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Texas regulators put Google Fiber in the fast lane

1 July 2015 by Steve Blum
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It seemed odd that San Antonio wasn’t on the list earlier this year when Google announced four new cities for its fiber to the home initiative. The city bent over backwards making Google welcome and it’s a short drive – less than a six pack, as they measure such things in Texas – from its current base in Austin.

Now it turns out that Google has been keeping its eye on the Alamo City. A story by Mark Reagan in the San Antonio Current says that Google asked for and quickly received permission to expand its fiber system from the Public Utility Commission of Texas.… More

Santa Cruz will be Silicon Valley's first fully fiber city

30 June 2015 by Steve Blum
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Homes and businesses in Santa Cruz are one step closer to full fiber-to-the-premise broadband service. The Santa Cruz city council voted unanimously last week to move ahead with negotiating an FTTP/FTTH partnership with a local independent Internet service provider, Cruzio. As envisioned, the city would own – and finance – the network, Cruzio would operate it and the two would work together to build it.

Cruzio’s proposal to the city also leaves the door open for other ISPs to join the project – that’ll be one of many details that the forthcoming negotiations will address.… More

Charter won't promise to offer broadband in redlined communities

29 June 2015 by Steve Blum
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This isn’t where the other 99% live.

If you live in the bottom 1% of Charter Communications service area, you’re not getting broadband access or, indeed, anything other than poor analog video service from the company. The message from Charter is those redlined communities – among the poorest and most isolated in California – won’t be upgraded to 21st century digital systems anytime soon.

Charter tries to weasel its way around that issue in its initial filing with the Federal Communications Commission, as it seeks permission to buy Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks.… More

Frontier's ability to deliver, particularly broadband, will be evaluated by CPUC

28 June 2015 by Steve Blum
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Frontier Communications’ proposed purchase of Verizon’s wireline telephone systems in California is under review by the California Public Utilities Commission, which has to decide if the deal is in the public interest. Catherine Sandoval is the commissioner assigned to lead the review, and she’s laid out a broad basis for doing it, stating that it’s not just the interests of Verizon’s current customers that matter, instead “at the least, we must be able to say that the proposed transaction is overall net beneficial in its impact on the various affected constituencies.… More

CPUC will wait another month to vote on establishing broadband jurisdiction

27 June 2015 by Steve Blum
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The California Public Utilities Commission kicked the Comcast can down the road a month. It was supposed to take up two competing proposals for closing out Comcast’s failed purchase of Time Warner’s cable systems and market swaps with Charter this week, but the decision was pushed off to the commission’s 23 July 2015 meeting. A third alternative is also expected to be on the agenda that day.

The options in front of the CPUC are…

… More

Suddenlink tries to avoid going down the same regulatory review path as Comcast

26 June 2015 by Steve Blum
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Click for the full picture.

The purchase of Suddenlink Communications – the seventh largest cable operator in the U.S. and a significant video and Internet service provider in rural California – by a European company, Altice, is officially under review by the California Public Utilities Commission and the Federal Communications Commission.

As is typical with the initial applications, the companies are claiming there’s not much to worry about and approval should be quick and simple.… More

Mayors like and loath FCC broadband rules

25 June 2015 by Steve Blum
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By David Ball (Original work) [GFDL (https://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC BY 2.5 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons

Mayors in U.S. cities want the federal government’s help to maintain their cities’ authority to build and operate municipal broadband systems (h/t to the Baller-Herbst list for the pointer). At least, the U.S. conference of mayors does, voting to approve a resolution that calls out Federal Communications Commission chairman Tom Wheeler’s move to preempt state-imposed restrictions on municipal broadband systems and urges congress and the president to follow his lead…

Now, therefore, be it resolved, that the United States Conference of Mayors applauds the FCC, under the leadership of Chairman Tom Wheeler, for preempting state barriers to municipal broadband service, which have served as a significant limitation to competition in the provision of Internet access; and

Be it further resolved, that The United States Conference of Mayors encourages Congress and the Administration to pursue all legislative and regulatory avenues to allow cities and communities maximum flexibility in constructing their own broadband networks.

… More

Berkeley launches a city-led broadband initiative


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The Berkeley City Council took a big step last night toward supporting broadband development and, perhaps, to pursue a municipal fiber optic project or partnership with a private network operator. By a unanimous vote, the council told city staff to…

  • Survey the city’s inventory of broadband, traffic signal and other conduit to assess its suitability for supporting a fiber optic network, with the goal of leasing it to one or more fiber companies.
… More

Legality of FCC's muni broadband preemption will be decided in Cincinnati

23 June 2015 by Steve Blum
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The local team.

It’s no great surprise, but the two challenges to the Federal Communications Commission’s decision to preempt state bans on municipal broadband have been consolidated into one proceeding. The nod goes to the first case to be submitted, by the State of Tennessee, in the federal appeals court district that’s headquartered in Cincinnati and includes Tennessee. The appeal from the state of North Carolina was filed nearly two months later in the federal court district that’s based in Richmond, Virginia.… More

Home broadband service grows in California but not overall Internet access

22 June 2015 by Steve Blum
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High speed home broadband service in California continues to grow, albeit slowly, but Internet use has flatlined among Californian adults. That’s one of the findings of a survey conducted by the Field Poll on behalf of the California Emerging Technology Fund.

According to the report, 87% of Californian homes were connected to the Internet in 2014 and 79% have high speed access – sorta. The survey classified smart phone access as “broadband”.… More