connect america fund

Spectrum is weak link in AT&T's copper retirement plan

15 November 2016 by Steve Blum
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Download while you can, that line of sight won’t go so far in spring.

Slowly, we’re learning more about AT&T’s plans to abandon wireline broadband service in rural areas of California, and replace it with what it calls wireless local loop. AT&T has been presenting its WLL roadshow to boards of supervisors around northern California, but the content is misleading – skipping the part about ending copper service, for example – and at times, completely false – federal Connect America Fund subsidies are not limited to wireless service, and may just as easily be spent on fiber.… More

California supervisors hear AT&T pitch, not told of plans to scrap copper service

31 October 2016 by Steve Blum
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AT&T’s rural California road show is continuing, as the company pitches county supervisors on the wonders of wireless service and the need for speedy approval of towers and other infrastructure, without making it clear that the plan is to use it to replace copper wire networks.

A story by Will Houston in the Eureka Times-Standard describes one such presentation to the Humboldt County board of supervisors…

AT&T is now looking to bring high-speed internet service to underserved areas in Humboldt County, which will require the company to construct new cell towers.

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AT&T copper network replacement presentation video posted

15 September 2016 by Steve Blum
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AT&T’s plan to replace rural copper networks in California with a fixed wireless broadband service running at 10 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload speeds was presented to the Eldorado County board of supervisors two days ago, on 13 September 2016. The conversion will be subsidised by the Federal Communications Commission’s Connect America Fund phase 2 program, which will give AT&T $360 million in California alone, and $2.6 billion nationwide.

The video was streamed live, and I’ve posted a recording to YouTube.… More

AT&T confirms plans to replace California copper service with wireless

14 September 2016 by Steve Blum
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Copper sunset.

AT&T will spend $360 million earmarked for broadband service improvements in rural California on fixed wireless broadband service and not on upgrading or maintaining existing wireline networks. That was the message from Alice Perez, an AT&T staff lobbyist, to the Eldorado County board of supervisors yesterday (h/t to Fred Pilot at the Eldo Telecom blog for the heads up). Nationwide, AT&T is getting a total of $2.6 billion in federal Connect America Fund (CAF) subsidies over six years to upgrade broadband speeds in predominantly rural areas.… More

California needs aggressive bids to win federal broadband subsidies

16 August 2016 by Steve Blum
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California has 88,000 eligible homes and businessesin the next round of federal Connect America Fund broadband subsidies. That round will be a reverse auction, where Internet service providers – including incumbent telcos – will compete for $1.3 billion that’s been earmarked for broadband upgrades in, mostly, rural areas.

Nationwide, the Federal Communications Commission has a total of 1.5 million homes and businesses on its preliminary eligibility list. About two-thirds of the Californian locations are in what are called extremely high cost areas, which means that the estimated per location subsidy necessary to convince a telco to build out broadband infrastructure is more than $1,200, according to the FCC’s funding model.… More

Speed doesn't matter so give us the money, Verizon tells FCC

15 August 2016 by Steve Blum
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Will the cherries blossom in Washington?

Verizon wants the Federal Communications Commission to give it an open and privileged path to do an end run around the statewide service obligations attached to the current round of Connect America Fund (CAF-2) rural broadband subsidies.

In comments it filed regarding the FCC’s proposed bidding rules for the next round of CAF-2 subsidies, Verizon wants extra credit given if it makes minimum service – 10 Mbps down/1 Mbps up – bids for unserved areas it turned down last year, but doesn’t want competing bids to be given greater weight if higher, even gigabit, speeds are offered, because, well, who needs all that bandwidth…

For every location in the gigabit tier that is awarded support because of a large weight, several other eligible locations would be left without any broadband service whatsoever.

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New federal broadband subsidies will favor states spurned by incumbents

7 June 2016 by Steve Blum
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Nevada gets a second chance.

Californian communities are not likely to figure prominently in the Federal Communication Commission’s list of areas that’ll be eligible for its next round of Connect America Fund 2 broadband subsidies. That’s because the big incumbent carriers – AT&T and Frontier – exercised their right of first refusal in the last round and picked up a total of $590 million over six years in exchange for promising to upgrade most of their substandard California service territories to 10 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload speeds.… More

Faster speeds can offset higher costs in FCC broadband subsidy auction

1 June 2016 by Steve Blum
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What do I hear bid?

The Federal Communications Commission is defining 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload speeds as “baseline performance” for the next round of Connect America Fund 2 (CAF-2) broadband subsidies. It’s not a hard requirement, but speeds at or above that level will give applicants extra credit when the FCC runs a reverse auction – probably later this year – to award $215 million in annual subsidies for ten years in eligible areas that weren’t included in the last round of CAF-2 awards.… More

FCC says 150 GB is all rural residents need

6 April 2016 by Steve Blum
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Urban benchmarks for rural residents. Right.


Telephone companies that get federal subsidies to provide rural broadband service have to offer at least one service package with a monthly data cap of 150 GB and charge no more than $71 for it. That’s the top line from an annual survey run by the Federal Communications Commission to set benchmark rates for subsidised service in high cost – also known as rural – areas.
The survey looks at rates paid by consumers in urban areas, in particular those served by cable and fiber to the home systems, and the amount of data they use every month.… More

Anza FTTH project approved for funding by CPUC

21 December 2015 by Steve Blum
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Desert communities get competing broadband subsidies from California, feds.

The Anza Electric Cooperative will get $2.7 million from the California Advanced Services Fund to build a fiber to the home system throughout its service area in western Riverside County. The California Public Utilities Commission approved the grant at its meeting on thursday. According to the resolution…

This project is economical and provides a wide benefit. The CASF per-household subsidy is $710 per household (based on 3,751 households that will have access).

… More