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Updated comments on California's broadband subsidy program posted

24 March 2018 by Steve Blum
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More comments are in about how broadband adoption programs should be funded by the California Public Utilities Commission. Or rather, I’ve found more comments – the filings from the CPUC’s office of ratepayer advocates (ORA) and the Central Sierra Connect regional broadband consortium landed in my spam folder last week.

It’s a chronic bug in the CPUC’s service list system. Anytime you submit something – comments, grant applications, motions, protests, whatever – regarding a formal CPUC proceeding, you have to send copies to anyone who’s signed up to be notified.… More

Actually, there is broadband money in the big federal budget bill

23 March 2018 by Steve Blum
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Update: Trump signed it. Done deal.

Update: the U.S. senate approved the bill this morning, now it’s up to president Donald Trump to sign or veto it.

An extra $600 million was added to federal broadband subsidies for rural areas, in the mammoth, all-in-one spending bill passed by the house of representatives yesterday, and up for a vote in the U.S. senate today. I missed it Wednesday night as I was skimming through its two thousand-plus pages, but the sharp eyed journos at Politico’s Morning Tech newsletter caught it.… More

Dig once, broadband spectrum added to federal budget bill

22 March 2018 by Steve Blum
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Broadband is getting a boost in the mammoth spending bill under consideration today in the U.S. house of representatives. But not cash.

Instead, the deal negotiated by republican and democratic congressional leaders rolls in a telecoms bill unanimously approved earlier this month by the house of representatives. It includes some useful, if mild, dig once requirements for federally funded highway projects – state transportation agencies will have to share construction plans, but not necessarily trenches, with Internet service providers and local agencies – and it frees up 255 MHz of spectrum for broadband use.… More

Open access fiber drives down consumer broadband prices in New Zealand

21 March 2018 by Steve Blum
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A national project to build fiber-to-the-premise infrastructure and offer it to any Internet service provider on a wholesale basis began in New Zealand in 2011, with an initial goal of reaching 75% of Kiwi homes and businesses. According to a study done by International Data Corporation, a research firm, and sponsored by Spark, the biggest NZ reseller of FTTP service, the build out has reached about 65% of NZ premises, and the goal is now to reach 87% by 2022.… More

15 Mbps is the holy grail for 4K video

20 March 2018 by Steve Blum
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Different online video companies put it differently, but the net result is the same: if you want to watch 4K streaming video – aka ultra high definition – you need a broadband connection that reliably delivers 15 Mbps and has enough head room to support whatever other Internet traffic is passing in and out of your house.

A story by Rob Pegoraro in USA Today provides a run down of the 4K bandwidth recommendations from the two big dogs in the over-the-top video game…

  • Amazon says “you need an Internet connection of at least 15 Mbps to watch videos in UHD”.
… More

Frontier, cable lobbyists urge CPUC to cut them in on public housing, broadband adoption decisions

19 March 2018 by Steve Blum
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Big telco and cable interests accounted for two of the fourteen organisations that commented on proposed changes to the California Advanced Services Fund’s (CASF) broadband subsidy program for public housing and the new digital literacy and broadband access grants that’ll be available later this year. Frontier Communications and cable lobbyists submitted their remarks on Friday. AT&T was silent.

The California Cable and Telecommunications Association (CCTA), which is the lobbying front for Comcast, Charter Communications and other cable companies in California, wants the CPUC to better protect its members’ monopoly business model in public housing communities.… More

People who live in public housing deserve equal treatment from California broadband subsidy program

18 March 2018 by Steve Blum
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Public housing property owners can get grants from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) to install broadband facilities and serve residents. Hundreds of communities have taken advantage of it, despite churlish opposition from cable companies, particularly Charter Communications. The California Public Utilities Commission is revising the program, to bring it into line with new rules laid down by assembly bill 1665 last year.

The biggest change is to retroactively enforce restrictions, imposed by an earlier measure, senate bill 745, that require properties receiving grants to be “unserved”, which means that at least one residence lacks service at 6 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload speeds.… More

Comments on proposed changes to California's broadband subsidy program posted

17 March 2018 by Steve Blum
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Fourteen organisations offered comments on Friday regarding California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) grant requirements and application procedures for public housing broadband facilities and for broadband adoption efforts, which are generally reckoned to be digital literacy classes and “broadband access” programs – i.e. computer centers, hotspots and free computers – programs. Suggestions for how the CASF broadband infrastructure loan program should be wound down were also submitted.

The new adoption grant program, and the revisions to the public housing and infrastructure loan programs were mandated by assembly bill 1665, which was approved by the California legislature and signed into law last year.… More

Cable's broadband monopoly profile sharpens with 2017 results

16 March 2018 by Steve Blum
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Share of U.S. broadband households, as of 31 December 2017. Source: Leichtman Research Group.

Comcast and Charter own half of U.S. residential broadband subscribers, and their share of the market – if you want to call it that – is growing. That’s one of the conclusions gleaned from a tabulation of year-end 2017 financial reports by Leichtman Research Group. As with a similar count by FierceTelecom, the numbers show telcos continue to bleed subscribers profusely, while cable – and the overall broadband universe – keep on growing.… More

California senate considers expanded net neutrality rights and enforcement tools

15 March 2018 by Steve Blum
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A second, more detailed network neutrality revival bill is on the table at the California capitol. Senator Scott Wiener (D – San Francisco) introduced senate bill 822 earlier this year, but it was little more than a statement of intent to jump into the Internet regulation void left by the Federal Communications Commission when it repealed network neutrality rules and stripped broadband of its common carrier status. He amended it on Tuesday, adding in a long list of outlawed practices and ways to enforce the ban.… More