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AT&T upgrades coming, if you live on the "high-potential" side of the divide

26 March 2013 by Steve Blum
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You either have or you have not, Slim.

AT&T is getting ready to roll out 45 Mbps service in Dallas shortly and expand over its entire wireline footprint during the coming year, according to Broadband DSL Reports. The technology being deployed – VDSL2 and pair bonding – has the potential to eventually make good on an earlier promise to deliver 75 to 100 Mbps service.

To maybe half of AT&T’s wireline customers. The other half will have to make do with slower copper-based speeds or, in some cases, with 4G mobile service.… More

Mobile carriers not convincing key California assemblyman

13 March 2013 by Steve Blum
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Present company not included.

“I know a whole lotta dumb people with smart devices,” said Steven Bradford, a Los Angeles assemblyman and chair of the California assembly’s utilities and commerce committee. He’s a member of the California Broadband Council, which met today in Sacramento. The reason people have $500 smart phones, he said, is because telephone companies “practically give them away and lock them into a long term contract.”

Bradford takes issue with the way telephone companies are enthusiastically – and expensively – building out mobile networks in California and signing up customers, while at the same time letting wired service languish.… More

AT&T fails to offload traffic to WiFi

22 February 2013 by Steve Blum
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AT&T must’ve hired the same guy who invented premium lifeboat pricing on the Titanic.

AT&T’s public WiFi network is not the offload destination of choice for its smart phone customers, according to usage data from January 2013. Instead, customers prefer to log onto randomly available hotspots where ever they might be – home, work or in a pub.

In the U.S., only 3% of a typical smart phone user’s WiFi traffic goes via a WiFi access point managed by his or her’s primary mobile carrier.… More

New mobile OS worlds, maybe

10 January 2013 by Steve Blum
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Mobile moves fast, but not to Linux yet.

“The world changes on a dime, especially in the mobile industry,” said Ed Elkin, marketing director for advanced communications solutions at Alcatel-Lucent. “The next thing that happens is HTML 5.”

He was speaking at the “Smart phone trends: current and future” panel at CES this afternoon. Moderated by Mashable editor Lance Ulanoff, it also featured representatives from T-Mobile, AT&T and HTC.

In theory, applications based on HTML 5 could run on any mobile operating system with little or no modification.… More

Amtrak hasn't punched out yet

28 December 2012 by Steve Blum
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Tools of the trade.

Score a win for AT&T. On recent train trip through California, I confirmed that Amtrak is indeed using a wireless bar code scanner to manage passengers, even if conductors haven’t given up their ancient badge of office, the ticket punch.

Confronted by a confused passenger who was certain he’d purchased an e-ticket but didn’t know quite what that meant, the conductor smiled and whipped out his new smart phone-sized gizmo. A couple of taps and he found the ticket.… More

Verizon says chill out, only a million California homes have crap Internet


One million homes.

AT&T, Verizon and a posse of community broadband advocates joined the debate over eligibility requirements for California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) grants and loans. The advocacy folks want fewer or no restrictions on who can apply for broadband infrastructure construction subsidies. The telcos like the current rules which limit the money to, well, telcos.

Like the cable lobby, the big telcos are most offended by the idea that the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) might give money to competing providers in underserved areas, where broadband service doesn’t meet the minimum standard of 6 Mbps down and 1.5 Mbps up.… More

Mobile carriers' broadband coverage claims challenged by ISPs

Availability maps submitted by mobile telephone carriers are a problem for local Internet companies trying to expand and improve broadband service in California’s central coast region.

Representatives from six Internet service providers – Central Coast Internet, Charter, Cruzio, Razzolink, Redshift and Surfnet – participated in a workshop yesterday organized by the Central Coast Broadband Consortium (CCBC). A number of concerns were discussed, including construction permits, funding, and coordination with other utility and local government projects.… More

Incumbents fighting CASF proposals

Five applications comprising three projects were submitted for California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) subsidies last month by competitive broadband service providers. All are under review by California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) staff. Incumbent carriers – AT&T and Charter Communications – have challenged all three projects (and four of the five applications).

Because of the way CASF rules are written, two of the projects – Race Communications in Kern County and WillitsOnline in Mendocino County – had to file two grant applications each.… More

Mobile communications and government: be careful what you ask for, because you might get it

Some gems sparkled this afternoon in what otherwise was an unfocused chat. The topic was supposed to be mobile technology adoption by government agencies but instead skidded toward canned talking points from lobbyists.

Some panelists got it right, though. Eric Engleman, senior policy advisor for energy and innovation in the San Diego mayor’s office, zeroed in on two key policy areas that will determine the path government agencies will take regarding mobile applications and devices: open data policies and the development and integration of open source, interoperable software.… More

Update: Brown signs SB1161, no new Californian regulations for Internet services

30 September 2012 by Steve Blum
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California governor Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 1161, which prevents state agencies, particularly the California Public Utilities Commission, from extending regulations and oversight to “Internet Protocol enabled service”, including specifically VoIP, until at least 2020.

In his signing message, the governor said “this bill encourages the continued growth of these and other innovative services that have become a hallmark of our state.”

The language of the bill is broad, covering any service that “enables an end user to send or receive a communication in existing Internet Protocol format, or any successor Internet Protocol format through a broadband connection, regardless of whether the communication is voice, data, or video.”

… More