Uncategorized

Civinomics launches platform for cooler, smarter conversations about hot button issues

12 April 2013 by Steve Blum
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Civil discussion about community issues is the goal of a start-up launched last night in Santa Cruz, California. Civinomics is a platform for online workshops and in-person polling, aimed at engaging a wider segment of the public in conversations about local issues and ideas. Where ever those might be.

“It represents the evolution of social media into civic media,” said Chris Neklason, the company’s product management guru and the co-founder of Cruzio, an independent ISP and the host of the ribbon cutting event.… More

Serving urban homes means adapting CASF to urban broadband business models

11 April 2013 by Steve Blum
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Sometimes the last mile is a matter of feet.

Urban areas haven’t benefited from California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) infrastructure subsidies. All of the 34 broadband projects approved in past years and the 29 currently under review are in rural areas of the state. Two reasons account for it, one conceptual and other structural.

To be eligible for CASF infrastructure subsidies, an area has to at least qualify as underserved, which means there’s no broadband service available that delivers at least 6 Mbps download and 1.5 Mbps upload speeds.… More

AT&T snarls but cable lobby embraces expansion of California broadband subsidies

10 April 2013 by Steve Blum
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But Austin is a peaceful planet!

The California cable lobby has stopped foaming at the mouth over the idea of expanding the list of companies and organizations that are eligible to apply for California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) subsidies. In comments filed with the California Public Utilities Commission, the California Cable and Telecommunications Association seems to have figured out that relaxing the rules gives them the chance to stick their nose in the honey jar too.… More

AT&T gets the Googlefinger

9 April 2013 by Steve Blum
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I guess it’s just coincidence your suit fits too, Mr. Bond.

“Mr Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action.”

AT&T is reacting to Google’s Austin announcement with the same paranoia that Auric Goldfinger eyed James Bond on their second, not-so-accidental meeting. The Texas capital is now positioned to get gigabit service from both companies.

It’s Google’s second venture into fiber to the home service, which could mean they just want to check results from what is still an experiment in Kansas City.… More

British Telecom rolling out user-financed FTTH service


Brits surf different too.

The cost of directly connecting a home to British Telecom’s fiber network will be in the thousands of dollars range. BT has released details on the formula it will use to calculate the charge for running fiber from a neighborhood node – fiber to the cabinet in BT’s terminology – to a home or business.

The minimum charge is £700, about $1,075 at today’s exchange rate. BT says that 55% of its customers can fiber up for somewhere between £700 and £1,500 (about $2,300).… More

Modest FTTH growth benefit found in rigorous Swedish study


Blow fiber, not tumbleweeds.

Fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) systems drive growth in cities by a measurable amount, according to a recent study in Sweden. The analysis was done by Ziyi Xiong, a graduate student at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.

She crunched demographic and network data from 290 Swedish municipalities, factored out other possible influences, such as the degree of urbanization, and found that increasing fiber availability at workplaces by 10% results in population growth of nearly two-tenths of a percent (.17%).… More

Fewer rules in the new Uverse

6 April 2013 by Steve Blum
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No regulation, no cap.

AT&T seems comfortable feeding a lot of bandwidth to its unregulated Uverse customers. Research done by Broadband DSL Reports indicates AT&T isn’t enforcing the 250 GB monthly data cap it tells Uverse customers to expect.

On the other hand, heavy users of traditional DSL service – tied to the regulated side of the business – are being throttled if they exceed monthly caps as low as 150 GB, according to the newsletter.… More

Facebook is first brand into the mobile skin game

5 April 2013 by Steve Blum
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Sometimes innovation only needs to be skin deep.

Facebook Home is a new kind of threat to Android and a new kind of opportunity for mobile entrepreneurs. It’s middleware that’s downloaded onto select – for now – smartphones and acts as the top skin of the user interface. Instead, for example, of seeing the standard lock screen, users see their Facebook feed, constantly updated.

Android apps are still there, if you dig down. But if you just go with the flow all you see is what Facebook pushes to you.… More

Who gets CASF money is first decision on California legislative agenda, how much comes later

4 April 2013 by Steve Blum
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Structurally sound or not, the cake gets cut.

The debate over whether to give priority to public housing programs when California broadband initiatives are funded continues on 15 April 2013, when the Assembly utilities and commerce committee is scheduled to formally consider assembly bill 1299.

It would require the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to give particular consideration to urban public housing projects for California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) grants. It would also allow money previously set aside to build broadband infrastructure to also be spent on broadband adoption programs.… More

EU proposes "best practice" for broadband deployment

2 April 2013 by Steve Blum
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The bell system worked for missions, but Spain has moved on.

An international consensus on the best ways to encourage better broadband infrastructure is rapidly forming. The European Union is proposing to harmonise broadband development policy across its 27 member states, including…

  • Creating a central source of information about broadband assets to help network planning.
  • Coordinating civil construction/public works projects – sometimes called open trench or dig once policies – so opportunities to put fiber in the ground are maximised.
… More