cpuc

Copper network killer rules could be back on the table

13 June 2017 by Steve Blum
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Yanking out copper networks and replacing them with wireless service is one of the possible outcomes of the Federal Communication Commission’s reconsideration of the wireline service regulations it adopted last year. The swap can actually be done now, but only if the replacement meets certain service and quality standards.

In California, those standards are set by the California Public Utilities Commission. If the FCC rolls back its rules, it wouldn’t necessarily change that. But it could, and the CPUC might be weighing in on the FCC’s proceeding.… More

CPUC takes another look at a Santa Clara County FTTH subsidy

9 June 2017 by Steve Blum
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A stalled Santa Clara County fiber to the home project might get back on track this week. A proposed $1.1 million grant for the Light Saber Project is scheduled to go in front of the California Public Utilities Commission next Thursday.

It’ll be the second time that commissioners have taken a look at it. LCB Communications/South Valley Internet, an independent Internet service provider in southern Santa Clara County, applied for a $2.8 million grant from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) in 2015 for a plan to build out fiber to more than 500 homes in the San Martin and Paradise Valley communities, south and east of Morgan Hill, respectively.… More

PG&E adopts a dark fiber and wholesale telecoms services business model

6 June 2017 by Steve Blum
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The low ball fiber business plan that PG&E submitted to the California Public Utilities Commission drew criticism from several organisations that probably didn’t fully understand it – publicly traded companies usually downplay the profit potential of new ventures, to avoid hyping stocks and running afoul of federal securities laws. In its application for certification as a telecommunications company, PG&E estimated that it "will have approximately 1-5 customers after one year and will have more than 5 customers by the fifth year after commencing provision of the services".… More

PG&E will slow walk its own fiber builds, just like everyone else's

1 June 2017 by Steve Blum
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It’s not going to speed up the process for reviewing requests to attach fiber optic cable to its utility poles, but PG&E won’t give its own, in-house telecoms unit any short cuts either. That’s the top line from PG&E’s reply to objections filed against its request for formal certification by the California Public Utilities Commission as a telecoms company. Several companies and organisations that are, at once, potential competitors, customers and suppliers to a PG&E-operated fiber optic venture (that’s the interconnected nature of the telecoms business) asked the CPUC to delve deeply into the way utility pole attachments are managed.… More

More voices join California broadband subsidy policy debate

26 May 2017 by Steve Blum
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A potential overhaul of the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) – the state’s primary broadband infrastructure subsidy program – was mooted at a California Public Utilities Commission workshop yesterday. The alternative scenarios that were presented were, to a large extent, wish lists from incumbents and, particularly, heavily weighted toward supplementing AT&T’s and Frontier’s business models – carving out federally funded areas, extending existing copper networks or focusing just on their territories for example.

Incumbents had good words for that approach – not surprising – but for the most part participants vocally opposed dropping the CASF performance threshold to 6 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload speeds, from its current 6 Mbps down/15 Mbps up level.… More

Support for PG&E as a telecoms competitor, if that's all it is

23 May 2017 by Steve Blum
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I’ll show you a pole attachment.

Seven objections, of one variety or another, were filed against PG&E’s bid to be certified as a telecommunications company by the California Public Utilities Commission. Links to all are below.

Three came from industry players, including Crown Castle, which has a growing and competitive fiber footprint in California, and two lobbying fronts, one for cable operators and the other for competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs), which are companies that largely rely on reselling access to physical facilities owned by big telcos and fiber network owners.… More

Telcos' California cash grab gets a nod at the CPUC

22 May 2017 by Steve Blum
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Three parallel efforts are underway to rewrite the rules for California broadband infrastructure subsidies and use the money to support substandard service and technology deployed by AT&T and Frontier Communications. The legislature is considering assembly bill 1665, which would, among other things, add $300 million to the California Advanced Services Fund for broadband construction and operating costs, and effectively give it to AT&T and Frontier. The lower service standards and eligibility restrictions in the bill would keep independent Internet service providers out of most of rural California.… More

Gonzales, California putting broadband into every home, business

Basic broadband in every home and fast fiber for every business: that’s the goal endorsed on Monday by Gonzales city council members. The plan, as presented by staff, is to issue two requests for proposals.

The residential RFP is ambitious. There are 1,800 homes in Gonzales, which is located in California’s Salinas Valley. The city wants to provide a basic, lifeline-level of service to each one. As the report presented to the council explains…

Staff has been exploring the possibility of entering into a bulk services agreement with a qualified Internet service provider (ISP) to deliver a basic level of Internet access to every home in Gonzales.

… More

Oops, CenturyLink rebuttal makes the case for CPUC intervention

16 May 2017 by Steve Blum
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CenturyLink had to say something, and there probably wasn’t much else it could say, but its response to protests filed against its proposed acquisition of Level 3 does as much to encourage a rigorous review by the California Public Utilities Commission as it does to dissuade it.

The formal opposition to the transaction comes from a coalition of consumer advocacy groups – TURN, the Greenlining Institute and the CPUC’s office of ratepayer advocates – and the California Emerging Technology Fund.… More

One CASF grant approved, one released and one on hold

15 May 2017 by Steve Blum
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A $511,000 broadband upgrade grant for a cable system owned by CalNeva in Fresno County was unanimously approved by the California Public Utilities Commission at its 11 May 2017 meeting. The commission also signed off on environmental clearances and released $17 million in grant and loan subsidies for the Bright Fiber FTTH project in Nevada County. The $29 million proposal by Race Telecommunications for an FTTH system in the Phelan area, in San Bernardino County was bumped to the commission’s 25 May 2017 meeting.