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If you're wondering how much it costs to use existing poles and conduit, it's public information

20 July 2014 by Steve Blum
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The most difficult and costly part of any wireline broadband infrastructure project is getting cable from point A to point B. There are two primary ways of doing it: stringing it on poles or running through buried conduit. Since the chances of getting permission to build a new pole route in California is only slightly better than the odds of getting approval to drill for oil in San Francisco Bay, your only independent alternative is to start digging, at the rate of $30 to $60 a foot or more.… More

Broadband astroturf grows thicker

10 June 2014 by Steve Blum
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The astroturfing season is officially open. According to a story in Vice, big incumbent ISPs are trying to make their opposition to new FCC network neutrality rules or, worse, reclassification of broadband as a regulated, common carrier service look like it’s coming from the common people. A group calling itself Broadband for America – who could be against that? – is cranking up an artificial grassroots – astroturf – campaign against net neutrality. But the group’s leadership is not exactly made up of consumer advocates…

Last month, Broadband for America wrote a letter to the FCC bluntly demanding that the agency ‘categorically reject’ any effort toward designating broadband as a public utility.

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AT&T's rural broadband solution makes satellite look cheap

9 June 2014 by Steve Blum
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Something for everyone off the turnip truck.

As it shuts off new rural DSL connections, AT&T is talking up the wonders of its wireless service. It’s only going to get better if regulators allow it to take over DirecTv, at least according a statement the company filed with the SEC…

Today, many Americans in rural areas lack access to a high speed broadband service or have access to only one provider. With the cost synergies and increased revenue from this transaction, AT&T will expand its high speed broadband build to offer a competitive bundle of high speed fixed wireless broadband and satellite video service.

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On the whole, it's broadband market failure


What’s a snowball’s chance in Washington?

Telecoms mega-deals (or have we upgraded to giga-deals?) are snowballing: four in four months. First Comcast and Time-Warner, then Comcast and Charter, AT&T and DirecTv and now Sprint and T-Mobile. Each new merger – of companies or markets – looks to the previous ones for justification. If Comcast is bulking up, AT&T needs to as well. A bigger AT&T, in turn, requires that Sprint and T-Mobile combine forces, or so they say.… More

AT&T Gigapower tease is just a Gigaweasel

5 June 2014 by Steve Blum
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AT&T is promising more fiber (and, by the way, higher rural wireless broadband speeds) if it’s allowed to buy DirecTv. That’s one way of reading a disclosure statement it just submitted to the SEC, but it’s not the way to bet.

What the filing actually says is…

The economics of this transaction will allow the combined company to upgrade 2 million additional locations to high speed broadband with Gigapower FTTP (fiber to the premise) and expand our high speed broadband footprint to an additional 13 million locations where AT&T will be able to offer a pay TV and high speed broadband bundle.

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DirecTv's installer network is hidden gem in AT&T deal

19 May 2014 by Steve Blum
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AT&T intends to expand its high speed broadband footprint with wireless service, a goal that’ll be much easier to achieve if its acquisition of DirecTv goes through. There’s a lot of talk about the television side of the deal – and rightly so – but wireless broadband is a core element too, according to AT&T’s announcement…

AT&T will use the merger synergies to expand its plans to build and enhance high-speed broadband service to 15 million customer locations, mostly in rural areas where AT&T does not provide high-speed broadband service today, utilizing a combination of technologies including fiber to the premises and fixed wireless local loop capabilities.

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San Francisco tells AT&T where to put its equipment cabinets

9 May 2014 by Steve Blum
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Some people in San Francisco seem determined to fight a last ditch battle against broadband infrastructure upgrades proposed by AT&T. San Francisco supervisors are considering a new ordinance that would put a dump truck load of restrictions in front of any request to put broadband equipment cabinets in the public right of way. One sample…

The following locations are disfavored, and the Department shall not issue a Surface-Mounted Facility Site Permit in these disfavored locations unless the Applicant can show that no other option is available:…On Public Right-of-Ways that the San Francisco General Plan has designated as being most significant to City pattern, defining City form, having an important street view for orientation or as having views that are rated “excellent” or “good”.

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Is it crazy to hope a broadband merger could increase competition?

4 May 2014 by Steve Blum
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For the umpteenth time, AT&T is said to be in talks to buy a major U.S. direct broadband satellite (DBS) company, in this case DirecTv. The first time I heard this rumor was in 1995, when DirecTv and the company I was working for, U.S. Satellite Broadband (later merged together), did a joint marketing deal with what is now AT&T (but was SBC back then).

In fact, SBC’s later acquisition of the business and brand was partly due to the failed cable ambitions of the old AT&T.… More

AT&T hypes fiber to the chosen few

25 April 2014 by Steve Blum
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Assume the position.

The digital divide is getting deeper, thanks to diligent digging by incumbents. This week’s big announcement is that AT&T is looking at 100 cities as possible sites for gigabit service. Okay, it’s their GigaPower service which is designed for “up to” a gigabit. That doesn’t mean anyone will actually see it, but, hey, it lets them say giga twice in the same sentence, which makes it a really fast press release.

It doesn’t actually say that fiber-to-the-home builds are on the way, just “a network that includes fiber-optic technology”.… More

AT&T wants Google's deal in San Antonio, but not for anything in particular

6 April 2014 by Steve Blum
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Oh, all right. You can have a press release too.

AT&T is about to get the same lease terms in San Antonio that Google got. On Thursday, the city council will look at a draft agreement that would give AT&T almost exactly the same access to city property to install fiber huts that it offered Google last month.
If you lay the Google fiber hut site master lease and the draft of the AT&T version alongside each other, they match word for word, except for the rental rates charged and a couple other minor details.… More