California broadband subsidy law demands equal treatment for all, rich and poor alike

8 June 2018 by Steve Blum
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One of the mysteries surrounding Californian subsidies for broadband infrastructure is the abysmally low standard that the California Public Utilities Commission imposes on the people who live in public housing, and only on them. The thicket of laws that govern the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) initially set aside $20 million to pay for broadband facilities in public housing communities, with the possibility of adding more when it runs out.

The CPUC is in the middle of rebooting the CASF program, after the California legislature added to the mess by turning the general infrastructure subsidy program – with $300 million in new money – into a piggy bank for AT&T and Frontier Communications.… More

FCC caught in lies about flood of net neutrality comments

7 June 2018 by Steve Blum
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The Federal Communications Commission lied when it claimed its online public comment system was blocked by a deliberate and malicious cyber attack, after HBO’s John Oliver issued a call to arms over plans to repeal network neutrality rules. Then it lied again to protect the first lie. That’s the conclusion of an investigation into the incident by Gizmodo.

As I blogged about at the time, the FCC’s online system came to a grinding halt, apparently after being flooded with automated comments of dubious origin that supported the repeal.… More

Starks to replace Clyburn on FCC

6 June 2018 by Steve Blum

There will be a new face on the Federal Communications Commission next month, assuming that the U.S. senate confirms the nomination of Geoffrey Starks. With the blessing of congressional democrats, president Donald Trump named Stark to replace Mignon Clyburn, who times out of her seat on the commission at the end of this month. Clyburn earlier announced she was retiring from the FCC and wouldn’t seek reappointment.

Besides being a democrat – which is required to fill Clyburn’s seat – Starks is a former federal prosecutor and is currently an assistant chief in the FCC’s enforcement bureau.… More

FCC allows more time to debate the death of independent ISPs

5 June 2018 by Steve Blum
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An attempt by incumbent telephone companies to cut off competitors’ access to leased lines was slowed down a bit by the Federal Communications Commission on Friday. The deadline for reviewing a request by telco lobbyists that has the potential for killing off many, if not most, independent Internet service providers was extended by two months.

USTelecom, a lobbying front for big telcos, such as AT&T and Frontier Communications, as well as small incumbents, asked the FCC to eliminate rules that require telcos to lease copper DSL circuits and other facilities on a wholesale basis to “competitive local exchange carriers” (CLECs).… More

California legislature says yes to broadband, online privacy bills

4 June 2018 by Steve Blum
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With Friday’s deadline behind us, we know which bills are getting serious consideration in the California legislature. Any bill that didn’t make it through a full floor vote and get sent from one house to the other is now dead (with the caveat that death is never final so long as the California legislature is still in session).

Short answer: all the bills I’m still following and, for the most part, blogging about live on…

Muni broadband

  • Assembly bill 1999 – specifically authorises community service districts and other agencies to offer broadband services, and requires all muni broadband systems to abide by network neutrality rules.
… More

Priority lanes the top priority for big ISPs, when net neutrality ends

3 June 2018 by Steve Blum
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When the FCC’s repeal of network neutrality rules takes effect, as is likely, a week from tomorrow on 11 June 2018, you can expect the big Internet service providers to move slowly toward paid prioritisation. The moment they think they can get away with it, they’ll begin selling fast lanes to online content and service companies (edge providers, as they’re called) and giving their in-house content the same boost.

Paid prioritisation, throttling and blocking are three “bright line” practices that the 2015 FCC order banned, and they’re all interrelated.… More

FBI’s plea for encryption back doors based on false information

2 June 2018 by Steve Blum
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The Federal Bureau of Investigation gave the U.S. congress and the public bad information about the problems it has cracking encrypted phones during investigations, many times over several months. According to a story by Devlin Barrett in the Washington Post, FBI director Christopher Wray repeatedly, and falsely, claimed that agents were locked out of almost 7,800 smart phones and other devices, because of advanced encryption.

He began using the 7,800 figure last year, when he urged congress to give law enforcement back door access to encrypted devices and content…

Wray has repeated the claim about 7,800 locked phones, including in a March speech.

… More

Telcos ask FCC to kill broadband competition

1 June 2018 by Steve Blum
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Wireline telephone companies, big and small, don’t want to be forced to share their lines with competitors. So last month, their lobbying front in Washington, D.C. – USTelecom – asked the Federal Communications Commission to scrap rules that require them to sell wholesale lines and other services to smaller companies that don’t own infrastructure.

These competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs) resell those services to retail customers, usually after adding their own equipment or other resources to the mix.… More

Net neutrality clears California senate on party line vote

31 May 2018 by Steve Blum
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The future of network neutrality is now in the hands of the California assembly. Yesterday, the California senate approved senate bill 822, authored by Scott Wiener (D – San Francisco) on a party line vote. It bakes net neutrality principles into California consumer protection law, and gives both contingency fee trial lawyers and the California attorney general the authority to sue Internet service providers that don’t comply.

The language approved by the California senate reinstates the three “bright line” bans imposed by the FCC in 2015 and then overturned late last year: no blocking, throttling or paid prioritisation.… More

California assembly considers Internet age checks for guns, porn, tobacco and more

30 May 2018 by Steve Blum
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Anytime age-restricted products – for example weapons, alcohol, tobacco and porn – are offered for sale online in California, merchants would have to “take reasonable steps to verify the age of the purchaser”, if a recently amended bill makes it into law.

Assembly bill 2511, authored by Ed Chau (D – Monterey Park), started out as a privacy bill aimed at preventing commercial use of social media postings by minors, and would have generally reinforced bans on selling certain things to them.… More