Uncategorized

California net neutrality bill bends to telco, cable wishes

23 April 2018 by Steve Blum
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It would still ban blocking, throttling, paid prioritisation and some kinds of zero rating, but a California senate committee has pulled some of the sharper enforcement teeth out of a bill to reinstate network neutrality rules. With one exception, though, definitions of banned and permitted practices remain the same.

Senate bill 822 was approved by the senate energy, utilities and communications committee last week on a party line vote, with the condition that undisclosed changes, negotiated behind closed doors, would be made.… More

Big incumbents tell CPUC to tilt California broadband subsidies in their favor

22 April 2018 by Steve Blum
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Four Internet service providers, all of whom have participated at one time or another in the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) infrastructure subsidy program, offered their ideas on how that money should be managed and allocated. So did a lobbying front representing cable companies – including Charter Communications, Comcast and Cox Communications – which have never participated. The big boys – AT&T, Frontier Communications and the cable industry – want grants on their own terms, while blocking competitors that might threaten their monopoly business models.… More

Police surveillance tech disclosure considered by California legislature

21 April 2018 by Steve Blum
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If a police department in California wants to use facial recognition software, or scrape social media platforms looking for evidence of criminal behavior, it would need to disclose the practice and, where practicable, get advance permission from its city council, if a bill working its way through the legislature makes it into law. Senate bill 1186, introduced by senator Jerry Hill (D – San Bruno), would require cities to decide on and publish policies for using “surveillance technology”, which it defines as…

Any electronic device or system with the capacity to monitor and collect audio, visual, locational, thermal, or similar information on any individual or group.

… More

San Francisco muni FTTP short list is down to three choices

20 April 2018 by Steve Blum
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The City and County of San Francisco is still tight-lipped regarding details of its $2 billion fiber-to-the-premise project, but its latest cryptic update indicates that the scheduled one-on-one interviews with potential bidders are complete and the first cut was made.

Thanks to a tip from a kind reader, I checked the City’s purchasing website and found this notice, dated yesterday, 19 April 2018…

Notice of Pre-Qualified Bidders for Citywide Fiber to the Premises Network, Lit Fiber and Wi-Fi Services RFQ

The City has completed its evaluation of Citywide Fiber to the Premises Network, Lit Fiber and Wi-Fi Services RFQ.

… More

FCC pits one local technical expert against big telecom's lobbyist horde

19 April 2018 by Steve Blum
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Ajit Pai is trying to stop the bleeding on his Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC). The Federal Communications Commission chairman appointed David Young to the committee, as a representative of the National League of Cities. Young is the fiber infrastructure and right of way manager for Lincoln, Nebraska’s public works department. It’s not explicitly stated, but the intent seems to be to fill at least one of the chairs left vacant by recent resignations by high profile municipal representatives.… More

AT&T, Comcast, Charter get net neutrality help from California senate friends

18 April 2018 by Steve Blum
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Network neutrality legislation moved ahead in the California senate yesterday, but it’s not clear what exactly it says. The senate’s energy, utilities and communications committee worked over senate bill 822, before endorsing it on a party line vote and sending it on to the judiciary committee. As is common practice in Sacramento, the committee didn’t vote on the published text of the bill, carried by senator Scott Wiener (D – San Francisco), but conceptually approved it, based on unpublished amendments negotiated secretly on Monday, which will be further modified by changes yet to be dictated by committee chair Ben Hueso (D – San Diego).… More

California broadband subsidy rules and $300 million on the table

17 April 2018 by Steve Blum
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The main event is finally under way. By yesterday’s deadline, thirteen organisations filed comments regarding how the California Public Utilities Commission should spend $300 million in new California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) money (plus however much more is left in the kitty) on broadband infrastructure subsidies. I haven’t read through them all yet – if you’re interested, I’ve posted them all here – but a top line glance shows that service providers, including the big incumbents who expect to use CASF as a private piggy bank, have a lot to say.… More

Federal ag department looks to co-ops to lead broadband development

16 April 2018 by Steve Blum
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At least one member of the Trump administration isn’t trying to smack local broadband initiatives with a preemption sledgehammer. Agriculture secretary Sonny Perdue spoke to a gathering of representatives of rural electric cooperatives. Those are (usually) small electric systems that are organised as buyer cooperatives – electric customers are the owners. The federal agriculture department has been subsidising them for more than 80 years. Many of those co-ops have branched off into the broadband business, also with subsidies from the agriculture department’s Rural Utilities Service (RUS).… More

Streetlight gifts to mobile carriers spread to other states

15 April 2018 by Steve Blum
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California is not the only state where lobbyists for mobile carriers and other big, incumbent cable and telephone companies are giving stacks of cash offering somber advice to state legislators and getting huge gifts of public property in return. According to a couple of articles by Timothy Clark in Route Fifty, several other states are preempting local ownership of vertical infrastructure and municipal control of public right of ways.

In some states, the giveaway is even more generous than the California’s gift to telecoms lobbyists last year, senate bill 649.… More

Voters might get the chance to split one "nearly ungovernable" California into three

14 April 2018 by Steve Blum
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We’re one step away from voting on whether to break California up into three states. All that’s standing between the ballot box and Tim Draper’s second try at disrupting California’s comfortable, and largely unaccountable, political class is signature verification by the secretary of state’s office. Earlier this week, he announced that he’s collected twice the number of signatures needed to get it on the ballot.

He’s been here before, collecting 1.3 million signatures for his Six Californias initiative in 2014, only to have too many of them rejected by the secretary of state.… More