broadband

End of net neutrality means more corporate control of Central Coast media and speech

10 December 2017 by Steve Blum
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I was asked to write a piece on net neutrality from a Central Coast perspective, for Santa Cruz TechBeat, and thought it might be worth reposting here, with some minor updating…

The Federal Communications Commission is on a fast and narrow track to repeal network neutrality rules and declare broadband industry regulation off limits. The three republican commissioners say they’ll vote on Thursday to scrap the broadband regulatory regime enacted during the Obama administration, also on a 3 to 2 party line vote.… More

Comcast, AT&T have the traffic cones ready for Internet slow lanes

8 December 2017 by Steve Blum
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AT&T and Comcast are offering two good reasons for keeping broadband under the common carrier regulatory umbrella, and not scraping network neutrality rules. Not that they meant to do that. It’s just their nature.

Comcast is backing away from an unconditional promise to abide by net neutrality principles, regardless of whether or not federal rules require it to do so. That pledge was made in 2014, while Comcast was in the middle of an unsuccessful attempt to add cable systems owned by Time Warner and Charter Communications to its portfolio.… More

AT&T, Frontier talk to CPUC about future networks, without putting all cards on the table

7 December 2017 by Steve Blum
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The California Public Utilities Commission looked at telephone company plans to replace copper networks and plain old telephone service (POTS) with new technology at a workshop in San Francisco yesterday. Representatives from AT&T and Frontier Communications talked about some, but not all, of those plans, as I pointed out in the remarks I prepared, and mostly delivered, at the workshop…

The copper-to-IP transition involves three discrete but inter-related issues. Only two of those issues were addressed today.

… More

Big telecom gets bigger while the small get teeny tiny, part 2

6 December 2017 by Steve Blum
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Size matters in the telecoms business. That’s true when success is measured by broadband subscriber counts, as I explored in yesterday’s post, and it’s true for share prices too. Some companies might be heading for a very hard landing.

It’s the small and mid-sized telephone companies that are in the roughest shape. CenturyLink’s share price is down 41% since this time last year, which is the best of the middle of the pack. Its purchase of Level 3 Communications seems to be slowing its descent.… More

Consumers chase better broadband, ditching small companies and old tech

5 December 2017 by Steve Blum
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Cable companies are widening their lead over telcos in the battle for broadband market domination. According to a tabulation by FierceTelecom that tracks the top 15 wireline broadband companies, cable companies picked up a net gain of 2 million broadband subscribers, while telcos lost 430,000 during the first nine months of 2017.

One clear trend: whether it’s the cable or telephone side of the ledger, the big are getting bigger, and the small are struggling.

Looking just at the third quarter – July through September – Charter Communications was the cable company gaining the most, adding 249,000 net new broadband subs, but Comcast wasn’t far behind, with a bump of 214,000 subs.… More

California muni broadband battle continues, with or without federal advice

4 December 2017 by Steve Blum
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Even if it’s adopted as is – and it’s as likely to get worse as it is to get better – a wish list of muni-stomping broadband policy drafted by a Federal Communications Commission advisory group, and echoed by the FCC majority, probably won’t have much impact in California.

That’s not necessarily good news for Californian cities and counties, though. One of the recommendations – grant cable franchises on a statewide basis with an impossibly light and delicate regulatory touch – has been law here for more than ten years.… More

California wildfires are everyone's problem, regardless of who's at fault

27 November 2017 by Steve Blum
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The recent wildfires that struck seemingly everywhere all at once, but particularly hard in the northern California wine country, might have been caused, in part, by wind whipped electric lines surrounded by a canopy of dense, dry trees. If that’s what happened, then electric companies, and particularly PG&E, could be liable for billions of dollars worth of damage.
It poses a difficult public policy question: who pays? Ratepayers, shareholders or taxpayers?
Coincidentally, the California Public Utilities Commission is due to decide that question at this week’s meeting, at least in regards to a series of wildfires in San Diego County in 2007.… More

FCC safe harbor gift to telcos is a pirate's dream

26 November 2017 by Steve Blum
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The Federal Communications Commission’s sure-to-be-approved draft decision stripping broadband service of common carrier classification could create an island of legal immunity for Internet service providers. At least some of them.

It’s kind of like Pirates of the Caribbean. Not the Disney movie, the real pirates. The ones who looted and murdered their way to riches, and returned to safe havens far beyond the reach of law or civilisation.

The draft removes the FCC from any meaningful broadband oversight role, and preempts states from trying to pick up any of the slack, real or imagined.… More

When geeks go bad: FCC majority turns twisted tech into politicised policy

24 November 2017 by Steve Blum
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The rationale for declaring broadband to no longer be a common carrier service is a dog’s breakfast of contrived logic and ignored facts. The draft decision was posted Wednesday by Federal Communications Commission chair Ajit Pai, after being enthusiastically pimped by his fellow republicans and fearfully slagged by their democratic counterparts. It’s on a fast track to be approved on a party line vote in mid-December.

This reversal rests on the FCC majority’s argument that broadband is not a simple telecommunications service, which federal law defines as “the transmission, between or among points specified by the user, of information of the user’s choosing, without change in the form or content of the information as sent and received”.… More

The dingo is in the details as FCC reverses common carrier decision, preempts state broadband laws

22 November 2017 by Steve Blum
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The Federal Communications Commission’s draft common carrier order is an unconditional surrender to the demands and desires of big cable and telephone companies. It reverses the 2015 decision to treat broadband as a common carrier service and impose network neutrality rules. As tabled by chairman Ajit Pai and enthusiastically endorsed by his colleagues in the republican FCC majority, the draft combines a lawyerly micro-focus on cherry picked data points with arguments formed not by reason but by a pre-determined result.… More