public policy

Dig once, broadband spectrum added to federal budget bill

22 March 2018 by Steve Blum
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Broadband is getting a boost in the mammoth spending bill under consideration today in the U.S. house of representatives. But not cash.

Instead, the deal negotiated by republican and democratic congressional leaders rolls in a telecoms bill unanimously approved earlier this month by the house of representatives. It includes some useful, if mild, dig once requirements for federally funded highway projects – state transportation agencies will have to share construction plans, but not necessarily trenches, with Internet service providers and local agencies – and it frees up 255 MHz of spectrum for broadband use.… More

Frontier, cable lobbyists urge CPUC to cut them in on public housing, broadband adoption decisions

19 March 2018 by Steve Blum
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Big telco and cable interests accounted for two of the fourteen organisations that commented on proposed changes to the California Advanced Services Fund’s (CASF) broadband subsidy program for public housing and the new digital literacy and broadband access grants that’ll be available later this year. Frontier Communications and cable lobbyists submitted their remarks on Friday. AT&T was silent.

The California Cable and Telecommunications Association (CCTA), which is the lobbying front for Comcast, Charter Communications and other cable companies in California, wants the CPUC to better protect its members’ monopoly business model in public housing communities.… More

People who live in public housing deserve equal treatment from California broadband subsidy program

18 March 2018 by Steve Blum
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Public housing property owners can get grants from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) to install broadband facilities and serve residents. Hundreds of communities have taken advantage of it, despite churlish opposition from cable companies, particularly Charter Communications. The California Public Utilities Commission is revising the program, to bring it into line with new rules laid down by assembly bill 1665 last year.

The biggest change is to retroactively enforce restrictions, imposed by an earlier measure, senate bill 745, that require properties receiving grants to be “unserved”, which means that at least one residence lacks service at 6 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload speeds.… More

Comments on proposed changes to California's broadband subsidy program posted

17 March 2018 by Steve Blum
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Fourteen organisations offered comments on Friday regarding California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) grant requirements and application procedures for public housing broadband facilities and for broadband adoption efforts, which are generally reckoned to be digital literacy classes and “broadband access” programs – i.e. computer centers, hotspots and free computers – programs. Suggestions for how the CASF broadband infrastructure loan program should be wound down were also submitted.

The new adoption grant program, and the revisions to the public housing and infrastructure loan programs were mandated by assembly bill 1665, which was approved by the California legislature and signed into law last year.… More

California senate considers expanded net neutrality rights and enforcement tools

15 March 2018 by Steve Blum
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A second, more detailed network neutrality revival bill is on the table at the California capitol. Senator Scott Wiener (D – San Francisco) introduced senate bill 822 earlier this year, but it was little more than a statement of intent to jump into the Internet regulation void left by the Federal Communications Commission when it repealed network neutrality rules and stripped broadband of its common carrier status. He amended it on Tuesday, adding in a long list of outlawed practices and ways to enforce the ban.… More

Trump builds a virtual wall to fence high tech companies in

13 March 2018 by Steve Blum
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© Yann Forget / Wikimedia Commons, via Wikimedia Commons

Broadcom will not buy Qualcomm, and will not become the third largest chipmaker in the world, behind Intel and Samsung. Not because the eye watering price – $117 billion, the largest such high tech transaction ever – is too high. Not because the deal doesn’t make economic sense. It’s because U.S. president Donald Trump says it will harm U.S. national security.
Using his authority to define what national security needs are and squash transactions that threaten them, Trump categorically blocked Broadcom’s Singapore-based corporate parent and its Californian affiliate from buying San Diego-based Qualcomm.… More

FCC will have to defend net neutrality repeal in San Francisco

12 March 2018 by Steve Blum
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The luck of the draw means the future of network neutrality and broadband’s status as a common carrier service will be argued in San Francisco. Credit for that is split between the California Public Utilities Commission and Santa Clara County, who filed separate challenges to the Federal Communications Commission’s decision to eliminate net neutrality rules and scrap common carrier obligations for broadband service with the ninth circuit federal appeals court.

Several other organisations filed their appeals in Washington, D.C.,… More

Unanimous dig once vote puts broadband conduit in federal highway plans

11 March 2018 by Steve Blum
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Broadband infrastructure, and service providers, will have to be included in planning done for federally funded highway projects if, as expected, the U.S. senate goes along with a bill – house resolution 4986, aka the Ray Baum act – passed by the house of representatives last week. State transportation departments wouldn’t be required to include conduit and other telecoms facilities in projects, but they would have to share their construction plans with broadband companies and other state and local agencies, and do a minimal amount of coordination.… More

State lawmakers can do stupid things to the Internet too

10 March 2018 by Steve Blum
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State legislatures and governors are stepping into the void left by the Federal Communications Commission when it rolled back network neutrality last year. Laws reinstating net neutrality requirements of one kind or another passed or are pending in California, Washington, Oregon and elsewhere. In Montana, governor Steve Bullock did it by executive order.

That’s a trend that cheers up net neutrality advocates, but there’s another side to it that’s not so pleasant and offers a solid argument for keeping states out of the business of regulating the Internet.… More

Wyoming's legislature bows to telco, cable lobbyists, but not as deeply as California's

9 March 2018 by Steve Blum
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Following California’s lead, Wyoming lawmakers grabbed their ankles and took what cable and telco lobbyists gave them: a law that subsidises broadband infrastructure, but only to the extent that incumbents want. Even so, Wyoming is not buying into the 1990s service levels that lobbyists for Frontier Communications, AT&T, Comcast and Charter Communications bribed convinced Californian assembly members and senators to accept.

As described by Phillip Dampier in Stop the Cap, what started out as an effort to give communities the option of pursuing their own broadband projects turned into an incumbent right of first refusal, secretly rewritten by lobbyists for Charter and CenturyLink.… More