public policy

California legislature to grant redlining absolution to mobile industry

8 September 2017 by Steve Blum
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Mobile carriers don’t redline neighborhoods or communities on the basis of income levels. That declaration is the latest present to go under the Senate Bill 649 christmas tree as it nears a final decision in the state legislature. The primary aim of the bill is to give wireless companies open access to street light poles and other “vertical infrastructure” owned by cities and counties in California, at below market rates.

New language tightening up definitions was added to SB 649 in preparation for a floor vote by the California assembly.… More

Legislative games put $2.2 million Riverside FTTH project in peril

7 September 2017 by Steve Blum
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Red zone is where federal subsidies pay for slow broadband service.

Anza Electric Cooperative is giving another push to its proposal for a $2.2 million California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) grant to pay for expanding its fiber to the home system in rural Riverside County.

It sweetened its application yesterday by promising a low cost tier of service – $25 per month for symmetrical 10 Mbps service – to households that are eligible for any one of a long list of public assistance programs.… More

Bad telecoms regulatory decisions won't be saved by non-existent good will

6 September 2017 by Steve Blum
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The game isn’t over when the California Public Utilities Commission votes to impose conditions on big mergers. Telecoms companies will immediately challenge decisions, administratively and in court, and try to wriggle out of obligations by any means possible.

Comcast is doing that now in Vermont, where that state’s public utilities commission required it to build out 550 miles of line extensions into rural areas. According to an article by Jon Brodkin in Ars Technica…

The company’s court complaint says that Vermont is exceeding its authority under the federal Cable Act while also violating state law and Comcast’s constitutional rights…

Comcast’s complaint also objected to several other requirements in the permit, including “unreasonable demands” for upgrades to local public, educational, and governmental (PEG) access channels and the building of “institutional networks (“I-Nets”) to local governmental and educational entities upon request and on non-market based terms”…

Comcast often refuses to extend its network to customers outside its existing service area unless the customers pay for Comcast’s construction costs, which can be tens of thousands of dollars.

… More

Telco, cable wish list queued up in California legislature

5 September 2017 by Steve Blum
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Two major bills that telephone and cable companies want are set for floor votes in Sacramento, and one they don’t want is in deep freeze, as the legislative session enters its final, hectic two weeks. At the end of last week the senate and assembly appropriations committees okayed assembly bill 1665 and senate bill 649, respectively.

AB 375, on the other hand, remains stuck in the senate rules committee. It’s an attempt to write Internet privacy protections that were scrapped by the federal government into California law.… More

California senate committee votes to give telcos $300 million for slower broadband

31 August 2017 by Steve Blum
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The California legislature continued its love affair with telecommunications companies on Wednesday. The senate’s energy, utilities and communications committee, chaired by Ben Hueso (D – San Diego), voted 8 to zero to approve assembly bill 1665 in its current form and send it on to the senate appropriations committee for further review.

It wasn’t exactly unanimous. One senator, Mike McGuire (D – Healdsburg), who had opposed the bill, abstained when the vote was taken, as did two republicans, Anthony Cannella (R – Merced) and Mike Morrell (R – Rancho Cucamonga).… More

CenturyLink-Level 3 deal blows past key California deadline

30 August 2017 by Steve Blum
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Too late.

The already poor chance that CenturyLink would get permission from the California Public Utilities Commission to buy Level 3 Communications before the end of September took another steep nosedive yesterday. A 5:00 p.m. deadline came and went without a draft decision – yes or no – being released by the CPUC administrative law judge (ALJ) and commissioner handling the case.

In the normal course of business, proposed decisions have to go through a 30 day public review and comment process before being voted on by commissioners.… More

Draper launches second effort to split California, this time into three states

29 August 2017 by Steve Blum
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What do you do when the public isn’t buying your product? You slap a 50% discount on it, of course. That’s what Tim Draper has done with his Six Californias campaign. In his latest filing with the California attorney general, Draper describes California as “nearly ungovernable” and outlines his new vision for breaking the state up into three parts (h/t to Fred Pilot at the Eldo Telecom blog for the pointer).

His plan splits off a strip of coastal counties, running from Los Angeles County north through Monterey and San Benito counties, and naming it – wait for it – California.… More

California Internet privacy bill trimmed, but not gutted

27 August 2017 by Steve Blum
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Whose choice is it?

A bill establishing strong Internet privacy rules in California has been watered down a bit, but still has teeth . Assembly bill 375, carried by Ed Chau (D – Monterey Park), would reinstate restrictions on use of customer information by Internet service providers that were scrapped at the federal level.

Originally, it required opt-in consent – an affirmative grant of permission in advance – from subscribers for any disclosure of personal information to third parties.… More

Cable gains subs as consumers flee DSL

Cable companies own the residential wireline broadband market and are increasing their lead over telephone companies, at least where the major players are involved. An analysis piece by Sean Buckley in FierceTelecom breaks out the subscriber numbers for the 15 biggest Internet service providers in the U.S., ranked by total subscriber count as of 30 June 2017. It shows big cable with a 64% to 36% market share advantage and positive net subscriber growth, while big telco is stuck in reverse.… More

Rural broadband wins a round in the battle of the Beltway swamp

23 August 2017 by Steve Blum
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I might have been wrong about Sonny Perdue. He’s the former governor of Georgia and lifelong agribusinessman that is now the Trump administration’s agriculture secretary. At the least, my critique of his background didn’t take agribusiness-as-usual into account.

The Rural Utilities Service (RUS) is part of his domain – it’s an agency within the federal agriculture department that, among other things, gives out loans and some grants to pay for broadband service upgrades and expansion in rural areas.… More