broadband

Don't force us to subsidize wireless companies, cities ask FCC

7 May 2017 by Steve Blum
, , , ,

The Federal Communication Commission’s move toward preempting local and state review of wireless infrastructure building plans and locations, and, potentially, their ability to control public right-of-ways and real estate they own, has produced a useful primer on the issues involved, as cities and counties see it. A coalition of more than 1,800 communities filed a joint response to a request from Mobilitie, a mobile infrastructure company, that asked the FCC to give it free rein to install tens of thousands of towers, which it tries to pass off as 120-foot steel utility poles, along public roads (h/t to Omar Masry at the City and County of San Francisco for the pointer).… More

Fresno broadband subsidy proposal scores two major, welcome firsts

4 May 2017 by Steve Blum
, , , ,

Update: the CPUC unanimously approved the grant for the CalNeva project in Coalinga and Huron at its 11 May 2017 meeting.

For the first time, a cable company is in line for a broadband construction subsidy from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF). The California Public Utilities Commission is expected to decide whether or not to give CalNeva Broadband a $511,000 grant to upgrade former Comcast cable systems in Coalinga and Huron in Fresno County and provide broadband and television service to 5,500 homes.… More

FCC has bad information about what telecoms is

30 April 2017 by Steve Blum
, , ,

The Federal Communications Commission started down the road to roll back its previous decision to regulate broadband as a common carrier service last week. A draft decision to open up a process to reverse its 2015 decision to reclassify Internet access (yes, it’s incredibly bureaucratic) from being an information service to a telecommunications service will be taken up by commissioners next month.

Information services are value added services. Facebook adds value to the your bits by processing that data and connecting it every which way with what your friends send them.… More

Federal broadband development swamp heads south

29 April 2017 by Steve Blum
, , ,

The south rises again.

If you were hoping that Donald Trump’s campaign promise to drain the Beltway swamp was going to shake up the agriculture subsidy machine that funnels broadband development money to the south and midwest at California’s expense, then it looks like you’re going to be disappointed.

The U.S. senate confirmed former Georgia governor Sonny Perdue as agriculture secretary this week. He has spent his life in the southern farming industry, as a boy growing up on a farm, as a veterinarian, as governor and as a commodities trader.… More

California assembly committee digs a deeper digital divide

27 April 2017 by Steve Blum
, , ,

Broadband service expectations are low and the appetite for funding independent, competitive broadband infrastructure is vanishingly small in the California assembly. Or at least in the communications and conveyance committee, which took up assembly bill 1665 yesterday.

Carried by assemblyman Eduardo Garcia (D – Coachella), AB 1665 would reinstate a tax on telephone bills and add $300 million to the California Advanced Services Fund’s (CASF) broadband infrastructure subsidy kitty (and $30 million to other programs).

But it would subsidise a dismal broadband landscape.… More

$300 million taxpayer gift to cable, telcos teed up in California assembly

26 April 2017 by Steve Blum
, , ,

California’s primary broadband infrastructure program – the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) – is about to get a makeover that’s custom tailored for the state’s two major incumbent telephone companies, with goodies for cable operators, so they don’t feel left out.

Assembly bill 1665, carried by Eduardo Garcia (D – Riverside County), is set to be rewritten by the assembly communications and conveyance committee this afternoon. Up until now it’s just been a placeholder bill, waiting for deals to be cut so the details could be filled in.… More

Caltrans agrees to add conduit to highway projects

23 April 2017 by Steve Blum
, , , ,

Slow is a lot better than Stop.

More broadband conduit might be going into California highway projects over the next few years. A deal was struck between a north coast assemblyman – Jim Wood (D – Healdsburg) – and Caltrans: Wood drops his current effort to write conduit obligations into law, and Caltrans promises to rewrite its policies to be more accomodating to broadband infrastructure. According to a press release from Wood’s office…

“Caltrans has been a willing participant in discussions during the past two years as we have tried to move the needle on expanding Californian’s access to broadband,” said Wood.

… More

FCC steps back from broadband regulation, steps on local government

21 April 2017 by Steve Blum
, , , ,

The weed whacker was whirling at full tilt yesterday as the Federal Communications Commission decided to take on local limits on cell sites and utility poles, and roll back regulation of wholesale broadband services. The voting was largely bipartisan. Democrat Mignon Clyburn concurred with republicans Ajit Pai and Michael O’Rielly on opening two major enquiries, one on whether wireless permit shot clocks should be given deemed granted teeth when they expire and the other on a range of wireline issues, including limits on how long local governments can take to review construction permits and how much they can charge.… More

Cable companies will double broadband prices because they can

19 April 2017 by Steve Blum
, , , ,

Source: New Street Research, via *FierceCable*

In a competitive market, pricing is dynamic – you can’t reliably plan more than one or two moves ahead. But in a de facto monopoly – either a single seller or a duopoly with a weak second banana – you can lay out a long term roadmap and follow it relentlessly.
That’s what one noted financial analyst thinks the two big U.S. cable companies are doing. According to a story in FierceCable, Jonathan Chaplin, an analyst at New Street Research, thinks cable broadband prices will double in the coming years…

“Comcast and Charter have given up on usage-based pricing for now; however, we expect them to continue annual price increases,” Chaplin said.

… More

Subsidise what we're already doing, telecoms companies tell CPUC

17 April 2017 by Steve Blum
, , , ,

Give me the money!

Big telecoms companies don’t want California broadband infrastructure subsidies to go to potential competitors, and they don’t want to be pushed into spending any more capital on upgrades than they’ve already budgeted. AT&T, Frontier Communications and the cable industry’s California lobbying front took a defensive posture in comments regarding broadband development priorities drafted by the California Public Utilities Commission. It was in response to a staff white paper that took a first shot at a quantitative analysis of how to get the greatest benefit out of the roughly $60 million still available for infrastructure grants in the California Advanced Services Fund.… More