telecom

Rural broadband gaps are life and death issues, California wildfire study says

24 June 2019 by Steve Blum
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Paicines pole route

Ageing, inadequate infrastructure contributed to the destruction during last year’s Camp Fire in Butte County that killed 86 people and did billions of dollars worth of damage. Congested roads were a big part of the problem, but so was a lack of telecommunications service, either because it was knocked out by the fires or, in many cases, not there in the first place, according to a report by a “strike force” commissioned by California governor Gavin Newsom…

In a matter of hours, 52,000 people from rural Paradise and surrounding communities evacuated onto roads built for a fraction of that capacity and converged on Chico, overwhelming the recovery system.

… More

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

CPUC refuses to reconsider waiving AT&T, Frontier fines for bad rural service

1 November 2018 by Steve Blum
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AT&T, Frontier Communications and other telephone companies can continue to fine themselves and keep the money, if they fail to meet California’s service quality standards. The California Public Utilities Commission rejected an appeal by a group of consumer organisations, which claim that the bizarre 2016 decision allowing telcos to pay their own expenses instead of paying fines was made “without any support whatsoever in the record”.

The decision was rammed through by commission president Michael Picker, who refused to allow a vote on an alternative offered by then-commissioner Catherine Sandoval, contrary to usual procedure.… More

Broadband service failed in 2017 California firestorm, mobile hit worst

7 August 2018 by Steve Blum
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One of the big questions to answer about the mega fire still tearing through Shasta County this morning is how do you warn people? Broadband and other high tech tools failed in last year’s fires. Instead, people were saved the old fashioned way: a knock on the door or the smell of smoke.

Mobile service went down more often than any other kind of broadband service during 2017’s northern California firestorm, but cable, telco and fixed wireless systems also took a severe beating.… More

CPUC tags Frontier’s service as “chronic failure”, proposes to let it slap itself on the wrist

26 July 2018 by Steve Blum
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Frontier Communications failed to meet California phone service repair standards in 2017. It’s supposed to restore service within a certain amount of time 90% of the time in any given month, in every one of its Californian service territories. According to two draft resolutions on the table at the California Public Utilities Commission, two of Frontier’s three subsidiaries missed the mark every single month.

Of the 24 reports, the worst performance was 22% in January 2017, the best was 87% in December 2017.… More

Life and death alerts are low tech/no tech, California firestorm study shows

Social media and other online services were not the way people received lifesaving warnings when a firestorm tore through three northern California counties last year. Nearly all were alerted to evacuate via phone or personal contact, or by their own eyes, ears and noses.

That’s a top line read of the data from a study just published by the North Bay/North Coast Broadband Consortium. They ran an online survey and 3,700 people responded, nearly all of them from the hardest hit counties of Mendocino, Napa and Sonoma.… More

Telecom Deficit Slows Angola's Development


Steve Blum, Tellus Venture
Associates, doing project
due diligence in HuamboTelecommunications and transportation make the difference between subsistence farming and sustainable commercial agriculture in Angola’s Huambo province, where Tellus Venture Associates is supporting a development project through Rotary International. The physical infrastructure was obliterated during nearly 30 years of civil war, but mobile phone applications could soon provide a life-saving solution.

Potatoes sold in Huambo might earn $175 per ton, but could fetch $500 or more per ton in coastal markets, hundreds of kilometers away.… More