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Pai promises $20 billion for rural broadband, but offers little hope for meaningful change

17 April 2019 by Steve Blum
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It makes for good headlines for a slow Friday at the white house, but so far that’s about all that’s resulted from a $20 billion pledge to support rural broadband development. Federal Communications Commission chair Ajit Pai joined president Donald Trump to hype 5G plans and spectrum auctions, and tossed in a new rural broadband initiative at the end.

Sorta.

Pai’s “Rural Digital Opportunity Fund” is just the next reboot of the long standing Connect America Fund (CAF) subsidy program, that similarly poured billions of dollars into rural broadband projects, according to a story by Jon Brodkin in Ars Technica…

The new program will be part of the Universal Service Fund (USF), and it will be similar to an existing USF program that began during the Obama administration.

… More

California kicks bots off of social media

4 October 2018 by Steve Blum
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You won’t be able to use an anonymous bot to tweet or boost Twitter profiles, or post items on Facebook in California, beginning next year. Or use a bot that pretends to be a person to try to sell something – including a candidate for office – on high traffic websites.

California governor Jerry Brown signed senate bill 1001 into law. Authored by senator Bob Hertzberg, it’s particularly intended to stop automated social media posts that inject comments – fake or otherwise – into political debates.… More

Cable companies will double broadband prices because they can

19 April 2017 by Steve Blum
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Source: New Street Research, via *FierceCable*

In a competitive market, pricing is dynamic – you can’t reliably plan more than one or two moves ahead. But in a de facto monopoly – either a single seller or a duopoly with a weak second banana – you can lay out a long term roadmap and follow it relentlessly.
That’s what one noted financial analyst thinks the two big U.S. cable companies are doing. According to a story in FierceCable, Jonathan Chaplin, an analyst at New Street Research, thinks cable broadband prices will double in the coming years…

“Comcast and Charter have given up on usage-based pricing for now; however, we expect them to continue annual price increases,” Chaplin said.

… More

Initial Charlottesville FTTH share pegged at a realistic 20%

9 February 2017 by Steve Blum
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Click for more details.

Ting, a fiber to the home overbuilder, expects its take rate in Charlottesville, Virginia to hit the 20% mark in its first year, and keep growing from there. That’s based on the initial response to its build out, which is very much guided by the level of interest that residents show, according to a Seeking Alpha transcript of Ting’s corporate parent’s latest earnings call (h/t to Sean Buckley at FierceTelecom for the pointer).… More

More push for more money for northern California middle mile project

31 January 2017 by Steve Blum
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The Digital 299 middle mile fiber project under consideration for a $42 million subsidy from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) will have been under review for a year and half, if the California Public Utilities Commission votes on it as scheduled next week. Yesterday was the deadline for submitting comments – pro or con – and seven organisations did so.

The applicant, Inyo Networks, is asking the commission to increase the grant to $49 million.… More

Jumped or pushed, Wheeler falls down the memory hole

22 January 2017 by Steve Blum
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It seems the finger was loaded.

Friday was a holiday for federal employees in the Washington, DC area, but even so, someone was busy updating the Federal Communications Commission’s website. Tom Wheeler, the former chairman of the FCC, is now an unperson, “vaporised” and “effectively erased from existence”, as the Ministry of Truth would describe it. If the Ministry of Truth was actually in the business of describing anything.

As of today, the commission’s leadership page lists only three commissioners – Mignon Clyburn, Michael O’Rielly and caudillo-in-waiting Ajit Pai – and makes no mention of a chair, past, present or future.… More

Trump broadband policy boots up slowly

21 January 2017 by Steve Blum
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The first day of Donald Trump’s presidency wasn’t the blockbuster Day One he promised during the campaign. D-Day is Monday in his reckoning. That’s when he says he’ll start pounding the beach with the heavy guns of executive orders, although the door is open for weekend maneuvers and he took a few ranging shots immediately after taking the oath of office.

Following a custom established by Ronald Reagan, Trump sat down in the President’s Room in the U.S.… More

CenturyLink deal means higher prices for Californian consumers, businesses

7 November 2016 by Steve Blum
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Four into three equals market domination.

Expect to pay higher prices for broadband service – residential, commercial and industrial class alike – if CenturyLink is allowed to buy Level 3, the major independent fiber operator in the U.S., as recently proposed. That’s the picture you get when you connect the dots of a draft decision regarding the state of telecommunications competition which is currently on the table at the California Public Utilities Commission.

You don’t have to connect many dots.… More

Frontier complaints drop as it fixes California FTTH problems

18 October 2016 by Steve Blum
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Business as usual.

Hundreds of fiber-to-the-home customers crashed and burned when Frontier Communications took over ownership of Verizon’s wireline networks in California last April. Phone, Internet and television service was disrupted, apparently because the customer data Frontier received from Verizon was faulty. The problems were compounded by a temporary call center that was drafted in to help Frontier get through the transition period.

The company’s position is they’re in business as usual mode now, and preliminary data from the California Public Utilities Commission appear to back it up.… More

Privacy is absolute, security is relative. Or so FCC hints

7 October 2016 by Steve Blum
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Sûreté, non pas tant.

Internet service providers – mobile, wireline and fixed wireless – will finally have well defined privacy protection standard to meet if the Federal Communications Commission approves new rules proposed yesterday by chairman Tom Wheeler. Naturally, he only released his own summary; the actual draft rules weren’t released. The FCC keeps details of decisions secret from the public until after they vote. And until after they’ve discussed those details with deep pocketed lobbyists stakeholders.… More