Month: February 2014

Speeding up VDSL eases pressure for fiber

18 February 2014 by Steve Blum
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Building up from VDSL.

There’s an ongoing debate over whether fiber to the home technology is necessary, given recent progress in boosting speeds over copper wires. In particular, advanced DSL technologies – VDSL2 vectoring and pair bonding – has developed to the point where routine 50 Mbps service is possible for many telco-served homes, and commercially feasible speeds of 100 Mbps or better are on the horizon. I’m not counting market stunts as general examples.

Some analysts are blurring the distinction, lumping pure FTTH in with fiber to the node (FTTN) or fiber to the last amplified (FTTLA).… More

Broadband priority workshop for California's central coast goes online

17 February 2014 by Steve Blum
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Click to join the discussion.

There’s not enough money on the table right now to build all the broadband infrastructure that California needs. The California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) was topped up last year by the state legislature, but even so choices have to be made. The California Public Utilities Commission has asked the regional broadband consortia that it’s funding to weigh in on how and where to set priorities.

One such is the Central Coast Broadband Consortium, which covers Monterey, San Benito and Santa Cruz Counties.… More

Horror abounds as CPUC considers streamlining public housing grants

16 February 2014 by Steve Blum
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The terror of a legal haircut.

Another month has been added to the timeline for accepting grant applications for broadband facilities and marketing programs in public housing projects, as the California Public Utilities Commission wrestles with how to set up and run the program, which was created by the legislature last year. And if the commission’s office of ratepayer advocates has its way, the process will take even longer.

The ORA critiques what commissioners and the rest of the CPUC staff propose to do – after all, you can’t just leave the job up to the multitude of public advocacy groups that the commission also pays to offer advice – and it has weighed in on a proposed plan for making a plan to propose rules for the public housing subsidy program.… More

Comcast captures control in California with Time-Warner deal

15 February 2014 by Steve Blum
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Time-Warner hands LA to Comcast. Click for larger (but no prettier) image.

Comcast’s tentative deal to buy Time-Warner’s cable systems will have a big impact on the politics of broadband in California, to the benefit of incumbents and the detriment of independent competitors.

Time-Warner is the dominant cable operator in the huge Los Angeles market, while Comcast controls the San Francisco Bay Area, along with Sacramento and Fresno. A buyout would give Comcast control of four of the five major media markets in the state – Cox has most of San Diego, and is a distant number two in the LA area.… More

Santa Cruz entrepreneurs plot disruption with DNA and bicycles


Daylight cruise, night time workout.

“I look for transitions in markets”, said Neal Saiki, the founder of NTS Works as he explained why he’s designing and building high tech, electric bicycles. The market for traditional human powered bicycles is stagnant, but e-bike sales are rocketing. He plans to match his patented e-bike technology with existing bicycle industry distribution channels to ride that transition to success. His new products include a solar cargo bicycle that he says can run at 10 miles per hour on level ground powered just by sunlight.… More

FCC rural broadband experiment explained, for now


Seeking logical expressions of interest.

The details of a federal initiative to fund high speed broadband trials in rural areas of the U.S. are becoming clearer. The chief of the FCC’s office of strategic planning and policy analysis, Jonathan Chambers, offered some insight about the initial phase of the program during a webinar this morning, organised by the National Rural Assembly.

“Can we do better for rural Americans than is currently being contemplated?” Chambers asked.… More

ISPs don't have to throttle traffic if it's choking anyway

12 February 2014 by Steve Blum
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Source: Netflix ISP Speed Index. Click for full results.
The Internet service providers that dominate the Californian market are on a downhill slide, according to the latest speed results from Netflix. Of course, they’re just measuring connections to their Internet video service, but that accounts for almost a third of North American download traffic, so it’s a significant metric.
Wireline download speed results for AT&T, Comcast, Time-Warner, Charter and Verizon peaked in the September-October 2013 time frame and have been falling ever since.… More

Two last mile projects line up for California coastal fiber proposal

11 February 2014 by Steve Blum
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When you’re hanging fiber, it’s easy to drop a strand or two to homes along the way.

The first two – of what is hoped to be many – last mile projects that rely on a proposed middle mile link from Santa Cruz to Soledad are now in front of the California Public Utilities Commission. Draft resolutions were published today that set the stage for the approval of a total of $343,000 in grants and loans from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) to partially pay for building the infrastructure needed to deliver 100 Mbps broadband service to homes in two underserved communities in northern Monterey County, at the mouth of the Salinas Valley.… More

Dark fiber for California's Salinas Valley needs CPUC help

10 February 2014 by Steve Blum
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Proposed project gives Castroville, Chualar, Gonzales and Soledad a path to Silicon Valley connections. (Click for larger version).

A 91-mile fiber optic backbone project on California’s central coast is under consideration by the California Public Utilities Commission, which will have to decide whether or not to increase the limit it previously set for broadband construction subsidies from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF).

Proposed by Sunesys, LLC, the project would connect unserved and underserved communities in the Salinas Valley with affordable dark fiber links to lower cost, higher speed Internet bandwidth in Silicon Valley.… More

CPUC hikes surcharge to fill broadband subsidy fund faster

9 February 2014 by Steve Blum
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Pennies add up.

Half a percent would be added to phone bills to top up the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF), if a proposal now under review is approved. Last year, the state legislature gave the California Public Utilities Commission permission to collect an additional $90 million for CASF by extending a tax on landline and Internet telephone service through 2020. It’s up to the commission to determine how much that surcharge will be, within limits set by the legislature.… More