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Local control over wireless permits, CPUC management on the table as California legislature returns

17 August 2015 by Steve Blum
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The California legislature is back from its summer vacation today. Four weeks are left in the floor schedule: both houses are supposed to wrap up debate and voting for the year by 11 September 2015. Several bills with implications for telecommunications policy are still in the mix, including…

  • Assembly bill 57 – requires local agencies to meet federal “shot clock” requirements for processing permit applications for cell sites and other wireless broadband projects.
  • Assembly bill 806 – allows the installation of antennae and wireless nodes on overhead utility lines, more or less without local approval.
… More

Alphabet restructuring positions Google Fiber to go big

16 August 2015 by Steve Blum
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Google Fiber is about to become a standalone venture, owned by Alphabet. That’s the holding company announced last week by Google which will own the core business – still called Google – and a raft of separate entities that don’t have much in common with that core business. Things like Google Fiber, Nest, Calico and the Google X incubator that nurtures out of the box ideas like Project Loon.

For now, Alphabet will own 100% of all these companies.… More

AT&T shaves the Uverse cord

14 August 2015 by Steve Blum
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AT&T is moving its Uverse television platform into legacy status, and will use DirecTv technology to deliver video to new subscribers in the future. That’s according to a story in Fierce Cable by Mike Dano. In comments made to analysts on Wednesday…

AT&T executive John Stankey said that the carrier is moving to “one consistent architecture” that is a “derivative of the DirecTV in-home architecture.” He said the company will begin selling the platform across all its channels by the beginning of next year.

… More

It's a brand new game for California broadband subsidies

13 August 2015 by Steve Blum
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Expect a different kind of give and take.

Until this week, if you wanted to apply for a grant to build broadband infrastructure in an unserved or poorly served area of California, you could do so with a reasonable expectation that there was enough money in the kitty to cover your request. Not anymore.
Everything changed on Monday when Inyo Networks and Race Telecommunications each filed grant proposals in the $50 million range. That meant that the total amount of pending grant applications is more than the available money in the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF).… More

Californian towns redlined by Charter targeted for broadband construction subsidies

12 August 2015 by Steve Blum
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Blue indicates Charter’s state cable franchise areas where it hasn’t upgraded to DOCSIS 3 capability, as it has in the yellow areas.

Race Telecommunications has zeroed in on a big and densely populated area of the San Bernardino County desert that’s been redlined by Charter Communications, and neglected by Verizon. Wireline broadband service in the area generally fails to meet the California Public Utilities Commission’s minimum standard of 6 Mbps down and 1.5 Mbps up.… More

Digital 299 wants to be California's next fiber highway

11 August 2015 by Steve Blum
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Click for the full version.

A 200+ mile long fiber optic project that would link the northern California coast to the Sacramento Valley and cost $73 million to build was turned in to the California Public Utilities Commission yesterday. The intention is to secure a $51 million grant from the California Advanced Services Fund to pay for 70% of the cost.

The Digital 299 proposal was submitted by Inyo Networks, a growing last and middle mile fiber optic company which operates the Digital 395 project that links Reno to Barstow and stretches 500 miles down the eastern side of California.… More

Closer look points to more California communities redlined by Charter

10 August 2015 by Steve Blum
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Charter offers broadband in the yellow areas, but not the blue. Click for a much bigger version.

A second, more detailed look at map analysis done by the Central Coast Broadband Consortium (full disclosure: I’m part of that effort) shows even more rural areas redlined out of broadband service by Charter Communications in California.

The technique is simple and not completely foolproof, but in the few places where the ground truth has been checked, the results have been borne out.… More

Federal rural broadband stimulus program slammed

9 August 2015 by Steve Blum
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Not much to show for $3 billion.

The federal agriculture department’s Rural Utilities Service is broken, according to a long and well researched article by Tony Romm in Politico. Given $3 billion in stimulus money by the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, RUS approved broadband infrastructure builds that couldn’t or wouldn’t be completed – about half of the 300 or so approved projects are still works in progress, and 42 of those never got started at all.… More

CPUC urged to do less business behind closed doors

8 August 2015 by Steve Blum
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Not the way the game should be played.

Private meetings between utility lobbyists and commissioners “render governmental decision-making invisible to the public…make commission meetings merely ceremonial…[and] corrode government ethics” according to an outside review prepared for the California Public Utilities Commission. It was one of two reports that looked at how commissioners conduct business, ahead of a meeting on Tuesday where they will consider moderate changes to rules about one on one, private meetings with utilities and others that have pending cases.… More

Verizon's plan to blast LTE traffic over unlicensed spectrum questioned by FCC

7 August 2015 by Steve Blum
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Can you hear me now?

Plans by mobile phone companies to use unlicensed spectrum – including that currently used by WiFi devices and wireless Internet service providers – to supplement licensed frequencies are getting a harder look from the Federal Communications Commission. The head of the FCC’s office of engineering and technology – Julius Knapp – is asking the Verizon-backed LTE-U Forum, an industry group that’s working on a standard for 4G broadband service in unlicensed bands, for more information on what, exactly, it’s up to.… More