public policy – Page 13 – Steve Blum's Blog

Internet regulation is at the top of California’s 2020 policy wish (or wish not) list

31 December 2019 by Steve Blum
ab1366, cpuc, netneutrality, public policy, sb822

2020 might be the year that the State of California figures out what, if any, role it will play in regulating (or not) broadband service and infrastructure. As of tomorrow, the California Public Utilities Commission is no longer barred from regulating services like VoIP (voice over Internet protocol). A 2012 state law that said the CPUC couldn’t do that expired at the end of 2019.

But that doesn’t mean that anything is decided.

AT&T and its fellow monopoly model Internet service providers tried to get an extension of that ban approved in the California legislature this year.… More

California broadband subsidy program pumped $35 million into infrastructure in 2019

30 December 2019 by Steve Blum
casf, cpuc, public policy, rural broadband

The California Advanced Services Fund (CASF), the state’s primary broadband infrastructure subsidy program, closes out 2019 with thirteen projects funded – $35 million in grants total – and no backlog of stale applications. That success is a welcome change from past practice, when project proposals sometimes languished for years. Changes made to the program by the California Public Utilities Commission in 2018 paid off, producing a consistent and predictable process.

Congratulations are due both CPUC staff who implemented the changes and managed the program, and to commissioner Martha Guzman Aceves who led the effort to rewrite the rules and procedures.… More

Some people aren’t buying the false data big ISPs sold to the FCC

27 December 2019 by Steve Blum
att, broadband, comcast, fcc, public policy

The Federal Communications Commission’s broadband testing program evolved from a engineering-driven performance assessment when it was launched in 2012 to a marketing tool for monopoly model Internet service providers. That’s partly the result of the FCC republican majority embracing a role as a cheerleader for big telecoms companies, but it also reflects tensions in the program that date back to when it began under a democrat-majority commission.

Jim Warner, who recently retired from a long career as the network engineer for the University of California, Santa Cruz and still chairs the Central Coast Broadband Consortium’s technical expert group, helped design the FCC’s program, along with several others from the academic side of the house as well as industry representatives.… More

FCC allows big ISPs to add performance enhancing juice to speed tests, WSJ says

19 December 2019 by Steve Blum
att, broadband, comcast, fcc, public policy

Syringe

The fast, reliable broadband service claims endorsed by the Federal Communications Commission are based on test data that’s been doctored by California’s monopoly model Internet service providers, according to a Wall Street Journal article Shalini Ramachandran, Lillian Rizzo and Drew FitzGerald (h/t to Jim Warner for sending me the link).

Annual speed measurements taken to evaluate U.S. broadband service are “juiced” by AT&T, Comcast, Charter Communications and others, who know ahead of time where the tests are run and afterwards lobby the FCC to suppress bad results and hype good ones, the story says…

[AT&T] pushed the Federal Communications Commission to omit unflattering data on its DSL internet service…

In the end, the DSL data was left out of the report released late last year, to the chagrin of some agency officials.

… More

Half a gigabuck offered for federal rural broadband subsidies, but California faces challenges

17 December 2019 by Steve Blum
farm bill, public policy, rural broadband, RUS, usda

Another round of broadband infrastructure subsidies is on the way from the federal agriculture department. A six week application window for the Rural Utilities Service’s (RUS) Reconnect program opens on 31 January 2020, with $512 million on the table.

It appears that the problems with the ReConnect program that shut California out of the first round of grants and loans earlier this year haven’t been fixed. On the face of it, the basic eligibility criteria are pretty simple…

90 percent of the proposed funded service area must not have sufficient access to broadband.

… More

California net neutrality law stuck in deep freeze as federal appeal drags on

16 December 2019 by Steve Blum
fcc, netneutrality, public policy, sb822

California’s network neutrality law won’t be enforced for at least a few more months. Last year, California attorney general Xavier Becerra agreed not to enforce the 2018 law enacted by California senate bill 822 while the legality of the Federal Communications Commission’s repeal of net neutrality rules was still being challenged at the federal level. On Friday, the wait got longer as four new petitions asking for rehearings of an October federal court decision were filed with the federal appeals court based in Washington, D.C.… More

Without a broadband cop, big ISPs write their own rules

13 December 2019 by Steve Blum
fcc, netneutrality, public policy, sb822

Tomorrow is the second anniversary of the Federal Communications Commission’s vote to end network neutrality protections. At the time, lobbyists for monopoly-model incumbents, like Comcast and AT&T, fell all over themselves promising that regulated or not, they would abide by open Internet principles.

That promise wasn’t kept, according to a blog post by Public Knowledge’s Lindsay Stern (h/t to the Baller list for the pointer)…

Researchers from Northeastern University and University of Massachusetts Amherst found that almost all wireless carriers pervasively slow down internet speed for selected video streaming services.

… More

New free trade treaty between Mexico, Canada and U.S. backstops digital business safeguards

12 December 2019 by Steve Blum
internet freedom, public policy

The text hasn’t been published yet, but statements from people involved indicate that online liability protections were included in the final version of a trade agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico (a draft version is here). Those protections are said to closely follow the language in a 1996 law passed by the U.S. congress that puts responsibility for online content on whoever posts it online, rather than the operator of the platform or server that hosts it.… More

February oral arguments set for appeal of FCC pole ownership preemption

11 December 2019 by Steve Blum
ab57, fcc, pole attachment, public policy, small cells

We might know by next summer if local governments will be able to lease public property, such as street lights, at fair market rates to private wireless companies, or whether those rates will be capped at $270 per pole per year.

The challenge by cities and counties to the Federal Communications Commission’s preemption of local ownership of public assets in the public right of way, and control of the public right of way itself, will be heard in Pasadena in February.… More

Political dreams, not business sense drive plan for public takeover of PG&E

10 December 2019 by Steve Blum
PGE, pole attachment, public policy, san jose, utility regulation

It’s not a co-op, despite being “customer owned”. It’s not a utility district or a municipal utility, despite operating “as though it were a public agency”. And it’s certainly not a profit making company. Which leaves wide open the question of what kind of organisational beast San Jose mayor Sam Liccardo and 113 other northern California elected officials think will take over Pacific Gas and Electric’s operations and assets.

The group released a set of “operating principles” for a new, quasi-public entity that would replace PG&E.… More