broadband grades – Steve Blum's Blog

Tahoe’s broadband speeds lag far behind California’s average

25 June 2019 by Steve Blum
att, broadband grades, charter, monopoly, tahoe

Broadband infrastructure in South Lake Tahoe, and the Tahoe basin in general, is poor. Based on the latest broadband availability information released by the California Public Utilities Commission, no city or unincorporated community around Lake Tahoe gets an infrastructure grade of better than F+.

In a presentation to the South Lake Tahoe city council, I discussed how the city ended up with an F on its broadband report card. The two primary wireline broadband providers are AT&T and Charter Communications, and their service reports clearly show that, as of 31 December 2017, neither had upgraded their facilities to the Californian average and were unable to deliver even a minimum acceptable speed level to consumers.… More

Broadband grades depend on copper and glass

23 March 2014 by Steve Blum
att, broadband, broadband grades, comcast, ebbc, public policy, regional consortia

Examples of how the grading was done.
The grading system I developed to rate and compare the broadband infrastructure available to communities east of San Francisco – Alameda, Contra Costa and Solano Counties – focuses on primary, consumer wireline networks because those are the base upon which all service is built…

Even wireless systems must connect to wireline networks at some point, usually directly after the first “hop” from a subscriber. Consequently, the level of broadband connectivity in a region is primarily determined by the quality and extent of wireline facilities.

… More