broadband

Datawind squeezes costs out of bandwidth for developing markets

4 October 2014 by Steve Blum
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$80 for a tablet with a year of mobile Internet service included is a powerful selling proposition, particularly in the developing markets that Datawind is targeting. The Canadian company showed its newest tablet – priced at $38 with WiFi connectivity only – at the Showstoppers event at the CTIA show in Las Vegas last month.

Datawind has solved two tough problems: making a cheap and functional tablet and bundling it with even cheaper mobile service in a useful way.… More

New prevailing wage law puts Californian ISPs and broadband upgrade projects at risk

3 October 2014 by Steve Blum
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Assume that any broadband construction work done in conjunction with a subsidy from the California Advanced Services Fund on or after 1 January 2015 has to comply with prevailing wage laws. Including the obligation to comply with a mountain of rules and paperwork. A new law approved by Governor Brown on Tuesday is very specific: CASF subsidies turn infrastructure builds into public works projects, which have to comply with union pay scales and rules.

Existing law has an exception for “work done directly by any public utility company pursuant to order of the Public Utilities Commission or other public authority”.… More

State telecoms regulators are broadband data takers, not makers anymore

2 October 2014 by Steve Blum
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The data used to drive the California broadband availability map and similar state-level projects will reverse its flow. Carriers and ISPs, including the likes of AT&T and Comcast, will lump all their nationwide broadband availability information together and file it with the FCC, instead of submitting it state by state as they do now, where it’s vetted locally and then rolled up at a national level.

The change is due to the end of the original funding provided by American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (aka ARRA, aka stimulus program).… More

Governor hamstrings California's broadband subsidy fund, pleases cable, telcos, unions

1 October 2014 by Steve Blum
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With a stroke of Governor Brown’s pen, the cost of building independent broadband infrastructure using money from the California Advanced Services Fund has nearly doubled. Without comment, he signed assembly bill 2272 yesterday.

The new law, which takes effect in January, brings all CASF-subsidised broadband infrastructure projects under so-called prevailing wage rules, which impose union pay scales and work rules – often determined on a statewide basis – regardless of the typical construction costs and practices in a local area.… More

Governor Brown signs community broadband bond financing bills into law

30 September 2014 by Steve Blum
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Cities and other local agencies in California will be able to issue bonds to pay for building broadband infrastructure, thanks to two new laws approved by Governor Brown yesterday. Assembly bill 2292 and senate bill 628 expand the use of infrastructure financing districts (IFDs), on the one hand specifically allowing broadband to be included in old-style IFDs and creating a new kind, called enhanced infrastructure financing districts, on the other. In both cases, the bonds can be repaid by earmarking the incremental tax revenue that the project is expected to produce.… More

California assemblyman gushes over Comcast and takes its cash

29 September 2014 by Steve Blum
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Comcast is a model of modern corporate responsibility, according to assemblyman Adam Gray (D – Merced). In a letter he submitted to the FCC and cited by Comcast as a reason its mega-merger with Time-Warner and market swap with Charter should be approved, Gray showers his love on the company…

I am writing in support of the proposed transaction between Comcast and Time Warner Cable, because, while my constituents appreciate Comcast as a service provider, we are even more grateful to them for their investments in our community.

… More

Everyone's picking on us, Comcast tells FCC

26 September 2014 by Steve Blum
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Comcast has slammed back at critics of its proposed mega merger and market swap with Time-Warner and Charter. In a filing with the FCC, Comcast played the victim, claiming that companies and organisations that oppose the deal are just trying to feather their nests at its expense.

The California Emerging Technology Fund’s criticism of the Internet Essentials program in particular got under Comcast’s typically thin corporate skin. CETF submitted well-documented comments showing how the program – intended to provide affordable Internet service to low income families – is more sham than show.… More

Is Google Fiber making a power (zone) play in Austin?

25 September 2014 by Steve Blum
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Google has finally broken ground in Austin, Texas for its third fiber-to-the-home project. The announcement came in a blog post, complete with a couple of pictures that show guys boring a hole in the ground for conduit and doing something – it’s not clear what – with a power transformer on a utility pole.

Yes, the guy in the bucket truck is working in the power zone – the area of the the pole reserved for electrical distribution.… More

Comcast tells FCC OK, maybe it isn't so easy to compete against us

24 September 2014 by Steve Blum
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If you want to go head to head with Comcast, you better have deep pockets. That’s the gist of Comcast’s response to a question from the FCC regarding the barriers faced by new Internet service providers: “describe the minimum viable scale necessary for entry, including…the number of subscribers and advertisers needed to break-even”.

I’m still slogging through the filing – it runs more than 250 pages – but Ars Technica has a good overview (h/t to the Baller-Herbst list for the pointer).… More

For broadband subsidies, CPUC says real world performance counts more than mobile carrier claims

23 September 2014 by Steve Blum
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Urban California has far better mobile broadband service than rural areas of the state. That’s one of the conclusions of a study done for the California Public Utilities Commission analysing millions of field tests done at thousands of locations statewide (H/T to Jim Warner for the pointer). The study also shows that getting a true picture of what consumers can expect to experience requires factoring in the unreliability of cellular data systems.

Mobile service counts when the CPUC decides whether a community has an adequate level of broadband service.… More