Month: November 2014

Colorado cities vote for muni broadband, in concept

10 November 2014 by Steve Blum
, , ,

If you had to choose a single issue, broadband would have been better.

Besides confounding conventional political wisdom by turfing out an incumbent democrat in favor of a hard-to-pin-down republican, Colorado voters said yes to repatriating municipal broadband decisions in a big way.

Colorado state law requires voters to approve municipal broadband systems – a simple vote by the city council isn’t enough. According to the Washington Post, voters in 7 cities and counties voted to approve it…

In Boulder, locals voted on whether the city should be “authorized to provide high-speed Internet services (advanced services), telecommunications services, and/or cable television services to residents, businesses, schools, libraries, nonprofit entities and other users of such services.”

… More

Mars needs wearables

9 November 2014 by Steve Blum
, , ,

How’s your heart rate?

Thinking in terms of long space voyages can be a useful product development exercise. The work Salutron did on physiological tracking technology for NASA’s Mars program has turned into a useful, inexpensive and adaptable range of wrist monitors.

If you’re sealing yourself into a tin can the size of a VW bus for a couple of years and leaving Earth, whatever you take with you has to be durable, simple and fit for purpose.… More

Cooking moves from the stovetop to the desktop

8 November 2014 by Steve Blum
, ,

I was about to say that food is the new killer app for 3D printing, but maybe that’s not the best way to put it. It does look like a Mac Plus, though.

How about printing out your dinner? That’s what Natural Machines wants you to do with the Foodini, a 3D printer designed to handle food ingredients and turn out complex meals.

Assuming the Foodini works – which includes being easy to clean – it’s something that could find an eager market.… More

How do you say sugar daddy in Irish?

7 November 2014 by Steve Blum
, ,

Finally, an electric utility is taking the plunge on home automation. Electric Ireland announced a deal with Nest, the Google-owned company which makes a networked thermostat that learns your habits and controls your home heating and cooling system accordingly.

New customers who sign up for a 2 year contract with Electric Ireland get a free Nest thermostat, including installation. Existing customers who extend for another 2 years pay €99 (about $123). the device goes for $249 in the U.S.… More

Local fiber maps unlock opportunities on California's central coast

6 November 2014 by Steve Blum
, , , ,

A lot of fiber is installed along California’s central coast. But most of it is locked up by incumbent telephone and cable companies, and not available to local businesses and independent Internet service providers. The Central Coast Broadband Consortium, with a grant from the California Public Utilities Commission via the California Advanced Services Fund, mapped both long haul and local last mile fiber in Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Benito Counties.

Most of the locally accessible fiber is owned by AT&T, Comcast and Charter Communications.… More

Beltway bandit style Internet regulation might be off the table

5 November 2014 by Steve Blum
, , ,

FCC chairman Tom Wheeler is reported to be backing away from his no-lobbyist-left-behind method of imposing and enforcing network neutrality rules. The new plan, according to the Wall Street Journal, is to split the Internet service business into two parts: the consumer-facing retail access business, which would remain as it is – largely unregulated – and the back-side business of interconnecting content companies and other ISPs to those retail customers.

The back-side would be regulated as a common carrier business, presumably subject to some kind of network neutrality rules, although that’s not a given.… More

Californian ISPs pass on upgrades, open door to subsidised competition

4 November 2014 by Steve Blum
, , , ,

Exercising the right to refuse first.

It looks like the right of first refusal hurdle has been cleared for broadband infrastructure subsidies in California, and successfully so. Assuming no filings are stuck somewhere in the system, only Frontier Communications has told the California Public Utilities Commission that it will upgrade broadband service on its own in at least some of its territory. For up to a year, the commission won’t fund competing broadband projects in the 7 communities identified by Frontier.… More

Frontier pledges to boost broadband service in California

3 November 2014 by Steve Blum
, , , ,


Click for a bigger version.

So far, only one Internet service provider has exercised its right of first refusal to upgrade substandard service areas on its own and thereby prevent competing projects from getting subsidies from the California Advanced Services Fund for up to a year. Frontier Communications submitted a letter to the California Public Utilities Commission on Friday making a plausible pledge to improve service in 7 rural Californian communities to at least minimum levels…

The project upgrades are in northeast California in the area of Alturas, Chester, Lake Almanor, Janesville, Shingletown, in the central California area of Tuolumne and along the California and Nevada border adjacent to Topaz Lake, NV on the California side.

… More

Enthusiasm builds for Nevada County FTTH project, hope is money will follow

2 November 2014 by Steve Blum
, , ,

A standing room only crowd turned out in Nevada City on Thursday evening to celebrate the kick-off of a $28 million fiber-to-the-home project. As proposed, it would bring a full gigabit – up and down – to nearly 3,000 homes and hundreds of businesses in Nevada County. Hosted by Spiral Internet, the gala was intended to light a fire under the Bright Fiber build proposed nearly 2 years ago for a big grant and a (relatively) small loan from the California Advanced Services Fund.… More

Consumer uptake of IoT tech depends on cutting the power bill

1 November 2014 by Steve Blum
, ,

The one thing you can count on an electricity meter to have is, well, electricity. A steady source of (for all practical purposes) unlimited power makes engineering a wide area, low bit rate network easy, and gaining the benefits of real time control a straightforward, relatively low tech proposition.

Other utilities aren’t so lucky. On the whole, it’s not a great idea to pump 120 volts into a gas or water meter, even if it were cost effective.… More