public policy

The week AT&T, cable lobbyists ran up the score in Sacramento

25 April 2016 by Steve Blum
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It could have been a winning week (or two) for broadband infrastructure advocates in the California capitol, but instead last week turned into a victory march for AT&T and cable lobbyists as they fought to further entrench the cosy monopoly/duopoly conditions that underpin their business models. I’ve been blogging more or less on a play by play basis, but I think it’d be helpful to try to pull it briefly together.

It comes down to four key assembly bills, all of which landed in the assembly utilities and commerce committee over the past couple of weeks:

AB 1758 – an effort by Santa Cruz democrat Mark Stone to raise California’s broadband standard to 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload speeds, and put $350 million into the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) for infrastructure upgrade subsidies and a variety of other programs.… More

LA legislator is key player for California telecoms policy

24 April 2016 by Steve Blum
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Hardball, fast ball or screw ball?

Four consequential broadband bills approached a key committee in the California assembly over the past couple of weeks, with permissive regulations for incumbents making first base on a walk, and subsidies and rules that favor competitors striking out.

Mike Gatto, a democrat from Los Angeles and the chairman of the utilities and commerce committee, was on the pitching mound for all four bills. He’s the driving force behind a push to put a simple thumbs up or thumbs down vote on the future of the California Public Utilities Commission onto the November ballot, and the gatekeeper who waved through AT&T’s bid to end rural wireline service, while stopping a plan to re-energise broadband infrastructure subsidies by adding money and raising the state’s minimum standard to 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload speeds (and, it should be said, adding money to several non-infrastructure programs as well).… More

Bait and switch for California bill to allow AT&T's rural abandonment

22 April 2016 by Steve Blum
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Not the result he was expecting.

No real changes were made in to a proposed new law that would allow AT&T to pull out its wireline systems in rural and inner city communities in California, despite promises to the contrary.

The new text of assembly bill 2395 is now available, and it’s nothing like the way it was characterised by AT&T and its legislative cheering section during an assembly utilities and commerce committee hearing last week.… More

CPUC's future could be in the hands of California voters

21 April 2016 by Steve Blum
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It helps to be cute when you’re an endangered species.

The California Public Utilities Commission is one step closer to extinction, at least in its current form. The assembly utilities and commerce commerce overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment yesterday that would strip the CPUC of its special, independent status under the California constitution and give the legislature the job of deciding how utilities of would be regulated, or not.

Support for the bill – assembly constitutional amendment 11 – is bipartisan, with democrats and republicans signed up as co-authors.… More

AT&T, cable lobbyists gut California broadband subsidies

20 April 2016 by Steve Blum
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Treachery.

Broadband infrastructure subsidies are off the table in Sacramento, thanks to a coordinated campaign by AT&T staff lobbyists and the cable industry’s political front organisation, the California Cable and Telecommunications Association (CCTA). Assembly bill 1758 was pulled by its author, assemblyman Mark Stone (D – Santa Cruz) after it became clear that the California assembly’s utilities and commerce committee was going to spike it at its meeting this afternoon.

Originally, AB 1758 would have put $150 million into the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) broadband construction subsidy account, and another $200 million in a range of broadband-related programs, including service for hospitals, facilities in public housing, digital literacy and marketing efforts and regional consortia.… More

Ayes and noes posted for AT&T's California rural exit bill

18 April 2016 by Steve Blum
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You’re wireless now.

The official vote tally for assembly bill 2395 has been posted. That’s the bill that would let AT&T shut down its wireline networks in rural and inner city areas and replace them with lower capacity but higher cost and higher profit margin wireless systems. It was clear from listening to the audio feed that a big, bipartisan majority of the California assembly utilities and commerce committee favored the bill, but the rules allow votes to be silently added to the roll, or even changed, before the meeting officially ends.… More

Logic of self-driving car policy escapes RAND corporation

16 April 2016 by Steve Blum
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Control sample.

The RAND corporation published a study about self driving cars that comes to a mathematically obvious conclusion, while completely missing the public policy point. The study starts with the fact that one person dies in a U.S. traffic accident for every 100 million miles driven. Then it dives into a really complex statistical analysis…

Given that fatalities and injuries are rare events, we will show that fully autonomous vehicles would have to be driven hundreds of millions of miles and sometimes hundreds of billions of miles to demonstrate their reliability in terms of fatalities and injuries.

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Backdoor to encrypted data required in proposed bill

15 April 2016 by Steve Blum
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California’s senior U.S. senator wants software, hardware and telecoms companies, and pretty much everyone else in the high tech universe to keep a master key to their encrypted products and services. And turn the key anytime a court tells them to do so. The draft of a bill by senators Diane Feinstein (D – California) and Richard Burr (R – North Carolina) says…

A covered entity that receives a court order from a government for information or data shall— (A) provide such information or data to such government in an intelligible format; or (B) provide such technical assistance as is necessary to obtain such information or data in an intelligible format or to achieve the purpose of the court order.

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AT&T says don't worry about copper lines, California legislators say OK

14 April 2016 by Steve Blum
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History says otherwise.

AT&T is one step closer to getting blanket permission to yank its copper networks in rural California, and replace them with wireless service as it pleases. On a lopsided vote, the assembly utilities and commerce committee voted to move assembly bill 2395 along toward a full floor vote. Written by AT&T and carried on its behalf by assemblyman Evan Low (D – Silicon Valley), the bill would allow AT&T to replace legacy analog voice telephone networks and service with any functional equivalent, so long as it’s capable of calling 911.… More

Charter-Time Warner deal gets tentative OK in California

13 April 2016 by Steve Blum
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Broadband counts.

Charter Communication’s purchase of Time Warner and Bright House cable systems in California should be approved if the company sticks to promises that it has made and to agreements it has reached with parties that previously opposed the deal. That’s the draft decision offered by Karl Bemesderfer, an administrative law judge with the California Public Utilities Commission.

Bemesderfer’s proposed decision will go to a vote of the full commission next month. In it, he says that the deal does have some negatives – greater market concentration, for example – but Charter’s promised upgrades and changes to the way it does business makes up for it…

Weighing Charter’s commitments to increased Internet speeds, increased numbers of wireless access points, less onerous contracts, more effective competition in the enterprise space, unbundling of services, equal treatment of content providers and greater diversity in hiring, contracting and programming, all of which will be made explicit conditions of approval of the Transaction, against the increase in concentration of the market for broadband Internet access without the threat of discrimination against competing content creators, we conclude that the benefits of the Transaction outweigh its drawbacks and the Transaction satisfies [the section of the public utilities code that says that such deals must “be beneficial on an overall basis to state and local economies, and to the communities in areas served by the utility”].

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