Uncategorized

FCC takes aim at city planners, HOAs, landlords with new wireless preemptions

2 April 2019 by Steve Blum
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Wireless broadband hub

More federal preemptions of property ownership and local oversight of permits for wireless facilities are on the way. The Federal Communications Commission is scheduled to vote later this month on starting the process of rewriting its interpretation of federal law regarding home antennas.

The rule in question is inelegantly known as OTARD – over the air reception devices. The law behind the rules was originally intended to allow homeowners and renters to install small satellite dishes for, say, DirecTv or DISH.… More

Apple TV’s so so content depends on ecosystem integration for success

1 April 2019 by Steve Blum
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Apple tv keynote aniston witherspoon 25mar2019

Apple unveiled a new subscription video service last week. If it were any other company except Apple making the announcement, there would have been a huge yawn from the market. The Apple TV service, at least what we know of it, isn’t significantly different from other over-the-top services. They’re borrowing business model bits from several different platforms and putting the pieces together a little differently and, but overall it looks very familiar.

Apple will have exclusive programming, as the big OTT players do, and that will help it position its video brand as it has for HBO and Netflix, but it’s just icing on the same cake as everyone else’s.… More

AT&T hides 4G digital divide behind 5GE facade

29 March 2019 by Steve Blum
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Opensignal att 5ge 22mar2019

AT&T’s 5GE scam is unravelling. Measurements taken by an independent testing company, OpenSignal, show that slapping a phony 5G label on upgraded 4G LTE service does not make the user experience any faster.

According to OpenSignal’s blog post…

Some AT&T users in the U.S. have recently seen “5G E” appear on the status bar of their existing smartphones, replacing 4G. This move has sparked controversy because AT&T is using updated 4G network technologies to connect these smartphone users, not the new 5G standard…

Analyzing Opensignal’s data shows that AT&T users with 5G E-capable smartphones receive a better experience than AT&T users with less capable smartphone models…But AT&T users with a 5G E-capable smartphone receive similar speeds to users on other carriers with the same smartphone models that AT&T calls 5G E.

… More

CPUC proposes low income, no service available requirements for household broadband extension grants

28 March 2019 by Steve Blum
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Remote road

The final piece of the California broadband subsidy puzzle is on the table. The California Public Utilities Commission posted a draft of the new “line extension program”. It’s a pilot project set up by the legislature in 2017 when it rigged the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF), turning it into a piggy bank for AT&T and Frontier Communications.

The line extension program was included at the urging of cable lobbyists, who wanted to tap the piggy bank too, but didn’t want to take on any of the regulatory responsibilities that normally go along with state broadband infrastructure grants.… More

California legislature looks at extending moratorium on Internet services regulation

27 March 2019 by Steve Blum
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Internet services, such as telephone service via voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) technology, are unregulated in California. For now. Federal preemptions, or attempted preemptions, aside, the California legislature approved a seven year moratorium on regulating Internet protocol (IP) enabled services in 2012. Senate bill 1161 said the California Public Utilities Commission and all state and local agencies could not…

Enact, adopt, or enforce any law, rule, regulation, ordinance, standard, order, or other provision having the force or effect of law, that regulates VoIP or other IP enabled service, unless required or expressly delegated by federal law or expressly authorized by statute.

… More

California extends review of T-Mobile-Sprint merger to maybe July, maybe August

26 March 2019 by Steve Blum
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Caltrans slow

T-Mobile and Sprint lawyered themselves into a four week delay in California’s regulatory review of their merger deal. Yesterday, a California Public Utilities Commission administrative law judge (ALJ) granted a request from staff to force the companies to turn over additional information, and extended the deadline for opening briefs to 26 April 2019, and for rebuttals to 10 May 2019.

Under normal circumstances, it would usually take about a month after that for ALJ Karl Bemesderfer to draft a proposed decision and, absent extraordinary circumstances, state law requires another month for public review and comment before commissioners vote on it.… More

Ad hoc decisions will make utility pole safety problems worse, PG&E tells CPUC

25 March 2019 by Steve Blum
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PG&E doesn’t like the pole attachment terms Crown Castle was granted by the California Public Utilities Commission, and is asking for a do-over. At its recent meeting, commissioners unanimously approved contract terms decided by a CPUC administrative law judge who was acting as an arbitrator in a dispute between the two companies.

It’s more than just a simple contract dispute, though. Pole route management policy is getting a hard look by the CPUC and by federal courts that are dealing with PG&E’s bankruptcy filing and criminal probation in the wake of deadly fires sparked by overhead lines.… More

Microsoft’s usage data shows FCC overstates broadband availability

22 March 2019 by Steve Blum
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Microsoft oregon analysis 5dec2018

Microsoft is the latest organisation to tell the Federal Communications Commission that its broadband availability data is wrong. Earlier this month, an Internet advocacy group uncovered an egregious outbreak of map spam that skewed the FCC’s broadband analysis in several states, leading to a premature declaration of deployment victory (h/t to Wendy Davis at Digital News Daily for digging out the story). Last week, Microsoft presented its own analysis at the FCC, based on Internet usage data it collected itself, and came to the same conclusion…

The Commission’s broadband availability data, which underpins FCC Form 477 and the Commission’s annual Section 706 report, appears to overstate the extent to which broadband is actually available throughout the nation.

… More

Federal appeals court slows but doesn’t stop muni challenges to FCC wireless preemptions

21 March 2019 by Steve Blum
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Samsung small cell

The federal appellate court review of two Federal Communications Commission rulings that preempt local authority over wireless attachment and wireline excavation permits, and take away local ownership of streetlight poles and similar property will continue, albeit slowly. Yesterday, the ninth circuit court of appeals in San Francisco refused to ice the case completely, as requested by the FCC and as dutifully echoed by wireless carriers.

Instead, the court consolidated the twelve separate appeals of the September wireless attachment order into a single case, and assigned it to the same set of judges who will consider two appeals of the August wireline excavation order.… More

Louisville’s Google project failed, but it was experimental success

20 March 2019 by Steve Blum
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Microtrench

“Have a healthy disregard for the impossible", is a quote attributed to Google co-founder Larry Page. It’s a philosophy that took Google from two Stanford grads in a garage to being, on some days, the biggest company on the planet. It’s an acknowledgement that people aren’t always – or even usually – correct when they say you can’t do something. And it’s acceptance that sometimes the experts will be right.

(N.B. “Always listen to experts. They’ll tell you what can’t be done and why.… More