broadband

CPUC considers FTTH upgrade subsidy for Marin County town

3 May 2018 by Steve Blum
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Bolinas, a coastal community of about 700 homes in Marin County, is up for a $1.9 million broadband infrastructure subsidy from the California Public Utilities Commission next week. It’s the first grant proposal submitted to, and considered by, the CPUC since assembly bill 1665 was signed into law last year by governor Jerry Brown.

AB 1665 imposed severe restrictions on how money from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) can be spent. It lowered California’s minimum broadband standard to 6 Mbps download/1 Mbps upload speeds – if service is available at that level, then the legislature reckons no upgrade is needed.… More

Pay top dollar for low speed broadband, CPUC told

2 May 2018 by Steve Blum
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The counter punches landed at the California Public Utilities Commission yesterday, as nine organisations filed rebuttals to previous comments about how the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) should be run. The broadband infrastructure subsidy program is undergoing a complete make over, thanks to last year’s assembly bill 1665, which lowered California’s minimum broadband speed standard and turned the fund into a piggy bank for AT&T and Frontier Communications.

The Central Coast Broadband Consortium’s reply, which I drafted and submitted, led off with a correction – I got the math wrong on service level weightings.… More

San Jose cuts $1,500-plus light pole lease deal with AT&T

30 April 2018 by Steve Blum
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The City of San Jose and AT&T have a new agreement to put “small cells on city-owned assets in the public right of way”. A formal contract is still to be negotiated, but assuming the San Jose city council signs off on the deal points, AT&T will install “approximately” 170 small cell sites to upgrade mobile broadband coverage on city-owned light poles and other vertical infrastructure.

AT&T will pay the city an annual lease rate of $1,500 per small cell site, plus $1,850,000 to process the immediately necessary paper work and streamline future requests.… More

Cities get better deals from wireless companies in a free market

27 April 2018 by Steve Blum
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One of the working groups spun off by the Federal Communications Commission’s broadband deployment advisory committee (BDAC) – an industry dominated body – looked at how much it costs telecoms companies to attach wires and wireless gear to poles. The results of that study are here. It was based on information that participants voluntarily submitted – the study kindly describes it as a “convenience sample” – so there’s a limit to its reliability. Even so it paints an interesting picture.… More

Telecom industry's broadband policy advice takes shape at FCC

26 April 2018 by Steve Blum
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The Federal Communication Commission’s industry-centric broadband deployment advisory committee (BDAC) met again yesterday. I didn’t watch the day-long webcast, but I did read through the transcript. It was here, but will probably be gone from the FCC’s website by the time you read this. The version I downloaded is here.

The group signed off on tweaks to a proposed one touch make ready policy. If adopted by the FCC, it would create a fast track process for new broadband infrastructure to be attached to existing utility poles.… More

Big incumbents tell CPUC to tilt California broadband subsidies in their favor

22 April 2018 by Steve Blum
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Four Internet service providers, all of whom have participated at one time or another in the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) infrastructure subsidy program, offered their ideas on how that money should be managed and allocated. So did a lobbying front representing cable companies – including Charter Communications, Comcast and Cox Communications – which have never participated. The big boys – AT&T, Frontier Communications and the cable industry – want grants on their own terms, while blocking competitors that might threaten their monopoly business models.… More

FCC pits one local technical expert against big telecom's lobbyist horde

19 April 2018 by Steve Blum
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Ajit Pai is trying to stop the bleeding on his Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC). The Federal Communications Commission chairman appointed David Young to the committee, as a representative of the National League of Cities. Young is the fiber infrastructure and right of way manager for Lincoln, Nebraska’s public works department. It’s not explicitly stated, but the intent seems to be to fill at least one of the chairs left vacant by recent resignations by high profile municipal representatives.… More

California broadband subsidy rules and $300 million on the table

17 April 2018 by Steve Blum
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The main event is finally under way. By yesterday’s deadline, thirteen organisations filed comments regarding how the California Public Utilities Commission should spend $300 million in new California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) money (plus however much more is left in the kitty) on broadband infrastructure subsidies. I haven’t read through them all yet – if you’re interested, I’ve posted them all here – but a top line glance shows that service providers, including the big incumbents who expect to use CASF as a private piggy bank, have a lot to say.… More

Federal ag department looks to co-ops to lead broadband development

16 April 2018 by Steve Blum
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At least one member of the Trump administration isn’t trying to smack local broadband initiatives with a preemption sledgehammer. Agriculture secretary Sonny Perdue spoke to a gathering of representatives of rural electric cooperatives. Those are (usually) small electric systems that are organised as buyer cooperatives – electric customers are the owners. The federal agriculture department has been subsidising them for more than 80 years. Many of those co-ops have branched off into the broadband business, also with subsidies from the agriculture department’s Rural Utilities Service (RUS).… More

Streetlight gifts to mobile carriers spread to other states

15 April 2018 by Steve Blum
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California is not the only state where lobbyists for mobile carriers and other big, incumbent cable and telephone companies are giving stacks of cash offering somber advice to state legislators and getting huge gifts of public property in return. According to a couple of articles by Timothy Clark in Route Fifty, several other states are preempting local ownership of vertical infrastructure and municipal control of public right of ways.

In some states, the giveaway is even more generous than the California’s gift to telecoms lobbyists last year, senate bill 649.… More