Uncategorized

Tacoma gets a competing offer for its muni broadband system

3 May 2015 by Steve Blum
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Another company has joined the bidding to take over the City of Tacoma’s ageing cable TV and broadband system, aka Click. Rainier Connect, a local cable, telephone and broadband company, says it’ll more or less match the terms offered by Wave Broadband and add a sweetener for Tacoma Public Schools.

Tacoma’s muni system is losing $9 million a year, according to recent reports and will also need extensive upgrade work. Wave stepped in with a proposal to pay the city $2 million a year for 40 or more years, and also invest an additional $1.5 million annually in plant upgrades.… More

Congress and trolls: who's feeding whom?

Trolls and trial lawyers are gaining the upper hand in Washington, as congress once again considers a bill that was originally aimed at stopping abusive demand letters from legal bottom feeders. According to an article in Ars Technica, a house subcommittee watered down provisions that would have created penalties for trolls that keep sending reams of bogus patent infringement letters in the hopes that a few people and businesses will simply pay up, rather than fight…

For instance, the bill would only ban demand letters sent in “bad faith,” which will make enforcement actions harder.

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Google's Project Loon floats a business model

18 April 2015 by Steve Blum
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Click for the video.

Project Loon isn’t so loony, according to the latest Google video about the project. In it, Mike Cassidy, the Project Loon team lead, said that they’ve figured out how to scale up from single test launches in New Zealand and California to dozens of launches a day, supported by a manufacturing facility that can turn out the thousands of balloons they need.

The idea is to float high-altitude balloons equipped with LTE mobile phone technology in the stratosphere, and steer them into a usable telecoms constellation by varying the altitude.… More

Broadband regulation is beyond California's reach, sorta

27 March 2015 by Steve Blum
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The FCC put sharp restrictions on the role of state utility regulators when it decided to put Internet service and infrastructure under common carrier rules. But it did not write the California Public Utilities Commission completely out of the game.

Helen Mickiewicz, a senior attorney for the CPUC, told commissioners yesterday…

The order affirms the FCC’s longstanding conclusion that broadband Internet access service is a jurisdictionally interstate service for regulatory purposes and therefor beyond the reach of the states…The practical effect of that, actually, is not so different from where we were before.

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Blackberry finds hope for the future in its first major technology licensing partnership

21 March 2015 by Steve Blum
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Sometimes you get the best stuff at the very end.

Blackberry unveiled a new tablet device this week, called the Secutablet. With a price north of $2,000, it’s intended for a limited market but it does show that the company finally has a plausible long term survival strategy. It’s a change of direction for Blackberry, one that executives have talked about for the past three years. Instead of making devices and operating systems, they are focusing on their core competency – security – and leveraging the brand identity that goes along with it.… More

Open data standards should be the first step toward open government

19 March 2015 by Steve Blum
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Welcome to Sunshine Week. No, it’s not about the vernal equinox or the proper SPF level to use. It’s about open government and access to data. Several meetings and events were held in Sacramento to mark it. Yesterday, I went to Data Summit 2015, organised by California Forward.

San Francisco assemblyman Phil Ting was the first of more than a dozen speakers, talking about the need for consistent and timely release of public data in a useful way, and the bill he’s sponsoring to encourage it.… More

Saving the environment doesn’t have to mean choking off local infrastructure and economic growth

1 March 2015 by Steve Blum
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You can protect the coast without littering it with red tape.

To keep Santa Cruz’s tech economy growing, basic infrastructure has to get better. Broadband is a big part of it, but so is housing, transportation and office space. A day long conference in Seaside in January – the kick-off event for the Monterey Bay Economic Partnership – brought business and government leaders together from Monterey, San Benito and Santa Cruz counties to talk about creating the right conditions for an entrepreneurial culture to grow.… More

FAA rules out Internet drones and delivery copters for now

28 February 2015 by Steve Blum
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Amazon’s planned drone deliver service didn’t get any love from the Federal Aviation Administration, nor did proposals to use unmanned aircraft as Internet access points, but at least the door is now open for companies to use the technology for commercial purposes. After two years of thinking about it, the FAA released draft regulations that would allow commercial drone use within limits. A summary is here.

For example, operators (or an observer) need to maintain visual line of sight with the drone, which can’t deliver cargo and can’t fly any higher than 500 feet or faster than 100 miles an hour.… More

Smartphone sales grow as Chinese brands bag bigger global share

16 February 2015 by Steve Blum
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Chinese smartphones loom larger.

Trying to track shipment figures for any global consumer electronics product can be a tricky business – piecing together the puzzle requires access to many sources with many agendas – but that said, market research company TrendForce has spotted a significant trend: collectively, Chinese smartphone manufacturers grabbed a huge share of the worldwide market in 2014.

According to TrendForce, manufacturers shipped 1.2 billion smartphones last year, with Chinese companies accounting for 450 million, or 39% of the global total.… More

Last call for telegraph companies, says FCC

15 February 2015 by Steve Blum
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Does this mean the end of the candygram too?

Just in time to bring broadband service under its regulatory umbrella, the FCC is doing some clean up work on its common carrier rules. It’s proposing to completely delete regulations it either hasn’t officially enforced in many years or are simply outdated, and to begin erasing telegraph from its vocabulary.

The first step, it seems, is to find out if telegraph service exists anymore…

We seek comment on whether there are any providers offering telegraph service today at all, and if so, whether such service offerings warrant retaining the term “telegraph” in the rules…Would there be any practical impact if the Commission were to delete “telegraph” from these rules?

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