Frontier CEO leaves the door open to a California exit

1 March 2018 by Steve Blum
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Frontier Communications had a rough day yesterday, following the release of its fourth quarter 2017 results and the announcement that is would no longer be paying dividends to shareholders. Instead, it will direct that money toward paying down its substantial debt.

The company’s share price dropped about 24% on the day, continuing a slide that’s seen it lose more than 80% of its value over the past year. In a conference call with analysts, president and CEO Dan McCarthy was asked about rumors that Frontier was trying to sell off the wireline systems it acquired from Verizon two years ago in California, Texas and Florida – what it calls its “CTF” market.… More

FTC is everyone's broadband cop, but don't expect a fast response

28 February 2018 by Steve Blum
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The Federal Trade Commission can apply consumer protection laws to broadband service, even when a telephone company is delivering it. A federal appeals court in San Francisco made that clear on Monday when it rejected AT&T’s argument that the FTC’s authority doesn’t extend to telephone companies or other providers that have “common carrier” status.

An earlier ruling, made last year, would have barred the FTC from any oversight role regarding companies with common carrier status, even when the business line involved wasn’t a common carrier service.… More

FCC broadband speed standard isn't "advanced" anymore

27 February 2018 by Steve Blum
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Don’t be fooled. What the Federal Communications Commission labels “advanced telecommunications capability” is just the basic minimum broadband speed you need to access online services today. It’s advanced in the same sense that London’s New Inn, built in 1810 to replace the original, is new: it seemed that way at the time.

The concept of advanced online services was introduced into federal policy in 1996, when the U.S. congress last overhauled federal telecoms law.… More

With end of net neutrality, cable companies can put brakes on subscriber slide

26 February 2018 by Steve Blum
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Fewer than half of U.S. households have traditional cable television subscriptions, according to research done by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC). With the end of network neutrality rules, cable companies, AT&T and, to a lesser extent, other telcos will be able to fight this trend more aggressively. Even if they can’t stop or even slow it, they can use their monopoly broadband gatekeeper power to rake in a greater share of subscriber revenue.

Cable TV subscriptions have been trending downward over the five years that PWC has been running this survey.… More

Mobile phone radiation limits are safe, FDA concludes following ten year study

25 February 2018 by Steve Blum
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Mobile phones don’t significantly increase the risk of cancer, given current safety limits. That’s the federal Food and Drug Administration’s assessment of two long term studies recently completed by the National Institutes of Health.

Rats and mice were exposed to higher-than-allowed levels – up to six-times as much – of radio frequency radiation for nine hours a day for two years. According to the NIH, only one significant negative effect was observed, and only in male rats…

High exposure to radio frequency radiation (RFR) in rodents resulted in tumors in tissues surrounding nerves in the hearts of male rats, but not female rats or any mice, according to draft studies from the National Toxicology Program (NTP)…

“The levels and duration of exposure to RFR were much greater than what people experience with even the highest level of cell phone use, and exposed the rodents’ whole bodies.

… More

Wireless charging is less fussy, but still a work in progress

24 February 2018 by Steve Blum
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One of my goals for CES was to see if wireless charging technology is ready for mainstream consumer adoption. The answer is yes if you’re making contact with a charging pad, but only maybe if you’re not.

Charging pads, of one kind or another, were easy to find at CES. Near field charging – putting a gizmo in direct contact with a wireless charging device – appears to be a maturing technology. Although the Qi standard is gaining – Samsung, LG and Apple support it in some of their models – compatibility is still an issue.… More

FCC officially publishes decision reversing net neutrality

23 February 2018 by Steve Blum
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The game clock is now running on the Federal Communications Commission’s decision to reverse broadband’s status as a common carrier service and end network neutrality rules. Sorta. The decision approved by commissioners in December was published in the Federal Register yesterday. That means court challenges can begin – an earlier appeal by state attorneys general was largely symbolic and presumably will be refiled. There’s a ten day procedural window for everyone to pile on in the federal appeals court of their choosing, after that the challenges will probably, but not certainly, be consolidated into a single case that’ll be heard in Washington, D.C.… More

4K TV will be in half of U.S. homes by end of 2019

22 February 2018 by Steve Blum
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The consumer adoption rate of 4K television sets blew past last year’s expectations, climbing to 25% of U.S. households by January 2018, according to the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). My rough estimate that ultra-high definition 4K sets would be in 20% of U.S. homes by the end of 2017 was low. The adoption rate grew even faster, amidst falling prices, increased content availability and 4K’s status as the default standard for large screen TVs (50 inches and larger).… More

Self driving cars will need wireless broadband, but not for heavy duty computing

21 February 2018 by Steve Blum
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There will be a flood of bits swirling through self driving cars, and virtually all of that data will be processed by onboard computers, even where 5G networks are deployed.

“Autonomous vehicles are software defined”, said Deepu Talla, vice president of autonomous machines at Nvidia, a high end chip maker, speaking at CES. That software will run on onboard computers, and won’t be processed served from the cloud via mobile broadband networks, he said. There are four reasons for that:

  1. Latency.
… More

California line extension subsidy program sends money to cable companies via low income homes

20 February 2018 by Steve Blum
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When lobbyists for big telcos and cable companies rewrote California’s primary broadband infrastructure subsidy program – the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) – last year, they carefully maximised the money they’d get while minimising, even eliminating, independent competition and inconvenient rules.

One of the perks approved by lawmakers is particularly pleasing to the cable lobbyists who asked for it: a money laundering scheme that allows them to get broadband construction subsidies without the need for any annoying oversight or other regulatory entanglement with the California Public Utilities Commission, which gives out the grants.… More