infrastructure – Steve Blum's Blog

Microtrenching bill lands in California senate with the wrong answer to the right question

7 April 2020 by Steve Blum
caltrans, community networks, infrastructure, microtrenching, sb1206

Microtrenching – cutting a narrow slit in a road, inserting fiber and sealing it with glue – is an excellent tool that can result in faster broadband infrastructure deployment at lower costs. But like any tool, it’s only useful when it suits the job at hand. One of the main reasons – I’d say the main reason – the technique isn’t used more often is that there’s no set of best practices, design specifications and employment parameters that is commonly accepted by broadband companies, utility operators and, crucially, the public works and transportation officials who are responsible for road construction and maintenance.… More

Newsom’s broadband budget language doesn’t translate to infrastructure

13 January 2020 by Steve Blum
broadband, casf, gavin newsom, infrastructure, public policy

Broadband references are sprinkled into California governor Gavin Newsom’s state budget proposal but, taken at face value, he’s focused on shifting money from hard capital infrastructure projects to soft programs and annual operating budgets.

Although tagged as an infrastructure investment in Newsom’s budget summary, his “Broadband for All” initiative is about operations, comprising four elements: mapping, education spending, “optimising” existing resources and “prioritising connectivity across executive actions and policies”.

The California Public Utilities Commission already has a fine mapping program, which Newsom wisely intends to expand.… More

Trump’s budget plan puts broadband funding, mapping on table

12 March 2019 by Steve Blum
broadband, fcc, infrastructure, public policy, usda

Broadband gets several call outs in the proposed budget released yesterday by the Trump administration. One initiative is endorsed for another year, two are re-promised and one appears to be a response to widespread criticism. Line item figures haven’t been published yet, but even just the overview runs to 150 pages. Details on plans are scarce, but the broadband snippets that were included tell an encouraging tale.

Agriculture secretary Sonny Perdue has bucked the administration’s love fest with big, incumbent cable and telephone companies and pushed for community-based broadband service, particularly via rural electric coops.… More

Newsom’s budget plan lowers barriers to public broadband financing

13 January 2019 by Steve Blum
ab1999, broadband, infrastructure, muni broadband, public policy

Following up on one of the items in his campaign manifesto, California’s new governor, Gavin Newsom, might make it easier to finance municipal broadband projects. One of the many, many ideas offered in his maiden budget proposal is to make it easier to form enhanced infrastructure financing districts by eliminating requirements for voter approval of bond issues…

Various economic development tools have been introduced following the dissolution of Redevelopment Agencies (RDAs), including Enhanced Infrastructure Financing Districts (EIFDs).

… More

One foot of sea level rise puts thousands of miles of fiber underwater

18 August 2018 by Steve Blum
broadband, fiber, infrastructure

Climate change poses a significant threat to telecommunications infrastructure. That’s the conclusion of a recently published paper by three researchers from the University of Oregon and the University of Wisconsin.

The authors took standard electronic map data – i.e. geographical information system/GIS files – showimg major fiber routes and overlayed it with coastal flooding predictions made by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The data shows thousands of miles of long haul fiber at risk…

The results of our analysis show that climate change-related sea level incursions could have a devastating impact on Internet communication infrastructure even in the relatively short term.

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MBEP conference follows local path to ubiquitious regional broadband

17 November 2017 by Steve Blum
broadband, infrastructure, mbep, public policy

Bringing ubiquitous high speed broadband to the Monterey Bay region requires goals set and pursued at the grass roots level, but benchmarked against a regional plan and standards. That was the top line consensus from a roundtable brainstorming session at the Monterey Bay Economic Partnership’s third annual State of the Region conference, held last week in Monterey.

The region takes in San Benito, Santa Cruz and Monterey counties. It quickly became apparent that one size would never fit all in an area that bundles high tech Santa Cruz and uber-rich Pebble Beach with Salinas Valley farming towns, the Paicines cattle country and the isolated peaks of the Santa Lucia and Gabilan mountains.… More

Bipartisan bill limits federal environmental review of telecoms projects

23 October 2017 by Steve Blum
broadband, infrastructure, public policy, speed act, wireless broadband

Just don’t disturb the ground.

A bipartisan bill introduced in the U.S. senate aims to put some common sense into environmental law, at least where wireless facilities are concerned. Co-authored by U.S. senators Roger Wicker (R – Mississippi) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D – Nevada), senate bill 1988, aka the Speed act, would exempt a “communication facility installation” from federal environmental and historic reviews, if there’s already infrastructure in place in the project area.

Wireless infrastructure gets additional exemptions.… More

Industrial, commercial Star Ratings produce broadband development roadmap

4 July 2017 by Steve Blum
broadband, commercial real estate, infrastructure, public policy

Broadband infrastructure analysis has two primary goals: 1. figure out what’s available now and whether it meets needs, and 2. identify and evaluate options for further development. Last year, Tellus Venture Associates created the Star Rating tool to assess broadband infrastructure in industrial and commercial areas.

It takes into account available service and existing infrastructure, and compares it to a range of benchmarks, including commodity business-level broadband, enhanced “megabit” and “gigabit” class service, and dark fiber.… More

Broadband infrastructure follows roads and rails to West Sacramento

13 April 2017 by Steve Blum
broadband, infrastructure, public policy, west sacramento

The railroads and freeways that made West Sacramento a logistic hub brought robust fiber optic infrastructure with them. As a result, the city is criss-crossed by long haul and metro fiber lines and hosts two data centers. That’s the one of the top line results of a study completed by Tellus Venture Associates and presented to the West Sacramento city council last week. Other findings include…

Along with excellent industrial grade fiber networks and data centers, the City of West Sacramento owns a significant amount of telecommunications conduit that can be used to leverage those assets.

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FCC set to preempt local right of way and permit authority

3 April 2017 by Steve Blum
broadband, fcc, infrastructure, public policy

A sweeping review of how cities and counties manage public roads and approve construction permits for wired and wireless broadband infrastructure is on the table at the Federal Communications Commission. If approved, two draft decisions would, among other things, start the process of setting tighter limits on how and when local governments can establish standards for digging trenches or planting poles and boxes in public rights of way, and make wireless permit shot clocks absolute with an automatic deemed granted decision once time limits have expired and a ban on court challenges by local governments.… More