The U.S. congress isn’t completely gridlocked, at least not where self-driving cars are concerned. This week, the U.S. house of representatives passed a bill – with a whopping bipartisan majority – that would put the federal transportation department in charge of setting standards for autonomous vehicles, and determining whether or not any particular design is safe to operate on open roads, anywhere in the country. If it makes it into law – it still has to be approved by the U.S.… More
If the usual process is followed, commissioners will make the final decision at their 12 October 2017 meeting, or a later meeting if there’s significant disagreement amongst them.… More
Mobile carriers don’t redline neighborhoods or communities on the basis of income levels. That declaration is the latest present to go under the Senate Bill 649 christmas tree as it nears a final decision in the state legislature. The primary aim of the bill is to give wireless companies open access to street light poles and other “vertical infrastructure” owned by cities and counties in California, at below market rates.
The game isn’t over when the California Public Utilities Commission votes to impose conditions on big mergers. Telecoms companies will immediately challenge decisions, administratively and in court, and try to wriggle out of obligations by any means possible.
Comcast is doing that now in Vermont, where that state’s public utilities commission required it to build out 550 miles of line extensions into rural areas. According to an article by Jon Brodkin in Ars Technica…
The company’s court complaint says that Vermont is exceeding its authority under the federal Cable Act while also violating state law and Comcast’s constitutional rights…
Comcast’s complaint also objected to several other requirements in the permit, including “unreasonable demands” for upgrades to local public, educational, and governmental (PEG) access channels and the building of “institutional networks (“I-Nets”) to local governmental and educational entities upon request and on non-market based terms”…
Comcast often refuses to extend its network to customers outside its existing service area unless the customers pay for Comcast’s construction costs, which can be tens of thousands of dollars.
Two major bills that telephone and cable companies want are set for floor votes in Sacramento, and one they don’t want is in deep freeze, as the legislative session enters its final, hectic two weeks. At the end of last week the senate and assembly appropriations committees okayed assembly bill 1665 and senate bill 649, respectively.
AB 375, on the other hand, remains stuck in the senate rules committee. It’s an attempt to write Internet privacy protections that were scrapped by the federal government into California law.… More
Lifeline broadband and telephone subsidies can be used to buy either mobile or wireline service. But that could end. Nineteen republican members of the U.S. house of representatives signed onto a draft bill that would scrap that option.
The lifeline program run by the Federal Communications Commission is routinely slammed by republicans – including those on the FCC itself – as a swamp of fraud and abuse, with wireless options frequently singled out as particularly problematic.… More
From pitch to product, with some bumps in the road.
It’s not often I have the pleasure of actually using a product that’s made it from the fundraising stage all the way to the open market. One of the top finishers at the 2014 Showstoppers LaunchIt beauty pageant, held during the Consumer Electronics Show, was FINsix, which was pitching a small, universal power supply for laptops and phones. It took second place, largely, it seemed, on its personal appeal to the judges who, as I noted at the time, had a “gleam in their eyes as they thought about trading two power bricks for one that’s barely bigger than a plug alone”.… More
When national governments run mobile broadband networks, they do not run them well. That’s the unsurprising conclusion of a white paper published by GSMA, the trade association for mobile network operators that rely on GSM standards to one extent or the other – in other words, pretty much all of them.
A trade association that lobbies governments to advance the interests of its members might be expected to oppose what amounts to nationalisation of mobile network infrastructure and operations.… More
A federal judge in San Francisco said that two northern California men have a legitimate case to make against Comcast, as they pursue a class action suit aimed at stopping Comcast from piling fees on subscribers anytime it feels like it. Dan Adkins and Christopher Robertson say they signed up for an advertised deal, and Comcast can’t change it without their consent.
It is plausible to infer from the complaint that, by clicking “Submit Your Order,” Adkins and Robertson agreed to pay Comcast’s advertised price, plus taxes and government-related fees, in exchange for the services Comcast offered them.
