School bus WiFi and take home mobile hotspots for students funding in proposed California bill

8 April 2019 by Steve Blum
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Jet school bus2

A placeholder bill that originally targeted the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) – the state’s primary broadband infrastructure subsidy program – was gutted, amended and turned into a subsidy program for after school Internet access for elementary and high school students. Assembly bill 1409 is carried by assemblyman Ed Chau (D – Los Angeles), who made a tech policy name for himself last year when he authored California’s new online privacy law.

As originally submitted, AB 1409 made what amounted to an inconsequential typographic change to the law that rewrote the CASF program in 2017.… More

Big broadband’s permission for, collection and use of customer info gets a federal review

5 April 2019 by Steve Blum
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The privacy practices of four major broadband service providers and one big disruptor are getting a hard look from the Federal Trade Commission. Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Google Fiber were given 45 days to produce detailed information about their business practices and subscribers, with particular emphasis on how they collect information about customers, whether it’s done with genuine permission, and what they do with it.

The information demanded by the FTC includes statistics on how many people actually read privacy policies, along with what promises to be a tall stack of those policies – every single one that’s been written by the companies, including copies that might be “different from the original because of notations on the copy”.… More

Cities have broad authority over wireless facilities, California Supreme Court rules

In a landmark decision, the California Supreme Court gave cities a major victory today, ruling that the way San Francisco regulates the appearance of wireless facilities is legal, and isn’t preempted by state law or California Public Utilities Commission regulations. Its interpretation goes beyond lower court decisions and adopts a narrower view of state-level restrictions on municipal control of telecommunications infrastructure. The unanimous opinion also opened the door to further regulation of cell sites and other telecoms facilities – wired or wireless – by drawing a line between specific limits the legislature put on local oversight of construction activities, and the general ability of cities to set standards for the appearance, placement and, potentially, other aspects of wireless equipment after it’s built.… More

California Supreme Court expands local control of wireless facilities, allows cities to set aesthetic standards for cell sites

Tmobile small cell riverside

UPDATE here.

San Franciso’s aesthetic standards for cell sites are legal under California law. The California Supreme Court rejected an appeal by T-Mobile, Crown Castle and Extenet of lower court rulings that allowed the City and County of San Francisco to regulate the appearance of cell sites. The ruling, posted minutes ago, is here. The ruling is broader than the lower courts’ opinions, though, and appears to expand the scope for local governments to control the use of public right of ways and issue permits for wireless facilities.… More

Major ruling on cell site aesthetics due from California Supreme Court tomorrow

Tmobile small cell burlingame

UPDATE here.

The California Supreme Court is about to rule on whether California law allows cities to regulate the appearance of cell sites. It posted a notice earlier today that a decision will be published at 10am tomorrow (Thursday, 4 April 2019). Background on the case is here. The key question: does mobile infrastructure that offends local aesthetic sensibilities “incommode the public use” of the public right of way? A California appeals court said yes, it does.… More

CPUC orders Charter to prove its broadband upgrade claims

3 April 2019 by Steve Blum
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Charter Communications was given ten days to deliver granular broadband deployment data to the California Public Utilities Commission yesterday. Administrative law judge Karl Bemesderfer granted a motion by the CPUC’s public advocate office (PAO) to force Charter to hand over information to support its claim that it is meeting the conditions imposed by the commission when its purchase of Time Warner and Bright House cable systems in California was approved in 2016.

Among other things, the commission required Charter to upgrade all of its Californian systems – new and old – to 300 Mbps download capability by the end of this year.… More

FCC takes aim at city planners, HOAs, landlords with new wireless preemptions

2 April 2019 by Steve Blum
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Wireless broadband hub

More federal preemptions of property ownership and local oversight of permits for wireless facilities are on the way. The Federal Communications Commission is scheduled to vote later this month on starting the process of rewriting its interpretation of federal law regarding home antennas.

The rule in question is inelegantly known as OTARD – over the air reception devices. The law behind the rules was originally intended to allow homeowners and renters to install small satellite dishes for, say, DirecTv or DISH.… More

Apple TV’s so so content depends on ecosystem integration for success

1 April 2019 by Steve Blum
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Apple tv keynote aniston witherspoon 25mar2019

Apple unveiled a new subscription video service last week. If it were any other company except Apple making the announcement, there would have been a huge yawn from the market. The Apple TV service, at least what we know of it, isn’t significantly different from other over-the-top services. They’re borrowing business model bits from several different platforms and putting the pieces together a little differently and, but overall it looks very familiar.

Apple will have exclusive programming, as the big OTT players do, and that will help it position its video brand as it has for HBO and Netflix, but it’s just icing on the same cake as everyone else’s.… More

AT&T hides 4G digital divide behind 5GE facade

29 March 2019 by Steve Blum
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Opensignal att 5ge 22mar2019

AT&T’s 5GE scam is unravelling. Measurements taken by an independent testing company, OpenSignal, show that slapping a phony 5G label on upgraded 4G LTE service does not make the user experience any faster.

According to OpenSignal’s blog post…

Some AT&T users in the U.S. have recently seen “5G E” appear on the status bar of their existing smartphones, replacing 4G. This move has sparked controversy because AT&T is using updated 4G network technologies to connect these smartphone users, not the new 5G standard…

Analyzing Opensignal’s data shows that AT&T users with 5G E-capable smartphones receive a better experience than AT&T users with less capable smartphone models…But AT&T users with a 5G E-capable smartphone receive similar speeds to users on other carriers with the same smartphone models that AT&T calls 5G E.

… More

CPUC proposes low income, no service available requirements for household broadband extension grants

28 March 2019 by Steve Blum
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Remote road

The final piece of the California broadband subsidy puzzle is on the table. The California Public Utilities Commission posted a draft of the new “line extension program”. It’s a pilot project set up by the legislature in 2017 when it rigged the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF), turning it into a piggy bank for AT&T and Frontier Communications.

The line extension program was included at the urging of cable lobbyists, who wanted to tap the piggy bank too, but didn’t want to take on any of the regulatory responsibilities that normally go along with state broadband infrastructure grants.… More