rural broadband – Page 7 – Steve Blum's Blog

Frontier tells CPUC to rubberstamp bankruptcy deal because you’ll never know the difference

1 June 2020 by Steve Blum
casf, cpuc, frontiercommunications, public policy, rural broadband

Why don’t you go home to your wife? I’ll tell you what, I’ll go home to your wife, and outside of the improvement she’ll never know the difference.

Groucho Marx as professor Quincy Adams Wagstaff in Horse Feathers.

Frontier Communications doesn’t want the California Public Utilities Commission messing about with the bankruptcy settlement that’s churning through a federal court in New York. So it’s asking the CPUC for fast and uncritical approval of a transfer of ownership to the banks and other lenders that will try to recoup what they can of the $11 billion in bad debt that’s being washed away.… More

Fiber for all broadband subsidy bill approved by California senate committee

27 May 2020 by Steve Blum
ab1665, casf, public policy, rural broadband, sb1130

Future proof, fiber-based broadband infrastructure got a big boost yesterday as the California senate’s energy, utilities and communications committee voted to approve senate bill 1130. The bill would raise California’s minimum broadband standard to symmetrical 25 Mbps download and upload speeds, and require projects subsidised with money from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) to be capable of delivering symmetrical 100 Mbps down/100 Mbps up speeds.

As is common, changes were made on the fly and the exact language is still to be determined.… More

Modern, future proof broadband gets a hearing in the California senate today, with public call in comments allowed

26 May 2020 by Steve Blum
ab1665, casf, public policy, rural broadband, sb1130

A faster and modern broadband speed standard for California is scheduled for its first hearing at the state capitol this afternoon. Senate bill 1130 by Lena Gonzalez (D – Los Angeles) is set for a vote by the California senate’s energy, utilities and communications committee.

The hearing will be conducted partly in person, in the cavernous senate chamber, and partly online. One beneficial side effect of the covid–19 emergency is that Californians can participate in the legislative process and make their views known remotely, without having to trek to Sacramento and fight their way through the squads of hired guns and corporate lobbyists that usually occupy the halls and hearing rooms of the capitol.… More

California broadband infrastructure grant requests total $533 million as challenge period opens

21 May 2020 by Steve Blum
ab1665, casf, cpuc, rural broadband, sb1130

Two more broadband project proposals surfaced as the California Public Utilities Commission posted the official list of applications for grants from the California Advanced Services Fund. One is for what appears to be a neighborhood fiber to the premise (FTTP) system in Nevada County, the other is an FTTP project that covers the same Placer County area that Charter Communications proposed for a hybrid fiber-coax (HFC) build.

The total now stands at 54 projects asking for a total of $533 million, about twice what’s available in the CASF kitty now.… More

Wide swing on costs for California broadband subsidy proposals, for fiber and copper

12 May 2020 by Steve Blum
ab1665, casf, cpuc, rural broadband, sb1130

Of the 52 applications for broadband infrastructure grants from the California Advanced Services Fund, 23 are for fiber to the premise (FTTP) builds of one kind or another, 16 are hybrid fiber/coax (HFC) projects, all submitted by Charter Communications, and 13 would be for fixed wireless facilities.

The least expensive proposals are, naturally enough, fixed wireless projects, most of which are in the $1,500 per home range. It’s probably no coincidence that the California Public Utility Commission’s benchmark price for wireless subsidies is also $1,500 per home.… More

Total California broadband grant ask grows to $528 million, twice what’s available

6 May 2020 by Steve Blum
ab1665, casf, cpuc, rural broadband, sb1130

The number of broadband infrastructure projects proposed for California Advanced Services Fund subsidies more than doubled on Tuesday, as two Internet service providers – Charter Communications and Digital Path – distributed summaries of the grant applications they submitted on Monday. The total, though, didn’t increase nearly as dramatically.

The count now stands at 52 project proposals totalling $528 million, up from 25 projects at $506 million. That’s against something like $300 million or less in the CASF broadband infrastructure account.… More

California broadband subsidy requests break the bank at more than half a gigabuck

5 May 2020 by Steve Blum
ab1665, casf, cpuc, rural broadband, sb1130

Update, 5 May 2020 08:43: Charter Communications dropped 16 grant applications totalling $17 million in the wee hours of the morning. I’ve updated the table, links and totals below accordingly. Stand by, there might be more to come.

At least 41 broadband infrastructure grant proposals totalling more than half a billion dollars landed at the California Public Utilities Commission yesterday. I say at least because public notifications don’t always get out immediately. There might be more once the dust settles.… More

California projects line up for federal ReConnect broadband funds, but competition is stiff

28 April 2020 by Steve Blum
casf, covid19, rural broadband, RUS, usda

Five broadband projects in California were proposed for federal agriculture department funding in the second round of ReConnect broadband grant and loan applications. That’s five more than the first round in 2019, so that’s progress of a sort. They’ll compete with more than 200 other projects in other states for $300 in grants and $300 million in loans, plus another $100 million included in the $2 trillion federal covid–19 stimulus bill that’ll be available to projects submitted in both rounds.… More

California must take Frontier’s bankruptcy as seriously as PG&E’s

15 April 2020 by Steve Blum
casf, cpuc, frontiercommunications, public policy, rural broadband

Frontier Communications filed for bankruptcy protection last night. In a statement posted on its website, the company said it was washing away $11 billion in debt, out of a total of $22 billion owed to creditors, much of it the result of its purchase of Verizon’s legacy wireline telephone systems in California. The statement has the usual blah-blah-blah about its hope to “continue providing quality service”, but according to a story on Bloomberg by Allison McNeely, Frontier will “hand control to its unsecured creditors, according to people with knowledge of the matter”.… More

Quick changes coming for California broadband subsidy fund to plug covid-19 gaps

14 April 2020 by Steve Blum
casf, ccbc, covid19, cpuc, rural broadband

More money might soon be flowing from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) to meet critical broadband service needs that have been given renewed attention because of the covid–19 emergency and the need for everyone to conduct business and educate kids, along with everything else that’s moved online. A request for ideas on how to make faster and better use of CASF in response to the emergency was sent out by the California Public Utilities Commission last month.… More