Uncategorized

Cable, mobile companies fight California rural phone standards

8 February 2017 by Steve Blum
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A California Public Utilities Commission decision slamming the practices of telecoms companies in rural areas – like attaching lines to trees instead of poles – and requiring carriers to notify both the commission and the state office of emergency services when significant telephone outages occur has been met with a broadly based challenge from California cable and telephone companies.

In a filing authored by Comcast lawyers and joined by Charter, Cox, small telcos, Verizon’s fiber subsidiary and lobbying fronts for the cable and mobile industries, the CPUC’s rural call completion decision was characterised as illegal on the basis of a long list of alleged procedural mistakes.… More

CPUC set to reject cable's bid for wireless privileges

7 February 2017 by Steve Blum
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Decision on the way.

Update: the CPUC unanimously approved the draft decision at its 9 February 2017 meeting.

It’s a bit softer than the total smack down that was originally floated, but the latest draft of a decision that’ll go in front of the California Public Utilities Commission still says that cable companies can’t hang wireless equipment on utility poles with the same carefree abandon as mobile carriers. The reasoning is that the laws that grant cable companies the special privilege to use utility poles and such without having to meet the same standards of service or conduct as telephone companies specifically mention wires, not wireless, and that “if the legislature had intended to provide CATV corporations with a right to attach wireless facilities to utility poles – either by statute or by commission regulations – the legislature would have done so”.… More

Net neutrality on a fast track to oblivion at FCC

6 February 2017 by Steve Blum
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No doubt about intentions.

In his short time as Federal Communications Commission chairman, Ajit Pai hasn’t actually said he’s going to scrap the 2015 decision to classify broadband as a common carrier service, and with it the network neutrality rules that depend on it. But in comments he made last week and in the substance of his big news dump on Friday, it’s clear that he’s moving quickly in that direction.

Among the actions announced late Friday afternoon was the cancellation of investigations into the zero rating practices of AT&T, Comcast, Verizon and T-Mobile.… More

FCC chair Pai buries transparency pledge with a big dump

5 February 2017 by Steve Blum
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Under orders from new republican chairman Ajit Pai, Federal Communications Commission staff issued orders and sent letters rescinding several recent actions on Friday afternoon. In what democratic commissioner Mignon Clyburn blasted as a “Friday news dump” and Pai praised as “revoking midnight regulations”, the FCC cancelled or pulled back…

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Charter is ripping off Internet subscribers, says NY attorney general

4 February 2017 by Steve Blum
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Time Warner Cable executives deliberately under provisioned and over promised Internet service to its subscribers in the State of New York and Charter Communications is allowing the practice to continue, claims New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman in a lawsuit filed earlier this week. It’s a follow on to an investigation kicked off in 2015.

Charter purchased TWC in May 2016. It took over operation of systems and customer equipment that couldn’t delivered speeds that were advertised or that customers purchased and “even now, [Charter] continues to offer Internet speeds that we found they cannot reliably deliver”, Schneiderman alleges.… More

FCC backs away from market intervention, consumer roles

3 February 2017 by Steve Blum
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Goodbye to all that.

Wholesale broadband prices won’t be regulated and there will be no committees deciding which apps can bypass set top boxes and directly access cable company bit streams. That’s the practical effect of the decision by new Federal Communications Commission chairman Ajit Pai to pull two controversial proposed rules off of the list of items on circulation and under active consideration by commissioners.

Rules that would have set rates for some wholesale services and allow consumers to watch video programming on their own devices without renting a set top box were on the FCC’s agenda last fall, and nearly came to a vote.… More

Don't subsidise fiber, just give the money to AT&T says FCC commissioner

2 February 2017 by Steve Blum
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The new FCC stands up for broadband.

Broadband has no place any big, federal infrastructure spending bill, according to a key member of the Federal Communications Commission. Michael O’Rielly is the other republican on the commission, in addition to new chairman Ajit Pai, and the more dogmatic of the two.

In a blog post published yesterday, he excoriated previous broadband grant programs, urged colleagues to “salute the work already done by private broadband companies” and endorsed the FCC’s incumbent-centric rural subsidy program, which is designed to accomodate AT&T’s 10 Mbps down/1 Mbps up wireless service.… More

Broadband deployment is a local problem, and the FCC is here to help

1 February 2017 by Steve Blum
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Top. Men.

Cities and counties will be getting a ton of advice from the Federal Communications Commission. Yesterday, in one of his first initiatives as chairman, Ajit Pai announced the formation of an industry committee charged with identifying “regulatory barriers to infrastructure investment and to make recommendations to the Commission on reducing and/or removing them”.

But he’s not firing up his weed whacker for a run at the FCC’s rulebook. Instead, he’s taking aim at local governments.… More

Unexpected U-turn as FCC lets New York manage broadband subsidy money

30 January 2017 by Steve Blum
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By Metropolitan Transportation Authority of the State of New York (IMG_4305_4) [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
The new federalism.

Who would have thought that the Federal Communications Commission’s first significant decision of the Trump era would be to take money originally designated for its no-incumbent-left-behind broadband subsidy program – Connect America Fund 2 (CAF-2) – and use it to top up reasonably competitive state grants, with the state calling the shots?

But that’s exactly what happened.

In 2015, Verizon turned down the CAF-2 money on offer in its wireline territory, except for the systems that it was selling to Frontier Communications, which did want it.… More

Trump's broadband policy has direction, but no destination

29 January 2017 by Steve Blum
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The few clues about broadband policy to surface during the Trump administration’s first, tumultuous week can be summed up in two words: hands off. Every time a choice was made that touched on broadband, the administration opted for less federal involvement, rather than more.

The white house made one big appointment and offered two hints about where broadband policy is going. President Trump picked Ajit Pai to be the next chairman of the FCC.… More