public policy

It's Broadband Week in Sacramento

10 March 2013 by Steve Blum
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It’s a doin’s.

Four days of broadband related meetings are set to begin on Monday in Sacramento.

First up, on Monday afternoon, the assembly utilities and commerce committee plans a hearing on “bridging the digital divide in California: a foundation for a better way of life”. The immediate topic is assembly bill 1299, which would direct California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) money generally toward public housing programs. The draft language is very broad, but there’s been discussion that it’ll be tightened up to focus specifically on smart housing initiatives.… More

Surf's up for Georgia municipal broadband

8 March 2013 by Steve Blum
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A Grand Old Party for elephant seals too.

When the best thing you can say about a proposed new law is that everyone who’s really mad about it is exempt from it, maybe it’s time to fold your hand. Georgia representative Mark Hamilton, the sponsor of a bill to effectively prohibit local governments there from pursuing municipal broadband projects, decided to play it through to the end. And he lost.

The George house of representatives, the (structural, if not intellectual) equivalent of the California state assembly, spiked the bill yesterday with a vote of 70 in favor and 94 against.… More

Stingy data caps throttle ViaSat subscribers

7 March 2013 by Steve Blum
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Download speeds don’t mean much when the price of a byte goes orbital. For the first time, a satellite Internet service provider, ViaSat, was included in the FCC’s Measuring Broadband America report. Satellite Internet subscribers live in severe broadband poverty, according to the FCC’s data.

Based just on ability to actually deliver advertized speeds, ViaSat was the clear winner in the testing. The download speeds experienced by users were, on the average, 37% better than promised.… More

San Leandro is a model for the country, says FCC chair Genachowski

“It’s a wonderful thing that San Leandro is doing here, and OSIsoft and Lit San Leandro,” said Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Julius Genachowski. “You join a small but important number of communities that share your vision.”
He was delivering a keynote speech at an event last Wednesday celebrating Lit San Leandro and the partnership with the City of San Leandro that made it possible. The video from that event has been posted. You can watch the entire program here.… More

CASF consortia producing broadband projects


ESCRBC meeting in June Lake last November brought broadband supply and demand together.

Race Telecommunication’s proposal to build fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) systems in four Mono County communities shows how middle mile fiber can make last mile service possible and how the regional broadband consortia funded by the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) can bring together the right people at the right time.

Those four small systems would be built along the Digital 395 route between Reno and Barstow.… More

Bay Area cities offer FCC chair a glimpse of the future


FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski sees a gigabit city in San Leandro.

Julius Genachowski, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) visited San Leandro today, taking a look at the economic progress kindled by the Lit San Leandro project and delivering a keynote speech to local leaders, business people, city staff and proud residents. I’ll have more on his remarks later.

I was fortunate enough to be invited as one of the opening speakers. My assignment was to give some background on efforts in the Bay Area and around California to develop our economy by developing broadband infrastructure:

Here in the Bay Area, we are surrounded by the fattest Internet pipes on the planet.

… More

Race is on for five CASF proposals


Race’s High Desert project area, in the Tehachapi Pass area, west of the town of Tehachapi.

Last October, Race Telecommunications asked for $13 million from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) to build fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) systems in the desert towns of Mojave and Boron. The areas proposed were not completely unserved by CASF definitions – as required in the October round – so they’re back with expanded plans.

Race has five projects on the table now, totaling $38 million in grant requests.… More

CASF application stack gets a little shorter

25 February 2013 by Steve Blum
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The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) cleaned up the in-box today, putting two more California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) grant applications into the review process and tossing out two more. The grant request total shrunk to $239 million, still about $90 million more than is currently available from the CASF program.

There’s a smaller revolving loan program. The total requested from it now stands at $1.8 million, bringing the grand total for the February 2013 application round to $241 million.… More

Bills to extend CASF introduced in California legislature

24 February 2013 by Steve Blum
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Pork is in the eye of the beholder.

Two bills proposing three changes to the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) made it into the legislative sausage grinder by Friday’s deadline. The changes could be good or bad, depending on your point of view.

Senator Alex Padilla, a Democrat representing the San Fernando Valley, introduced SB740, which would 1. add $100 million to the fund and allow five more years to collect it, and 2.… More

More unlicensed spectrum on the way

21 February 2013 by Steve Blum
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Super-sized WiFi too.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) took a big step towards fulfilling a promise that Chairman Julius Genachowski made at CES in Las Vegas last month. Yesterday, commissioners voted unanimously to start the process of opening up 195 MHz of spectrum in the 5 GHz range to unlicensed uses such as WiFi. (H/T to UCSC’s Jim Warner for tipping me off).

“WiFi congestion is a very real and growing problem,” Genachowski said. “Like licensed spectrum, demand for unlicensed spectrum threatens to outpace supply.… More