cpuc – Page 45 – Steve Blum's Blog

CenturyLink takeover of Level 3 challenged in California

11 May 2017 by Steve Blum
centurylink, cpuc, level 3, monopoly, public policy

The proposed purchase of Level 3 by CenturyLink faces two formal protests in California. One comes from a coalition of consumer advocacy groups – TURN, the Greenlining Institute and the California Public Utilities Commission’s office of ratepayer advocates – and the other from the California Emerging Technology Fund. Both generally focus on the impact that rolling together two of California’s four major fiber companies would have on broadband availability, on both a wholesale and retail basis.… More

CPUC, California lawmakers need to be as rational as a telecoms monopolist

8 May 2017 by Steve Blum
ab1665, casf, cpuc, frontiercommunications, public policy

Update: the CPUC delayed action on the Gigafy Phelan project, and rescheduled it for consideration at its 25 May 2107 meeting.

Frontier Communication’s request to the California Public Utilities Commission to squash a potential competitor is economically rational – it has a monopoly and wants to keep it – which is why it should be rejected. Utility regulators exist to moderate monopolist impulses, not turbocharge them. If the CPUC rejects a $29 million infrastructure grant request from Race Telecommunications for its Gigafy Phelan fiber to the premise project, it will be handing over effective broadband ownership of 8,000 San Bernardino County homes to Frontier, which in turn will redline 3,000 of them because they haven’t been blessed with federal subsidies.… More

Fresno broadband subsidy proposal scores two major, welcome firsts

4 May 2017 by Steve Blum
broadband, calneva, casf, cpuc, public policy

Update: the CPUC unanimously approved the grant for the CalNeva project in Coalinga and Huron at its 11 May 2017 meeting.

For the first time, a cable company is in line for a broadband construction subsidy from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF). The California Public Utilities Commission is expected to decide whether or not to give CalNeva Broadband a $511,000 grant to upgrade former Comcast cable systems in Coalinga and Huron in Fresno County and provide broadband and television service to 5,500 homes.… More

Frontier makes the case, California's AB 1665 is double disaster

3 May 2017 by Steve Blum
ab1665, casf, cpuc, frontiercommunications, public policy

Frontier’s admittedly “late-filed” attempt to kill grant funding for the Gigafy Phelan fiber to the home proposal in San Bernardino County does a much better job of demonstrating why assembly bill 1665 is a bad idea than it does of effectively arguing against the project.

In addition to reinstating a tax on phone bills and adding $300 million to the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF), AB 1665 would lower California’s minimum broadband service standard to 6 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload speeds.… More

Frontier Communications hates double dipping, unless it's licking the cone

2 May 2017 by Steve Blum
casf, cpuc, frontiercommunications, public policy, race telecommunications

Federal subsidies are in the pink.

As might be expected, Frontier Communications objects to a proposed $29 million California Advanced Services Fund subsidy for a fiber to the home project in its San Bernardino County territory. Its first instinct was to try to a backdoor approach at the California Public Utilities Commission, but that was rebuffed. So yesterday Frontier filed formal comments urging the CPUC to kill the Gigafy Phelan project when it comes up for a vote next week.… More

CPUC will decide if CenturyLink can buy Level 3

1 May 2017 by Steve Blum
centurylink, cpuc, level 3, monopoly, public policy

CenturyLink and Level 3 have finally admitted that they need to do more than just throw a note through the window in order to get the California Public Utilities Commission’s approval of their pending transaction. The deal was done last October, but the two companies waited five months to formally apply for permission to transfer Level 3’s California telephone certifications to CenturyLink.

During that time, they tried to convince CPUC staff that it was a purely administrative matter that could be handled with a perfunctory paper shuffle.… More

Subsidise what we're already doing, telecoms companies tell CPUC

17 April 2017 by Steve Blum
att, broadband, casf, cpuc, public policy

Give me the money!

Big telecoms companies don’t want California broadband infrastructure subsidies to go to potential competitors, and they don’t want to be pushed into spending any more capital on upgrades than they’ve already budgeted. AT&T, Frontier Communications and the cable industry’s California lobbying front took a defensive posture in comments regarding broadband development priorities drafted by the California Public Utilities Commission. It was in response to a staff white paper that took a first shot at a quantitative analysis of how to get the greatest benefit out of the roughly $60 million still available for infrastructure grants in the California Advanced Services Fund.… More

California broadband subsidies should build, not follow, business case

14 April 2017 by Steve Blum
broadband, casf, cpuc, public policy

More than twenty companies and organisations offered their critiques of the first draft of a bang for the buck analysis of where the California Public Utilities Commission might focus its dwindling broadband infrastructure subsidy money. Many of the comments can be summed up as give me the money, with incumbent telcos and cable companies laying down defensive fire aimed at heading off potential competition – more about that on Monday.

Three of the commenters – the Karuk Tribe, and the CPUC’s office of ratepayer advocates and the consumer group TURN in a joint submission – made a fair point about the overall approach: by prioritising communities with bigger, denser populations, the analysis paralleled the sort of market evaluation done by Internet service providers when they decide whether or not to serve a particular area.… More

PG&E seeks to use its California fiber to compete as a telco

12 April 2017 by Steve Blum
broadband, competition, cpuc, PGE, public policy

A vast, competitive fiber network will soon open up in northern California, if the California Public Utilities approves Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s request to operate as a telephone company. PG&E applied for a telco-style certificate of public convenience and necessity (CPCN) so it could sell services on the fiber network it’s built throughout California. Currently, it only allows other certified telephone companies to use its fiber, which was mostly built to support its own operations.… More

Gigabit fiber in San Bernardino County heads for CPUC vote

10 April 2017 by Steve Blum
casf, cpuc, ftth, fttp, race telecommunications

A fiber to the premise project for San Bernardino County – largest yet – is scheduled to go in front of the California Public Utilities Commission in May. A draft resolution was published on Friday, which proposes to award $29 million to Race Telecommunications from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) to build an FTTP system in and around the San Bernardino County communities of Phelan, Piñon Hills, Oak Hills and Hesperia.

As designed, it would pass 8,400 homes, which is “the most households ever given access by a CASF-subsidized last-mile project”, according to the draft.… More