public policy

Two projects pulled as CASF challenges come thick as flying monkeys


Just set me down in Kansas. They have fiber there.

Two applications submitted by Race Communications for California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) subsidies are off the table, leaving twenty-seven still under consideration. Of those, incumbent carriers have challenged twenty projects, claiming that some or all of the areas proposed for funding already receive sufficient broadband service and are ineligible.

Race originally put in five proposals for fiber-to-the-home systems in Eastern California. Mojave and California City – towns in eastern Kern County – are already wired and receiving service that meets the California Public Utilities Commission’s (CPUC) minimum 6 Mbps download and 1.5 Mbps upload standard.… More

Back and forth, again, over eligibility for Californian broadband subsidies

24 April 2013 by Steve Blum
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The latest round of comments and counter comments on the California Public Utilities Commission’s (CPUC) review of broadband subsidy eligibility has closed. Two organisations filed replies to the comments filed a couple of weeks ago, the CPUC’s Division of Ratepayer Advocates (DRA) and a consumer advocacy group, the Utility Reform Network (TURN). DRA also weighed in a couple of weeks ago.

TURN repeated its support for allowing non-traditional organisations to apply for broadband infrastructure construction grants and loans from the California Advanced Services Fund.… More

Provo council approves FTTH system sale to Google

23 April 2013 by Steve Blum
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Provo’s newest resident.

In a series of unanimous votes, the Provo municipal council voted tonight to approve the sale of the city’s fiber-to-the-home network to Google. The benefits to Provo and its citizens – free (more or less) Internet service for at least seven years, connections for city and school facilities and millions of dollars invested in finishing the build out of the system – were praised by the council and members of the public.… More

Details of Google's Provo FTTH purchase emerging

22 April 2013 by Steve Blum
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Did you really expect it would be free as in beer?

Provo residents will be paying at least $5.35 a month via their City utility bills for their otherwise free Google Internet service for the next seven years, according to the Associated Press. Documents released by the City of Provo back up that report and provide further details on the purchase, although some questions still remain.

Under the terms of the deal that the Provo City Council considers Tuesday, Google buys the FTTH system for a token amount (like, a couple of bucks), and agrees to build out the system to more or less every residence.… More

Smart City technology doesn't always look like a smart move for cities


Don’t violate a parking meter while this guy is watching.

Cities have a hard time defining what return on investment means. That was one of the themes at a Smart Cities forum organized by the Telecom Council of Silicon Valley on Thursday.

Executives from several start up companies talked about the challenge of selling municipalities on a new way of doing business. One company, Streetline, aims to “solve parking blindness,” according to general manager Kurt Beucheler.… More

Fiber cuts not as disruptive on California's central coast

19 April 2013 by Steve Blum
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Lightning fast and always lands on its feet. The cat too.

Four years ago, someone chopped into an AT&T fiber optic cable south of San Jose in California. Big chunks of Santa Cruz, San Benito and Santa Clara Counties fell off the Internet for the better part of a day. Mobile and landline phone service was disrupted.

Earlier this week, a similar cut was made in more or less the same place. The same thing happened to a lot of people.… More

CPUC releases app to crowdsource mobile broadband speeds

18 April 2013 by Steve Blum
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Ground truth isn’t as pretty as advertised.

Mobile phone subscribers can find out what kind of service their carrier actually delivers, and pass that ground truth on to California policy makers. The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has put its CalSpeed app on the Google Play store. Anyone can download it for free and use it to test mobile broadband speeds delivered by AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint.

The app is billed as a “professional-level testing tool”.… More

Taking on Provo failure proves Google is serious about FTTH

17 April 2013 by Steve Blum
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You risk your mojo, you risk everything baby.

The troubled municipal fiber to the home system in Provo, Utah will soon be Google’s problem, assuming the city council signs off next week. The terms of the deal haven’t been released yet, but Google’s selling proposition is that it will connect all the homes along the existing fiber route and provide them free 5 Mbps Internet service for at least seven years. The only cost would be a $30 connection fee.… More

More competition means lower FTTH prices according to Swedish study


Sweden breeds competitors.

Competition drives prices down on open access municipal fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) systems. That’s the conclusion of a study completed by a graduate researcher in Sweden. Ziyi Xiong, a masters candidate at the KTH Institute of Technology in Stockholm, examined data from 290 Swedish municipalities – with and without FTTH service – and found that the cost of a 10 Mbps subscription dropped by about a dollar a month for every service provider on a given fiber network.… More

Civinomics launches platform for cooler, smarter conversations about hot button issues

12 April 2013 by Steve Blum
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Civil discussion about community issues is the goal of a start-up launched last night in Santa Cruz, California. Civinomics is a platform for online workshops and in-person polling, aimed at engaging a wider segment of the public in conversations about local issues and ideas. Where ever those might be.

“It represents the evolution of social media into civic media,” said Chris Neklason, the company’s product management guru and the co-founder of Cruzio, an independent ISP and the host of the ribbon cutting event.… More