Month: September 2014

Inflight mobile phone decision could be an FCC bellwether

20 September 2014 by Steve Blum
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Terrorists coordinating attacks, planes forced to land because of fights among passengers, airline staff pummelled as they try to keep order in economy class. The latest Liam Neeson thriller perhaps? Or maybe a United Airlines customer service training video?

Nope, that’s the future of U.S. air travel if the FCC decides there’s no technical reason to ban inflight mobile phone calls. At least if you believe some of the more than fourteen hundred public comments on the matter.… More

Net neutrality avalanche looks more like a slush pile

19 September 2014 by Steve Blum
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I’m still getting my head wrapped around the concept of three million comments. That’s how many individual bits of advice regarding net neutrality that the FCC received, as of Monday’s deadline to submit.

No single commissioner or, indeed, all the members of the commission working together can possibly read through the entire pile. Even if they divvied it up and only dwelt on each submission for ten seconds, it would take the five commissioners more than a year of work each to get through their respective in-boxes.… More

Governor's pen will write the story for community broadband development in California

18 September 2014 by Steve Blum
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Three bills with big implications for community broadband in California are still sitting on Governor Brown’s desk, waiting for his approval or veto:

Assembly bill 2272 would blow a huge hole in the California Advanced Services Fund and roll back much of the progress made last year when the legislature – and Brown – added $90 million to the kitty and made independent ISPs eligible for broadband construction subsidies. By requiring every CASF-funded project – past, present and future – to follow the state’s so-called prevailing wage rules, the effective subsidy would drop from 60% (for underserved areas) to less than 30% and the cost to the state would nearly double.… More

FCC's net neutrality rules stack the deck in favor of the big boys

17 September 2014 by Steve Blum
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What would Billy Bob do?

Even without the back and forth voting over whether or not to treat broadband providers as common carriers Thursday’s California Public Utilities Commission meeting offered an excellent discussion of net neutrality and the regulatory questions that surround it (assuming you’re into that sort of thing, of course).

Helen Mickiewicz, the CPUC’s assistant general counsel, walked commissioners through the main issues. You can see the video here:

CPUC Commission Voting Meeting – September 11, 2014

The net neutrality discussion begins at about 1:17:00 and runs for about an hour and 20 minutes.… More

Hope still flickers for thoughtful Internet policy at the FCC

16 September 2014 by Steve Blum
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There might yet be an intellectual debate at the FCC about network neutrality. A debate on facts and philosophy, rather than a negotiation for spoils or a partisan punch up. Four commissioners – the entire FCC minus chair Tom Wheeler who did a solo turn earlier – had an hour-long conversation with new CTIA head (and former FCC commissioner) Meredith Baker at a standing room only session at the CTIA show in Las Vegas last week.… More

How the CPUC's regulate ISPs as common carriers, oops, never mind drama played out

15 September 2014 by Steve Blum
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Click to see the video.

The California Public Utilities Commission spent more than an hour listening to a presentation and then discussing net neutrality and broadband regulation issues on Thursday, before voting 3 to 2 to tell the FCC that it should treat broadband infrastructure companies as common carriers – no different, in concept, than electric, gas, water or, indeed, telephone companies.

But then something happened, as you can see on the video:

CPUC Commission Voting Meeting – September 11, 2014

The vote comes around the 2:33:30 mark.… More

It's not about the watch, it's about Apple diving into health care

14 September 2014 by Steve Blum
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When Tim Cook unveiled the Apple Watch on Tuesday, and launched into a rapturous description of the digital crown – the old school winding wheel on the side that’s redesigned into a user interface – the first thing I thought was “they made the damn watch for right-handed people”. Any southpaw old enough to remember having to wind a watch every day – yes, me – remembers having to unstrap it and shift hands first.… More

CTIA successfully reboots its mobile industry trade show

13 September 2014 by Steve Blum
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It’s still a work in progress, but the reengineered CTIA wireless trade show looks like it’s relevant enough to mobile industry execs to keep drawing them to Las Vegas. The new show tries to blend content from the CTIA’s traditional big springtime convention and MobileCon, its fall technology conference (or content or apps or whatever – usefully, it never stagnated), and consolidate the show floors.

The exhibits were workmanlike and generated a fair amount of traffic, at least on the first day (the only full day I was there).… More

FCC rural broadband experiments become 10% more cost effective in California

12 September 2014 by Steve Blum
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Any Californian ISP that gets funding from the FCC to build out and operate an experimental rural broadband system can also get money from the California Advanced Services Fund. The California Public Utilities Commission yesterday approved a blanket 10% match of any federal funds an ISP might win via the FCC’s program.

The hope is that the extra CASF subsidy will buy down the cost of pursuing those rural broadband experiments in California, making them more cost effective in the eyes of the FCC and giving them a competitive edge against proposals from other states.… More

CPUC approves then pulls back endorsement of common carrier regulation for broadband

11 September 2014 by Steve Blum
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I come down strongly behind Title II, it’s the only thing that makes sense here.

It was high drama at today’s California Public Utilities Commission meeting in San Francisco, at least by the CPUC’s normally placid standards. Commissioners first voted 3 to 2 to tell the FCC that broadband infrastructure should be regulated under common carrier rules. About an hour later, after commissioners returned from a nominal five minute break that lasted somewhat longer, commissioner Carla Peterman asked to change her yes vote to abstain.… More