casf

Frontier pledges to boost broadband service in California

3 November 2014 by Steve Blum
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Click for a bigger version.

So far, only one Internet service provider has exercised its right of first refusal to upgrade substandard service areas on its own and thereby prevent competing projects from getting subsidies from the California Advanced Services Fund for up to a year. Frontier Communications submitted a letter to the California Public Utilities Commission on Friday making a plausible pledge to improve service in 7 rural Californian communities to at least minimum levels…

The project upgrades are in northeast California in the area of Alturas, Chester, Lake Almanor, Janesville, Shingletown, in the central California area of Tuolumne and along the California and Nevada border adjacent to Topaz Lake, NV on the California side.

… More

Enthusiasm builds for Nevada County FTTH project, hope is money will follow

2 November 2014 by Steve Blum
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A standing room only crowd turned out in Nevada City on Thursday evening to celebrate the kick-off of a $28 million fiber-to-the-home project. As proposed, it would bring a full gigabit – up and down – to nearly 3,000 homes and hundreds of businesses in Nevada County. Hosted by Spiral Internet, the gala was intended to light a fire under the Bright Fiber build proposed nearly 2 years ago for a big grant and a (relatively) small loan from the California Advanced Services Fund.… More

Deadline soon for Californian broadband upgrades or obstruction

31 October 2014 by Steve Blum
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Moderately Lucid Legal.

The first shoe is about drop for the next round of California Advanced Services Fund broadband subsidies. Any “existing broadband provider” can file a letter with the California Public Utilities Commission saying it’s making a commitment to upgrading its infrastructure in a given area, using its own money. If it does, the CPUC will freeze that area for up to a year – not allow any CASF infrastructure grant or loan applications to move forward.… More

Overhead costs for California's broadband subsidy program steady at almost $4 million

21 October 2014 by Steve Blum
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Second verse, same as the first.

Administrative costs will take the same amount of money out of the California Advanced Services Fund next year as this year, assuming the California Public Utilities Commission approves the proposed budget that is scheduled to be on the table at its next meeting on 6 November 2014.

The $3.8 million overhead proposed is in line with the ballpark estimates I made back in August. There will still be something like $160 million left to spend on actual construction of broadband infrastructure, although that money will only go something like half as far as it might, given that the governor and the legislature decided that union pay scales and work rules apply to all CASF-subsidised projects.… More

Will the CPUC pick up the tab for unionising independent broadband projects?

6 October 2014 by Steve Blum
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When the state legislature was considering a bill to impose union wages and work rules – so-called prevailing wage rules – on broadband projects subsidised by the California Advanced Services Fund, an independent analysis by legislative staff pointed to the unknown but hefty – “likely in the millions of dollars” – extra cost…

This bill would become effective on January 1, 2015 for all infrastructure projects funded in part by the CASF, including those projects which are currently underway.

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New prevailing wage law puts Californian ISPs and broadband upgrade projects at risk

3 October 2014 by Steve Blum
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Assume that any broadband construction work done in conjunction with a subsidy from the California Advanced Services Fund on or after 1 January 2015 has to comply with prevailing wage laws. Including the obligation to comply with a mountain of rules and paperwork. A new law approved by Governor Brown on Tuesday is very specific: CASF subsidies turn infrastructure builds into public works projects, which have to comply with union pay scales and rules.

Existing law has an exception for “work done directly by any public utility company pursuant to order of the Public Utilities Commission or other public authority”.… More

State telecoms regulators are broadband data takers, not makers anymore

2 October 2014 by Steve Blum
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The data used to drive the California broadband availability map and similar state-level projects will reverse its flow. Carriers and ISPs, including the likes of AT&T and Comcast, will lump all their nationwide broadband availability information together and file it with the FCC, instead of submitting it state by state as they do now, where it’s vetted locally and then rolled up at a national level.

The change is due to the end of the original funding provided by American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (aka ARRA, aka stimulus program).… More

Governor hamstrings California's broadband subsidy fund, pleases cable, telcos, unions

1 October 2014 by Steve Blum
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With a stroke of Governor Brown’s pen, the cost of building independent broadband infrastructure using money from the California Advanced Services Fund has nearly doubled. Without comment, he signed assembly bill 2272 yesterday.

The new law, which takes effect in January, brings all CASF-subsidised broadband infrastructure projects under so-called prevailing wage rules, which impose union pay scales and work rules – often determined on a statewide basis – regardless of the typical construction costs and practices in a local area.… More

For broadband subsidies, CPUC says real world performance counts more than mobile carrier claims

23 September 2014 by Steve Blum
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Urban California has far better mobile broadband service than rural areas of the state. That’s one of the conclusions of a study done for the California Public Utilities Commission analysing millions of field tests done at thousands of locations statewide (H/T to Jim Warner for the pointer). The study also shows that getting a true picture of what consumers can expect to experience requires factoring in the unreliability of cellular data systems.

Mobile service counts when the CPUC decides whether a community has an adequate level of broadband service.… More

California discounts mobile broadband performance

22 September 2014 by Steve Blum
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Cellular data services are sometimes fast but always inconsistent. Occasional bursts of good performance skew averages based on measurements taken over periods of time, building false expectations of the speed and performance consumers will actually get. That’s one of the conclusions reached in an analysis done for the California Public Utilities Commission, based on millions of field tests conducted at thousands of locations throughout the state (H/T to Jim Warner for the pointer).

Nearly everyone in California – 98% of the population – would have access to the CPUC’s minimum standard of service (6 Mbps down/1.5 Mbps up), if carrier claims and sporadic speed spikes are taken at face value.… More