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Local California governments would have little to say about cell sites, under bill proposed in Sacramento

10 April 2015 by Steve Blum
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Sometimes, the shot clock means what it says.

What started out as a wide-ranging attempt to rationalise broadband construction policy in California has turned into a narrowly focused effort to drastically limit, if not end completely, the ability of local government to tie up cell tower and site approvals for years on end.

Assembly bill 57, authored by assemblyman Bill Quirk, an East Bay democrat, now reads…

The Legislature finds and declares that a wireless telecommunications facility has a significant economic impact in California and is not a municipal affair as that term is used in…the California Constitution, but is a matter of statewide concern.

… More

CPUC considers $3.3 million subsidy for two FTTH projects

9 April 2015 by Steve Blum
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Poor broadband service in Helendale now, but fiber could be on the way.

Two fiber-to-the-home projects in the California desert, northeast of Los Angeles, will be getting a total of $3.3 million in subsidies from the California Advanced Service Fund (CASF), if the California Public Utilities Commission approves draft resolutions released last week.

The proposals, for Helendale and Wrightwood, were submitted last December by Ultimate Internet Access (UIA), an independent Internet service provider that’s already active in the area.… More

Clear and limited mandate proposed for CPUC's broadband oversight role

8 April 2015 by Steve Blum
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OK to open it back up again.

A bill raising broadband standards in California also clears up any confusion about whether state regulators can do the job delegated to them by federal law. Assembly bill 238, authored by assemblyman Mark Stone (D – Santa Cruz), originally focused on upping the minimum acceptable service level to 25 Mbps down/3 Mbps up for projects subsidised by the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF). As just amended, it still does that, but also…

  • Levels the playing field somewhat for independent Internet service providers and cities and counties that want to chase CASF dollars.
… More

Community-owned fiber networks take a big step forward in Santa Cruz County

7 April 2015 by Steve Blum
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Santa Cruz County supervisors are moving ahead with a plan to build a fiber network through key economic development zones, and want to coordinate broadband development policy with the four cities in the county. They voted to put a proposal to form a fiber initiative team in front of representatives from Watsonville, Scotts Valley, Capitola and the City of Santa Cruz, and…

Work with the cities to 1) establish complimentary policies, such as the County’s model “dig once” ordinance, 2) propose changes in planning requirements for residential and business construction, 3) explore grant opportunities, and 4) coordinate sewer, water and road construction projects so that conduit for fiber can be incorporated where feasible in order to enhance broadband connectivity and expansion.

… More

LA refines its pitch for citywide FTTH

6 April 2015 by Steve Blum
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Seen one of these?

“Are we creating a unicorn here?” asked Steve Reneker, general manager of information technology for the City of Los Angeles. He was relating his experience looking for companies interested in building a citywide fiber to the home system to participants in a local government broadband conference put on by the California Emerging Technology Fund in Riverside last week. The answer he got back from the industry was “yes”.

LA [floated a request for information last year](), looking for ideas and partners to aid its FTTH quest.… More

A skeptical eye finds more broadband opportunities

5 April 2015 by Steve Blum
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Click for the full presentation.

The California Public Utilities Commission collects a mountain of data from Internet service providers, and does a good job of sorting it out and publishing it in a very accessible way. But as a state regulatory agency, the CPUC can’t arbitrarily decide which claims it’ll believe and which it’ll discount. So it runs tests.

Ryan Dulin, the head of the CPUC division that regulates telecoms companies and manages broadband infrastructure subsidies through the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF), demonstrated how that works for mobile broadband, running a speed test on his Verizon service during his presentation at a broadband conference for local government officials.… More

Comcast's monopoly power won't be dulled by weak conditions

4 April 2015 by Steve Blum
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Nope, that’s not Pacman, it’s what Comcast’s market share will look like in California, with or without conditions.

More of the specific objections that led to a long list of proposed conditions for California Public Utilities Commission approval of the Comcast – Time Warner – Charter mega deal were posted yesterday. Although the juicy bits have been blacked out due to confidentiality concerns, the comments filed by a consumer advocacy group – TURN, which stands for Toward Utility Rate Normalisation the Utility Reform Network – back up the claim that the merger and market swap would give Comcast a virtual monopoly on broadband service in California.… More

Alternate ending emerges for California cable game

3 April 2015 by Steve Blum
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Click to see the big picture.

Charter Communications, the fourth largest cable TV company in the U.S., has an agreement to buy Bright House Networks, the sixth largest. The deal sets up a couple of possible futures for broadband in California.

Bright House and Charter are already wrapped up in the proposed Comcast-Time Warner merger. Via a series of market swaps, Comcast would get all of Charter’s systems in the state, except for the one at Lake Tahoe.… More

Judge rules Comcast's Internet video plans are beyond CPUC's reach

2 April 2015 by Steve Blum
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Internet video is a video service, not an Internet service.

Accusations that Comcast intends to begin selling video programming via the Internet won’t be considered by the California Public Utilities Commission administrative law judge reviewing its proposed merger with Time-Warner and market swap with Charter.

The problem, according to a report submitted by the CPUC’s office of ratepayer advocates (ORA), is that if Comcast gets into the Internet video business, it would be directly competing with other cable companies, like Time-Warner.… More

Cal.net seeks $8.1 million grant for Sierra wireless projects

1 April 2015 by Steve Blum
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Click for more info and bigger maps.

Four wireless broadband projects intended to cover 18,000 homes in six Sierra Nevada counties are in the hunt for $8.1 million from the California Advanced Services Fund. Submitted yesterday by Cal.net, the plan is to use several kinds of unlicensed and semi-licensed spectrum – 5 GHz, an LTE-type technology in the 3.65 GHz band, a new but a not yet approved allocation in the 3.55 GHz range and television white space – to cover 1,440 square miles in Alpine, Amador, Calaveras, El Dorado, Mariposa and Tuolumne counties.… More