broadband

FCC blocks ViaSat's end run around rural experiment standards

13 December 2014 by Steve Blum
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You’ve got to hand it to the people at ViaSat. They don’t give up. If FCC tests – correctly – show that satellite Internet service has both advantages and disadvantages, then shout the good news loud enough to shake the rafters and browbeat the FCC into suppressing the bad. If the FCC wants to conduct an experiment to see if there are technologies and business models that can deliver urban-quality broadband service to rural customers, try to duck the quality requirements when no one is looking.… More

G.fast means fiber speeds over copper, up to a point

12 December 2014 by Steve Blum
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The point where the infrastructure collapses.

A short range, high speed technology standard for broadband over copper phone lines has been approved by the International Telecommunications Union. The G.fast standard is intended to make fiber-class speeds possible over legacy lines, with a maximum distance of 400 meters between the customer and the nearest fiber node.

Practical distances, though, are much shorter. “Service rate performance targets” – total bandwidth which can be split between up and down loads – are…

500-1000 Mb/s for FTTB deployments at less than 100m, straight loops
500 Mb/s at 100m
200 Mb/s at 200m
150 Mb/s at 250m

Bell Labs has succeeded in pushing a gigabit over 70 meters of pristine plant and 500 Mbps over 100 meters of lousy copper, using its implementation of an earlier version of the G.fast… More

Subsidising second class broadband is a bad deal for all Californians

11 December 2014 by Steve Blum
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Hotel WiFi service is usually good enough to deal with email, Facebook and airline check-ins. It’ll do the work you have to get done before morning – maybe even a Skype call. But it’s rarely robust enough to reliably watch videos or jam a deadline on virtualised enterprise services or relax with an online game. It’s not a workhorse you can depend on. It’s an amenity, no more able to support day to day business than the tiny pool and token workout room can handle Ironman base training – I know, I tried.… More

California beats the odds in FCC rural broadband experiments

10 December 2014 by Steve Blum
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Sometimes things turn out better than you might expect.

California came out pretty well in the FCC’s provisional rural broadband experiment decisions. Of the 40 bidders that were accepted, 3 proposed a total of 9 projects in California. That’s 11% of the total number of accepted projects. In dollar terms, projects in our state did even better, claiming $16 million of the $99.5 million, 16% of the money tentatively awarded by the FCC.

There wasn’t much information given about the projects or the bidders by the FCC, just names, number of bids selected, total amount of the grant requested and total number of census blocks covered.… More

Three broadband subsidy projects proposed in eastern California

9 December 2014 by Steve Blum
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Two companies – Race Telecommunications and Ultimate Internet Access – submitted a combined total of 3 broadband project proposals yesterday for consideration in the new round of California Advanced Services Fund grants and loans. All are in or near the desert areas northeast of Los Angeles.

Race’s application is for the Five Mining Communities project, which takes in Randsburg, Johannesburg, Red Mountain, Searles Valley and Trona, in the high desert where Inyo, Kern and San Bernardino counties meet.… More

FCC's chosen rural broadband experiments likely skew heavily towards wireless

9 December 2014 by Steve Blum
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The FCC has provisionally blessed 86 project bids submitted by 40 different companies for the rural broadband experiments program. The total tab is $99.5 million, just inside the $100 million limit for the program’s kitty. The companies selected have 10 days to submit the rest of the required financial, technical and other information.

It’s hard to tell much from the information released by the FCC – just total dollars and census blocks for each company.… More

Anti-trust hammer beats common carrier control of telecoms monopolies

8 December 2014 by Steve Blum
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There are three ways to deal with a monopoly, natural or otherwise: hope new technology will eventually render it obsolete, accept it but control it with regulation, or use anti-trust rules to break it up.

In a rapidly evolving environment, waiting out a monopoly can be a viable, if uncomfortably lengthy, strategy. Microsoft’s de facto user-side control of computer technology is long gone thanks to iOS, Android and Linux, and not because of the nibbling of regulatory snapping turtles.… More

Decision time nears for Google Fiber expansion

7 December 2014 by Steve Blum
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With Austin done and dusted, the next big decision point on Google’s fiber-to-the-home odyssey is: which cities will make the short list for the next round of builds? Back in May, after the deadline had passed for 34 cities to submit their responses to Google’s fiber ready checklist, the company said “We still plan to announce which cities will get Google Fiber by the end of the year“.

Well, it’s the end of the year.… More

Google Fiber sticks to $70 for a gig in Austin, TV costs more

6 December 2014 by Steve Blum
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Google Fiber is taking sign-ups in limited areas in the Austin, Texas area. Following the same path it took in the Kansas City area, Google says it’ll pick which neighborhoods – fiberhoods as it calls them – to build first based on the number of committed subscribers…

Whether you’re in a home, apartment, or a small business, you’ll notice that getting Google Fiber is a little different. We don’t choose which areas get Fiber — you and your neighbors do.

… More

ViaSat becomes a regulated telephone company, sorta

5 December 2014 by Steve Blum
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One of the big questions surrounding ViaSat’s request for an $11.1 million grant from the California Advanced Services Fund is whether it’s even eligible for the program. The California Public Utilities Commission said yes, it is eligible at yesterday’s meeting in San Francisco, approving ViaSat’s application for a certificate of public convenience and necessity (CPCN).

In other words, the satellite Internet service provider is now considered to be a regulated telephone company, to the extent that it’s engaging in the sort of business that the CPUC regulates.… More