cpuc

Mobile carriers losing the data upgrade race to Californian demand

12 October 2016 by Steve Blum
, , , ,


Click for the full picture.

You can get more bits per second from mobile broadband carriers in California, but your odds of getting those faster speeds at any given moment are dropping. That’s what the California Public Utilities Commission’s mobile field testing result are showing. You can read the excellent blog post by commission staffer Rob Osborne here. He shows that mobile broadband speeds are increasing, but sums it up diplomatically: “it’s hard to say, but it appears the likelihood of getting the average speed at a particular location is lower than before”.… More

Cable, telcos use monopoly muscle to block access to California poles

5 October 2016 by Steve Blum
, ,

Barrier to competition.

Google still can’t get access to utility poles in the Bay Area. Whether or not it still wants it is an open question – Google closed its purchase of the wireless Internet service provider side of Webpass this week – but even if it doesn’t, the blocking action by incumbents anxious to protect monopoly markets has caught the attention of California regulators.

The California Public Utilities Commission was told last week that the club that controls pole access – the Northern California Joint Pole Association – has again rejected Google’s requests for membership and permission to use poles.… More

A path forward for new California telecoms rules

3 October 2016 by Steve Blum
, ,

Telecommunications regulation reform may live on in California, kept alive by executive order. Even though a grand deal to overhaul the way the California Public Utilities Commission does business collapsed in the final hours of the legislative session in August, a key provision – a review of telecoms regulatory responsibilities – seems to have been brought back from the dead.

When governor Jerry Brown signed the surviving remnants of the deal last week, he included a message to lawmakers detailing his intention to keep pushing ahead with reforms, with or without them.… More

Frontier gets California subsidy to upgrade Shasta County service

1 October 2016 by Steve Blum
, , ,

A thousand homes in the rural Shasta County community of Shingletown will be getting faster DSL service from Frontier Communications, as a result of a $546,000 subsidy from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) that was okayed by the California Public Utilities Commission at its meeting last week. According to the resolution approving the grant…

Frontier submitted an application for CASF funding to build 64,950 feet of fiber cable from the Shingletown, California central office to six digital loop carrier sites…The sites under this grant are currently served by broadband over copper facilities to DSLAM’s served from the Shingletown central office in Shasta County.

… More

CPUC reform inches forward as governor calls for faster action

30 September 2016 by Steve Blum
, , ,

It’s time to rock and roll.

It’ll be harder for lawyers and lobbyists to have backroom conversations at the California Public Utilities Commission, more information about CPUC proceedings will be made public and the commission will have to open up its processes to greater public participation, not least by holding meetings around the state instead of primarily at its San Francisco headquarters. Those and other changes will be imposed on the CPUC by a pair of bills signed into law yesterday by governor Jerry Brown.… More

Governor Brown approves remnants of CPUC reform, calls for more

29 September 2016 by Steve Blum
, ,

Five bills aimed at changing the way the California Public Utilities Commission does business were signed into law today by California governor Jerry Brown. Two – senate bills 215 and 512 – were the only measures passed by the legislature that were included in a grander deal Brown negotiated with lawmakers in June. Another, SB 62, arose as the other bills in that package went down to defeat. Brown also signed assembly bill 2168, which requires CPUC audits to be posted on the web, and SB 661 tightens up rules for digging around underground utilities.… More

Brown's taxi reform veto protects Uber's competitive advantage

29 September 2016 by Steve Blum
, , ,

Disruption.

Cities and other local agencies will retain their current authority to regulate the taxi business. Governor Jerry Brown vetoed assembly bill 650 today. The measure, by assemblyman Evan Low (D – Silicon Valley), would have moved taxi regulation to an undefined state agency. Brown thought that was going too far:

This bill removes significant regulation of taxicabs by cities and counties and declares the intent of the Legislature to transfer the regulation of taxicabs to the state.

… More

Enviro fast track for LA network, slow lane for lifeline okayed by governor

27 September 2016 by Steve Blum
, , , ,

Two more telecoms-related bills have been signed by governor Jerry Brown, and several more – of greater consequence – are hanging in the balance with four days to go before his veto deadline.

Without comment, Brown approved assembly bill 2570 and senate bill 1008. AB 2570 deals with restrictions on low income lifeline telephone (and broadband) subsidies and was watered down in the final days of the legislative session. As originally written by assemblyman Bill Quirk (D – Hayward), anyone who signs up for a subsidised service plan would be stuck with that carrier for a minimum of two months.… More

North coast, eastern Sierra and San Joaquin regions up for California broadband consortia grants

23 September 2016 by Steve Blum
, , ,

That’s pretty much the speed of broadband too, in these regions.

Three more regional broadband consortia projects trickled onto the California Public Utilities Commission’s agenda for next month. A draft resolution that, if approved, would give a total of $493,000 from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) to broadband consortia on the northern coast, the eastern Sierra and the San Joaquin Valley regions.

The Redwood Coast Connect Broadband Consortium, based at Humboldt State University, and the San Joaquin Valley Regional Broadband Consortium, based at Fresno State, are up for their second round of financing – each received $450,000 grants in the first round, which started in 2011.… More

Telcos improve broadband service data reporting in California, cable not so much

22 September 2016 by Steve Blum
, , ,

California has a big, new batch of broadband availability data to chew on. The California Public Utilities Commission has updated its broadband availability map with information current as of 31 December 2015. The data is submitted to the CPUC and the Federal Communications Commission by telcos, cable companies, mobile carriers, and some middle mile and fixed wireless operators.

I’m going to be spending a month or two diving into the new data. But after a couple of hours poking around in it, I’m happy to discover that the two biggest telephone companies in California – AT&T and Frontier Communications – have begun providing detailed information on the type of technology that’s deployed in any given census block that they serve – fiber to the premise, VDSL, ADSL or legacy DSL – along with specific upload and download speeds.… More