public policy

Muni broadband preemption lands in federal court

31 March 2015 by Steve Blum
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Don’t be abusing your discretion in Tennessee.

Tennessee is taking the FCC to court over its ruling that preempted state-imposed restrictions on municipal broadband systems. It filed a petition asking the federal sixth circuit court of appeals to “hold unlawful, vacate, enjoin, and set aside the Order, and provide such additional relief as may be appropriate” because…

In the Order, the FCC preempts Tennessee law pertaining to the operation of municipal electric plants, including the Electric Power Board of Chattanooga, an instrumentality of the City of Chattanooga, created and controlled by the State of Tennessee.

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Frontier says it'll offer Californians better broadband than Verizon

30 March 2015 by Steve Blum
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Click for a bigger version.

Frontier Communications is formally asking the California Public Utilities Commission for permission to buy Verizon’s copper telephone and fiber-to-the-home systems in the state. It’s part of a bigger transaction that includes Verizon’s wireline operations in Florida and Texas.

The California piece is big, involving 2 million subscriber phone lines plus broadband and video accounts. It should also result in better service for people who live in the rural areas where Verizon is letting its copper rot on the poles.… More

We're deciding the future of broadband now

29 March 2015 by Steve Blum
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I was asked to moderate a panel on the future of broadband at the Eastern Sierra Connect Regional Broadband Consortium conference in Ridgecrest in January. You can download the presentation here. To set it up, I put three discussion points on the table:

The future will look a lot like the past, because conduit is forever.

If you drive around southern England, or many parts of Europe, you’ll realise that twenty-first century transportation patterns were, to an amazing degree, determined two thousand years ago by Roman civil engineers.… More

Verizon is all keyed up over common carrier rules

28 March 2015 by Steve Blum
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I gotta give Verizon credit: it posted its slagging reaction to the FCC’s decision to impose common carrier rules on Internet service and infrastructure in Morse code. Sorta. I also gotta make the geek points that 1. the proper code of the “era of the steam locomotive and the telegraph” is American Morse, not the International Morse that Verizon uses, and 2. regardless of flavor, Morse code is a means of audible communication – rendering it via typed out dots and dashes is something only a lid would do.… More

Broadband regulation is beyond California's reach, sorta

27 March 2015 by Steve Blum
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The FCC put sharp restrictions on the role of state utility regulators when it decided to put Internet service and infrastructure under common carrier rules. But it did not write the California Public Utilities Commission completely out of the game.

Helen Mickiewicz, a senior attorney for the CPUC, told commissioners yesterday…

The order affirms the FCC’s longstanding conclusion that broadband Internet access service is a jurisdictionally interstate service for regulatory purposes and therefor beyond the reach of the states…The practical effect of that, actually, is not so different from where we were before.

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Comcast says, come on CPUC, all the other kids are doing it

25 March 2015 by Steve Blum
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California is the only western state that hasn’t approved the Comcast-Time Warner-Charter menage and it’s lagging behind most of the rest of the U.S. too, according to a filing made by Comcast back in January and posted yesterday by the California Public Utilities Commission. The filing also gives a glimpse into how the CPUC’s ex parte process actually works, as opposed to how Comcast proposed to make use of it.

At a series of meetings over two days with advisors to three CPUC commissioners – Florio, Randolph and president Picker – a full poker hand’s worth of Comcast lobbyists and lawyers tried to chivvy the process along…

[Michael Brady, Vice-President of Regulatory Affairs of Comcast Cable] provided an overview of the status of the Federal Communications Commission’s (“FCC”) and other states’ approval of the transaction.

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CPUC takes the Comcast party out of the backroom

24 March 2015 by Steve Blum
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It’s not official yet, but you can safely bet that the California Public Utilities Commission won’t be voting this Thursday on whether or not to approve the proposed Comcast-Time Warner-Charter mega merger and market swap. The CPUC posted an announcement yesterday that another “all parties” meeting will be held in Los Angeles in April to try to thrash out the three-cornered fight over the deal.

Comcast and its presumed partners want the transactions to be rubber-stamped with no conditions, consumer advocacy groups – including the CPUC’s office of ratepayer advocates – say it should be killed outright, and two other groups – the California Emerging Technology Fund (CETF) and Caltel, a lobbying organisation for competitive phone companies – want the conditions, at least those that benefit their respective interests.… More

First challenges to FCC common carrier rules enter a legal lottery

24 March 2015 by Steve Blum
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How justice is done.

Two court challenges were filed today with the intent of overturning the FCC’s decision to regulate Internet service and infrastructure using common carrier rules. One was filed in Washington, DC by an industry lobbying group – the US Telecom Association – and the other by a Texan wireless ISP – Alamo Broadband – in New Orleans, both with the respective federal appeals courts there.

US Telecom does not like anything about the rules…

US Telecom seeks review of the Order on the grounds that it is arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion within the meaning of the Administrative Procedure Act…violates federal law, including, but not limited to, the Constitution, the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, and FCC regulations promulgated thereunder; conflicts with the notice-and-comment rulemaking requirements of [federal law]; and is otherwise contrary to law.

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Universal service might be the one good reason for the CPUC to replace Charter with Comcast

23 March 2015 by Steve Blum
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Blue indicate likely communities redlined by Charter, although analysis is still in progress. Yellow is where Charter offers broadband. Click for a bigger – 8.5 MB – version.

One condition could make all the difference for the proposed decision in front of the California Public Utilities Commission that would formally approve the pending mega merger and market swap between Comcast, Time-Warner and Charter. The way the decision reads now, it would impose 25 different conditions on the deal, ranging from rates that can be charged for particular telephone and broadband services, to budgets for marketing to low income households, to requirements for battery backups.… More

Legal challenges to FCC decisions coming soon

22 March 2015 by Steve Blum
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Washington-based lobbying groups are making the first rumblings of legal challenges to the FCC’s decision to bring common carrier regulation to Internet service and infrastructure. Reuters is reporting that telecoms companies plan to let their trade associations take the lead on legal challenges.

We might see the first filings this week. The first step is for the FCC to publish the text of the ruling in the Federal Register, which might happen in the next few days.… More