Mobile voice migration hits the halfway mark, but don't confuse it with broadband

29 May 2017 by Steve Blum
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Voice telephone service has finally tipped to predominantly mobile, according to statistics compiled by the federal department of health and human services. The latest survey shows that a bit more than half the homes in the U.S. no longer use landline telephones to make or receive calls…

In the second 6 months of 2016, more than one-half of all households (50.8%) did not have a landline telephone but did have at least one wireless telephone. More than 123 million adults (50.5% of all adults) lived in households with only wireless telephones; over 44 million children (60.7% of all children) lived in households with only wireless telephones.

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Money lost on pole rentals is your problem, senators tell California cities

21 May 2017 by Steve Blum
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Cities and counties will have to figure out how for themselves how to make up any losses they suffer if senate bill 649 becomes law. That’s the conclusion of a state senate appropriations committee analysis, ahead of a hearing on the measure last week. SB 649 would effectively give mobile carriers open access to city-owned property, such as light poles, at pre-determined, cut rate prices. As it currently reads, instead of charging wireless companies up to $4,000 or more a month in rent, cities could only charge rates set by legislature

Cities and counties currently negotiate lease rates for small cell attachments on publicly owned vertical infrastructure that is market based, and many local governments may use excess lease revenues to pay for other public services or to subsidize the extension of wireless service in underserved areas.

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Cheap and easy access to California streetlights queued up in Sacramento

12 May 2017 by Steve Blum
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It’s not the complete takeover of municipal property that mobile carriers originally wanted, but the latest published version of senate bill 649 would still require California cities and counties to allow on-demand access to street lights and other “vertical infrastructure” they own, often at a steep discount on the going market rate for leases…

A city or county shall not preclude the leasing or licensing of its vertical infrastructure located in public right-of-way or public utility easements…Vertical infrastructure shall be made available for the placement of small cells under fair and reasonable fees, terms, and conditions, which may include feasible design and collocation standards…Fees shall be tiered or flat and within a range of $100 to $850 per small cell per year, indexed for inflation…

A city or county shall not discriminate against the deployment of a small cell on property owned by the city or county and shall make space available on property not located in the public right-of-way under terms and conditions that are no less favorable than the terms and conditions under which the space is made available for comparable commercial projects or uses.

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Bill to end local control of cell sites gets new start in Sacramento

28 April 2017 by Steve Blum
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The California senate’s governance and finance committee did indeed shred senate bill 649 but it sent the pieces on toward a full floor vote anyway. It still severely restricts, if not completely eliminates, the ability of cities and counties to control where cell sites are placed, and requires them to lease street lights and other vertical assets to mobile carriers on demand for a nominal price.

Amendments were negotiated behind closed doors but not publicly released prior to the hearing on Wednesday.… More

California cell site free-for-all bill shredded in senate analysis

25 April 2017 by Steve Blum
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By wdwd (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Deconstructing the text.

A much different assessment of senate bill 649 has been posted as it heads toward a hearing tomorrow in the senate’s governance and finance committee. That’s the bill that would largely eliminate local control in California over cell sites in the public right of way and commercial and industrial zones, and give mobile carriers the right to attach their gear to publicly owned light poles and other vertical assets at will for $20 a year.… More

T-Mobile leads 600 MHz auction, DISH slips easily in behind

16 April 2017 by Steve Blum
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T-Mobile is the big winner, or at least the big spender, in the Federal Communication Commission’s $20 billion incentive auction, walking away with more than half the 600 MHz band licenses up for grabs – 1,525 licenses, 55% of the total. Second place went to DISH, which paid $6.2 billion for 486 licenses, 18% of the total.

Who came in third depends on how you’re figuring it. Comcast bid the third most money – $1.7 billion – but ended up with only 73 licenses, a mere 3%.… More

Cell site free-for-all approved in raucous California senate hearing

5 April 2017 by Steve Blum
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Cities and counties will be forced to hand over control of light poles they own to wireless companies for a nominal fee, under a bill unanimously approved yesterday by a California senate committee during a hearing that descended at times into chaos and low comedy. Drafted by mobile carriers and pushed by the chairman of the committee, senator Ben Hueso (D – San Diego), senate bill 649 would also allow wireless companies to install “small” cells (which, as defined, could be sizeable) pretty much at will, anywhere in the public right of way in California, including residential areas.… More

Bill to gut local review of cell sites gets California senate hearing today

4 April 2017 by Steve Blum
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Stripping local governments of most of their discretion over where wireless equipment can be installed – including on property they own – is just one of the provisions of a bill that is scheduled to get its first hearing today in the California legislature. Senate bill 649 will go before the senate energy, utilities and communications committee later this morning, and is likely to receive a warm welcome. The principal backer is senator Ben Hueso (D – San Diego), who is also the chairman of the committee.… More

Two California lawmakers want to declare cell sites not a municipal affair

22 February 2017 by Steve Blum
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The new legislative year is bringing with it a new effort to further preempt local government authority regarding where and how cell sites can be built. Senate bill 649 was introduced last week by senator Ben Hueso (D – San Diego County), the chair of the senate energy, utilities and communications committee, and co-authored by assemblyman Bill Quirk (D – Hayward), who has been a good friend to mobile carriers in general, and AT&T in particular.… More

Verizon could close a big competitive gap with Charter's fiber

17 February 2017 by Steve Blum
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Verizon needs to build more than 100,000 new cell sites and add more fiber connectivity to close a capacity gap with its U.S. competitors, according to a report from New Street Research. And, the report concludes, buying Charter Communications – as rumors say it might – could help solve some of Verizon’s problems. It wouldn’t be much benefit to Charter, though.

The report estimates that when the number of cell sites and the amount of spectrum used is taken into consideration, Verizon has a bit more than half of the capacity per subscriber that AT&T and T-Mobile have.… More