Happy holidays, and a huge thank you to everyone who browsed this blog in 2017

25 December 2017 by Steve Blum


If you’re reading this holiday post, then you truly are a dedicated reader. I’m thoroughly grateful for your interest. 2017 has been a wonderful year in many respects, but a writer’s greatest joy is to be read. Thank you for making this daily excursion into cyberspace so rewarding.
I hit a major milestone this month: five years of uninterrupted daily posts, at least one per day, every day, seven days a week. It’s been a pleasure and, it appears, useful.… More

Challenges to FCC net neutrality decision will wait until next year

24 December 2017 by Steve Blum
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The Federal Communications Commission isn’t celebrating Christmas the way it did Thanksgiving this year. Instead of leaving us with a massive document dump before heading home for the holiday, the FCC went into the long weekend without releasing the final text of its decision to strip broadband service of common carrier status and, in the process, scrap network neutrality rules.

So for now, the decision isn’t in effect yet and any formal opposition is on hold.… More

5G mobile tech finally moves from marketing hype to a hard standard

23 December 2017 by Steve Blum
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A formal, implementable set of specifications for 5G mobile broadband technology and service is now final. The international organisation responsible for the standard – 3GPP – reached agreement on an initial set of specs at a meeting in Portugal on Thursday.

That means that equipment manufacturers can start making gear – first fixed, because that’s easiest, and then mobile – that meets an agreed upon 5G standard. Carriers can implement pilot projects that won’t be orphaned as the technology develops.… More

Frontier punts on California broadband subsidy obligation

Frontier is bragging about how well it’s doing with the broadband infrastructure and service upgrades it promised to do, in exchange for $2 billion in federal subsidies. But not in California.

When it accepted the Federal Communications Commission’s Connect America Fund (CAF) money in 2015, Frontier agreed to deliver a minimal level of service – 10 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload speeds – to 58,000 homes and businesses in California in exchange for a total of $228 million, paid out over six years in $38 million increments.… More

Goodbye network neutrality, hello Internet openness

21 December 2017 by Steve Blum
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A limited resurrection of network neutrality rules is under consideration in the U.S. house of representatives, with emphasis on limited. This effort has a realistic chance of success, unlike most of the political reaction to last week’s Federal Communications Commission decision to scrap network neutrality rules and end broadband’s status as a common carrier service.

Introduced by Marsha Blackburn (R – Tennessee) and co-signed by 15 of her fellow republicans, house resolution 4682 reads like it was written by a Comcast lobbyist.… More

Wet string delivers faster broadband than AT&T or Frontier for 1 million Californians

20 December 2017 by Steve Blum
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The best broadband that AT&T and Frontier Communications offers to more than one million Californians is advertised at a download speed of 3 Mbps or less, if it’s available at all. That’s slower than the 3.5 Mbps that a British techie achieved using a couple of pieces of wet string and some ADSL gear.

He was sitting around the office one day and decided to give it a go. That earned him serious geek cred with his boss, Adrian Kennard, who runs Andrews and Arnold, an ISP in the U.K.… More

Blame game won't stop California broadband subsidy giveaway

19 December 2017 by Steve Blum
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The California legislature intended to protect AT&T’s and Frontier Communications’ rural broadband monopolies and subsidise their low speed service, when it passed assembly bill 1665 earlier this year. In effect, that’s what the California Public Utilities Commission said last week as it approved a resolution that allows the two biggest incumbents to claim exclusive rights to broadband infrastructure subsidies in the rural communities they serve (or not).

Telephone and cable industry lobbyists re-rigged the California Advanced Services Fund program and found enough friends in the legislature – democrat and republican – to approve it by more than a two-thirds majority.… More

California's new broadband cop talks tough but takes cash from telecoms lobbyists

18 December 2017 by Steve Blum
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The end of network neutrality and other common carrier rules throws broadband companies back under general consumer protection laws. Those are enforced, as Federal Communications Commission chair Ajit Pai put it, by “our nation’s premier consumer protection cop”, the Federal Trade Commission, and by state attorneys general.

In California, that’s Xavier Becerra, appointed by governor Jerry Brown when Kamala Harris moved to the U.S. senate. He has sole responsibility for anti-trust law enforcement and shares consumer protection duties with county prosecutors.… More

CPUC's cable franchise renewals remain private and privileged

17 December 2017 by Steve Blum
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Cable companies won’t be held publicly accountable for their business practices or service levels by the California Public Utilities Commission. That’s the result of a unanimous vote by commissioners on Thursday.

The CPUC’s semi-independent office of ratepayer advocates (ORA) asked the commission to revisit a 2014 decision that established a perfunctory, closed door review of statewide video franchise renewals. Cable lobbyists sweet talked California lawmakers into ending local franchise authority in 2006, and replacing it with a single, statewide process run by the CPUC.… More

Frontier's two buck suck tests FCC's consumer protection claims

16 December 2017 by Steve Blum
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Frontier Communication’s broadband customers might want to take up the offer of fierce consumer fraud protection that the Federal Communication Commission made as it issued its network belligerence decision this week. They thought they were getting broadband service at a stated price, but Frontier surprised them by adding a $2 “Internet infrastructure surcharge” to their bills. Because it could.

The charge is an attempt by Frontier to advertise a low price for broadband service, while charging a higher one.… More