broadband

California dig once broadband conduit bill heard and held

2 August 2016 by Steve Blum
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Wasn’t Caltrans supposed to tell us about this?

The California legislature returned from its summer break yesterday, and immediately got to work on broadband-related issues. The big one on the table yesterday was assembly bill 1549.

Testifying in front of the senate appropriations committee, the bill’s author, assemblyman Jim Wood (D – Healdsburg) said that Caltrans isn’t following an executive order by then governor Arnold Schwarzenegger directing it to cooperate with broadband development efforts, and was lackadaisical about the one open trench pilot program that it ran…

AB 1549 puts in statute many of the requirements of the executive order from 2006.

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Fiber gems stand out on California's central coast

27 July 2016 by Steve Blum
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The industrial/commercial broadband Star Rating system developed by Tellus Venture Associates for the Broadband Consortium of the Pacific Coast shows a wide variation in high grade broadband infrastructure across San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties.

In the BCPC region, most commercial and industrial census blocks rated 1 Star or less, however there were ample instances of 2 Star, 3 Star and even some 4 Star Ratings. The highest aggregate rating for a city was found in San Luis Obispo, which rated 2 Stars overall.… More

Star Ratings show where to find high tech, industrial class broadband

26 July 2016 by Steve Blum
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Click to get the methodology, maps are below.

The best place on California’s south central coast – on the whole – to look for commercial or industrial real estate with access to fast, fiber optic broadband service is San Luis Obispo. But there are plenty of other cities in the SLO – Santa Barbara – Ventura county region with pockets of fiber availability that are as good or, in many cases, better.

In the course of a doing a regional broadband assessment for the Broadband Consortium of the Pacific Coast (BCPC), we developed a method for rating the availability of commercial and industrial-class broadband infrastructure.… More

Mobile data lifeline can't hold its own weight

25 July 2016 by Steve Blum
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You need a thick line, not a slim thread.

Verizon is kicking heavy bandwidth users off of its unlimited mobile data plans. That begs the question of what exactly unlimited means, but that’s for another time. The justification Verizon offers, though, shows why the Federal Communications Commission’s plan to include grossly inferior mobile service in its broadband lifeline program is nonsense. As reported by Fierce Wireless, Verizon said it can’t handle the load…

“Because our network is a shared resource and we need to ensure all customers have a great mobile experience with Verizon, we are notifying a very small group of customers on unlimited plans who use an extraordinary amount of data that they must move to one of the new Verizon Plans by August 31, 2016.

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California's broadband speeds get average marks from Akamai

24 July 2016 by Steve Blum
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Internet connection speeds in California are better than the national average, but not by much and not by enough to be amongst the leaders. According to Akamai’s State of the Internet Report for the first quarter of 2016, the average speed at which Californians connected to its content distribution network was 16.4 Mbps. That compares favorably to the U.S. average of 15.3 Mbps, but it is well behind the leader, Delaware, which averaged 21.2 Mbps.… More

California broadband consortia inch forward

21 July 2016 by Steve Blum
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Urgency means different things to different people.

Three regional broadband consortia have a tentative okay for operating money from the California Advanced Services Fund. The California Public Utilities Commission is scheduled to vote on grants for the Central Coast Broadband Consortium, the East Bay Broadband Consortium and the Tahoe Basin Project at its 18 August 2016 meeting (assuming an email error on Tuesday by the CPUC doesn’t delay it). Commissioners will be considering a draft resolution released on Tuesday that, if adopted, will approve the awards.… More

Cable and telco mix on California's central coast offers broadband highs and lows

20 July 2016 by Steve Blum
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Click for the details.

The low water mark for broadband on California’s central coast is the Monterey-San Luis Obispo county line. As you move north or south from there along the route of the historic El Camino Real, broadband infrastructure gradually gets better, before hitting high water marks in Silicon Valley and Ventura County.

That’s the top line finding from a study I recently completed for the Broadband Consortium of the Pacific Coast. Northern SLO County has an uneven mix of legacy Verizon – now, Frontier – and AT&T systems, some lacking even 1990s grade DSL service, plus some below average Charter cable systems along a narrow corridor either side of U.S.… More

Hard deadline for money beats soft promise of broadband investment

19 July 2016 by Steve Blum
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No. You show yours first.

By a four to one vote, the California Public Utilities Commission approved a $1.5 million grant to build a fiber to the home project in Nicasio, a wealthy community in western Marin County. As has become common, commission president Michael Picker cast the only no vote. The grant from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) covers 60% of construction costs; the remaining 40% will be raised locally…

The required matching funds plus costs of offering will be obtained by a notes offering, which will be registered with the California Department of Business Oversight under the Securities & Exchange Commission’s standardized process, the Small Company Offering Registration (SCOR) process.

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Scraping up California legislature's telecoms road kill

12 July 2016 by Steve Blum
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The big impact telecoms legislation proposed so far in Sacramento this year is dead, the victim of opposition and inattention. That’s not to belittle the handful of telecoms bills awaiting action in August, but nothing that’s on the table right now would have the sweeping impact of some of the ones that didn’t make it.

Top of list was assembly bill 2395, a measure custom written by AT&T and carried by Evan Low, an accomodating assemblyman from Silicon Valley.… More

California broadband policy bills await action in August

8 July 2016 by Steve Blum
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Right after summer break.

Other than the yet-to-be-defined regulatory reform package aimed at overhauling the California Public Utilities Commission, only a handful of telecoms-related bills will remain on the table when the California legislature returns from its month long summer break in August.

Assembly bill 2570 would make it harder for people receiving lifeline telephone subsidies to switch plans by setting a two month waiting period and would require the CPUC to reimburse phone companies relatively quickly or pay penalties.… More