broadband

Chattanooga forces Wheeler's hand: tear down muni broadband barriers

25 July 2014 by Steve Blum
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The City of Chattanooga formally asked the FCC yesterday to throw out a Tennessee state law that prevents it from extending its fiber-to-the-home network to surrounding areas. In doing so, the city is asking FCC chairman Tom Wheeler to make good on his high-sounding rhetoric about pre-empting state restrictions on municipal broadband.

The filing is a goldmine of information. The petition itself was written by muni broadband legal expert Jim Baller, and the attachments provide a wealth of case study material on the Chattanooga project specifically, and the history of muni broadband regulation and legislation in general.… More

State legislators draw the battle line for fight over muni broadband

24 July 2014 by Steve Blum
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A more serious – and serious-minded – challenge has emerged to FCC chairman Tom Wheeler’s supposed plan to pre-empt state laws restricting municipal broadband projects. The National Conference of State Legislatures sent Wheeler a letter threatening to take the FCC to court if he moves ahead…

As you consider your course of action on this matter, we encourage you to heed the principles of federalism and caution you of the numerous decisions by the United States Supreme Court with regard to the relationship between the state and its political subdivisions.

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Comcast's broken promises detailed in letter to FCC

22 July 2014 by Steve Blum
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“Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.”

The California Emerging Technology Fund and a long list of affiliated groups want the FCC to force Comcast to live up its own commitments, if the proposed merger with Time-Warner Cable and the market swaps with Charter Communications are approved. In a letter to the commissioners and supporting documents, CETF blasts the way Comcast has handled a program – called Internet Essentials – it claimed would give $10 per month Internet service to low income families with children…

In 3 years, Comcast has signed up only 11% of the eligible households in California and the nation.

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New season for broadband infrastructure subsidies in California

21 July 2014 by Steve Blum
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It’s time to close the door on the last round of applications for broadband construction subsidies from the California Advanced Services Fund. Of the 32 proposals submitted on 1 February 2013 – nearly a year and a half ago – 17 were funded for total of $48.6 million in grants and $127,000 in loans. The final two were approved by the CPUC in June – an FTTH project in Mono County and a fixed wireless system in Shasta County.… More

If you're wondering how much it costs to use existing poles and conduit, it's public information

20 July 2014 by Steve Blum
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The most difficult and costly part of any wireline broadband infrastructure project is getting cable from point A to point B. There are two primary ways of doing it: stringing it on poles or running through buried conduit. Since the chances of getting permission to build a new pole route in California is only slightly better than the odds of getting approval to drill for oil in San Francisco Bay, your only independent alternative is to start digging, at the rate of $30 to $60 a foot or more.… More

Independent ISPs have a shot at California public housing broadband program

16 July 2014 by Steve Blum
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Fast, focused, low cost and sustainable projects are the answer to the problem of how to extend modern Internet access into publicly supported housing. That’s the conclusion of a report prepared by California Public Utilities Commission staff that lays out recommendations for implementing assembly bill 1299 – approved last year – which spends money from the California Advanced Services Fund on broadband facilities and marketing programs in public housing.

The report carefully draws boundaries. Inside wiring and networking equipment would qualify for CASF subsidies, backhaul fiber installed out in the street gets squat.… More

Benicia fiber deal puts industrial broadband plan into action


Click for the full presentation.

The City of Benicia is working with Lit San Leandro LLC (LSL) to bring a gigabit-class fiber network to the Benicia Industrial Park and the adjacent Arsenal area. That’s the top line from a status report I gave to the Benicia City Council this evening.

Benicia issued a request for proposals last year, asking interested service providers to submit ideas for delivering industrial and commercial-grade broadband service. Among the resources the City put on the table was $750,000.… More

Only telephone companies can take part in rural broadband experiments


Eligible areas in the California, per the CPUC (click to get a bigger map).

The FCC today released the full details on the rural broadband experiments approved by the commission on Friday. Of legal necessity, the program is limited to regulated telephone companies, although independent ISPs can either partner with one or go through the process to become one.

Eligibility is pretty much what was expected, with one new twist. The money can only be given to “Eligible Telecommunications Carriers” (ETCs) and projects have to include voice service and meet all the rules that pertain to it.… More

Wheeler's "breeze" blows hot air

13 July 2014 by Steve Blum
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What – me worry?

Fierce Online Video ran a great article by Samantha Bookman comparing a cheerleading editorial in the Wall Street Journal by FCC chairman Tom Wheeler with a much more pessimistic view of future that came from a broad canvassing of Internet experts by Pew Research. According to the article, Wheeler, a former lead lobbyist for both the mobile phone and cable television industries, wrote…

“In the not-too-distant future, wireless communications will connect not just everyone, but everything.

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Expert opinion: Internet companies play the cards as dealt, dammit

11 July 2014 by Steve Blum
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Pew Research asked more than 1,400 people it considers to be experts in Internet philosophy about what they think the future holds. The businesses that built the Internet are killing it, they said…

While there is no one definition of Net neutrality, it is generally expressed as the idea that the best public network should be operated in such a way as to treat all senders and receivers of content as equally as is technologically possible while maintaining information flows well.

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