ftth

Google's fiber crusade rolls on in Austin, sorta

24 January 2014 by Steve Blum
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Some were shouting ‘Texas number one!’

AT&T will, it says, expand the reach of its fiber-to-the-home network in Austin, Texas. The company claimed, in a breathless press release, that uptake of its 300 Mbps service has been more energetic than expected…

“Austin’s response to our blazing fast broadband and enhanced TV services has been incredible and validates why we decided to roll this out in Austin first,” said Dahna Hull, vice president and general manager, Austin, AT&T Services Inc.

… More

$170 million in California broadband subsidy proposals await decisions

9 January 2014 by Steve Blum
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The latest update from the California Public Utilities Commission shows that 12 projects are still in the hunt for subsidies from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF). Eleven projects, totalling $30 million in grants and $41,000 in loans, have been approved. Nine have either been rejected by commission staff or are on hold.

One of the pending projects – a $1 million DSL upgrade proposed by Ponderosa Telephone Company in Fresno County – is due for a vote by the commission next week.… More

Aussies jump in with Utopia FTTH bid

20 December 2013 by Steve Blum
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Spends just as well as a greenback.

Utopia’s saviour appears to be an Australian investment company, Macquarie Capital Group, that specialises in large public sector projects, including fiber optic networks. According to a story in the Salt Lake City Tribune, Macquarie is starting out with a feasibility study…

The goal, according to a senior Macquarie executive, would be to develop a private-public partnership with any of the UTOPIA cities that wanted to participate, with Macquarie paying to build out the municipal Internet grid and then running it under a 30-year revenue-sharing contract.

… More

CPUC approves $1.8 million for "fiber to the vacation cabin"

19 December 2013 by Steve Blum
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No phone, no water, no power, no people. But wicked fast email.

“I’m a big supporter of fiber to the home, but fiber to the vacation cabin is a different thing”, said commissioner Michel Florio as he argued against giving a $1.8 million grant to the Ponderosa Telephone Company to build broadband infrastructure in a remote area of Madera County. His fellow commissioners did not agree, though, and the project was approved on a 4 to 1 vote.… More

Utopia might finally be utopia, thanks to Google

15 December 2013 by Steve Blum
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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

AT&T wants to buy your privacy for $29 a month

11 December 2013 by Steve Blum
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Let AT&T know what you like, and they’ll send you interesting ads.

AT&T is offering fiber-to-the-home Internet service in Austin at an introductory rate of $70, if subscribers allow AT&T to monitor their web browsing and use the information to target ads…

Receive our U-verse with GigaPower Premier Offer by choosing AT&T Internet Preferences. When you select AT&T Internet Preferences, we can offer you our best pricing on U-verse with GigaPower because you let us use your individual web browsing information, like the search terms you enter and the web pages you visit, to tailor ads and offers to your interests.

… More

Mayor closes the curtain on Gigabit Seattle's political theater


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

CPUC debates fairness of giving big broadband subsidies to tiny communities

5 December 2013 by Steve Blum
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Is anyone home? (Click to download today’s staff presentation).

“It’s a little frustrating that this would be one of the last places you’d expect high quality internet service, yet you have communities like Point Arena and Gualala that don’t have service at all,” said commissioner Michel Florio this morning, as the California Public Utilities Commission discussed a proposal to give a $1.8 million subsidy to Ponderosa Telephone Company to build a fiber-to-the-home system in the remote Madera County communities of Beasore and Central Camp.… More

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

25 November 2013 by Steve Blum
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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

Google seeks friends to influence Provo landlords

14 November 2013 by Steve Blum
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By the book.

Google is laying a time honored sales technique on Provo landlords: the presumptive close. As in Kansas City, it’s requiring owners to front the installation charge for all the units in a building before it’ll start wiring it up. The big difference in Provo is that it’s only charging $30 per household, instead of $300. That was part of the deal made with Provo when it took ownership of the city’s fiber optic system earlier this year.… More