public policy

Federal court fast not-so-slow tracks appeals of FCC’s preemption of local pole ownership

8 October 2019 by Steve Blum
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The good news is that the appeal of the Federal Communications Commission’s preemption of local ownership of streetlight poles will be fast tracked. The not so good news – which isn’t exactly news to people who follow such things – is that fast is a relative term.

An order issued yesterday by the ninth circuit federal appellate court in San Francisco granted a request “to expedite oral argument” in the case, made by dozens of local governments.… More

Cities ask federal court to speed up review of pole ownership preemption, FCC says keep it slow

7 October 2019 by Steve Blum
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La small cell

Local governments from around the U.S. asked the federal appeals court in San Francisco to speed up consideration of their challenge to the Federal Communications Commission preemption of local ownership and control of the public right of way and assets located in it, such as street light poles and traffic signals.

In a motion filed last month, they told judges that on the one hand, disputes are piling up, and on the other, the FCC is aggressively pushing ahead…

First, there are several other cases progressing through the lower courts that will be affected by the outcome of this appeal…Delay in resolution will simply complicate the work of district courts and Circuit Courts of Appeal throughout the country, as more applications are filed and more disputes arise.

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Net neutrality ruling sinks FCC local pole ownership preemption theory

3 October 2019 by Steve Blum
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Although a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. blessed the Federal Communication Commission’s “2018 Order” repealing network neutrality rules, the judges hearing the case overturned one section that tried to preempt any effort by state or local governments to step into the gap. If the plain language of Tuesday’s opinion is also applied to the FCC’s attempt to preempt local ownership and control of street light poles and other publicly owned assets located in the public right of way, then it’s a slam dunk bet that it’ll be overturned too.… More

Hope for California’s net neutrality law, as court upholds repeal of federal rules

2 October 2019 by Steve Blum
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Open internet dont tread on me 2

The Federal Communications Commission’s republican majority acted properly and within the limits of its authority in 2018 when it cancelled network neutrality rules approved in 2015 by the then-democratic controlled FCC.

Mostly.

A three judge panel on the federal appellate court based in Washington, D.C. – aka the DC circuit – issued its opinion yesterday, providing support for California’s enactment of its own net neutrality rules, but otherwise rejecting most of the arguments made by net neutrality advocates.… More

Salinas, AT&T sign master pole license agreement with small cell design standards and $750 annual rent, sorta

Downtown salinas

AT&T and the City of Salinas hedged their bets and signed a master license agreement for attaching small cell sites to city-owned poles that complies with current Federal Communications Commission guidelines, but snaps back to market-based fees if those rules are changed, or overruled by a federal court.

Last year, the FCC declared that municipal assets installed along roads or otherwise in the public right of way, like street light poles or traffic aren’t really city (or county) property, but instead are part of the right of way itself.… More

CPUC approves DSL upgrade subsidy for Frontier at $4,700 per home

27 September 2019 by Steve Blum
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Weimar casf project

The California Public Utilities Commission approved a $693,000 grant to Frontier Communications from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) for a DSL equipment upgrade in the Placer County community of Weimar earlier this month. It was a considerably smaller grant than Frontier requested.

The project originally included the somewhat larger town of Colfax and called for a CASF subsidy of $2.3 million to reach 1,400 homes that, Frontier said, lacked access to broadband service at California’s pathetic minimum of 6 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload speeds.… More

Proposed California initiative would toughen and lock in consumer privacy rules

26 September 2019 by Steve Blum
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The man behind California’s new privacy law doesn’t like what lobbyists are trying to do to it in Sacramento, and plans on taking his case directly voters. In 2018, Alastair Mactaggart and his organisation – Californians for Consumer Privacy – collected enough signatures to get a tough privacy law on the ballot, but withdrew the initiative after a deal with was cut with lawmakers to enact most of its provisions. But anything the legislature can do, it can also undo, so Mactaggart is going back to the voters.… More

FCC’s weed whacker work fails another court test

24 September 2019 by Steve Blum
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The Federal Communications Commission’s republican majority is now 0 for 2 in federal appeals court challenges to its weed whacker campaign to prune back telecommunications and media regulations. In an opinion released yesterday, the third circuit federal appeals court, based in Philadelphia, voted 2 to 1 to overturn an FCC ruling that loosened restrictions on media ownership, because republican commissioners blew off concerns about the effect it would have on women and minorities. In August, Washington, D.C.-based… More

California’s consumer data privacy law survives lobbyist blitz, more or less intact

19 September 2019 by Steve Blum
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Sf naked the streets

Big tech, big telecom and big business made a big push in the legislature to water down California’s landmark data privacy law, AKA the California consumer privacy act. They won some minor victories as the 2019 session ended, but did not succeed in making major changes.

A blog post by Christina Hyun Jin Kroll in the National Law Review has a good run down of the bills that did and didn’t make it out of the legislature and onto governor Gavin Newsom’s desk.… More

Long shot broadband infrastructure financing option approved by California legislature

17 September 2019 by Steve Blum
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East garrison conduit 625

A bill that has the potential to funnel California public employee retirement fund money toward broadband infrastructure investments is heading to governor Gavin Newsom’s desk. AB 1212, carried by Marc Levine (D – Marin) , requires state agencies to send a list of priority infrastructure projects to various public employees retirement boards for their consideration. “Telecommunications” is included in the list of eligible infrastructure types, along with “power, transportation, ports, petrochemical, and utilities”.

The catch is that the lists would come from agencies that are “responsible for infrastructure”.… More