Santa Cruz gets more fiber, more gigabit service

19 May 2018 by Steve Blum
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AT&T’s recent fiber to the home (FTTH) upgrades in Santa Cruz mean that Cruzio isn’t the only Internet service provider bringing gigabit class infrastructure into town (unless you have a sneaking suspicion that it’s a competitive response – in that case you can thank Cruzio for it too). U.C. Santa Cruz’s Jim Warner tracked it down…

AT&T has been working on an FTTH deployment in parts of west Santa Cruz. The work has progressed to the point where some addresses are showing availability of gigabit service in AT&T’s on-line service availability tool.

… More

CPUC posts proposed new rules for Internet adoption, public housing broadband grants

18 May 2018 by Steve Blum
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This morning, commissioner Martha Guzman Aceves released a draft plan for giving out grants to broadband adoption programs, revising an existing grant program that pays for broadband facilities in California’ public housing communities, and winding down a defunct broadband infrastructure loan account. You can read it here:

Proposed decision by commissioner Martha Guzman Aceves, implementing CASF broadband adoption program and modifying the CASF public housing broadband and infrastructure loan programs, 18 May 2018

You can find the background documents here.… More

Dozens of ISPs qualify to bid on FCC broadband subsidies, hundreds more in line

18 May 2018 by Steve Blum
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Almost three hundred companies could be bidding for broadband service subsidies when the Federal Communications Commission begins auctioning off unserved rural territory across the United States. The FCC received 277 applications from companies that want to participate in the Connect America Fund program’s reverse auction, which is scheduled for late July.

Only 47 are good to go, though. The other 230 companies – including Frontier Communications – didn’t fully complete their applications, in the eyes of the FCC.… More

Republicans jump ship to vote yes, but net neutrality is still sinking

17 May 2018 by Steve Blum
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The U.S. senate is formally opposed to the Federal Communications Commission’s repeal of Obama era network neutrality rules, voting 52 to 49 yesterday to endorse a resolution of disapproval. The vote is important politically, but not practically. The next stop is the house of representatives, where the measure is expected to die a quiet death. Unless a federal court intervenes, that means the FCC’s repeal will take effect on 11 June 2018.

Three republicans joined all 49 U.S.… More

With net neutrality a national campaign issue, California lawmakers must carry the flag

16 May 2018 by Steve Blum
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The effects of a U.S. senate vote on reinstating network neutrality rules will reverberate in the California legislature this year, even if – as expected – the resolution of disapproval dies along the way.

However it goes, the vote will draw a partisan line in the sand for democrats. As a result, you can expect them to make net neutrality a signature issue in California’s June primary and November general election, when they’ll try to capture the few remaining republican house seats here.… More

Life and death alerts are low tech/no tech, California firestorm study shows

Social media and other online services were not the way people received lifesaving warnings when a firestorm tore through three northern California counties last year. Nearly all were alerted to evacuate via phone or personal contact, or by their own eyes, ears and noses.

That’s a top line read of the data from a study just published by the North Bay/North Coast Broadband Consortium. They ran an online survey and 3,700 people responded, nearly all of them from the hardest hit counties of Mendocino, Napa and Sonoma.… More

Helpfully, the FCC posts a guide to nasty network management

14 May 2018 by Steve Blum
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When the Federal Communications Commission published a notice on Friday, declaring that network neutrality rules would end on 11 June 2018, it also wrote a permission slip for Internet service providers to go ahead and do pretty much anything they want. It’s not stated that way, but that’s the effect.

In Friday’s notice, the FCC listed the network management practices and service terms that ISPs have to disclose to consumers. It’s okay if they engage in those practices, so long as details are posted somewhere on their websites.… More

ZTE shutdown could lead to a mobile OS startup

13 May 2018 by Steve Blum
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A major Chinese smart phone and telecoms infrastructure manufacturer was stopped cold by U.S. trade sanctions, after it 1. did business with Iran contrary to U.S. rules and 2. didn’t adequately punish the executives responsible for the violation. ZTE announced last week that “the major operating activities of the company have ceased”. It’s number two smart phone maker in China, behind Huawei, but has a low profile among U.S. consumers.

The U.S. commerce department issued an order that bans U.S.… More

If you don’t stop it, fix it, justice department tells AT&T-Time Warner trial judge

12 May 2018 by Steve Blum
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It’s up to a federal judge to decide whether or not AT&T can buy Time Warner, and all the content and video channels that come along with it. The federal justice department tried to make the case that the deal would be anti-competitive and should be blocked. AT&T, naturally enough, claimed it wasn’t.

Some experts who followed the trial closely thought AT&T made the better case. The justice department has to prove that a vertical merger – when a company buys its supplier – would have the same destructive effect on competition as a horizontal one, when a company buys a competitor.… More

The net neutrality doomsday clock is running again

11 May 2018 by Steve Blum
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Update: the FCC’s notice is here.

June 11th is the day that federal network neutrality rules will end. Probably. The Federal Communications Commission announced yesterday that it will publish the final, required notice today, with an effective date one month from now.

Two long shot attempts to block the FCC are underway.

Democrats (and at least one republican) in the U.S. senate want to enact a resolution of disapproval that would veto the FCC’s republican majority decision late last year to scrap the net neutrality rules it approved three years ago, when it had a democratic majority.… More