rural broadband

Mobile competition brings big benefits to urban consumers

27 May 2017 by Steve Blum
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Not so bright in rural California

Competition works. Even in the telecoms business. Referencing an article in the Wall Street Journal, FierceWireless is reporting that the cost of mobile data has dropped 13% in the past year, and the reason is increasingly heated competition between the four major carriers, with reintroduction and aggressive marketing of unlimited data plans at the top of the list…

In a detailed article on the topic, the Wall Street Journal reported that the cost of wireless service plans fell 7% in March and an additional 1.7% in April.

… More

Broadband service subsidies not popular in rural areas

18 April 2017 by Steve Blum
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“Local governments should be able to build their own high-speed networks if the service in their area is too expensive or not good enough”, say 70% of people in the U.S.. According to a survey done by Pew Research, the concept of municipal broadband gets overwhelming bipartisan support: 74% of people identifying themselves as democrats and 67% as republicans agreed with that statement.

Care should be taken not to read too much into this ringing endorsement, though.… More

California bill tells telephone, cable companies to take rural 911 seriously

6 March 2017 by Steve Blum
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Press 1 to pay your bill. If you’re having a heart attack, stay on the line and a representative will be with you shortly.

When broadband or phone service goes down in rural California, the last people to know are often the dispatchers at emergency 911 centers. When they do figure it out, there’s not much they can do about it except hope for the best. Such notification requirements that exist have thresholds that are set with urban areas in mind – hundreds of thousands of households, for example – and can leave rural communities in a telecoms black hole for hours or days on end.… More

Cable, mobile companies fight California rural phone standards

8 February 2017 by Steve Blum
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A California Public Utilities Commission decision slamming the practices of telecoms companies in rural areas – like attaching lines to trees instead of poles – and requiring carriers to notify both the commission and the state office of emergency services when significant telephone outages occur has been met with a broadly based challenge from California cable and telephone companies.

In a filing authored by Comcast lawyers and joined by Charter, Cox, small telcos, Verizon’s fiber subsidiary and lobbying fronts for the cable and mobile industries, the CPUC’s rural call completion decision was characterised as illegal on the basis of a long list of alleged procedural mistakes.… More

AT&T in no hurry to fix problems ahead of CPUC vote on tougher outage rules

15 December 2016 by Steve Blum
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Carrier of last resort.

Later this morning, the California Public Utilities Commission, in its last regular meeting of the year, is scheduled to considered tightening the rules on what and when telephone companies have to report information about service outages. The proposed decision by commissioner Catherine Sandoval would also clamp down on the occasional practice by telephone and cable companies of attaching lines to trees in rural areas, rather than installing utility poles.

I’ve already written a couple of posts about the proposed decision, the result of an investigation into problems that rural residents have with completing calls and otherwise receiving phone service.… More

AT&T blows off rural Californians, because it can

21 November 2016 by Steve Blum
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Attitude is everything.

Telecoms service and infrastructure in rural California is deteriorating, according to a draft of findings and remedies resulting from a California Public Utilities Commission investigation led by commissioner Catherine Sandoval. Wireline service outages and other problems aren’t being repaired and customers are told that the fix will come from future “technological transitions” – a euphemism for we’ll get back to you after we’ve ripped out the copper and replaced it with wireless.… More

CPUC report highlights telecoms companies' disdain for rural customers

20 November 2016 by Steve Blum
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Self service.

There’s little interest among major telecommunications companies in maintaining infrastructure or service in rural California. That’s my overall conclusion after reading a draft decision by commissioner Catherine Sandoval summarising the California Public Utilities Commission’s investigation into telephone service problems in rural areas of the state.

The study focused on call completion issues: problems with 911 calls getting through, phone numbers falsely reported as out of service and a simple lack of dial tone, for example.… More

Californians asked to help find telco trouble spots

25 October 2016 by Steve Blum
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If this looks familiar, you really should take the survey.

If you’ve had problems, or not, completing or receiving a telephone, the California Public Utilities Commission wants to know about it. That includes collect calls and, particularly, calls to 911 or any of its sister services such as 211 (social service referrals) or 811 (underground utility locator, i.e. call before you dig). They also want to know if you’ve “seen conditions with telephone facilities that you believe pose a danger to safety or reliability of communications service (e.g.,… More

U.K. takes harder line on rural broadband service

20 May 2016 by Steve Blum
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May I offer you something else?

Universal broadband service in Britain will have to follow demand, not lead it. That’s the decision, as it currently stands, from the U.K. government as it works out the details of implementing a previous commitment to deliver broadband service with at least 10 Mbps download speeds to everyone.

It’s a straightforward commitment for about 95% of the country, but the last 5%, in rural areas, won’t be automatically hooked up.… More

U.S. house bill says bigger ISPs have lower transparency standards

19 March 2016 by Steve Blum
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Face it, $100 million is chump change here.

Mid-sized Internet service providers as well as small ones would be exempt from Federal Communications Commission rules that require, among other things, full disclosure of monthly price, fees, data caps and other such terms of service, under a bill approved unanimously (411 to zip) by the U.S. house of representatives. HR 4596 says that transparency rules adopted last year by the FCC, as part of its decision to regulate broadband as a common carrier service, “shall not apply to any small business”, which is defined as “any provider of broadband Internet access service that has not more than 250,000 subscribers”.… More