Tight limits on local review of cell site expansions just got tighter, as FCC widens preemptions

15 June 2020 by Steve Blum
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On a party line vote last week – republicans yes, democrats no – the Federal Communications Commission further preempted local government control over wireless facilities such as cell sites and towers. The ruling tightens enforcement of a 60-day shot clock for local permit approval of what it reckons to be minor modifications to a site. If time expires, the permit is "deemed granted. It also bans additional aesthetic requirements and widens a loophole that allows wireless companies to escape existing ones.… More

AT&T blows off net neutrality as it zero rates HBO Max

12 June 2020 by Steve Blum
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Marvin fire

AT&T is giving its HBO Max streaming service a free ride on its mobile broadband network. The bandwidth consumed by AT&T mobile customers while watching HBO Max programming won’t be counted against their monthly data caps. According to a story in The Verge by Nilay Patel, AT&T’s streaming competition won’t get the same zero rating treatment…

HBO Max, AT&T’s big bet on the future of streaming, will be excused from AT&T’s mobile data caps, while competing services like Netflix and Disney Plus will use up your data…

AT&T…confirmed to The Verge that HBO Max will be excused from the company’s traditional data caps and the soft data caps on unlimited plans.

… More

CPUC knows how to end taxpayer-funded middle mile fiber grabs. As it should

11 June 2020 by Steve Blum
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It can be done right. As it has.

One of the challenges to broadband subsidy proposals submitted to the California Public Utilities Commission this week shows why open access middle mile fiber is a necessity for closing rural broadband gaps, and how the lack of it is a major barrier to improving Internet service in California.

Plumas Sierra Telecommunications, which is the telecoms arm of the Plumas Sierra Electric Cooperative, objects to Frontier’s request for money to pay for a building a middle mile fiber route to reach the towns of Herlong and Janesville in Lassen County.… More

AT&T rejects California disaster response obligations

10 June 2020 by Steve Blum
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AT&T is striking back at covid–19 emergency relief measures adopted by the California Public Utilities Commission. Flanked by Verizon and T-Mobile (via the mobile industry’s lobbying front organisation), AT&T wants the CPUC to repeal rules that require the company to waive things like installation or remote call forwarding fees when people are forced to relocate because of the covid–19 emergency. Those are CPUC mandates that also apply to any other “housing or financial crisis due to a disaster”.… More

14 ISPs try to block competitors’ broadband upgrades in rural California

9 June 2020 by Steve Blum
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Update, 12 June 2020: I found another challenge that I missed the first time around. Valley Internet filed against Web Perception’s Sonoma/Napa project. Comcast also challenged it, so the count is still 34 projects out of 54 facing challenges, with a new total of 17 ISPs filing. I updated the list below, but the live list for CASF project tracking is here.

Update, 10 June 2020: A late notice, from Succeed, brings the total number of projects challenged to 34 out of 54, and the number of ISPs filing challenges to 16.… More

Cable, mobile companies fight rollback of perks they’ve paid California lawmakers big bucks to write

8 June 2020 by Steve Blum
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Special privileges that cable companies and mobile carriers have bought from the California legislature over the years could be rolled back a bit if two bills approved by the California senate’s energy, utilities and communications (EU&C) committee make it into law.

Senate bill 1058, authored by Ben Hueso (D – San Diego), would require “every Internet service provider” (as the legislative counsel’s digest put it) to “file an annual emergency operations plan” with the California Public Utilities Commission.… More

Newsom, CPUC line up on (relatively) minor changes to California broadband subsidy program

5 June 2020 by Steve Blum
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A second, perhaps competing, revision to California’s broadband infrastructure subsidy program is queued up for possible consideration at the state capitol. The California Public Utilities Commission is proposing changes to the law governing the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF), to make it easier to use it to attract federal broadband money to the state by supplementing the budgets of projects competing for federal grants.

The administration’s proposal is flying under the radar right now. It’s consistent with the vague reference to better competing for federal broadband dollars in governor Gavin Newsom’s budget revision last month.… More

California broadband subsidy bill slows down to 25 Mbps copper speeds, with “a goal” of fiber for all

4 June 2020 by Steve Blum
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Broadband projects subsidised by the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) wouldn’t have to be all fiber, according to the latest changes to senate bill 1130. The amendments, published late Tuesday night, lower the minimum broadband service speeds supported by new, subsidised infrastructure from 100 Mbps download/100 Mbps upload, which only full fiber to the premise facilities can deliver on a mass market basis, to 25 Mbps download/3 Mbps upload, which is within the range of middling copper-based DSL systems.… More

FCC skeptical about magic wireless solutions as it sets rules for rural broadband subsidy auction

3 June 2020 by Steve Blum
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The Federal Communications Commission will push ahead with its plan to distribute $16 billion (of an eventual $20 billion total) in broadband subsidies via a reverse auction in late October. In a draft notice that will be finalised at its June meeting next week, the FCC lays out rules, procedures and standards for Internet service providers that want to submit bids for money from the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund. It also rejects a request from the California Public Utilities Commission to delay the auction for four months.… More

Five telecoms bills cling to life in the California legislature as deadlines pass

2 June 2020 by Steve Blum
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Compressed deadlines at the California legislature will leave several telecommunications bills for dead, as attention turns toward the 15 June 2020 constitutionally mandated date for passing the annual state budget. With weeks taken out of the normal schedule by the covid–19 lockdown, and committee work hampered by social distancing and quarantine measures, far fewer bills are expected to make it out of the Sacramento sausage machine this year.

Four bills are moving ahead: senate bill 1130, a broadband subsidy bill I wrote about last Wednesday, two bills that lean into broadband regulation – SB 1058 and SB 1069 – that I’ll write about later, and assembly bill 2421, which would require local governments to fast track permit approvals for emergency generators needed to keep cell sites running.… More