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Brown signs SB 822 and establishes Californian net neutrality rules, Trump lawyers hit back

1 October 2018 by Steve Blum
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Sing it, Linda.

Jerry Brown doesn’t have a problem stepping into policy territory claimed by the federal government. He’s signed bills that fly in the face of Trump administration immigration policy, and carved out a place for California in international environmental diplomacy. You can add telecoms policy to that list. Yesterday, he signed senate bill 822 into law. Authored by senator Scott Weiner (D – San Francisco), it reinstates network neutrality rules that were approved by the democratic majority on the Federal Communications Commission in 2015, and quickly scrapped when republicans took over control of the FCC in 2017.… More

California net neutrality bill faces midnight deadline

30 September 2018 by Steve Blum
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UPDATE 2:the Trump administration’s political hacks in the justice department were on alert – they challenged SB 822 in federal court. Quickly. Click here for more.

UPDATE: Brown approved SB 822. Click here for more.

Today is decision day for network neutrality in California. Governor Jerry Brown must either sign senate bill 822 into law, or veto it, or simply ignore it and let it become law automatically tonight, when the midnight deadline for acting passes.… More

California’s regulatory review of T-Mobile-Sprint deal has light years left to run

29 September 2018 by Steve Blum
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The proposed purchase of Sprint by T-Mobile will get a thorough workover by the California Public Utilities Commission, and a final decision on whether or not to allow it won’t come until next summer. The commissioner running the review, Clifford Rechtschaffen, laid out the issues that he’ll investigate in a ruling on Friday.

Rechtschaffen had to decide how wide ranging his inquiry will be. Sprint and T-Mobile wanted it to be very narrow, and focus on two particular issues: could a relatively small Sprint subsidiary that does some wireline business in California be sold to T-Mobile, and could T-Mobile take over Sprint’s California mobile carrier registration.… More

FCC backs off on timing, but not substance of municipal wireless property preemption

28 September 2018 by Steve Blum
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The final version of the Federal Communications Commission’s ruling preempting local ownership of street lights, traffic signals and other publicly owned property in the public right of way has been posted. It gives cities and counties more time to comply with its diktats – that’s the major change I spotted last night as I was reading through it.

Originally, the ruling was set to take effect 30 days after it’s published in the Federal Register.… More

FCC preempts local property rights, gives street light poles to wireless companies

27 September 2018 by Steve Blum
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Cities and counties shouldn’t take more than 60 days to process a permit to allow a wireless company to attach equipment to an existing structure, or more than 90 days if building a “small wireless facility” requires installation of a new pole or tower. That was the unanimous vote of the Federal Communications Commission yesterday. Democrat Jessica Rosenworcel joined her three republican colleagues and endorsed that particular section of an FCC ruling that also preempts local ownership of property that wireless companies might covet.… More

Self driving cars will be ready, but U.S. 5G networks won’t

26 September 2018 by Steve Blum
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Manufacturers might have self-driving cars ready to roll in the next five to seven years, but how far they’ll roll will, in large part, be determined by 5G mobile network deployments. To support fully autonomous driving, where no human driver is needed and passengers can just kick back and ignore the road, fast broadband connections will be necessary.

Nobody knows yet how fast, but minimum service levels will depend on three speed metrics: download throughput, upload throughput and latency.… More

Cities, counties tell FCC that local property rights are beyond its authority

25 September 2018 by Steve Blum
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With the Federal Communications Commission set to vote tomorrow on new rules it wants local governments to follow when issuing permits for “small wireless facilities”, support and opposition is flooding in from the usual directions. CTIA, the primary lobbying front for mobile carriers in Washington, D.C., met behind closed doors with all four commissioners last week (the fifth seat, formerly occupied by Mignon Clyburn, is vacant, awaiting confirmation of a democratic nominee, Geoffrey Starks).

In its legally required disclosure statement, CTIA “applauded the commission” for giving industry lobbyists pretty much everything they could possibly ask for.… More

Move fast and build things, like broadband infrastructure

24 September 2018 by Steve Blum
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The debate over California’s primary broadband infrastructure subsidy program continues. Another round of comments landed at the California Public Utilities Commission Friday, with ideas – some good, some not – for changing the way the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) is run.

I drafted and submitted the Central Coast Broadband Consortium’s (CCBC) contribution. There are many administrative, practical and, yes, political details to be worked out. Which is a large part of the problem with the program: the grant application and review process is complicated, time consuming and capricious.… More

Wildfire liability changes head into California law and onto your electric bill

23 September 2018 by Steve Blum
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It’s up to the California Public Utilities Commission now to decide whether your electric bill will include billions of dollars worth of damage done by wildfires. Governor Jerry Brown signed senate bill 901 on Friday. Among other things, SB 901 allows privately owned electric utilities to raise prices to offset damage payouts due to fires that were, to one degree or another, their fault.

Utilities – electric and telecoms – have the right to plant and use poles along roads and waterways in California, with very few restrictions and no rental fees at all.… More

Prediction: Brown will sign California net neutrality bill into law

22 September 2018 by Steve Blum
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With a week left to go before a decision is due, California governor Jerry Brown hasn’t said which side he’s going to land on in the network neutrality debate. Senate bill 822, which would restore net neutrality rules in California, is still sitting on his desk.

Brown does not give away much, if anything, when he’s considering bills. He gives bills serious thought. Some more than others, but he makes his own decisions. He’s good at balancing political, fiscal, operational and philosophical considerations.… More