fcc

Move at the FCC to unlink rural broadband subsdies from telephone service

2 July 2015 by Steve Blum
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Wouldn’t it be easier to just Skype?

Federal Communications Commission rules require any service provider that applies for broadband subsidies under universal service fund programs also offer telephone service. It’s not because of any law of nature – the California Advanced Services Fund functions quite well without screwing around with dial tone requirements – but rather simply the result of bureaucratic inertia.

The FCC’s decision to bring broadband service and infrastructure under common carrier rules hinted at broadband-only subsidies.… More

Charter won't promise to offer broadband in redlined communities

29 June 2015 by Steve Blum
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This isn’t where the other 99% live.

If you live in the bottom 1% of Charter Communications service area, you’re not getting broadband access or, indeed, anything other than poor analog video service from the company. The message from Charter is those redlined communities – among the poorest and most isolated in California – won’t be upgraded to 21st century digital systems anytime soon.

Charter tries to weasel its way around that issue in its initial filing with the Federal Communications Commission, as it seeks permission to buy Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks.… More

Suddenlink tries to avoid going down the same regulatory review path as Comcast

26 June 2015 by Steve Blum
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Click for the full picture.

The purchase of Suddenlink Communications – the seventh largest cable operator in the U.S. and a significant video and Internet service provider in rural California – by a European company, Altice, is officially under review by the California Public Utilities Commission and the Federal Communications Commission.

As is typical with the initial applications, the companies are claiming there’s not much to worry about and approval should be quick and simple.… More

Mayors like and loath FCC broadband rules

25 June 2015 by Steve Blum
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By David Ball (Original work) [GFDL (https://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC BY 2.5 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons

Mayors in U.S. cities want the federal government’s help to maintain their cities’ authority to build and operate municipal broadband systems (h/t to the Baller-Herbst list for the pointer). At least, the U.S. conference of mayors does, voting to approve a resolution that calls out Federal Communications Commission chairman Tom Wheeler’s move to preempt state-imposed restrictions on municipal broadband systems and urges congress and the president to follow his lead…

Now, therefore, be it resolved, that the United States Conference of Mayors applauds the FCC, under the leadership of Chairman Tom Wheeler, for preempting state barriers to municipal broadband service, which have served as a significant limitation to competition in the provision of Internet access; and

Be it further resolved, that The United States Conference of Mayors encourages Congress and the Administration to pursue all legislative and regulatory avenues to allow cities and communities maximum flexibility in constructing their own broadband networks.

… More

Legality of FCC's muni broadband preemption will be decided in Cincinnati

23 June 2015 by Steve Blum
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The local team.

It’s no great surprise, but the two challenges to the Federal Communications Commission’s decision to preempt state bans on municipal broadband have been consolidated into one proceeding. The nod goes to the first case to be submitted, by the State of Tennessee, in the federal appeals court district that’s headquartered in Cincinnati and includes Tennessee. The appeal from the state of North Carolina was filed nearly two months later in the federal court district that’s based in Richmond, Virginia.… More

Low income subsidies for broadband service pushed by FCC

20 June 2015 by Steve Blum
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What would Ronald Reagan do?

The Federal Communications Commission voted 3 to 2 along party lines on Friday to begin work on a plan to extend lifeline benefits – telephone bill subsidies for low income people – to broadband service. We don’t exactly what they did, because the actual text of the decision won’t be available until commission staff get around to publishing it, but we do know that Ronald Reagan would have either loved or hated it.… More

FCC wastes no time in bringing the net neutrality hammer down hard on mobile carriers

19 June 2015 by Steve Blum
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Shoot the first one out the door. That’ll give them to know our intentions as serious.

The Federal Communications Commission took a hard swat at AT&T, fining it $100 million for trying to weasel out of unlimited data deals it offered back in the days when the iPhone was being launched…

We find that AT&T…apparently willfully and repeatedly violated the Commission’s Open Internet Transparency Rule by: (1) using the misleading and inaccurate term “unlimited” to label a data plan that was in fact subject to prolonged speed reductions after a customer used a set amount of data; and (2) failing to disclose the express speed reductions that it applied to “unlimited” data plan customers once they hit a specified data threshold.

… More

Frontier picks up a federal funding option but might miss even more in California

17 June 2015 by Steve Blum
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Frontier has claimed the blue and brown areas, but Verizon could leave the yellow areas behind. Click for a closer look.

Frontier Communications is the first of the larger U.S. telephone companies to take up the Federal Communications Commission’s offer of several years of subsidies in exchange for upgrading broadband infrastructure in rural areas to a minimum service level of 10 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload speeds.

The FCC announced yesterday that Frontier had said yes to its right of first refusal on money from the second phase of the Connect America Fund program.… More

Mobile carriers detail plans for adding unlicensed spectrum to their portfolios

16 June 2015 by Steve Blum
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Kind of like parking one of these in a yacht harbor. But it’s OK. They’ll be careful.

With the rate of growth – let alone growth itself – in mobile data usage continuing to boom, with no end in sight, mobile carriers are searching for new spectrum. First choice is licensed, exclusive frequencies of course, but there’s no reason for them not to grab for their second choice too, which is unlicensed spectrum.

The Federal Communications Commission has been taking comments on the possibility of mobile carriers operating alongside WiFi in the unlicensed bands.… More

U.S. military share its spectrum with the public for wireless broadband use

15 June 2015 by Steve Blum
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The U.S. defense department is giving up its sole control 100 MHz of prime spectrum – 3550-3650 MHz – which is adjacent to 50 MHz – 3650-3700 MHz – that’s already available for semi-licensed use, and the Federal Communications Commission is combining it all into a new citizens broadband radio service that will share the space with existing users. An automated spectrum access system (SAS) will coordinate use by three different classes of users with different levels of privileges.… More