Billion dollar fine, new management and “security guarantees” gains ZTE U.S. access

14 July 2018 by Steve Blum
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ZTE is back in business. The Chinese mobile phone and network equipment manufacturer paid $1.4 billion in fines and replaced its board of directors in order to make peace with the U.S. government. The federal commerce department effectively shut ZTE in May when it cut off access to U.S.-made products, including high end chips and key bits of the Android mobile operating system.

The problems began when the U.S. government accused ZTE of doing business with Iran and North Korea, in violation of U.S.… More

CPUC approves FTTH grants, but says Frontier needs skin in the game

13 July 2018 by Steve Blum
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Frontier Communications will get $2.7 million from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) for two fiber to the home projects. One is in the Imperial County towns of Desert Shores and Salton Sea Beach, and the other in Lytle Creek, in the mountains of San Bernardino County. The California Public Utilities Commission unanimously approved the subsidies at its meeting yesterday, and declined to add another $600,000 as demanded by Frontier.

At least for now.… More

CPUC votes today on Frontier’s California cash grab

12 July 2018 by Steve Blum
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Frontier Communications isn’t getting any sympathy yet from the California Public Utilities Commission. Commissioners are scheduled to vote this morning on grants for two southern California fiber to the home projects, in Lytle Creek, in the mountains of San Bernardino County, and Desert Shores and Salton Sea Beach in Imperial County. The subsidies would come from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF).

You might think that Frontier would be happy with a gift of $2.7 million of taxpayer money, but it isn’t.… More

California electric company fiber leasing gets a reprieve

11 July 2018 by Steve Blum
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The California Public Utilities Commission won’t kill electric companies’ independent fiber enterprises just yet. The dispute over how to share the money that Southern California Edison earns from leasing out surplus fiber with its electric customers was bumped to next month. The changes in the latest version proposed by commissioner Clifford Rechtschaffen – including making it a 50/50 split of gross revenue instead of the 10% that goes to ratepayers under current rules – were significant enough to trigger a 30 day review period.… More

Frontier tells CPUC give us all the money!

11 July 2018 by Steve Blum
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Frontier Communications isn’t happy with the bonus that California Public Utilities Commission staff wants to bestow on it. Instead, Frontier is demanding the CPUC pay the entire cost of two fiber to the home projects in outlying areas of California.

Frontier applied for two grants from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF), one for $1.8 million in the San Bernardino County mountain community of Lytle Creek, and the other for $1.5 million in two towns – Desert Shores and Salton Sea Beach – in Imperial County.… More

FCC lowers rural speed standard to 8 Mbps down, 800 Kbps up

10 July 2018 by Steve Blum
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Internet service providers who get Connect America Fund subsidies from the Federal Communications Commission have to use the money to deliver service at a minimum of 10 Mbps download and 1 Mbps up load speeds, in most cases – effectively all cases in California so far. Last week, the FCC defined what that standard really means: subsidised carriers have to run quarterly speed tests that show they’re hitting 80% of the required speed, 80% of the time.… More

SCE says fiber deal with Verizon is dead, and the CPUC killed it

9 July 2018 by Steve Blum
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Southern California Edison and CPUC commissioner Clifford Rechtschaffen exchanged shots on Thursday, as the battle over electric company fiber continues. Rechtschaffen released a new version – an “alternate” – of a draft decision that required SCE to give up 75% of the gross revenue it would have received from a fiber master lease agreement (MLA) it reached with Verizon. He cut that down to 50%, which is still significantly more than the 10% that the existing rules, which have been in effect for almost 20 years, require.… More

Utility wildfire liability will be settled behind closed doors in Sacramento

8 July 2018 by Steve Blum
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The California legislature took care of one key item of business before it headed out on its month long summer break on Thursday. The senate and the assembly went through the necessary motions to create a conference committee that will decide how liability for California’s continuing epidemic of wildfires will be assigned. Changes to senate bill 901, carried by senator Bill Dodd (D – Napa), will be negotiated largely out of public view over the next few weeks, and then put to a straight up or down vote – no amendments or meaningful debate allowed under normal circumstances.… More

AT&T sees Frontier’s two buck phone suck, then raises TV prices by $5

7 July 2018 by Steve Blum
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It might be the least surprising telecoms story of 2018: AT&T is raising prices in a sneaky cash grab similar to what Frontier did last year. AT&T raised the “administrative fee” it tacks on to bills from 76¢ to $1.99 per month. That’s on top of whatever price it tells consumers they’re going to pay.

According to a story by Aaron Pressman in Fortune, AT&T’s explanation is that it pays for “items like cell site maintenance and interconnection between carriers”.… More

California’s net neutrality crusade is back on track

6 July 2018 by Steve Blum
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Senators Scott Wiener (D – San Francisco) and Kevin de Leon (D – Los Angeles), and assemblymen Miguel Santiago (D – Los Angeles) and Rob Bonta (D – Alameda) lined up at a capitol press conference yesterday to announce that all was forgiven: strong net neutrality language would be restored to senate bill 822 and SB 460 would be raised from the dead.

What seemed to unite the four was shared democratic party opposition to the Trump administration and a desire to win federal congressional seats away from republicans in November.… More