ab1665

More voices join California broadband subsidy policy debate

26 May 2017 by Steve Blum
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A potential overhaul of the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) – the state’s primary broadband infrastructure subsidy program – was mooted at a California Public Utilities Commission workshop yesterday. The alternative scenarios that were presented were, to a large extent, wish lists from incumbents and, particularly, heavily weighted toward supplementing AT&T’s and Frontier’s business models – carving out federally funded areas, extending existing copper networks or focusing just on their territories for example.

Incumbents had good words for that approach – not surprising – but for the most part participants vocally opposed dropping the CASF performance threshold to 6 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload speeds, from its current 6 Mbps down/15 Mbps up level.… More

Formal opposition to California broadband subsidy grab filed

24 May 2017 by Steve Blum
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Although objections have been raised, legislative staff analyses have skated around the question of opposition to assembly bill 1665, which would effectively turn California’s broadband infrastructure subsidy program into a drawing account for AT&T and Frontier Communications.

No longer. The Central Coast Broadband Consortium (CCBC) submitted a letter, formally going on record opposing AB 1665. It highlighted the top three reasons it is bad public policy and bad for Californians…

  • Setting California’s minimum broadband standard at 6 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload speeds is a step backwards, at a time when we must all move forward together.
… More

Telcos' California cash grab gets a nod at the CPUC

22 May 2017 by Steve Blum
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Three parallel efforts are underway to rewrite the rules for California broadband infrastructure subsidies and use the money to support substandard service and technology deployed by AT&T and Frontier Communications. The legislature is considering assembly bill 1665, which would, among other things, add $300 million to the California Advanced Services Fund for broadband construction and operating costs, and effectively give it to AT&T and Frontier. The lower service standards and eligibility restrictions in the bill would keep independent Internet service providers out of most of rural California.… More

Broadband subsidy grab by telcos, cable faces budget scrutiny in Sacramento

17 May 2017 by Steve Blum
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The attempt to turn the California Advanced Services Fund – the state’s primary broadband infrastructure subsidy program – into a piggy bank for AT&T, Frontier and cable companies gets another hearing at the capitol today. Assembly bill 1665 will go before the assembly appropriations committee, which has responsibility for seeing that bills that raise money – in this case, reinstate a tax – and spend it are based on sound fiscal policy, both in isolation and in the context of California’s overall budget.… More

California broadband subsidy bill fertile ground for monopoly mushrooms

10 May 2017 by Steve Blum
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The attempt to redirect California’s broadband infrastructure subsidy program toward incumbent telephone and cable companies and away from independent, gigabit class projects and public housing communities is descending into Alice-in-Wonderland territory. The amended text of assembly bill 1665 is posted, and it begins with a stirring call to action for the greater good of California…

The availability of high-speed Internet access, referred to generically as “broadband” and including both wired and wireless technologies, is essential 21st century infrastructure for economic competitiveness and quality of life.

… More

CPUC, California lawmakers need to be as rational as a telecoms monopolist

8 May 2017 by Steve Blum
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Update: the CPUC delayed action on the Gigafy Phelan project, and rescheduled it for consideration at its 25 May 2107 meeting.

Frontier Communication’s request to the California Public Utilities Commission to squash a potential competitor is economically rational – it has a monopoly and wants to keep it – which is why it should be rejected. Utility regulators exist to moderate monopolist impulses, not turbocharge them. If the CPUC rejects a $29 million infrastructure grant request from Race Telecommunications for its Gigafy Phelan fiber to the premise project, it will be handing over effective broadband ownership of 8,000 San Bernardino County homes to Frontier, which in turn will redline 3,000 of them because they haven’t been blessed with federal subsidies.… More

Broadband customers love the message, hate the messenger

People in the U.S. love big shopping, food and consumer electronics brands, but are not high on utility, telecommunications and food delivery companies and banks. That’s one take-away from the spring 2017 edition of the list of “America’s most loved brands” by Morning Consult. What was published was only a partial list – intended to draw you in and sign you up for their service – but even so it offers some interesting insights into the way consumers view the companies and industries that compete for their affections.… More

Frontier makes the case, California's AB 1665 is double disaster

3 May 2017 by Steve Blum
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Frontier’s admittedly “late-filed” attempt to kill grant funding for the Gigafy Phelan fiber to the home proposal in San Bernardino County does a much better job of demonstrating why assembly bill 1665 is a bad idea than it does of effectively arguing against the project.

In addition to reinstating a tax on phone bills and adding $300 million to the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF), AB 1665 would lower California’s minimum broadband service standard to 6 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload speeds.… More

California assembly committee digs a deeper digital divide

27 April 2017 by Steve Blum
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Broadband service expectations are low and the appetite for funding independent, competitive broadband infrastructure is vanishingly small in the California assembly. Or at least in the communications and conveyance committee, which took up assembly bill 1665 yesterday.

Carried by assemblyman Eduardo Garcia (D – Coachella), AB 1665 would reinstate a tax on telephone bills and add $300 million to the California Advanced Services Fund’s (CASF) broadband infrastructure subsidy kitty (and $30 million to other programs).

But it would subsidise a dismal broadband landscape.… More

$300 million taxpayer gift to cable, telcos teed up in California assembly

26 April 2017 by Steve Blum
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California’s primary broadband infrastructure program – the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) – is about to get a makeover that’s custom tailored for the state’s two major incumbent telephone companies, with goodies for cable operators, so they don’t feel left out.

Assembly bill 1665, carried by Eduardo Garcia (D – Riverside County), is set to be rewritten by the assembly communications and conveyance committee this afternoon. Up until now it’s just been a placeholder bill, waiting for deals to be cut so the details could be filled in.… More