Uncategorized

Six Californias initiative makes a roaring comeback

8 June 2016 by Steve Blum
,

Six Californias
We’re giving the Six Californias initiative a boost. Kicking it in the pants and getting it moving again. Tim Draper’s original plan to break up California had one fatal flaw: stupid names for the new states. I’ve fixed that…

Jefferson – the one name of the original six that made any sense. It channels the head rush of the budding secession movement in the north, respects the fragrant history from which it stems and seeds the hopes of a mellower mañana.… More

New federal broadband subsidies will favor states spurned by incumbents

7 June 2016 by Steve Blum
, ,

Nevada gets a second chance.

Californian communities are not likely to figure prominently in the Federal Communication Commission’s list of areas that’ll be eligible for its next round of Connect America Fund 2 broadband subsidies. That’s because the big incumbent carriers – AT&T and Frontier – exercised their right of first refusal in the last round and picked up a total of $590 million over six years in exchange for promising to upgrade most of their substandard California service territories to 10 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload speeds.… More

U.S. lawmakers want to trim FCC's broadband oversight role

6 June 2016 by Steve Blum
, ,

Two versions of a ban on rate regulation for broadband service are moving through the U.S. congress, but there’s more to it than preventing the Federal Communications Commission from overseeing monthly subscription prices.

House resolution 2666 was passed by the house of representatives and is now awaiting action by the U.S. senate. As currently written, it says the FCC “may not regulate the rates charged for broadband Internet access service”. That simple and very broad statement covers more than just monthly fees.… More

Sierra fixed wireless project in line for California broadband subsidy

5 June 2016 by Steve Blum
, , ,


Click for more maps.

El Dorado County is in line for another wireless broadband project, largely paid for by the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF). Last year Cal.net, a wireless Internet service provider in the Sierra Nevada, submitted four proposed projects to the California Public Utilities Commission, asking for a total of $8.1 million in CASF grants to pay for 60% of construction costs. Two of the projects were in El Dorado County. The first, which covers underserved areas to the north of U.S.… More

Assembly votes to write the CPUC out of the California constitution

4 June 2016 by Steve Blum
, , ,

Disestablished?

It’ll be up to the California senate to decide whether or not to put the future of the California Public Utilities Commission on the November general election ballot. The assembly approved assembly constitutional amendment 11 on Thursday. If it gets on the ballot and voters approve it, the CPUC would lose its special constitutional status as an independent agency.

The state legislature would then have to decide how utilities – energy, telecoms, water and transportation – will be regulated in California.… More

Auction underway to free up 100 MHz for mobile broadband

3 June 2016 by Steve Blum
, ,

Worth billions now.

The long delayed double auction aimed at transferring 100 MHz of UHF spectrum from television broadcasting to mobile Internet service is finally underway. The first step is a reverse auction where television station owners bid down the price they’re willing accept to give up their channel assignments. It started this week with one daily round of bids on Tuesday and Wednesday, and stepped up to two rounds a day yesterday.

All totalled, the FCC wants to set a price for 126 MHz of UHF spectrum in the 600 MHz band.… More

The obligatory net neutrality decision coming soon post

30 May 2016 by Steve Blum
, ,

Perhaps as soon as tomorrow, a federal appeals court in Washington will decide whether or not the Federal Communications Commission 1. has the legal authority to impose common carrier rules on broadband service and 2. whether it followed all the necessary procedures when it did so.

The challenge was filed by a nearly universal coalition of big (and a few small) Internet service providers, who, naturally enough, do not want the FCC telling them how to run their businesses, whether or not it’s with the promised (but not guaranteed) light touch.… More

Charter cries for exclusive rights in public housing

29 May 2016 by Steve Blum
, , , ,

Charter Communications still doesn’t get it. California law does not grant it ownership of public housing residents. But boiled down, that’s what it’s telling the California Public Utilities Commission.

Three years ago, the California legislature passed a bill that set aside $20 million to pay for installing broadband facilities in public housing properties. Governor Brown signed it into law. And once you trim away all the bureaucratese about defining what, exactly, a public housing operator is, it’s a very simple bill.… More

San Jose cuts a fiber deal but Google won't say yes yet

27 May 2016 by Steve Blum
, ,


Click for the big picture.

San Jose is all for it, but Google Fiber remains coy about whether it’s going to build a fiber to the home system there, or elsewhere in the south Bay Area. On Tuesday, the San Jose city council voted unanimously to approve a construction plan and five fiber hut site leases on city land, for a prospective Google Fiber buildout.

Jenna Wandres, the Google representative at the meeting, said that they plan to build out to virtually the city, with the only possible exceptions physically hard to reach locations in the hills.… More

Faster federal broadband specs proposed for public housing

25 May 2016 by Steve Blum
, , ,

Honest, the label on the box says it’ll do a gozangabit!

The federal housing and urban development department is floating new rules for publicly subsidised housing – but not homes bought with FHA loans or other federal loan guarantees – that would require installation of broadband infrastructure in new or remodelled multi-dwelling units. It’s a good new/bad news rule: it uses the FCC’s definition of high speed broadband, but leaves plenty of room for implementation mischief…

HUD is proposing to define broadband infrastructure as cables, fiber optics, wiring, or other permanent infrastructure, including wireless infrastructure, as long as the installation results in broadband infrastructure in each dwelling unit meeting the definition created by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which currently is 25 Megabits per second (Mbps) download, 3 Mbps upload.

… More