community networks – Page 12 – Steve Blum's Blog

Utopia might finally be utopia, thanks to Google

15 December 2013 by Steve Blum
broadband, community networks, ftth, google, provo, public policy, utopia

Is a Google buyout the exit strategy?

One way or the other, it looks like Google is behind an impending bailout of Utopia, Utah’s multi-city muni fiber-to-the-home system. According to a story in the Ogden Standard-Examiner (and with a h/t to the Baller Herbst List)…

…officials gave only generic detail on what’s coming as a huge opportunity involving a major company mirroring Google’s involvement with Utah County.

They’re referring to Google’s take over of the municipal FTTH system in Provo, earlier this year.… More

Twelve days of Christmas might end with broadband in a farm bill

13 December 2013 by Steve Blum
broadband, community networks, farm bill, public policy, RUS

Put your thinking toque on.

Democrats and republicans are reportedly finding middle ground on a re-write of the U.S. agriculture, rural development and food subsidy law, otherwise known as the Farm Bill. The two competing bills passed earlier this year both include money for rural broadband projects, but the house of representative’s version has only about half as much money in it as the senate’s. In either case it’s barely noticeable in a trillion dollar-scale package.… More

Mayor closes the curtain on Gigabit Seattle's political theater

10 December 2013 by Steve Blum
broadband, community networks, ftth, gigabit seattle, gigabit squared, public policy

Running with the bull.

Gigabit Seattle will quickly fade away in the new year, judging by the lost faith of its most prominent cheerleader, outgoing mayor Mike McGinn. In an interview with GeekWire, McGinn expressed the sort of caring doubt politicians use to distance themselves from, say, a blood relative who’s been busted for indecent familiarity with farm animals for the third time…

“We’re now a year into it and the question is, will it work or not?”

… More

There's broadband meat behind the drone delivery sizzle

4 December 2013 by Steve Blum
amazon, broadband, community networks, drones, geek stuff, google, robots

Looks like someone ordered a barbeque.

Amazon’s PR people deserve a hearty round of applause. They dropped the perfect Cyber Monday story this Sunday evening when Jeff Bezos teased plans to build a fleet of drone helicopters that will deliver five pound packages in half an hour.

But assuming it has some remote connection to reality, the real news is what it implies about Amazon’s roadmap for expansion. Those drones are not supersonic. Even with zero time to process and pick an order, a half hour service radius of 50 kilometers would probably be an overly optimistic guess – Bezos talked about a 10 mile range.… More

Santa Clara finds muni WiFi success by matching expectations to reality

2 December 2013 by Steve Blum
broadband, community networks, public policy, santa clara, WiFi

Not much to talk about.

If the City of Santa Clara had promised residents a free all singing, all dancing WiFi broadband service, it would be getting slammed as a failure right about now. The service it launched earlier this year has trouble with throughput to mobile devices and it really doesn’t do a very good job with streaming video.

Instead, the city is trumpeting its success. And deservedly so. According to its recent press release…

“The system is getting over a thousand more users per day than we expected during peak periods,” said John Roukema.

… More

FTTH lucrative for new home builders in Loma Linda, but too costly for city-financed retrofits

25 November 2013 by Steve Blum
community networks, ftth, loma linda, public policy

Colored areas are on the FTTH roadmap. Click for larger version.

The small southern California city of Loma Linda is a company town. Its major business is health care, with five major medical facilities and as many hospital beds as homes, they say with maybe a touch of exaggeration. The bandwidth consumed by the medical sector made building a municipal dark fiber network an economic development slam dunk for the city. It then successfully took the next step of selling Internet bandwidth to homes and businesses.… More

Santa Cruz looks at turning steel rails into glass pipes

23 November 2013 by Steve Blum
broadband, civinomicon, community networks, public policy, santa cruz

It moves even faster underground.

Santa Cruz County has 32-mile long rail line, stretching from Davenport on the north coast, south through Santa Cruz, Watsonville and connecting to a major north-south route in Pajaro, just over the Monterey County line. It’s now owned by the Regional Transportation Commission, which plans to keep using it for rail transportation and add a parallel bike and pedestrian trail. And now, maybe, a fiber optic backbone.

Creating a Santa Cruz rail-trail-fiber corridor was one of dozens of ideas floated at Civinomicon in Santa Cruz this weekend, and it gained traction with both local officials and the more than one hundred people that turned out for the three day civic hackathon.… More

Rural broadband alternatives remain under the radar in farm bill negotiatons

19 November 2013 by Steve Blum
broadband, community networks, farm bill, public policy, RUS

The cloaking device seems to be working.

Rural development subsidies, including broadband construction programs, do not seem to be among the hot button issues as the debate in Washington continues over the trillion-dollar farm and welfare package known as the farm bill.

There are major differences between the broadband subsidies approved earlier this year by the republican controlled house and the democrat controlled senate. The house version more or less continues the current program, maintaining the focus on loans and keeping it at $25 million per year.… More

Prospective microtrenching is one more tool in the muni broadband kit

15 November 2013 by Steve Blum
broadband, community networks, microtrenching, open trench, public policy

Measuring the benefit.

The idea behind open trench and shadow conduit policies is that you can minimise damage to roads and maximise the future benefit of fiber by doing everything at once, rather than tearing up pavement whenever a project comes along. Even if you don’t need the conduit right away, the small marginal cost of putting conduit into an open trench could be offset just by the money saved on road maintenance.

A rule of thumb is that cutting into a street reduces its remaining lifespan by 10%.… More

LA isn't playing with a full broadband deck

11 November 2013 by Steve Blum
broadband, community networks, ftth, LA, los angeles, public policy

Last week the LA city council endorsed a plan, written by the city’s IT chief, Steve Reneker, and sponsored by freshman councilman Bob Blumenfield to entice private investors into providing ubiquitous broadband coverage to 3.8 million people over nearly 500 square miles.

The city isn’t offering much, though. A ten year deal to handle some of the city’s internal IT and telecoms business is a possibility. So is access to relatively minor city assets – light poles and buildings were mentioned – and maybe a break on permit and approval fees.… More