Four California counties say “no criminal charges” for PG&E

14 March 2019 by Steve Blum
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Pacific Gas and Electric won’t face criminal charges for its role in starting several northern California fires in 2018. District attorneys in Sonoma, Napa, Humboldt and Lake counties announced that they can’t prove a case. According to a press release from Sonoma County district attorney Jill Ravitch, the necessary evidence burned up along with everything else…

The cases that were referred for prosecution all required proof that PG&E acted with criminal negligence in failing to remove dead and dying trees.

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T-Mobile plays daddy says no, go ask mommy game at CPUC

13 March 2019 by Steve Blum
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Brady bunch

Instead of playing nice with the other kids, T-Mobile is asking for parental intervention as the California Public Utilities Commission reviews its proposed deal to takeover Sprint. Possibly afraid its document dumping and foot dragging tactics are going to backfire and cause even more delays at the CPUC, T-Mobile sent a joint letter to commissioner Clifford Rechtschaffen yesterday, telling him don’t tap the brakes, you need to step on the gas dude…

The Commission’s timely review will help ensure that Californians benefit from the broad range of benefits documented in the extensive evidence we have submitted to the Commission.

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Trump’s budget plan puts broadband funding, mapping on table

12 March 2019 by Steve Blum
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Broadband gets several call outs in the proposed budget released yesterday by the Trump administration. One initiative is endorsed for another year, two are re-promised and one appears to be a response to widespread criticism. Line item figures haven’t been published yet, but even just the overview runs to 150 pages. Details on plans are scarce, but the broadband snippets that were included tell an encouraging tale.

Agriculture secretary Sonny Perdue has bucked the administration’s love fest with big, incumbent cable and telephone companies and pushed for community-based broadband service, particularly via rural electric coops.… More

T-Mobile stalls CPUC, FCC reviews of Sprint merger with cheap lawyer tricks

11 March 2019 by Steve Blum
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Getting a fast approval of its proposed takeover of Sprint from federal and state regulators is supposedly T-Mobile’s goal, but it’s not helping itself. Last week, its habit of stonewalling and waiting until the last minute to provide information to regulators reviewing the merger resulted in a three week (minimum) hold at the Federal Communications Commission and a demand from California Public Utilities Commission staff to turn over stacks of documents previously requested. That demand could also lead to a further delay in getting California’s blessing for the deal.… More

“Significant hardships” will fall on cities if appeals of FCC pole ownership preemption stall, court told

8 March 2019 by Steve Blum
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The cities and counties that are challenging the Federal Communication Commission’s preemption of local ownership of streetlight poles and other assets located in the public right of way don’t want any delays in their cases. In filings yesterday with the ninth circuit federal appeals court in San Francisco, local agencies objected to the FCC’s request to put everything on hold while it thinks about whether it’s going to reconsider its decision. Which could take months, or longer.… More

Net neutrality back in play in U.S. congress as democrats offer new bill

7 March 2019 by Steve Blum
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Congressional democrats are taking another run at overturning the Federal Communication Commission’s 2017 decision to scrap network neutrality rules. Yesterday, amid much fanfare, a draft of a bill was released that would nullify the 2017 decision by the FCC’s republican majority and reinstate the 2015 decision by the then democratic majority to regulate broadband as a common carrier service. Along with that decision came bright line rules: no blocking, throttling or paid prioritisation of subscriber traffic by Internet service providers.… More

PG&E faces pole attachment shot clock, as CPUC arbitrator hands Crown Castle a win

6 March 2019 by Steve Blum
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White road attachment

An administrative law judge gave Crown Castle a victory of sorts in a dispute over terms for attaching fiber optic cable to utility poles that Pacific Gas and Electric owns. Assuming the California Public Utilities Commission signs off on the finding, the arbitrated decision by ALJ Patricia Miles leaves PG&E’s leasing model and most of its standard terms in place. But, in effect, it also establishes a 45 day shot clock for responding to attachment requests and allows Crown Castle to do some work on poles without notifying PG&E and to be notified, in some circumstances, if work affecting its cables is planned.… More

AT&T has an odd way of turning anti-trust victory into market domination

5 March 2019 by Steve Blum
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In the wake of a federal appeals court victory, AT&T moved quickly to consolidate control over the Time-Warner media companies it now owns. The apparent strategy is to meet Netflix head on as a content competitor. The initial signs are not encouraging.

As well reported by Jessica Toonkel in The Information, the top executives of HBO and Turner, two of the three Time Warner divisions acquired by AT&T (the third is the Warner Bros.… More

Comcast protests we’re not cherrypicking, it’s our cherry that’s been picked

Comcast tried to paint itself as a champion consumer choice, as its lawyers clashed with those representing Ponderosa Telephone at the California Public Utilities Commission last week. The question is whether Comcast should be allowed to compete as a telephone company against Ponderosa, which is a small, heavily subsidised rural telco. But the core issue is whether allowing wireline telephone competitors to target high revenue potential customers in rural telco service areas will lead to even greater taxpayer subsidies for less affluent and less densely populated communities that companies like Ponderosa are required to serve.… More

PG&E admits responsibility for deadly Camp Fire, pegs liability at $10.5 billion and climbing

1 March 2019 by Steve Blum
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Carr fire 2018

Cal Fire’s official investigation isn’t over, but Pacific Gas and Electric has concluded that it was at least partly to blame for the Camp Fire in Butte County in November, which killed 86 people. In a financial filing yesterday, PG&E laid out the evidence from the transmission tower where the fire began, and the financial consequences…

The company believes it is probable that its equipment will be determined to be an ignition point of the 2018 Camp Fire…

On November 14, 2018, the company observed a broken C-hook attached to the separated suspension insulator that had connected the suspension insulator to a tower arm, along with wear at the connection point.

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