Electric companies argue FCC has no authority over power lines

26 June 2019 by Steve Blum
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Powerlines

Investor-owned electric utilities are challenging the one touch make ready (OTMR) rules issued by the Federal Communications last year. It’s part of a broader appeal of two decisions that the FCC made last year: the August 2018 wireline deployment decision and the September 2018 wireless deployment decision.

In those two decisions, the FCC issued an expansive set of preemptions that overruled local ownership of assets in the public right of way (such as streetlight poles), state and local timelines for wireless permit decisions, schedules for work in the public right of way, and generally took industry-friendly positions on issues that affect the ability of telecoms companies to install facilities – wireline or wireless – at will.… More

Tahoe’s broadband speeds lag far behind California’s average

25 June 2019 by Steve Blum
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Southlaketahoe2019grades

Broadband infrastructure in South Lake Tahoe, and the Tahoe basin in general, is poor. Based on the latest broadband availability information released by the California Public Utilities Commission, no city or unincorporated community around Lake Tahoe gets an infrastructure grade of better than F+.

In a presentation to the South Lake Tahoe city council, I discussed how the city ended up with an F on its broadband report card. The two primary wireline broadband providers are AT&T and Charter Communications, and their service reports clearly show that, as of 31 December 2017, neither had upgraded their facilities to the Californian average and were unable to deliver even a minimum acceptable speed level to consumers.… More

Rural broadband gaps are life and death issues, California wildfire study says

24 June 2019 by Steve Blum
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Paicines pole route

Ageing, inadequate infrastructure contributed to the destruction during last year’s Camp Fire in Butte County that killed 86 people and did billions of dollars worth of damage. Congested roads were a big part of the problem, but so was a lack of telecommunications service, either because it was knocked out by the fires or, in many cases, not there in the first place, according to a report by a “strike force” commissioned by California governor Gavin Newsom…

In a matter of hours, 52,000 people from rural Paradise and surrounding communities evacuated onto roads built for a fraction of that capacity and converged on Chico, overwhelming the recovery system.

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Experience and expertise give ISPs an edge in hunt for federal rural broadband subsidies

21 June 2019 by Steve Blum
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Salinas ag tech summit 13jul2018

The federal agriculture department’s ReConnect program is new. It supplements an older program that wasn’t much use in California. We’re hopeful this new version will be better for us. But we won’t know until we see results. Grant money will be awarded on a competitive basis, with the first grant application deadline last month, and windows for grant/loan combinations and pure loans coming up.

On paper, it’s easier for Californian projects to qualify – e.g. projects submitted by private, for profit ISPs, which we have, as opposed to co-ops and similar, which we don’t so much.… More

FCC will preempt San Francisco apartment broadband access ordinance, and that’s just for starters

20 June 2019 by Steve Blum
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The Federal Communications Commission is preparing to preempt part of a San Francisco ordinance that requires landlords to open up access to existing wiring within a building, and allows any Internet service provider to use it to deliver service to tenants. In a draft ruling released yesterday, the FCC proposes to block any requirement that forces a landlord to share wiring it owns that’s already in use. It would apply to both residential buildings, such as apartments or condos, and office buildings – “multiple tenant environments” (MTEs), as the FCC puts it.… More

Top mobile execs let air out of the 5G balloon, which will “never reach rural America”

19 June 2019 by Steve Blum
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Deflating balloon

It’s one thing to promise the moon to customers and city councils, but quite another to mislead Wall Street. Creating outrageous expectations there can land you in jail. Which, presumably, is why two top executives from Verizon and T-Mobile are walking back expectations of a universal 5G wonderland.

According to a story by Sean Hollister in The Verge, it’s about the new frequency bands that mobile companies plan to use for high speed, low latency 5G service.… More

100 Mbps broadband means 0.2% to 0.3% lower unemployment, biggest impact in rural communities, study says

18 June 2019 by Steve Blum
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We can do it

Faster and better broadband service means more jobs and lower unemployment. Rural communities benefit more from gaining access to high quality broadband service than urban and suburban areas. That’s the conclusion of a study by three researchers, Bento Lobo and Rafayet Alam at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s finance and economics department, and Brian Whitacre – at Oklahoma State University’s agricultural economics department.

They compared high speed broadband availability – defined as 100 Mbps download speed or better – to unemployment statistics in Tennessee between 2011 and 2015.… More

Tacoma moves from courtship to consumation of deal to sell muni broadband system. Maybe

17 June 2019 by Steve Blum
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Good to be the king

The Tacoma city council unanimously approved a plan to lease its municipal cable system, called Click, to a relatively small local Internet service provider. After years of study and negotiation, the choice came down to turning over the struggling system to one of two locally based companies: Wave Broadband, which has a growing footprint of cable and telecoms operations in California, Oregon and Washington, and Rainier Connect, which operates primarily as a reseller in the Tacoma area.… More

AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, PRTC plead their pain of not getting everything they want from Santa the FCC

14 June 2019 by Steve Blum
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The opening arguments submitted by AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and the Puerto Rico Telephone Company in their appeal of last year’s Federal Communications Commission’s pole ownership preemption decision do little more than lend credence to the allegation that their challenges were launched in collusion with their friends at the FCC in a vain judge shopping attempt.

The 2018 FCC wireless order was a gigabuck early Christmas present to mobile carriers. It gave them the right to use city-owned property in the public right of way, such as street light poles, at below market rates, sharply restricted fees that local government could charge for permits to do so, and limited local discretion over street management and aesthetic standards.… More

California attorney general joins lawsuit to block T-Mobile-Sprint deal, likely delays it indefinitely

13 June 2019 by Steve Blum
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Tmobile san francisco 18may2019

T-Mobile’s proposed merger with Sprint is “presumptively anticompetitive” according to California attorney general Xavier Becerra and eight other state attorneys general (plus their counterpart in the District of Columbia). On Tuesday, they sued the companies in a New York-based federal court with the goal of blocking the deal. The ten – all democrats – say there would be substantial damage to the market for mobile telecoms services if it goes through…

Sprint and T-Mobile are close competitors.

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