broadband

Suddenlink tries to avoid going down the same regulatory review path as Comcast

26 June 2015 by Steve Blum
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Click for the full picture.

The purchase of Suddenlink Communications – the seventh largest cable operator in the U.S. and a significant video and Internet service provider in rural California – by a European company, Altice, is officially under review by the California Public Utilities Commission and the Federal Communications Commission.

As is typical with the initial applications, the companies are claiming there’s not much to worry about and approval should be quick and simple.… More

Low income subsidies for broadband service pushed by FCC

20 June 2015 by Steve Blum
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What would Ronald Reagan do?

The Federal Communications Commission voted 3 to 2 along party lines on Friday to begin work on a plan to extend lifeline benefits – telephone bill subsidies for low income people – to broadband service. We don’t exactly what they did, because the actual text of the decision won’t be available until commission staff get around to publishing it, but we do know that Ronald Reagan would have either loved or hated it.… More

Internet service providers are common carriers, beginning today

12 June 2015 by Steve Blum
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No blood, no foul, no stay.

The Federal Communications Commission’s common carrier rules for broadband infrastructure and service take effect today. Yesterday, a three-judge federal appellate court panel denied a request by telecoms companies to put the rules on hold while the appeals process moves forward. The judges didn’t give a specific reason, simply saying “petitioners have not satisfied the stringent requirements for a stay pending court review”.

However, the ruling did cite a U.S.… More

Charter bid to buy Time Warner could widen California's digital divide

11 June 2015 by Steve Blum
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If Charter Communications is successful in its attempt to buy Time Warner Cable and Bright House Communications, it will control about half of the Californian broadband market, and low income households will make up a disproportionately high share of that expanded customer base.

Comcast’s failed attempt to buy Time Warner (including Time Warner’s ownership interest in Bright House) and swap markets with Charter would have given it control of 84% of the broadband market in California, according to an analysis done by the California Public Utilities Commission’s office of ratepayer advocates (ORA).… More

A closer look at FCC's boundaries for state broadband regulators

31 May 2015 by Steve Blum
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Out of bounds.

The FCC’s decision to bring broadband infrastructure and service under common carrier rules sets limits on both the ability of states to impose regulations under those rules, and on federal preemption of existing state authority.

As far as the latter is concerned, in paragraph 531 the decision specifically references the ability of states to choose to regulate pole attachment rules (section 224 of the common carrier law), manage universal service requirements and eligibility (section 214) – although not impose taxes (see paragraph 432 of the decision), manage the public right of way (section 253) and grandfather in rules (section 261).… More

A new cable mega-deal for Charter and Time Warner

27 May 2015 by Steve Blum
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I said I’d pull myself back together.

Now it’s Charter Communications’ turn to try to buy Time Warner Cable. The latest mega deal would have Charter hanging onto its deal to buy Bright House, and paying $57 billion for Time Warner’s cable systems and 15 million subscribers. If successful, it would make Charter the second largest cable company in the U.S. and the largest in California.

Federal Communications Commission chairman and lobbyist-in-chief Tom Wheeler wasted no time in reassuring the world that this latest deal won’t necessarily meet the fate of the Comcast-Time Warner-Charter mega-deal that was killed by federal regulators…

The FCC reviews every merger on its merits and determines whether it would be in the public interest.

… More

Frontier tells CPUC to stay away from broadband issues


Don’t go there.

Frontier Communications and Verizon are trying to make the same argument that Comcast made, and lost, when it tried to restrict the California Public Utilities Commission’s review of its proposed mega-merger to some very narrow, telephone-centric considerations.

In this case, Frontier wants to buy out Verizon’s wireline systems in California. The CPUC’s office of ratepayer advocates is urging the commission to decide if that’s in the public interest, in part, on whether it’s good or bad for the broadband market here.… More

FCC's unwritten privacy rules will have an equally ill-defined effect on Internet business

25 May 2015 by Steve Blum
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We can hope.

Your Internet service provider collects a lot of information about you and they use some of it for marketing purposes. AT&T is getting particularly aggressive about doing so, offering a discount on its GigaWeasel service to customers who agree to let it watch what they’re watching, and target ads accordingly..

Assuming that the Federal Communication Commission’s new, common carrier Internet regulations go into effect next month, the restrictions on what ISPs can do with their knowledge of you will get tighter.… More

The Internet might not be a freeport much longer

24 May 2015 by Steve Blum
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Internet access service is largely exempt from taxes in the U.S., thanks to a bill passed back in 1998, and given a last minute, one year extension last year. That extension will expire in October, unless federal lawmakers agree on either another extension – for however long – or a permanent bill.

On the one hand, it’s pretty simple: we’ve built a revolutionary and explosively valuable economy over the past 17 years without directly taxing the service that’s made it possible.… More

FCC issues Catch-222 advisory

23 May 2015 by Steve Blum
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I’m glad we had this chat.

In case you were still wondering, the Federal Communications Commission’s decision to bring Internet service and infrastructure under common carrier regulation was not simply about whether Comcast can block you from watching Netflix. As a statement from the FCC’s enforcement bureau emphasises, there are a lot of other rules involved, particularly those that deal with how Internet service providers use and/or safeguard information about you.

Except, no one, not even the FCC enforcement bureau, knows what those rules are.… More