study released on Monday by the California Public Utilities Commission cites conclusive evidence of aggressive redlining by AT&T. It is a major – and actionable – report that makes the case against the two companies, but its conclusions come as no surprise.

A study done in 2017 by U.C. Berkeley’s Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society found that…

The median household income of California communities with access to AT&T’s fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) network is $94,208.

… More

When Californians are trapped in monopoly telecom markets, AT&T and Frontier take the money and run

24 July 2019 by Steve Blum
ab1366, att, cpuc, frontiercommunications, public policy

Competition matters. When telephone or cable companies face a competitive threat – either from each other or from an independent Internet service provider, they respond by upgrading infrastructure and service, and by cranking up the volume on promotional discounts. The converse is true: no competition means no infrastructure investment or service upgrades or marketing love.

That’s a lesson I’ve learned time and again with municipal and independent broadband projects. When a city or an independent credibly threatens to enter the market, incumbents respond.… More

AT&T redlines poor and rural Californians because it can, Frontier because it can’t afford otherwise, CPUC study says

23 July 2019 by Steve Blum
ab1366, att, cpuc, frontiercommunications, public policy

Corporate choices made by AT&T and Verizon, and Frontier Communications’ dire financial condition created the growing divide between relatively modern telecoms infrastructure in affluent urban and suburban communities, and the decaying infrastructure in poor and rural ones. The result is “deteriorating service quality”, “persistent disinvestment”, an “investment focus on higher income communities” and an “increased focus on areas most heavily impacted by competition”, according to a study done for the California Public Utilities Commission by a Boston-based consulting company.… More

Caltech turns eastern California fiber network into earthquake detector

22 July 2019 by Steve Blum
casf, cpuc, digital 395, emergencyservices, geek stuff

Fiber optic networks do more than just ride out major earthquakes without dropping a bit. They can also detect and collect data on the quakes themselves. Two major quakes – magnitude 6.4 and 7.1 – hit eastern California on 4 and 5 July 2019 respectively, in the high desert of Kern and San Bernardino counties, where seismometers aren’t thick on the ground. To understand what happened, and what continues to happen, Caltech scientists needed to quickly get more sensors into the field.… More

FCC proposes new map-based collection method for broadband availability reports

19 July 2019 by Steve Blum
broadband, fcc, microsoft, NTIA, public policy

The ever increasing volume of complaints about the accuracy of broadband availability data published by the Federal Communications Commission is producing results. In August, the FCC will vote on a proposal to require Internet service providers to submit electronic map data that shows where they offer service, at what speeds it’s offered and which technology it uses.

The current data sets are based on census block reports, with a census block reckoned as served at a given speed level if one home or business within it can get that level.… More

FCC’s rural broadband subsidy reboot proposes faster speeds, but performance is still a question

18 July 2019 by Steve Blum
connect america fund, fcc, public policy, rural broadband

Broadband service at 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload speeds “is not a luxury” reserved for people who live in cities and suburbs, according to a draft FCC notice that kicks off the process of rebooting federal broadband service subsidies for rural communities. In August, the FCC plans to vote on a draft notice of proposed rulemaking that would open the door to comments and proposals – from any interested party – regarding how to spend “at least” $20.4 billion earmarked for the “rural digital opportunity fund”.… More

California kicks T-Mobile-Sprint deal to September. Or maybe much later

17 July 2019 by Steve Blum
cpuc, fcc, monopoly, sprint, t-mobile

The California Public Utilities Commission can’t act on T-Mobile’s request for permission to acquire Sprint until the middle of September, at the earliest. Yesterday was the deadline for any proposed decisions – in any proceeding, T-Mobile or not – to be placed on the commission’s 15 August 2019 meeting agenda. The next scheduled meeting after that is on 12 September, which means a draft decision would have to be released for the legally required 30-day public review period by 13 August.… More

Charter and the State New York settle on terms for an honest broadband buildout

16 July 2019 by Steve Blum
charter, cpuc, new york, public policy

Charter Communications won’t be thrown out of the State of New York. The Public Services Commission voted last week to accept a settlement that ends a dispute over whether Charter is meeting the obligations it accepted when its acquisition of Time Warner Cable systems was approved in 2016. It ends the threat that Charter could lose its franchise to operate cable systems in New York because, the commission said, Charter was “just lining its pockets”.

One of the points of contention was whether Charter could count addresses in New York City towards its commitment to build out broadband service to under and unserved communities.… More

CPUC is next target for Newsom’s “strike team” leader

15 July 2019 by Steve Blum
ab1366, casf, cpuc, public policy

The new president of the California Public Utilities Commission is Marybel Batjer. Originally appointed by governor Jerry Brown, she heads the California government operations agency, which oversees “procurement, real estate, information technology, and human resources” for all state agencies. Governor Gavin Newsom announced on Friday that she will replace outgoing president Michael Picker.

Batjer seems to like a challenge. In his brief six months in office, Newsom has already tapped Batjer to clean up two bureaucratic black holes: the Department of Motor Vehicles and state government’s information technology “mess”.… More

FCC republicans chase San Francisco “bogeyman”

12 July 2019 by Steve Blum
fcc, mdu, mte, public policy, san francisco

San Francisco’s open access law that allows any Internet service provider to use landlord-owned wiring inside a building to reach tenants might not be so preempted by Wednesday’s Federal Communications Commission decision. And the FCC’s republican majority is acting more like hired gun lawyers advocating for monopoly-model incumbents than the disinterested expert regulators they’re supposed to be.

Jon Brodkin breaks down the back and forth in a good article in Ars Technica. The ruling formally adopted by republican commissions says that San Francisco can’t require one ISP to share wires it’s already using with another ISP.… More