California broadband subsidies will be top down, incumbent focused

9 November 2017 by Steve Blum
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The California Public Utilities Commission plans to take a more active role in deciding where and how broadband infrastructure will be subsidised, and to work more closely with incumbents in the process. Yesterday, commissioners discussed how they will run the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) program under new rules adopted by the California legislature. Assembly bill 1665 was signed into law by governor Jerry Brown last month. It requires the commission to periodically designate which communities in California can receive CASF money, based on a slower minimum broadband speed standard – 6 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload – that will slash the number of eligible households from 300,000 to just 20,000, according to one CPUC estimate.… More

Gonzales requests quotes for universal broadband service

Bringing broadband service into every home has long been a goal of the City of Gonzales, a town of 8,500 residents located in California’s Salinas Valley. Yesterday, the City took a big step in that direction by releasing a Request for Quotes that asks broadband providers to put an offer on the table…

The City wishes to enter into an extended term contract with one Respondent to provide consistent, reliable access to basic internet service to each housing unit and household (collectively, “Residence”) at a fixed monthly cost to the City.

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FCC misses night and day difference between lit and dark fiber

7 November 2017 by Steve Blum
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The Federal Communications Commission’s decision to allow CenturyLink to buy Level 3 Communications might have broken with merger review practices, but it is solidly in line with its past nonsense regarding wholesale broadband services. Earlier this year, the FCC justified backing away from common carrier regulation of business-to-business service with the circular argument that if ISPs – Comcast and Charter Communications, in particular – don’t follow common carrier rules, then common carrier rules don’t apply.… More

Rural Californians still fleeing Frontier broadband by the thousands

6 November 2017 by Steve Blum
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Frontier is still losing broadband subscribers in California, more so in rural areas than in urban areas, but either way the counts are dropping. That’s according to Frontier’s third quarter 2017 financial report and presentation. The good news? Frontier says it’s not bleeding as fast as it was.

Frontier first separates its results out into what it calls “CTF”, short for California, Texas and Florida, and “legacy”, which is what it had before it bought out Verizon’s wireline systems in those three states.… More

Sneak peek at FCC's pending preemption of local wireless reviews?

5 November 2017 by Steve Blum
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Some poles are history.

The Federal Communications Commission might have given us a preview of what its intended preemption of state and local discretion over wireless sites will look like. Later this month, commissioners will vote on whether or not to exempt replacement utility poles, that are used to support new wireless facilities, from historical preservation reviews. At the top level, it’s about extending an existing historical review exemption for towers to utility poles that aren’t presently supporting wireless equipment.… More

Video product demand shifts away from TVs in U.S. homes

4 November 2017 by Steve Blum
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U.S. consumers are buying bigger TVs with better picture quality – 4K ultra high definition sets selling fast and could be in 20% of homes by 2019 – but their love affair with the small screen could be on the wane as they increasingly turn to even tinier displays. That’s the conclusion of a periodic survey by the federal energy department.

The study was conducted by the Energy Information Administration (EIE), an agency that, among other things, analyses adoption of consumer electronics products in order to track and forecast household energy use.… More

U.S. senate looks at stomping local wireless property rights and permits

3 November 2017 by Steve Blum
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A draft bill bouncing around the U.S senate would preempt state and local ownership of public property when wireless companies want to use it, and would put tight limits on state and local authority to issue permits for wireless facilities on private property. It’s a bipartisan effort, led by senators John Thune (R – South Dakota) and Brian Schatz (D – Hawaii), both of whom are major congressional broadband policy players.

In a lot of ways, it resembles senate bill 649, which was approved by the California legislature this year then vetoed by governor Jerry Brown, who wanted a “more balanced solution”.… More

Swat away state broadband laws, Verizon tells FCC

2 November 2017 by Steve Blum
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Verizon doesn’t like it when states pass laws that affect its business, and now it wants the Federal Communications Commission to simply sweep those annoying rules away with a single, blanket preemption.

In a white paper filed with the FCC, Verizon points to ongoing efforts in California, and several other states, to re-impose Internet privacy rules that were overturned earlier this year by the federal government. It also fears that states will try to reinstate net neutrality requirements, and other common carrier obligations that the FCC is likely to scrap in the coming months.… More

Broadband redlining in rural California, a tale of two mayors

1 November 2017 by Steve Blum
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Internet access in rural California is fantastic, and it’s awful. Those two messages were delivered to the California Public Utilities Commission last week by, respectively, the mayors of Mammoth Lakes and Oroville.

The reason for the difference? A big, fat open access middle mile fiber route, paid for by state and federal subsidies. The same type of project that the California legislature and governor Brown banned from future funding by the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF).… More

FCC limits scope of merger reviews as it okays CenturyLink-Level 3 deal

31 October 2017 by Steve Blum
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CenturyLink can close its deal to buy Level 3 Communication, and will probably do so tomorrow. The Federal Communications Commission gave the final green light to the deal on Sunday, without imposing any significant conditions. The FCC’s decision amounts to a manifesto that lays out how the republican majority will sharply restrict its review of future mergers and acquisitions.

The previous democratic-majority FCC took a broad look at proposed mergers, sometimes imposing conditions aimed at extracting general public benefits, but not necessarily directly related to problems caused by the transaction itself.… More