broadband

Twenty-seven CASF applications accepted, now open to challenge

12 February 2013 by Steve Blum
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The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has posted the official list of thirty-one projects that are in the running for California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) grants and loans. The total comes to about $256 million.

Four projects, totaling about $32 million, are listed as “pending”. That means there’s still some work to be done before the requests can be considered.

As of 12 February 2013.

The challenge clock is running on the other twenty-seven applications. Competing service providers who disagree with an applicant’s assertion that a given area is under or unserved can contest a project’s eligibility for funding.… More

Beefier mobile data networks slim medical costs

11 February 2013 by Steve Blum
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https://www.withings.com/en/press/mediakits
Download an app, upload your blood pressure.

Health care is a major driver of booming mobile data traffic. The growth in machine-to-machine (M2M) communications means we’re nearly in a world with more mobile data accounts than people, and networked medical devices, wearable and otherwise, are a principal reason.

In the same five years that’ll see a billion and a half M2M devices added to global networks, just the number of U.S. patients receiving being monitored remotely will grow to 1.3 million, according to projections just released by IMS Research.… More

Health care driving mobile M2M traffic

10 February 2013 by Steve Blum
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Bits keep you fit.

Some time this year, we’ll hit the point where there are more connected devices on mobile networks than there are people on the planet. That doesn’t mean everyone everywhere will have a smartphone. A lot of people have more than one device, of course. And a growing share of those connections don’t involve human beings at all.

According to a report on worldwide mobile data traffic just released by Cisco, 369 million machine-to-machine (M2M) devices accounted for 3% of global traffic last year.… More

Cisco forecasts booming mobile traffic

8 February 2013 by Steve Blum
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WiFi, femtocells supporting mobile data growth.

A third of mobile data traffic isn’t really mobile. It’s offloaded onto WiFi networks and femtocells, most commonly when consumers use their mobile devices at home.

That’s just one of many fascinating findings in Cisco’s latest report on global mobile data traffic. No surprise: it’s growing at a rapid rate, increasing 70% worldwide in 2012. If it weren’t for offloading onto fixed networks, last year’s increase would have been 96%, assuming mobile carriers could have handled the load.… More

CASF grant requests triple the $75 million likely to be in the bank

The grant proposals filed with the California Public Utilities Commission CPUC) on Friday totaled about $246 million. It looks to be about three times the amount of money that will be available in the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) when the Commission votes on the requests later this year. Five of the thirty proposals were submitted with the assistance of Tellus Venture Associates.

In 2010 the California legislature gave the CPUC authority to collect an additional $125 million for CASF via a surcharge on phone bills.… More

Most CASF money requested is for fiber

3 February 2013 by Steve Blum
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The California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) proposal count is now an even 30, with a total of $246 million requested. That’s more than twice the available money in the CASF kitty.

A $13.3 million middle mile project linking Santa Cruz to Soledad in Monterey County is proposed by Sunesys, working with U.C. Santa Cruz.

Nearly half of the total – $119 million – is for the other middle project, a 2,200 mile fiber build through 16 rural Northern California counties.… More

$230 million and counting

At least $230 million in grant and loan proposals were sent to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) yesterday, and more is to come. I’ve seen a total of 29 projects from 15 different organizations. Most of the requests – almost $229 million – are for grants, but half a dozen also requested loans totaling nearly $2 million.

The CPUC doesn’t have that much money in the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF). They have something like $150 million left of their original authorization, but probably only about half that is in the bank.… More

CASF requests pushing $200 million already


Big ask for a big project.

I’m counting about twenty applications for California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) grants and loans tonight. The deadline just passed, and the dust hasn’t settled from the email service list yet. So there might be – probably will be – more. But the total is pushing close to $200 million, which means there’s going to be some tough decisions coming at the California Public Utilities Commission.

It looks like the combined proposals will go well over the CASF’s authorized limit, let alone what they have on hand.… More

Where consumer broadband leads, business follows


Newark, California rates a solid “C” for residential broadband but drops to a red “D” or grey “f” in the working districts of the city.

There are two worlds of commercial and industrial grade broadband: the specialized business broadband companies and the major incumbent carriers. Analysis of commercial broadband availability in California’s East Bay region shows that many specialized providers want to compete, but can be limited in the scope of their services by basic infrastructure provided by the big guys.… More

Report card: competition boosts broadband in California's East Bay region

28 January 2013 by Steve Blum
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Top and bottom of the chart.

The best residential broadband in California’s East Bay region is in the City of Concord. It was the only one of the forty cities studied that rated an “A” grade in research conducted for the East Bay Broadband Consortium (EBBC) by Tellus Venture Associates.

The neighboring cities of Walnut Creek and Pleasant Hill received “B” grades, with a high “C” given to Berkeley and Alameda. The common characteristic amongst all five is competition.… More