May 2014 – Page 4 – Steve Blum's Blog

The more broadband, the more interest in more broadband

3 May 2014 by Steve Blum
broadband, casf, ccbc, city of marina, community networks, marina, regional consortia, sunesys

Click to download the presentation.

One of the thousand or so communities, companies, organisations and private individuals that’s expressed interest in participating in the FCC’s rural broadband experiment program is the City of Marina, on Monterey Bay, which is where I live and work, at least when I’m not traveling somewhere.

It came out of a conversation I had with the city’s economic development coordinator, Marilyn Lidyoff, and a member of the economic development commission, Steve Emerson, at a local regional economic development conference back in March.… More

FCC chair Wheeler relies on clairvoyance to police innovation

2 May 2014 by Steve Blum
broadband, fcc, innovation, netneutrality, public policy

Survival in Washington means keeping a firm hand on your ball.

Earlier this week, I asked whether FCC chair Tom Wheeler is dumb enough to think we’re dumb enough to believe that network neutrality means something other than Internet service that doesn’t discriminate amongst content providers on the basis of who is writing the bigger check to your ISP. Wheeler’s answer appears to be a resounding yes.

In a new blog post, the freshman chairman confirmed that ISPs will be allowed to sell pay-for-play fast lanes to content and service companies, so long as it’s “commercially reasonable”, a vague term that guarantees nothing except mountains of billable hours for lobbyists and lawyers.… More

Bill raising broadband construction costs sent to Sacramento's inner sanctum

1 May 2014 by Steve Blum
ab2272, broadband, casf, cpuc, public policy

A proposal to hike the cost of subsidised broadband projects in California is in the hands of legislative leaders, who will decide its fate behind closed doors.

On Wednesday, the assembly appropriations committee put assembly bill 2272 on hold via a procedural mechanism called the suspense file. It joins a long list of bills that will stay in legislative limbo until the state budget is passed. Senior assembly members will then meet in private to decide which bills go forward and which do not.… More