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Frontier's two buck suck tests FCC's consumer protection claims

16 December 2017 by Steve Blum
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Frontier Communication’s broadband customers might want to take up the offer of fierce consumer fraud protection that the Federal Communication Commission made as it issued its network belligerence decision this week. They thought they were getting broadband service at a stated price, but Frontier surprised them by adding a $2 “Internet infrastructure surcharge” to their bills. Because it could.

The charge is an attempt by Frontier to advertise a low price for broadband service, while charging a higher one.… More

The Internet goes from ping to Pong as big cable, telcos take control

15 December 2017 by Steve Blum
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Pay to play.

A brief pause for a bomb threat aside, yesterday’s Federal Communications Commission vote to end broadband’s common carrier status as a telecommunications service, and net neutrality rules with it, went as expected. The three republican commissioners voted in favor of the change, the two democrats voted against and all five made speeches explaining why they were voting the way they always said they would vote (links below). There was no indication that the final order approved yesterday differed significantly – or at all – from the draft published three weeks ago.… More

California broadband decisions hide in D.C.'s shadow today

14 December 2017 by Steve Blum
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The big broadband news will be coming from the FCC later this morning (although there won’t be much, if anything, that’s actually new). But the California Public Utilities Commission is also meeting today, with a handful of broadband-related issues to decide.

One of the resolutions up for a vote would slap down a request from the CPUC’s office of ratepayer advocates to take another look at how cable companies are (not) held accountable under California’s statewide franchising law.… More

No last minute reprieve, no surprises as FCC heads for net neutrality vote

13 December 2017 by Steve Blum
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There seems no stopping the Federal Communications Commission’s republican majority plan to end broadband’s status as a common carrier service and, as a result, kill network neutrality obligations for service providers. The decision is scheduled for tomorrow morning, and FCC chair Ajit Pai has either ignored or explicitly rejected the three main arguments for delaying a vote.

One of those arguments should be ignored. Much has been made about the spam submitted along with substantive comments on the issue.… More

PG&E must put all its fiber on the market, not just the bits it, or others, want sold

12 December 2017 by Steve Blum
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PG&E agrees with many of the restrictions that the California Public Utilities Commission’s office of ratepayer advocates (ORA) wants to put on its proposed telecommunications business plan. Without knowing the details of PG&E’s 2,600 mile fiber network in northern California, it’s impossible to know whether that climb down is a strategic retreat or a concession rendered meaningless by the simple facts of its infrastructure or business plan.

The CPUC is reviewing PG&E’s application for certification as a telephone company.… More

CPUC review of PG&E telecoms plan must focus on big picture, not narrow interests

11 December 2017 by Steve Blum
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Three groups filed testimony with the California Public Utilities Commission opposing PG&E’s plan to put its 2,600 miles of fiber on the market, as dark strands and for lit service (links are below). Caltel, a lobbying group for telecoms resellers – CLECs – offered quibbling and self-interested comments. The two others – the CPUC’s office of ratepayer advocates and TURN, an old school utility consumer advocacy organisation – urged the CPUC to either reject the plan or cripple it with nonsensical restrictions, on the basis of an outdated and narrow view of what utility regulation is all about.… More

End of net neutrality means more corporate control of Central Coast media and speech

10 December 2017 by Steve Blum
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I was asked to write a piece on net neutrality from a Central Coast perspective, for Santa Cruz TechBeat, and thought it might be worth reposting here, with some minor updating…

The Federal Communications Commission is on a fast and narrow track to repeal network neutrality rules and declare broadband industry regulation off limits. The three republican commissioners say they’ll vote on Thursday to scrap the broadband regulatory regime enacted during the Obama administration, also on a 3 to 2 party line vote.… More

App challenge: what if you knew an earthquake will hit 5 seconds from now?

9 December 2017 by Steve Blum
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The biggest natural disaster threat to Californians comes from earthquakes, wild fires notwithstanding. One quake can take out more homes, businesses and infrastructure in a few seconds than all of this year’s fires combined. There’s no scientifically valid way of predicting earthquakes, so most people assume they strike without warning.

Not so. Earthquakes run for many seconds, even minutes. The first vibrations that ripple out are called P-waves, which seldom do damage but carry critical information about location and intensity several seconds ahead of the big shake.… More

Comcast, AT&T have the traffic cones ready for Internet slow lanes

8 December 2017 by Steve Blum
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AT&T and Comcast are offering two good reasons for keeping broadband under the common carrier regulatory umbrella, and not scraping network neutrality rules. Not that they meant to do that. It’s just their nature.

Comcast is backing away from an unconditional promise to abide by net neutrality principles, regardless of whether or not federal rules require it to do so. That pledge was made in 2014, while Comcast was in the middle of an unsuccessful attempt to add cable systems owned by Time Warner and Charter Communications to its portfolio.… More

AT&T, Frontier talk to CPUC about future networks, without putting all cards on the table

7 December 2017 by Steve Blum
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The California Public Utilities Commission looked at telephone company plans to replace copper networks and plain old telephone service (POTS) with new technology at a workshop in San Francisco yesterday. Representatives from AT&T and Frontier Communications talked about some, but not all, of those plans, as I pointed out in the remarks I prepared, and mostly delivered, at the workshop…

The copper-to-IP transition involves three discrete but inter-related issues. Only two of those issues were addressed today.

… More