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Santa Cruz County supervisors look at fiber plan, consider options to move ahead

12 February 2015 by Steve Blum
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On Tuesday, Santa Cruz County supervisors took a look at the broadband development plan that I previewed a couple of days ago. It sketched out a possible core fiber network in five key unincorporated areas of the county that have been identified as economic development priorities, as well as providing additional support for the broadband infrastructure policy initiatives that are already underway.

“Infrastructure is already inadequate and it’s being pulled back”, Peggy Dolgenos, CEO of Cruzio, a local independent ISP, told supervisors after the presentation.… More

Public posturing is a lousy way to evaluate new Internet rules, but it's all the FCC allows

11 February 2015 by Steve Blum
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Vague outlines are little help, just give us the full picture.

If you assume for the moment that both (democrat-appointed) FCC chair Tom Wheeler and (republican-appointed) commissioner Ajit Pai are speaking the literally truth when they characterise what the current plan to bring the Internet under common carrier utility rules actually says, then the shape of what’s in the still-secret document starts to emerge.

Wheeler gave a speech to a tech group in Colorado on Monday.… More

Fiber network proposed for five Santa Cruz County communities

10 February 2015 by Steve Blum
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Click for the full report.

Build an open access fiber backbone network through areas Santa Cruz County that are high priorities for economic development: that’s the recommendation county supervisors will hear later this morning when they consider a draft broadband master plan.

The study, prepared for the county by Design Nine, includes a number of useful recommendations about broadband policy and planning, but the center piece is an independently operated fiber system that focuses on five key areas of Santa Cruz County.… More

There are devils lurking in the details of new broadband rules, warns FCC commissioner

9 February 2015 by Steve Blum
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Minority report.

The latest plan to regulate broadband under common carrier rules is “a monumental shift toward government control of the Internet”, according to FCC commissioner Ajit Pai. On Friday, he released his rebuttal to chairman Tom Wheeler’s rosy summary of a thick – and still secret – proposal to impose stricter rules on how Internet service providers operate.

As a commissioner, Pai gets to see it now, before it’s voted on and released publicly at the end of the month.… More

FCC makes a good call to follow the market and not manage it

7 February 2015 by Steve Blum
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I want to catch up on developments at the FCC this week. The big news, of course, is chairman Tom Wheeler’s press release saying he’s going to put broadband under common carrier rules. If it flies – and all indications are it will – it’ll mark a major turning point in the history of the Internet. I say that with all the authority a bachelor’s degree in history (specifically the historical nexus between California and Japan, if you’re curious) bestows upon me.… More

A tentative first step toward broadband construction policy reform in California

6 February 2015 by Steve Blum
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The California legislature has broadband development – particularly, government obstacles to infrastructure construction – on its agenda this year. Assemblyman Bill Quirk – who represents a swath of the east bay area from San Lorenzo, through Hayward and Fremont, to Sunol – introduced the beginnings of a bill that’s aimed at making it easier to build both wireline and wireless facilities.

At this point, the language in assembly bill 57 is not specific about what it’ll do.… More

Five questions about broadband rules the FCC left hanging

5 February 2015 by Steve Blum
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FCC chairman Tom Wheeler released a summary yesterday of the new, common carrier rules he’s proposing for the broadband industry. His overall intent is clear: bring cable companies, wired and wireless telcos and independent ISPs under one common carrier umbrella, at least as far as broadband is concerned. But it was just a summary. The details won’t be made public until the commission votes on 26 February 2015. There’s a lot that’s not clear. My top concerns are…

Muni broadband systems – public utility law generally treats privately owned utilities differently than publicly owned ones.… More

Radical – and imminent – changes in broadband regulation revealed by FCC chair

4 February 2015 by Steve Blum
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A turning point in the battle.

“Retail broadband service Americans buy from cable, phone, and wireless providers” and “the service that broadband providers make available to ‘edge providers'” will be classified as common carrier services, according to a press release from FCC chair Tom Wheeler this morning. The draft ruling that’s circulating at the FCC now would regulate pretty much any kind of Internet access or service using both title II (the common carrier section) and section 706 (the current source of the FCC’s broadband authority) of federal telecoms law.… More

$55 million in rural broadband grants cancelled by FCC

3 February 2015 by Steve Blum
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FCC avoids a “resource-intensive effort”

The FCC chopped 16 more applicants from its rural broadband experiment program. By removing uncertainty as to the outcome, FCC staff is making a mockery of the experiments, creating the appearance that they want an easy ride, rather than a rigorous process designed to test prospective rural broadband systems and business models. Without the possibility of failure, it’s not an experiment and the lessons learned will be meager.

Last month, 37 winning bidders in the subsidy competition were announced.… More

California dreaming is fine, but it doesn't need to end in Texas

2 February 2015 by Steve Blum
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Policy statement.

What’s the crazier idea? Inventing a pod that will carry people hundreds of miles through airless tubes at supersonic speeds, or thinking that hundreds of miles of anything can be built in California in the span of, say, a human lifetime?

Even Elon Musk, who unveiled his plans for the former last year, might find the latter beyond his reach, let alone his grasp. Musk has a team of volunteer engineers working on the technology, and by all accounts they haven’t hit a show stopper.… More