Month: June 2014

Utopia moves ahead on FTTH bailout plan, but the monthly tax bill could go higher

30 June 2014 by Steve Blum
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A flat monthly fee of $18 to $20 – or, now, perhaps more – to rescue the failing Utopia municipal fiber to the home system in Utah got mixed reviews from the city councils involved, but even so the project’s board of directors voted today to move ahead with negotiating a bailout plan put forward by Australia’s Macquarie Capital Group.

The system encompasses 11 cities in the Salt Lake area (but not Provo, where Google rescued an independent muni FTTH system or Salt Lake City itself).… More

Monopoly broadband network problems are common, solutions are not

Better markets attract better supply. Everywhere.

It’s not just best practices for broadband development policy that’s common to countries and communities, regardless of location or circumstance. Lack of competition at the network level is as big a barrier in South Africa as it is in California.

In South Africa the biggest gap in the national broadband infrastructure is currently in the access network illustrated by the fact that 86% of the population is within 10km from a fibre access point.

… More

If new tech looks like old tech, old rules apply says supreme court

28 June 2014 by Steve Blum
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Today’s turn-of-the-knob logic might have made VCRs contraband 30 years ago.

Functionality, not technology, should guide how pre-Internet laws are applied in cyberspace. That’s the essential logic behind a U.S. supreme court ruling on Wednesday, that said that the same copyright rules that apply to cable TV systems also apply to Aereo, an online system for accessing broadcast television signals.

Aereo argued that since viewers were individually activating a tiny receiver and antenna, and selecting which channel to watch, it was more like a VCR than a cable TV system, which streams multiple channels continuously.… More

Higher costs for subsidised broadband projects in California will come out of rural ISP pockets

27 June 2014 by Steve Blum
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Unfinished business.

It seems the only question left to answer about whether union pay scales and work rules will be applied to projects subsidised by the California Advanced Services Fund is where the money will come from. Following Wednesday’s hearing in the senate labor and industrial relations committee, it seems all but certain that the California legislature will approve assembly bill 2272, which would unequivocally impose so-called prevailing wage requirements on CASF infrastructure projects.

On a 4 to 1 party line vote, the committee approved the bill (with some clean up language), but didn’t include an amendment requested by lobbyists representing rural telecoms companies that would give them a statutory basis for asking the California Public Utilities Commission to cover the difference for existing projects.… More

CPUC not bugged by incumbent advantages, approve new broadband subsidy rules

26 June 2014 by Steve Blum
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Whether you like the rules or not – and for what it’s worth I don’t – it’s game on for the next round of broadband infrastructure construction subsidies from the California Advanced Services Fund. In a unanimous vote this morning, the California Public Utilities Commission approved new rules and a timeline for applying for CASF grants and loans.

Existing Internet service providers that offer substandard service (6 Mbps down/1.5 Mbps up, per the CPUC) are first in line: they can block potential competitors from getting CASF funding in their service areas.… More

Californian broadband subsidy rules go from bad to worse

25 June 2014 by Steve Blum
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A revised set of proposed new rules for getting broadband construction subsidies from the California Advanced Services Fund has been posted. It’s great news for incumbent telephone and cable companies, but it makes it harder – maybe impossible – for independent competitors to get in the game.

The first draft was floated last month, and generated a firestorm of comments, followed by counter-arguments, from incumbent service providers, regional broadband consortia and others. The result is a second draft that gives incumbents pretty much everything they wanted…

  • Existing service providers would have until 1 November 2014 (instead of 26 September) to make a “commitment” to upgrade substandard service in a given area.
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Don't expect a chance to challenge California-wide cable franchise renewals

24 June 2014 by Steve Blum
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Stifle yourself.

The first statewide cable franchises issued by the California Public Utilities Commission will start expiring in the next three or four years. Those franchises superseded local video service franchises issued individually by cities and counties and run for ten years. To get ready for that, the commission is scheduled to vote on new renewal rules at its meeting on Thursday, 26 June 2014.

The proposal on the table now says, in essence, the same rules apply to renewals as to the original applications, with one exception: companies that are “in violation of any final nonappealable court order issued pursuant to California video franchise law” will lose their franchises.… More

Broadband infrastructure gets same financing status as roads, water in California bill

23 June 2014 by Steve Blum
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At the end, it’s a brilliant idea.

The twists and turns of the legislative season in Sacramento produce surprises. This year is no different. Assembly bill 2292 was originally targeted to rail projects in Oakland, but other legislation took care of it. So following a conversation with San Leandro mayor Stephen Cassidy the bill’s author, assemblyman Rob Bonta, a democrat who represents both cities, turned it into a way to pay for municipal broadband projects.

Cities and counties in California can form infrastructure financing districts (IFDs) to pay for building “regional scale public works”.… More

ViaSat doesn't want you to know its customers still choke on FCC broadband tests

22 June 2014 by Steve Blum
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ViaSat convinced the FCC to suppress this data in its latest report. Click for bigger version.

ViaSat showed the best speed and consistency in the FCC’s latest round of national broadband testing, but those same measurements also show that its subscribers don’t get anywhere near as much data as landline customers. Similar to last year’s poor report card, the FCC results show that about a third of ViaSat’s customers get less than 2 gigabytes a month and only one of those tested hit over 10 GB.… More

People matter, not paperwork, for rural broadband development

21 June 2014 by Steve Blum
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The success of broadband subsidies targeted to rural areas should be evaluated, at least in part, on the number of rural subscribers projects actually attract. That’s one of the conclusions of an investigation by the federal government accounting office into $3 billion worth of grants and loans given out by the U.S. department of agriculture’s rural utilities service as part of the 2009 stimulus program.

There were two pots of broadband stimulus money back then: the NTIA’s broadband technology opportunities program and RUS’s broadband initiatives program (BIP).… More