public policy

Governor Brown picks two "closest advisors" for CPUC

29 December 2016 by Steve Blum
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The inner circle.

Cliff Rechtschaffen, a senior advisor to governor Brown, and Martha Guzman Aceves, his deputy legislative affairs secretary, were appointed to fill two soon-to-be vacant slots on the California Public Utilities Commission yesterday. Governor Brown issued a press release saying “both have sound judgment and a commitment to protecting ratepayers and ensuring safe, reliable and climate-friendly energy in California”.

They have something else: a tight working relationship with Brown. According to a story in the Los Angeles Times by John Myers…

Gov.

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Fiber route from California's north coast to central valley in line for $42 million subsidy

28 December 2016 by Steve Blum
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Another major middle mile fiber project is queued up for approval at the California Public Utilities Commission. A draft decision that would grant a $42 million subsidy from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) to the Digital 299 project was published just before the Christmas break and is expected to be up for a vote by commissioners in February. Inyo Networks – the company behind the Digital 395 system and other CASF-funded projects – made the proposal in August 2015.… More

FCC waves a wireless weed whacker at local governments

27 December 2016 by Steve Blum
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Honorable mayor and members of the city council…

A bright – or at least brighter – line is likely to be drawn around the discretion local government have to grant permission, or not, to install small cell sites. At the urging of Mobilitie, an aggressive and disingenuous mobile infrastructure company, the Federal Communications Commission is taking a harder look at local and state restrictions on wireless facilities. It’s asking for public comments on whether it should invoke its status as an “expert agency” to cut through conflicting federal court rulings and issue a single set of rules that determine and preempt local government permit review processes regarding wireless sites….… More

Can secure data and the FBI both be in the national interest?

24 December 2016 by Steve Blum
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A bipartisan congressional review of encryption policy – particularly in regards to law enforcement access to private data – came down squarely against requiring back doors or giving master keys to cops. The top line conclusion of the study was “any measure that weakens encryption works against the national interest”. But that doesn’t mean that the encryption working group established by the house judiciary, and energy and commerce committees thinks law enforcement agencies should throw up their hands and walk away.… More

Arizona scores a victory as DMV vanquishes Uber

23 December 2016 by Steve Blum
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So what if Acme got a permit?

Angry taxi drivers couldn’t do it. Stroppy city councils couldn’t do it. But California’s department of motor vehicles did it. The DMV has, um, driven Uber out of California, and into the arms of Arizona. The fight over Uber’s (sorta) self-driving car test in San Francisco ended with the offending vehicles being loaded onto a truck and hauled across the Colorado River. According to a story on SFGate.com, Arizona is happy to see them…

“Our cars departed for Arizona this morning by truck,” an Uber spokeswoman said Thursday afternoon in a statement.

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A quick FCC shift could stall, but not kill broadband rules

22 December 2016 by Steve Blum
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It’s not a question of when the incoming Trump administration will roll back common carrier status for Internet service. It’s a question of if it can be done. It’s a near certainty that the new Federal Communications Junta Commission will try to reclassify broadband back to being an information service. The common carrier label is the keystone of most major FCC decisions in the last couple of years. Remove it and a tall stack of regulations tumbles.… More

Republican FCC commissioners decree the rules are what we say they are

21 December 2016 by Steve Blum
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It’s good to be the king.

Ajit Pai and Michael O’Rielly, the two republicans on the Federal Communications Commission, have sent a letter to lobbyists for telecoms and Internet service providers promising them that their clients don’t have to follow rules that went into effect last week, saying the times they are a changing…

We want to assure you and your members that we would not support any adverse actions against small business providers for supposed non-compliance with the “enhanced transparency” rules after [17 January 2017], and we will seek to revisit those particular requirements, and the Title II Net Neutrality proceeding more broadly, as soon as possible.

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AT&T waves a weed whacker at FCC staff

19 December 2016 by Steve Blum
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Which side of the dirt do you want to be on?

Mommy might have said no, but daddy is going to whack your weeds. That’s the message AT&T delivered to Federal Communications Commission staff who had challenged the legality of allowing customers who buy a package of DirecTv programming to watch it without incurring data charges or burning through data caps. The practice is called zero rating and it was left in a regulatory grey area by the FCC’s 2015 decision to classify Internet access as a common carrier service.… More

Uber's DMV showdown is a make or break for self-driving cars in California

18 December 2016 by Steve Blum
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Uber and the California department of motor vehicles appear headed to court in a dispute that could add some needed clarity to the state’s position regarding regulation of self-driving cars. On Friday, the head of Uber self-driving car team, Anthony Levandowski, said that they didn’t need the DMV’s permission to run their vehicle on San Francisco streets because it wasn’t really autonomous…

From a technology perspective, self-driving Ubers operate in the same way as vehicles equipped with advanced driver assist technologies, for example Tesla auto-pilot and other OEM’s traffic jam assist.

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Trump's FCC takes shape, and it looks like a power tool

17 December 2016 by Steve Blum
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The new majority

The Federal Communications Commission will begin the Trump administration with a 2-to-1 majority. Chairman Tom Wheeler finally made his plans public on Thursday, saying he would hand in his resignation as Donald Trump becomes the U.S. president on 20 January 2017. That would leave two republicans – Ajit Pai and Michael O’Rielly – and one democrat, Mignon Clyburn on the commission.

Wheeler’s departure was inevitable. He would have lost his chairman’s gig the minute Trump took office, and his strutting style and big man on campus persona could never be sufficiently deflated to fit within the humble job description of a working commissioner on the minority side.… More