broadband

Federal broadband grants would help level the playing field for California projects

16 June 2013 by Steve Blum
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Big state, big farms.

The version of the federal omnibus farm bill that was approved by the U.S. Senate last week improves the chances of actually building broadband infrastructure in areas of California where no service currently exists. That’s assuming the lack of service can be documented and withstand challenges from competing providers who might claim otherwise, which is a separate can of worms.

The legislation, which still has to be approved by the House, allows the Rural Utilities Service (RUS) to give outright grants to pay for broadband projects, in addition to its existing loan program.… More

Building on a broadband lead

15 June 2013 by Steve Blum
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Blocking strategy.

Akamai, a leading content delivery network provider, publishes periodic performance reports that ranks global Internet service by country. Its latest figures put Korea, Japan and Hong Kong at the top of the chart.

That doesn’t tell the whole story, though. The Akamai numbers show how fast traffic is moving on its network, not how much of it there is. So having, say, super fast connections in gaming centers and clusters of homes with gigabit class connections can skew the rankings.… More

Broadband competition beats stagnation and regulation

12 June 2013 by Steve Blum
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Don’t fence me in.

There’s nothing new about local governments getting into the utilities business. Nearly all waste water utilities and many (most?) water utilities are publicly owned and managed, either by a primary agency (i.e. city or county) or a special district or equivalent. Plenty of publicly owned electric and solid waste utilities are around too.

So long as the go/no-go decision is made by the taxpayers involved – indirectly by representative government or directly by vote, as they prefer – it’s little different from a corporation and its shareholders deciding to commit capital.… More

An invisible hand for wireless broadband

6 June 2013 by Steve Blum
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What we have here is a failure to communicate.

Shortages are often – some would say always – the result of a market failure. Supply and demand are functions of both the physical availability of a good or service and the price deemed acceptable by both parties in the transaction. If the balancing mechanisms don’t exist, suppliers are left with unsold inventory and buyers do without.

Wireless bandwidth is a classic example. Who hasn’t tried to connect a smart phone and found no mobile carrier signal and only locked down WiFi?… More

Cable lobby blocking competition from broadband subsidies in federal farm bill

5 June 2013 by Steve Blum
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Don’t you dare overbuild modern telecoms systems.

Federal broadband subsidies for rural areas are up for a vote in the U.S. Senate on Thursday, and cable lobbyists are pressing hard for restrictions on construction funding. Broadband is but one tiny piece of a huge, five year farm program that costs nearly a trillion dollars and includes everything from crop insurance to food stamps.

The bill has been stalled in the senate for some time. Given the rules there, it needs 60 out of 100 votes to move forward.… More

Last chance challenge to FCC pole attachment rules

3 June 2013 by Steve Blum
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Crowding in on a deal.

The U.S. Supreme Court might have the final say over whether incumbent telcos get the same pole attachment price breaks as cable and new telecoms companies. The base FCC-mandated rate is $7 per attachment per year, assuming it only takes up one foot of vertical space on a pole.

In 2011, the FCC extended that rate to all. It was originally thought to apply only to new entrants into the telecoms business, including cable companies.… More

Don't predict African broadband growth with consensus and conventional wisdom

2 June 2013 by Steve Blum
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African traffic coming thicker and faster.

Cisco’s latest Visual Networking Index (VNI) shows global data traffic tripling over the next five years, growing to a level of 121,000 petabytes per month. North America and the Asia-Pacific region are the the big hitters, then and now, each accounting for roughly a third of total Internet traffic. Africa and the Middle East, on the other hand, barely registers. The report projects faster growth there, but even so that region’s share of global data movement will only go from about 2% of the total to 3%.… More

Internet video won't flourish in a walled garden

1 June 2013 by Steve Blum
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Source: Cisco VNI 2012-2017

By 2017 Internet protocol video traffic will triple worldwide, according to Cisco’s latest Visual Networking Index (VNI). It’s an annual estimate of how Internet and Internet protocol traffic will grow over the coming five years.

IP video traffic totalled 24,000 petabytes a month during 2012 and is projected to grow to 76,000 petabytes a month in 2017.

The share of Internet protocol video delivered inside a walled garden will gradually decline, although like everything else it will continue to increase in absolute terms.… More

The ABCs of Google Fiber is anywhere but California

31 May 2013 by Steve Blum
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This isn’t Kansas.

California is not on the Google Fiber roadmap right now, says Milo Medin, the man running the project. He was speaking at a Fiber to the Home Council meeting in Kansas City this week. According to a CNET story reported by Marguerite Reardon…

[Medin] said that Google would love to bring fiber and 1Gbps broadband speeds to its employees and other Californians. But he said that in general California has many challenges that would make it too costly to build a fiber network there.

… More

California legislature votes more perks for cable and telephone companies

30 May 2013 by Steve Blum
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It’s on the house. Both houses, actually.

The California Assembly approved using broadband construction subsidy funds to pay for marketing programs and infrastructure in public housing yesterday. The votes was 58 yes and 17 no for assembly bill 1299, which means it heads over to the Senate for further consideration later this summer.

AB1299 earmarks $20 million from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) for building out broadband infrastructure in public housing projects and another $5 million for programs designed to encourage residents to buy service.… More