public policy

U.S. mobile carriers asked to explain tests showing they throttle particular video providers

18 November 2018 by Steve Blum
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Three U.S. senate democrats are calling out the four major mobile carriers on their throttling and prioritisation policies. Senators Edward Markey (D – Massachusetts), Richard Blumenthal (D – Connecticut), and Ron Wyden (D – Oregon) sent joint letters to the CEOs of AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon, asking them to explain results from an Internet traffic testing app that indicate they’re deliberating slowing some traffic down…

We write to express our concern that mobile carriers may be inappropriately throttling and prioritizing internet traffic from common mobile apps without the knowledge of their customers.

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CPUC allows AT&T, Frontier to tap dance their way out of fines for bad service

16 November 2018 by Steve Blum
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AT&T and Frontier Communications were fined $2.2 million and $823,000, respectively, by California Public Utilities Commission, for “chronic” service failure, primarily in rural California. Sorta. Kinda.

Well, not really.

At its meeting in Fresno last week, the CPUC voted unanimously to allow Frontier and AT&T to skip the fines, which were mostly for taking too long to restore telephone service for customers who experienced outages. In return, the companies promised to make “incremental” investments in improving service quality.… More

Big telecoms’ one net neutrality victory in California is the one that matters

15 November 2018 by Steve Blum
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The California legislature’s failure to pass senate bill 460 in August, following large cash payments to key lawmakers by big telecoms companies, might come back to haunt network neutrality advocates. Carried by senator Kevin de Leon (D – Los Angeles), he allowed it to be shuffled off to the side as lawmakers approved SB 822, a comprehensive net neutrality bill authored by senator Scott Wiener (D – San Francisco).

With some exceptions, SB 460 would have required state and local agencies to buy broadband service only from providers that abide by net neutrality principles.… More

Money and performance at center of CETF’s fight with Frontier

14 November 2018 by Steve Blum
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Frontier Communications says the California Emerging Technology Fund (CETF) has to return $714,000, if it asks for it. CETF’s response on Friday was we don’t have it anymore.

When Frontier won California Public Utilities Commission approval in 2015 to buy Verizon’s landline telephone systems in California, a long list of conditions was attached. Among them was a contract that committed “up to” $3 million to achieve the “aspirational goal” of signing up 200,000 low income Californian households for broadband service – from any provider, not just Frontier.… More

California broadband subsidy reboot draft posted, and it’s mostly good

13 November 2018 by Steve Blum
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The long awaited revisions to the California Advanced Service Fund’s (CASF) infrastructure grant program are finally on the table, more than a year after it was signed into law by governor Jerry Brown. A draft of the new rules was published late Friday afternoon, with the goal of putting it to a vote of the California Public Utilities Commission next month. There’s a lot of good news in the draft, but also some bad news.… More

Race to 5G is ready to go, but don’t be distracted by false starts

11 November 2018 by Steve Blum
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The easiest way to win the race to 5G is to simply declare victory. It’s what mobile carriers did a decade ago with 4G, and what they’re doing now. That’s causing confusion, as an editorial by FierceWireless’ Monica Alleven describes…

One of the problems with defining 5G is, practically speaking, there’s no single judge currently determining what is or isn’t 5G. Is it ITU’s job, or 3GPP’s? Mostly, it’s the individual marketing departments at carriers and vendors, or “all of the above"…

Verizon is probably the most justified to date to actually call its 5G Home service a 5G service.

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California’s next governor talks the broadband talk, but will he walk the walk?

9 November 2018 by Steve Blum
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California governor-elect Gavin Newsom has a broadband development track record of sorts. Whether that will translate into sound telecoms infrastructure policy remains to be seen.

When he was mayor of San Francisco, Newsom made a big splash with a deal with Google and Earthlink to blanket the city with WiFi, with free service playing a prominent role in a difficult to understand business plan. That was back during the great municipal WiFi bubble of the mid–2000s.… More

Whether net neutrality friend or foe, California lawmakers win landslide election victories

8 November 2018 by Steve Blum
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The major broadband players in the California legislature will be back in Sacramento when the new session begins in December.

The one exception is senator Kevin de Leon (D – Los Angeles). He ran out of time on California term limits and challenged U.S. senator Diane Feinstein. He’ll be unemployed at the end of the month, having lost to Feinstein, 46% to 54%. De Leon introduced one of two network neutrality bills that moved through the legislature this year, senate bill 460.… More

CPUC tells Frontier to answer charge it’s not meeting Verizon purchase obligations

7 November 2018 by Steve Blum
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Frontier Communications’ delivery on promises made when it received permission to buy Verizon’s Californian telephone systems in 2015 will be investigated by the California Public Utilities Commission. Earlier this year, the California Emerging Technology Fund (CETF) asked the commission to unilaterally change some of the conditions they imposed on Frontier when they approved the deal, claiming that the goals of the decision were not met.

According to the CPUC administrative law judge handling the case, last month CETF and six of its non-profit clients sent a letter to commissioners accusing Frontier of “attempting to abandon their obligations and escape their public benefit commitments”.… More

Denver court will hear appeals of FCC decision to preempt local control over poles, wireless permits

6 November 2018 by Steve Blum
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A federal judicial panel decided on Friday to consolidate at least six of the seven appeals filed by local governments and wireless carriers against an FCC ruling that attempts to set sweeping new small cell permit and leasing rules for local and state governments. Yesterday, the court given the job – the tenth circuit of the U.S. court of appeals, based in Denver – issued instructions to the challengers, essentially telling them to get their paperwork in order and stand by for further instructions.… More