Uncategorized

Wireless permit shot clocks aren’t really shot clocks, fee limits aren’t really limits, FCC tells appeals court

19 March 2019 by Steve Blum
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Riverside pole mount

The FCC wants to stall a federal appellate court review of its order preempting local ownership of street light poles and similar municipal assets located in the public right of way. Dozens of cities, counties and associations pushed back against the move, telling the court they would face “significant hardships” if their appeal was iced for months while the FCC pretends to reconsider its original ruling at its leisure.

There’s no hardship, the FCC told the San Francisco-based ninth circuit federal appeals court in its reply.… More

FCC’s broadband victory proclamation looks like regurgitated spam

18 March 2019 by Steve Blum
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Spam

A wireless Internet service provider dumped a big load of map spam on the Federal Communications Commission last year, which appears to have fooled it into thinking that its “reforms” have brilliantly resulted in broadband “being deployed on a reasonable and timely basis” in the U.S. It’s a problem we have in California, as well.

In a letter to the FCC, the broadband advocacy group Free Press pointed to widely unbelievable – impossible – coverage claims made by BarrierFree, an east coat wireless Internet service provider…

BarrierFree claimed to offer FTTH service with downstream speeds of 940 Mbps to 100 percent of the geographic area and 100 percent of the population of New York State, and also to 100 percent of those seven other states.

… More

Tacoma weighs risk and reward with list of muni broadband suitors down to two

15 March 2019 by Steve Blum
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The City of Tacoma has narrowed the list of possible buyers of its municipal cable system – aka Click – down to two local companies, Wave Broadband and Rainier Connect. A year ago, the city issued a request for information and qualifications and received responses from five companies. Only two initially met the city’s specifications – Wave and Yomura Fiber – but subsequent talks convinced Rainier to take on more risk, and led to Yomura’s exit, due to ownership concerns.… More

Four California counties say “no criminal charges” for PG&E

14 March 2019 by Steve Blum
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Pacific Gas and Electric won’t face criminal charges for its role in starting several northern California fires in 2018. District attorneys in Sonoma, Napa, Humboldt and Lake counties announced that they can’t prove a case. According to a press release from Sonoma County district attorney Jill Ravitch, the necessary evidence burned up along with everything else…

The cases that were referred for prosecution all required proof that PG&E acted with criminal negligence in failing to remove dead and dying trees.

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T-Mobile plays daddy says no, go ask mommy game at CPUC

13 March 2019 by Steve Blum
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Brady bunch

Instead of playing nice with the other kids, T-Mobile is asking for parental intervention as the California Public Utilities Commission reviews its proposed deal to takeover Sprint. Possibly afraid its document dumping and foot dragging tactics are going to backfire and cause even more delays at the CPUC, T-Mobile sent a joint letter to commissioner Clifford Rechtschaffen yesterday, telling him don’t tap the brakes, you need to step on the gas dude…

The Commission’s timely review will help ensure that Californians benefit from the broad range of benefits documented in the extensive evidence we have submitted to the Commission.

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Trump’s budget plan puts broadband funding, mapping on table

12 March 2019 by Steve Blum
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Broadband gets several call outs in the proposed budget released yesterday by the Trump administration. One initiative is endorsed for another year, two are re-promised and one appears to be a response to widespread criticism. Line item figures haven’t been published yet, but even just the overview runs to 150 pages. Details on plans are scarce, but the broadband snippets that were included tell an encouraging tale.

Agriculture secretary Sonny Perdue has bucked the administration’s love fest with big, incumbent cable and telephone companies and pushed for community-based broadband service, particularly via rural electric coops.… More

T-Mobile stalls CPUC, FCC reviews of Sprint merger with cheap lawyer tricks

11 March 2019 by Steve Blum
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Getting a fast approval of its proposed takeover of Sprint from federal and state regulators is supposedly T-Mobile’s goal, but it’s not helping itself. Last week, its habit of stonewalling and waiting until the last minute to provide information to regulators reviewing the merger resulted in a three week (minimum) hold at the Federal Communications Commission and a demand from California Public Utilities Commission staff to turn over stacks of documents previously requested. That demand could also lead to a further delay in getting California’s blessing for the deal.… More

“Significant hardships” will fall on cities if appeals of FCC pole ownership preemption stall, court told

8 March 2019 by Steve Blum
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The cities and counties that are challenging the Federal Communication Commission’s preemption of local ownership of streetlight poles and other assets located in the public right of way don’t want any delays in their cases. In filings yesterday with the ninth circuit federal appeals court in San Francisco, local agencies objected to the FCC’s request to put everything on hold while it thinks about whether it’s going to reconsider its decision. Which could take months, or longer.… More

Net neutrality back in play in U.S. congress as democrats offer new bill

7 March 2019 by Steve Blum
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Congressional democrats are taking another run at overturning the Federal Communication Commission’s 2017 decision to scrap network neutrality rules. Yesterday, amid much fanfare, a draft of a bill was released that would nullify the 2017 decision by the FCC’s republican majority and reinstate the 2015 decision by the then democratic majority to regulate broadband as a common carrier service. Along with that decision came bright line rules: no blocking, throttling or paid prioritisation of subscriber traffic by Internet service providers.… More

PG&E faces pole attachment shot clock, as CPUC arbitrator hands Crown Castle a win

6 March 2019 by Steve Blum
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White road attachment

An administrative law judge gave Crown Castle a victory of sorts in a dispute over terms for attaching fiber optic cable to utility poles that Pacific Gas and Electric owns. Assuming the California Public Utilities Commission signs off on the finding, the arbitrated decision by ALJ Patricia Miles leaves PG&E’s leasing model and most of its standard terms in place. But, in effect, it also establishes a 45 day shot clock for responding to attachment requests and allows Crown Castle to do some work on poles without notifying PG&E and to be notified, in some circumstances, if work affecting its cables is planned.… More