broadband

Linux marches to the beat of broadband growth

10 May 2014 by Steve Blum
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Most of the world’s personal computers run on Microsoft Windows. Gartner, a tech industry research group, says that the 280 million Windows boxes shipped last year swamped 12.5 million Macs and 2.9 million Chromebooks. But Gartner is also predicting that the Linux-based Chrome operating system will overtake the Mac OS by 2016.

According to a BBC story…

“There’s a couple of reasons – one is the number of vendors who are now pushing a [Chromebook] device,” explained Ranjit Atwal, research director at the firm.

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San Francisco tells AT&T where to put its equipment cabinets

9 May 2014 by Steve Blum
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Some people in San Francisco seem determined to fight a last ditch battle against broadband infrastructure upgrades proposed by AT&T. San Francisco supervisors are considering a new ordinance that would put a dump truck load of restrictions in front of any request to put broadband equipment cabinets in the public right of way. One sample…

The following locations are disfavored, and the Department shall not issue a Surface-Mounted Facility Site Permit in these disfavored locations unless the Applicant can show that no other option is available:…On Public Right-of-Ways that the San Francisco General Plan has designated as being most significant to City pattern, defining City form, having an important street view for orientation or as having views that are rated “excellent” or “good”.

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Portland tells Google we'll get back to you on that

8 May 2014 by Steve Blum
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Even though Google says that all 34 cities it’s considering for FTTH expansion have more or less completed their fiber-ready checklist and remain in contention, it’s becoming clear that not all of them are bending over backwards (or forwards) in the process.

Portland is a good example. The city has posted its response to Google online and in many respects, it is simply saying no, albeit in a properly bureaucratic way.

The city’s bureau of transportation, which controls access to streets, essentially handed Google its standard policy for installing infrastructure in public of right of ways, which doesn’t actually meet Google’s requirements.… More

Google picks the right neighborhoods to build fiber in Kansas City

7 May 2014 by Steve Blum
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Google Fiber strategy of cherry picking neighborhoods in the Kansas City area seems to be working. A study done by an investment research company shows that 75% of the homes in medium to high income areas that are passed by Google Fiber are subscribing to it (h/t to Fred Pilot at Eldo Telcom for the pointer). In low income areas, the study claims that 30% of homes passed are taking Google’s service.

Bernstein Research commissioned the study, which involved knocking on the doors of 350 homes in Google’s current – and limited – service area.… More

No fast answers for Google Fiber hopefuls or competitors

6 May 2014 by Steve Blum
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All the possible pins are still in place.

Google will keep 34 cities – along with AT&T, Comcast, Verizon and the rest – guessing whether fiber-to-the-home is coming, at least until “the end of the year”. Last Thursday was the deadline for those communities to do their Google Fiber homework…

All of them have, for the most part, completed their checklists.

We say “for the most part” because there’s still a lot of work to do over the next few months.

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Is it crazy to hope a broadband merger could increase competition?

4 May 2014 by Steve Blum
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For the umpteenth time, AT&T is said to be in talks to buy a major U.S. direct broadband satellite (DBS) company, in this case DirecTv. The first time I heard this rumor was in 1995, when DirecTv and the company I was working for, U.S. Satellite Broadband (later merged together), did a joint marketing deal with what is now AT&T (but was SBC back then).

In fact, SBC’s later acquisition of the business and brand was partly due to the failed cable ambitions of the old AT&T.… More

The more broadband, the more interest in more broadband


Click to download the presentation.

One of the thousand or so communities, companies, organisations and private individuals that’s expressed interest in participating in the FCC’s rural broadband experiment program is the City of Marina, on Monterey Bay, which is where I live and work, at least when I’m not traveling somewhere.

It came out of a conversation I had with the city’s economic development coordinator, Marilyn Lidyoff, and a member of the economic development commission, Steve Emerson, at a local regional economic development conference back in March.… More

FCC chair Wheeler relies on clairvoyance to police innovation

2 May 2014 by Steve Blum
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Survival in Washington means keeping a firm hand on your ball.

Earlier this week, I asked whether FCC chair Tom Wheeler is dumb enough to think we’re dumb enough to believe that network neutrality means something other than Internet service that doesn’t discriminate amongst content providers on the basis of who is writing the bigger check to your ISP. Wheeler’s answer appears to be a resounding yes.

In a new blog post, the freshman chairman confirmed that ISPs will be allowed to sell pay-for-play fast lanes to content and service companies, so long as it’s “commercially reasonable”, a vague term that guarantees nothing except mountains of billable hours for lobbyists and lawyers.… More

Bill raising broadband construction costs sent to Sacramento's inner sanctum

1 May 2014 by Steve Blum
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A proposal to hike the cost of subsidised broadband projects in California is in the hands of legislative leaders, who will decide its fate behind closed doors.

On Wednesday, the assembly appropriations committee put assembly bill 2272 on hold via a procedural mechanism called the suspense file. It joins a long list of bills that will stay in legislative limbo until the state budget is passed. Senior assembly members will then meet in private to decide which bills go forward and which do not.… More

Rural telcos can bust a move on big incumbents, says CPUC commissioner

Typically, telephone companies do not intrude on each other’s territory, but that’s a matter of custom, not a fundamental law of the universe. Commissioner Catherine Sandoval says that breaking down that barrier could be a way to improve broadband coverage in rural areas, if small rural telephone companies are willing to take on big incumbents, with the encouragement of the California Public Utilities Commission.

She spoke at the Central Sierra Connect Broadband Consortium conference in Tuolumne City last week about going to public meetings in rural areas and hearing from speaker after disgruntled speaker…

It turns out that what they were disgruntled about is they said that ‘my neighbor who’s just down the road has terrific Internet access and I don’t have Internet access and I want better Internet access’.

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