cpuc

Prosecutors in, CPUC out as California's net neutrality enforcer

19 January 2018 by Steve Blum
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Democrats and republicans in Sacramento agree on at least two things: network neutrality rules are good and the job of enforcing them shouldn’t go to the California Public Utilities Commission. The California senate’s appropriations committee gave senate bill 460 a green light, and sent it on for a formal floor vote yesterday, after wrangling a promise of significant changes.

Senator Kevin de Leon (D – Los Angeles) authored SB 460. As originally written, it would have revived net neutrality rules that the Federal Communications Commission scrapped last month.… More

Frontier exceeds federal expectations but understates Californian obligations

Frontier Communications put out a puzzling press release yesterday. What should have been a celebration of good news, was instead a mish-mash of misdirection and lawyerly evasions that raised more questions than it answered.

The good news is that Frontier has upgraded broadband availability for 39,000 of the 90,000 rural Californian homes it promised the Federal Communications Commission it would serve with a minimum of 10 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload speeds, in exchange for $228 million in subsidies.… More

Blame game won't stop California broadband subsidy giveaway

19 December 2017 by Steve Blum
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The California legislature intended to protect AT&T’s and Frontier Communications’ rural broadband monopolies and subsidise their low speed service, when it passed assembly bill 1665 earlier this year. In effect, that’s what the California Public Utilities Commission said last week as it approved a resolution that allows the two biggest incumbents to claim exclusive rights to broadband infrastructure subsidies in the rural communities they serve (or not).

Telephone and cable industry lobbyists re-rigged the California Advanced Services Fund program and found enough friends in the legislature – democrat and republican – to approve it by more than a two-thirds majority.… More

CPUC's cable franchise renewals remain private and privileged

17 December 2017 by Steve Blum
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Cable companies won’t be held publicly accountable for their business practices or service levels by the California Public Utilities Commission. That’s the result of a unanimous vote by commissioners on Thursday.

The CPUC’s semi-independent office of ratepayer advocates (ORA) asked the commission to revisit a 2014 decision that established a perfunctory, closed door review of statewide video franchise renewals. Cable lobbyists sweet talked California lawmakers into ending local franchise authority in 2006, and replacing it with a single, statewide process run by the CPUC.… More

California broadband decisions hide in D.C.'s shadow today

14 December 2017 by Steve Blum
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The big broadband news will be coming from the FCC later this morning (although there won’t be much, if anything, that’s actually new). But the California Public Utilities Commission is also meeting today, with a handful of broadband-related issues to decide.

One of the resolutions up for a vote would slap down a request from the CPUC’s office of ratepayer advocates to take another look at how cable companies are (not) held accountable under California’s statewide franchising law.… More

PG&E must put all its fiber on the market, not just the bits it, or others, want sold

12 December 2017 by Steve Blum
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PG&E agrees with many of the restrictions that the California Public Utilities Commission’s office of ratepayer advocates (ORA) wants to put on its proposed telecommunications business plan. Without knowing the details of PG&E’s 2,600 mile fiber network in northern California, it’s impossible to know whether that climb down is a strategic retreat or a concession rendered meaningless by the simple facts of its infrastructure or business plan.

The CPUC is reviewing PG&E’s application for certification as a telephone company.… More

CPUC review of PG&E telecoms plan must focus on big picture, not narrow interests

11 December 2017 by Steve Blum
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Three groups filed testimony with the California Public Utilities Commission opposing PG&E’s plan to put its 2,600 miles of fiber on the market, as dark strands and for lit service (links are below). Caltel, a lobbying group for telecoms resellers – CLECs – offered quibbling and self-interested comments. The two others – the CPUC’s office of ratepayer advocates and TURN, an old school utility consumer advocacy organisation – urged the CPUC to either reject the plan or cripple it with nonsensical restrictions, on the basis of an outdated and narrow view of what utility regulation is all about.… More

Frontier orders a California broadband subsidy sandwich

3 December 2017 by Steve Blum
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The first application for construction (and maybe operations) subsidies from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) since the program was gutted by the California legislature landed in the hopper at the California Public Utilities Commission.

Frontier Communications is asking for a $1.8 million grant, without specifying how much, if anything, it’s willing to pay out of its own pocket. It wants the money to pay for a fiber to the home system in and around the remote San Bernardino County town of Lytle Creek…

Frontier’s proposed project will cover about 4.4 square miles and is a combination of middle-mile and last-mile infrastructure using Frontier’s existing poles and rights of way to deploy fiber-to-the-home (“FTTH”) facilities capable of providing High Speed Internet, Ethernet, and VoIP service with speeds of up to 1 Gbps download and 1 Gbps upload.

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More people, more fire hazards, more damage costs for utilities, at least for now CPUC says

1 December 2017 by Steve Blum
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San Diego Gas and Electric’s shareholders will have to pick up the tab for $379 million of the $2.4 billion worth of damage (and legal fees) caused by a series of wildfires in 2007. Yesterday, the California Public Utilities Commission unanimously approved a draft decision by an administrative law judge that assigned the blame to SDG&E because, as commissioner Carla Peterman put it, SDG&E “failed to meet its burden to prove it was a prudent manager”.… More

California wildfires are everyone's problem, regardless of who's at fault

27 November 2017 by Steve Blum
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The recent wildfires that struck seemingly everywhere all at once, but particularly hard in the northern California wine country, might have been caused, in part, by wind whipped electric lines surrounded by a canopy of dense, dry trees. If that’s what happened, then electric companies, and particularly PG&E, could be liable for billions of dollars worth of damage.
It poses a difficult public policy question: who pays? Ratepayers, shareholders or taxpayers?
Coincidentally, the California Public Utilities Commission is due to decide that question at this week’s meeting, at least in regards to a series of wildfires in San Diego County in 2007.… More