broadband

There's a point to fast broadband, even when it goes nowhere

28 December 2014 by Steve Blum
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Isolated communities – particularly Indian tribes – are experimenting with microgrids that distribute locally generated, renewable electricity to a small number of homes (h/t to Pat Kennedy for the pointer). Can the same logic be applied to community broadband networks in rural areas? Not really, but thinking it through leads to some interesting ideas.

The difference between electricity and broadband is that broadband is necessarily networked and electricity is not. But local storage can substitute for long-haul bandwidth, up to a point – the Tivo model.… More

Spend broadband subsidies on state of the art service, CPUC report says

27 December 2014 by Steve Blum
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Don’t subsidise old, slow broadband technology. That’s one of the conclusions of an analysis of mobile broadband performance done for the California Public Utilities Commission (H/T to Jim Warner for the pointer).

Right now, the CPUC’s minimum service availability mark is 6 Mbps down and 1.5 Mbps up – if a community gets less than that, it’s eligible for broadband infrastructure subsidies from the California Advanced Services Fund. Conversely though, to get those subsidies, broadband projects only have to meet that level of service – the minimum is good enough.… More

No Google Fiber in Christmas stockings for hopeful cities

26 December 2014 by Steve Blum
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Naughty or nice? Google won’t say.

The 34 communities across the U.S. that were hoping Google would come down the chimney yesterday and leave a fiber-to-the-home project under the tree will have to wait to find out if they made it onto the nice list. Back in February, Google said it would pick the winners by the end of the year, but it’s told prospective communities it’s going to take a little longer than they thought.… More

CPUC considers eventual convergence of rural broadband and phone

23 December 2014 by Steve Blum
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Telecommunications service and infrastructure is subsidised in a couple of different ways in rural California. The California Advanced Services Fund pays the lion’s share of the cost of building broadband infrastructure in under and unserved areas, and the California High Cost Fund supports telephone service as well as infrastructure. The latter is divided between rural areas served by bigger incumbents, like AT&T, Verizon and Frontier, and those served by small rural companies, like Pinnacles Telephone or Ponderosa.… More

North Korea versus Comcast: guess who's fighting for an open Internet?

20 December 2014 by Steve Blum
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What do you mean, my Netflix is buffering!

As terabytes of emails and other data bounce around the web, the bad guy in the latest mega-crack story is beginning look less like North Korea and more like Sony and its corporate brethren. First, Sony hires one of the more notorious members of the predatory bar to threaten news outlets if they dare to use any of that information. Then it caves to pressure and threats – apparently originating in North Korea – and cancels the release of The Interview.… More

Public housing broadband heading for second class status in California

18 December 2014 by Steve Blum
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Lower broadband performance standards for Californians living in public housing are one step away from adoption by the California Public Utilities Commission. As it stands now, later this morning the CPUC will approve subsidy rules for broadband facility upgrades in publicly supported housing that set 1.5 Mbps download speeds as the minimum acceptable level, and no service level requirements at all for upload speeds. The stuff that’s installed has to be capable of supporting higher speeds, but actual performance is optional.… More

You don't have to drive to Silicon Valley if you're already there

17 December 2014 by Steve Blum
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Santa Cruz broadband policy keeps business in town, Silicon Valley leaders say.

Smart application of good broadband development policy helps local economies grow by attracting new businesses and helping existing ones grow. The place to look for it is Santa Cruz County, according to the Silicon Valley Leadership Group. It’s an example that Silicon Valley sorely needs.

The group, which was founded in 1978 by David Packard and represents about 400 of Silicon Valley’s heaviest corporate hitters, announced it was giving its “Turning Red Tape into Red Carpet” award to Santa Cruz County, and supervisor Zach Friend in particular, recognising his effort over the past year and a half to simplify the rules for planting broadband infrastructure in public roads and placing it on county property.… More

Broadband delayed is broadband denied

16 December 2014 by Steve Blum
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FCC commissioner Ajit Pai objected to part of the FCC order approved last week that raised the minimum download speed for subsidised broadband projects to 10 Mbps (the upload standard remains at 1 Mbps). His objection wasn’t to the faster standard, but rather to the slow pace of implementation and what he sees as the commission’s failure to put its money where its mouth is…

Three years ago, the FCC told rural Americans they could stop waiting.

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FCC crushes old limits on rural broadband speeds

15 December 2014 by Steve Blum
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The minimum download speed for FCC-subsidised broadband projects and services in rural areas is now 10 Mbps. The commission raised the standard on Thursday. Required upload speeds haven’t change, though…

The FCC will now require companies receiving Connect America funding for fixed broadband to serve consumers with speeds of at least 10 Mbps for downloads and 1 Mbps for uploads. That is an increase reflecting marketplace and technological changes that have occurred since the FCC set its previous requirement of 4 Mbps/1 Mbps speeds in 2011.

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Big questions for a California broadband subsidy proposal, but worth answering

14 December 2014 by Steve Blum
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All over Helendale.

There’s a business case for resurrecting dead copper broadband systems. At least UIA thinks there is, given a sufficient subsidy from the California Advanced Services Fund. The company has submitted two projects for consideration for CASF grants in the current round. One is in Helendale, a small San Bernardino County community in the desert between Victorville and Barstow, where a cable system built by Falcon Cable – acquired by Charter Communications – was left to rot.… More