broadband

Video of Google's North Carolina press conference is online

27 January 2015 by Steve Blum
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WRAL-TV in Raleigh, North Carolina covered this afternoon’s press event there. Which included governor Pat McCrory, seven mayors from the area and Google representatives. The video is available here.

Lots of good words were spoken about fiber, gigabits, Google and North Carolina. The prepared announcement read by Google exec Michael Slinger pretty much tracked with the press release Google posted earlier today. He cited the “passion, commitment and dedication” that the seven Raleigh-Durham area cities brought to the process as key reasons for chosing them.… More

Google confirms fiber in South Carolina, Nashville, Atlanta, other cities told to wait

27 January 2015 by Steve Blum
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It’s confirmed: Google has decided to build out fiber to the home systems in four metro areas: Raleigh-Durham and Charlotte in North Carolina, Nashville and Atlanta.

The remaining five metros under consideration – Silicon Valley, Portland, San Antonio, Phoenix and Salt Lake City – are still officially in the maybe column. All Google will say is that they’re “continuing to explore” those areas and will have something more to say “later this year”.

Google Fiber hops to the southeast, no word for the west

27 January 2015 by Steve Blum
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The west end of an eastbound rabbit.

Today looks like the day we’ll find out where Google Fiber’s next cities will be. Rumors have been swirling for a couple of days and went from fuzzy to sharp yesterday when Google sent out invitations for press events in several cities, with no particular purpose stated. So far, it looks like the winners are going to be in the southeastern U.S.

Newspapers and websites in the Atlanta, Georgia area report receiving a message saying “You’re invited to join city leaders and Google for a press conference tomorrow, January 27 at 1 p.m.… More

FCC needs to recognise that paying for knowledge isn't the same as buying service

26 January 2015 by Steve Blum
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Negative results can be a positive benefit.

Thirty-seven companies and other organisations were on the list of winning bidders vying to take part in the FCC’s rural broadband experiments. Of those, six are already off the list because they “either withdrew from consideration for rural broadband experiments funding or did not submit the required information by the Friday, December 19 deadline”, according to the FCC.

Another 15 have asked the FCC to waive some of the rules, in particular one that requires certification of technical plans by a professional engineer and another that asks for audited financial statements.… More

Eastern California businesses challenged by booming bandwidth demand

25 January 2015 by Steve Blum
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You got a job to do.

“Five of you can take out my Internet and I have 93 rooms”, Dan Spurgeon, general manager of the Marriott Springhill Suites in Ridgecrest said. That’s despite his recent 50 Mbps upgrade, which he will soon need to re-double. He was one of several local leaders speaking at the Eastern Sierra Connect Regional Broadband Consortium conference in Ridgecrest on Thursday.

Rapidly growing demand for more bandwidth – 40% year after year according to Spurgeon – is a major challenge for businesses and government agencies in eastern California.… More

Praxis picked to build and run FTTH network in California's Owens Valley

23 January 2015 by Steve Blum
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Click for the full map and RFP.

“We’re in contract negotiations with Praxis now, and we hope to have a contract by February 10th”, Brandon Shults, the information services director for Inyo County, announced yesterday at the Eastern Sierra Connect Regional Broadband Consortium’s annual conference in Ridgecrest. He was talking about the 21st Century Obsidian Project, an ambitious effort to build a fiber to the home system down the western half of Inyo County – in other words, the Owens Valley.… More

Obama promotes Internet to infrastructure, skips community broadband details

21 January 2015 by Steve Blum
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Some Christmas trees actually have fiber.

The five point plan to promote community broadband announced by U.S. president Barack Obama last week was billed as a prelude to last night’s state of the union address. But he didn’t specifically mention it.

More importantly though, what Obama did in his speech is lump broadband in with traditional infrastructure projects…

Twenty-first century businesses need 21st century infrastructure — modern ports, and stronger bridges, faster trains and the fastest Internet.

… More

U.S. supreme court avoids ruling on limits of federal authority over state and local broadband rules, for now

20 January 2015 by Steve Blum
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When your name is Roswell, reality can be subjective.

The U.S. supreme court declined to wade any deeper into the question of how much leeway local governments have to block installation of cellular towers and equipment. In a decision last week regarding a dispute between T-Mobile and Roswell, Georgia, the court ruled very narrowly in T-Mobile’s favor, saying the city didn’t give its reasons for denying a tower permit soon enough.

Federal telecoms law requires local agencies to give a reason when a tower permit application is rejected, in order to provide a basis for the courts to review the decision if there’s an appeal.… More

President Obama’s community broadband initiative follows Santa Cruz’s path

19 January 2015 by Steve Blum
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Broadband competition makes local businesses competitive.

It looks like Santa Cruz County is on the White House’s invitation list for a community broadband summit planned for June. President Barack Obama pledged to support the Next Century Cities coalition – the county is a charter member – in a speech last week. He promised to meet with mayors and county supervisors from the coalition to talk about how to better develop broadband infrastructure and service at the local level.… More

Municipal broadband development is a local job, with or without presidential backing

15 January 2015 by Steve Blum
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Good words, but no new money.

Community-based broadband networks got a ringing endorsement from U.S. president Barack Obama yesterday. You can watch the speech here, or read the transcript prepared by the white house press office.

The question now is whether the speech kicked off a serious policy initiative or just served as the headline issue of the day. It’s very possible this speech or the upcoming state of the union address will be the last we’ll hear about community broadband from the president until he holds a promised summit meeting with mayors and county supervisors in June, which is 1 of the 5 action items that the white house published on Tuesday and Obama reiterated yesterday.… More