San Francisco muni FTTP short list is down to three choices

20 April 2018 by Steve Blum
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The City and County of San Francisco is still tight-lipped regarding details of its $2 billion fiber-to-the-premise project, but its latest cryptic update indicates that the scheduled one-on-one interviews with potential bidders are complete and the first cut was made.

Thanks to a tip from a kind reader, I checked the City’s purchasing website and found this notice, dated yesterday, 19 April 2018…

Notice of Pre-Qualified Bidders for Citywide Fiber to the Premises Network, Lit Fiber and Wi-Fi Services RFQ

The City has completed its evaluation of Citywide Fiber to the Premises Network, Lit Fiber and Wi-Fi Services RFQ.

… More

FCC pits one local technical expert against big telecom's lobbyist horde

19 April 2018 by Steve Blum
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Ajit Pai is trying to stop the bleeding on his Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC). The Federal Communications Commission chairman appointed David Young to the committee, as a representative of the National League of Cities. Young is the fiber infrastructure and right of way manager for Lincoln, Nebraska’s public works department. It’s not explicitly stated, but the intent seems to be to fill at least one of the chairs left vacant by recent resignations by high profile municipal representatives.… More

AT&T, Comcast, Charter get net neutrality help from California senate friends

18 April 2018 by Steve Blum
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Network neutrality legislation moved ahead in the California senate yesterday, but it’s not clear what exactly it says. The senate’s energy, utilities and communications committee worked over senate bill 822, before endorsing it on a party line vote and sending it on to the judiciary committee. As is common practice in Sacramento, the committee didn’t vote on the published text of the bill, carried by senator Scott Wiener (D – San Francisco), but conceptually approved it, based on unpublished amendments negotiated secretly on Monday, which will be further modified by changes yet to be dictated by committee chair Ben Hueso (D – San Diego).… More

California broadband subsidy rules and $300 million on the table

17 April 2018 by Steve Blum
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The main event is finally under way. By yesterday’s deadline, thirteen organisations filed comments regarding how the California Public Utilities Commission should spend $300 million in new California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) money (plus however much more is left in the kitty) on broadband infrastructure subsidies. I haven’t read through them all yet – if you’re interested, I’ve posted them all here – but a top line glance shows that service providers, including the big incumbents who expect to use CASF as a private piggy bank, have a lot to say.… More

Federal ag department looks to co-ops to lead broadband development

16 April 2018 by Steve Blum
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At least one member of the Trump administration isn’t trying to smack local broadband initiatives with a preemption sledgehammer. Agriculture secretary Sonny Perdue spoke to a gathering of representatives of rural electric cooperatives. Those are (usually) small electric systems that are organised as buyer cooperatives – electric customers are the owners. The federal agriculture department has been subsidising them for more than 80 years. Many of those co-ops have branched off into the broadband business, also with subsidies from the agriculture department’s Rural Utilities Service (RUS).… More

Streetlight gifts to mobile carriers spread to other states

15 April 2018 by Steve Blum
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California is not the only state where lobbyists for mobile carriers and other big, incumbent cable and telephone companies are giving stacks of cash offering somber advice to state legislators and getting huge gifts of public property in return. According to a couple of articles by Timothy Clark in Route Fifty, several other states are preempting local ownership of vertical infrastructure and municipal control of public right of ways.

In some states, the giveaway is even more generous than the California’s gift to telecoms lobbyists last year, senate bill 649.… More

Voters might get the chance to split one "nearly ungovernable" California into three

14 April 2018 by Steve Blum
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We’re one step away from voting on whether to break California up into three states. All that’s standing between the ballot box and Tim Draper’s second try at disrupting California’s comfortable, and largely unaccountable, political class is signature verification by the secretary of state’s office. Earlier this week, he announced that he’s collected twice the number of signatures needed to get it on the ballot.

He’s been here before, collecting 1.3 million signatures for his Six Californias initiative in 2014, only to have too many of them rejected by the secretary of state.… More

Unless it's AT&T or Verizon, telco capital investment is at life support levels

13 April 2018 by Steve Blum
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As with subscriber numbers, there’s a big gap between the two biggest telcos in the U.S. – AT&T and Verizon – and the rest of the field when it comes to capital spending. Both companies are planning multi-billion dollar investments in their networks in 2018, according to a story by Sean Buckley in FierceTelecom, with AT&T planning to spend $25 billion on capital upgrades in 2018, while Verizon is looking at the $17 billion to $18 billion range.… More

A little more light shed on San Francisco muni FTTP contenders

12 April 2018 by Steve Blum
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The City and County of San Francisco has released a little bit of information about the companies that are vying for a $2 billion municipal fiber to the premise (FTTP) project. (Okay, they say it’s $1.9 billion, but at this early stage in the game, the rounder and higher $2 billion figure probably describes it better).

A cryptic post buried on the City’s purchasing website says…

Notice of Shortlist of Respondent Teams selected for Oral Interviews for the Citywide Fiber to Premises Network, Lit Fiber & Wi-fi Services RFQ

The written proposal evaluation for the Citywide Fiber to Premises Network, Lit Fiber & Wi-fi Services RFQ is now complete.

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Mobilitie, Sprint whacked with fines for ignoring environmental, historic rules

11 April 2018 by Steve Blum
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Mobilitie’s fast and loose way of building out cellular networks has earned it and its major customer, Sprint, fines and a reprimand from the Federal Communications Commission. In a consent decree – a negotiated settlement – Mobilitie agreed to pay a $1.6 million fine and Sprint agreed to a $10 million fine for ignoring federal environmental and historic review regulations when building new towers.

The FCC’s documents don’t detail where and when the two companies sinned, but the violations were deliberate, as Mobilitie’s consent decree makes clear…

In an effort to meet certain deadlines, Mobilitie had commenced construction of certain wireless facilities without securing all necessary regulatory and environmental approvals required under the Commission’s Wireless Infrastructure Rules.

… More