public policy

The rent in our contract is more than the FCC likes, so rip it up, Verizon tells city

18 December 2018 by Steve Blum
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Chevy chase chainsaw

Verizon is waving the Federal Communications Commission’s pole ownership preemption order like a chainsaw as it tries to shred existing lease contracts it signed, but doesn’t like. In a request to put that order on hold, the City of North Little Rock included a copy of a letter it received from Verizon, in response to a wireless ordinance it adopted in July.

In it, Verizon told the city…

We’ve also compared our existing Master Lease Agreement (“MLA”) with the City to the FCC Order.

… More

$600 million federal rural broadband subsidy program launches, grant applications due in April

17 December 2018 by Steve Blum
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Salinas ag tech summit 13jul2018

The federal agriculture department will be handing out $300 million in broadband upgrade grants, and making another $300 million in loans next spring. It’s the result of a new rural broadband subsidy program that was included in a massive federal budget bill earlier this year. The (sparse) details were announced on Thursday, the day after the federal farm bill was passed by congress.

The ReConnect program, as it’s called, has a lot in common with the 5 year, $350 million per year broadband subsidy funding in the farm bill.… More

Lobbyists ask FCC to hit cities with another taxpayer funded broadband mugging

16 December 2018 by Steve Blum
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The ravaging horde of (largely) telco and cable lobbyists known as the Federal Communications Commission’s broadband deployment advisory committee (BDAC) has drafted its latest letter to Santa advice to FCC chair Ajit Pai.

Not surprisingly, it thinks that Charter Communications, Comcast, AT&T and other monopoly model broadband service providers aren’t getting enough love from local governments. Love, in this case, meaning give us everything you have, then go out and get us more.

If a city owns dark fiber, then it should be required to hand it over to “any private sector communications provider” on demand, and only be allowed to keep enough for its “reasonably anticipated 50-year fiber needs”.… More

More cities join the court battle against FCC muni property preemption ruling

15 December 2018 by Steve Blum
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Riverside pole mount

More than two dozen eastern, midwestern and Texan cities jumped into the court fight against the Federal Communications Commission’s preemption of local ownership of street light and other municipal property planted in the public right of way. The group, led by the City of Austin, filed its paperwork in the federal appeals court headquartered in the District of Columbia.

If I’m counting right, the deadline has now passed for any additional appeals, but there’s always the opportunity to join the fun as an intervenor, as the City of New York did.… More

CPUC reboots California broadband infrastructure subsidies, as well as can be hoped

14 December 2018 by Steve Blum
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California has more than $300 million available to subsidise broadband infrastructure, thanks to a law passed last year by the California legislature. Also thanks to that law, the rules governing who can get the subsidies and where it can be spent were rigged, with the aim of protecting telco and cable monopolies, and funneling money into their pockets.

It was up to the California Public Utilities Commission to rewrite the rules that subsidy applicants have to follow and that govern how broadband subsidy proposals will be evaluated and approved.… More

Lots of fiber in federal farm bill, and it’s not just hemp

13 December 2018 by Steve Blum
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Hemp

A five year farm bill with billions of dollars set aside for improving broadband infrastructure in rural areas is heading for president Donald Trump’s desk. Negotiators from the federal senate and house of representatives cobbled together a compromise bill earlier this week, and the house gave it a final blessing yesterday. It keeps most of the pro-broadband development provisions in earlier drafts.

The bill also legalises hemp production – the roping, not the doping kind.

The conference report is more than 800 pages long, and until I get through it all in detail I’m not going to try to figure how much broadband money is actually in it.… More

FCC says it’s legal to give muni property to mobile companies because it’s illegal for cities to say no

12 December 2018 by Steve Blum
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Alice tall 625

The Federal Communications Commission says it has the authority to tell cities and counties what they can do with property they own, because otherwise they would be breaking the law. In a decision that should have surprised no one, the FCC refused to put its September wireless preemption ruling on hold.

Instead, in an odd bit of contradictory reasoning, the FCC’s latest order says it’s not taking away cities’ rights to property they own that’s located within the public right of way (ROW), such as street light poles and traffic signals.… More

California broadband infrastructure subsidy reboot ready for CPUC vote

11 December 2018 by Steve Blum
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The flurry of comments and rebuttals about proposed changes to California’s primary broadband infrastructure subsidy program – the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) – resulted in a few changes, generally for the better. A revised draft decision was published yesterday, ahead of a scheduled vote by the California Public Utilities Commission on Thursday.

Comcast’s and Charter Communications’ lobbying front organisation – the California Cable and Telecommunications Association (CCTA) – was rebuffed in its attempt to open up proposed CASF-funded projects to an eternity of challenges.… More

Cable to defend Californian monopolies with attacks on independent projects

9 December 2018 by Steve Blum
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Comcast, Charter Communications and other cable companies are demanding the right “to challenge each and every application” for broadband infrastructure subsidies from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF). Their lobbying front organisation, the California Cable and Telecommunications Association (CCTA), made their perpetual litigation plans clear in a new round of comments on the California Public Utilities Commission’s plan to reboot the program.

The cable companies also want to be able to block independent projects by cherrypicking homes and neighborhoods census blocks using the right of the first night right of first refusal given to them by the lawmakers they’ve generously funded in return.… More

Consumer privacy law is back in play in Sacramento

7 December 2018 by Steve Blum
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Sf naked the streets

Monday’s brief meeting of the California legislature didn’t produce any broadband-related bills, with the possible exception of a placeholder introduced by assemblyman Ed Chau (D – Los Angeles). Assembly bill 25 would amend the privacy bill that California lawmakers passed in 2018, but it doesn’t say how.

California’s new privacy law puts tight restrictions on how online companies can use customer data, and how they have to safeguard it. Chau was the author of that bill, which was passed as part of a deal to keep an even tougher privacy initiative off of the November ballot.… More