muni broadband

Broadband UTOPIA starts at $23 a month for cities that remain in the game

5 March 2015 by Steve Blum
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Click for the full report.

Only six of eleven Utah cities involved in the UTOPIA fiber-to-the-home system chose to move ahead with a bail out plan proposed by Macquarie Capital, an Australian investment company. As a result, the proposed monthly tax bill (characterised as a “mandatory utility fee”) for homeowners in the reduced project area has jumped from $18 to $20 per month to the current estimate of $22.60 and a cap of $25. That’s just to pay for building out the network to every home and business in those cities.… More

FCC says the dingo ate my decision

3 March 2015 by Steve Blum
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I’ll do it after my nap.

A thousand word blog post explaining why the FCC hasn’t released the text of its decision last week that brings Internet service and infrastructure under common carrier rules boils down to one feeble excuse: we haven’t finished writing it yet.

The explanation, offered by FCC general counsel Jon Salet, is nonsense. It goes on at length about the need for robust internal discussions at the FCC and the necessity of preparing a final document that responds to the points raised by dissenting commissioners…

Commissioners often prepare individual statements expressing their opinions on the order, and those statements are generally first shared with the other Commissioners and staff.

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Still waiting to read the actual FCC net neutrality and muni broadband decisions

27 February 2015 by Steve Blum
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The suspense is killing the Internet.

The FCC’s decisions yesterday to preempt state bans on municipal broadband projects and regulate Internet service and infrastructure using common carrier rules are still under wraps. The commission wasted no time in posting laudatory summaries, which largely reiterated past public statements. The (prepared) comments the commissioners made during the voting session were also quickly up on the FCC’s website.

But the actual text of the decisions they approved yesterday haven’t been made public.… More

FCC imposes common carrier rules on the Internet, preempts muni broadband bans

26 February 2015 by Steve Blum
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The deed is done. Both, actually. The FCC voted this morning to use common carrier rules to regulate Internet infrastructure and service, and to preempt two state bans on municipal broadband in two particular communities.

“The Internet is simply too important to allow broadband providers to be the ones making the rules”, said chairman Tom Wheeler.

The three democrats on the commission – chairman Tom Wheeler and commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Mignon Clyburn – voted (and spoke) in favor; the two republican commissioners – Ajit Pai and Michael O’Rielly – voted against, after reading lengthy and sharply worded dissenting statements.… More

How the FCC will vote is certain, what's to be approved isn't

25 February 2015 by Steve Blum
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Tomorrow should be the big day. Common carrier regulation of broadband infrastructure and service is scheduled to be on the table at the FCC. There’s a possibility it could be bumped a month, though. Republican commissioners Ajit Pai and Michael O’Rielly want it delayed. Actually, they want it stopped altogether. But democrats hold three of the five commission seats, so that’s a sideshow.

One of the democrats, Mignon Clyburn, is reportedly pushing chair Tom Wheeler to make changes.… More

Three points to watch for in FCC muni broadband decision

24 February 2015 by Steve Blum
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Black letter law.

The FCC has to win an uphill fight against past court decisions if Thursday’s expected preemption of two particular state bans on municipal broadband is to have any practical effect.

The primary obstacle is Gregory v. Ashcroft, a 1991 U.S. supreme court decision that said, in effect, if congress wants to “upset the usual constitutional balance of federal and state powers” then it must make that intention “unmistakably clear in the language of the statute”.… More

FCC won't bulldoze state bans on muni broadband, yet

17 February 2015 by Steve Blum
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Parked.

Hopes and fears that the FCC will sweep away state restrictions on municipal broadband at its upcoming meeting this month appear overblown. That’s not to say it won’t be an important decision – assuming, as is all but certain, at least three commissioners vote yes – but it will involve particular issues in two cities in two states. That’s what FCC chair Tom Wheeler told a tech group in Colorado last week…

To be clear, my proposed ruling on these two petitions for pre-emption is an adjudicatory matter.

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Colorado cities vote for muni broadband, in concept

10 November 2014 by Steve Blum
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If you had to choose a single issue, broadband would have been better.

Besides confounding conventional political wisdom by turfing out an incumbent democrat in favor of a hard-to-pin-down republican, Colorado voters said yes to repatriating municipal broadband decisions in a big way.

Colorado state law requires voters to approve municipal broadband systems – a simple vote by the city council isn’t enough. According to the Washington Post, voters in 7 cities and counties voted to approve it…

In Boulder, locals voted on whether the city should be “authorized to provide high-speed Internet services (advanced services), telecommunications services, and/or cable television services to residents, businesses, schools, libraries, nonprofit entities and other users of such services.”

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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

The history of electricity does explain muni broadband, if you read the whole book

31 July 2014 by Steve Blum
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There are parallels to be drawn between municipally operated electric utilities and broadband systems. Brian Fung, a blogger writing in the Washington Post, (h/t to Fred Pilot at the Eldo Telcom blog for the pointer) uses the example of the growth of depression-era federal projects, initiated by Franklin Roosevelt, that generated electricity and used city-run electric systems to distribute it…

Roosevelt launched the Tennessee Valley Authority…and the Rural Electrification Administration, among a number of other offices meant to provide power to those who’d been passed over by the privately owned utilities because those areas weren’t as profitable.

… More