Newspaper stories suggest AT&T contributions to Schwarzenegger committees linked to AB 2987

The Los Angeles Times and the Sacramento Bee published stories this week suggesting that Ma Bell lavished love on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to the tune of $540,000 for the governor's approval last fall of AB 2987, the Digital Infrastructure and Video Competition Act.

The Times reported AT&T gave a cool half million dollars to Schwarzenegger's After-School All-Stars, a tax-exempt group founded by Schwarzenegger in the early 1990s to provide tutoring, recreation and other programs to poor children.

The Bee reported today in a page one story that eight high level AT&T executives gave $5,000 each to Schwarzenegger's reelection campaign committee in recent weeks.

Both stories contained strenuous denials from the governor's office and AT&T that the cash contributions had anything to do with Schwarzenegger's signature on AB 2987 last October.

The stories put the donations in the context of AB 2987's allowing AT&T to provide television programming and bypassing local governments by putting the California Public Utilities Commission in charge of issuing video franchises. It should be noted however that the cable TV industry also supported AB 2987.

The real issue isn't AT&T's ability to sell television programming since its aged copper cable-based infrastructure cannot reliably transmit Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) service to the vast majority of California households and won't be able to anytime soon. Rather, it's AB 2987's limited build out requirements that allow the telco/cable duopoly to leave vast areas of the state -- ironically many of them inland counties inhabited by Schwarzenegger's fellow Republicans -- without any broadband services whatsoever.

State franchise laws codify the digital divide, consumer advocate argues

A push by the telco/cable duopoly to enact state laws putting states in charge of granting broadband video franchises rather than expanding broadband availability as backers claim will have the opposite effect, a consumer advocate argues.

Ben Scott, policy director of the advocacy group Free Press, told the National Journal's Technology Daily that by allowing telcos and cable companies to pick and choose areas where broadband will be offered, state franchising laws "unfortunately, are going to write the digital divide into law."

Qwest follows dubious AT&T strategy of video over copper via DSL

Western telco Qwest is considering offering IPTV services, the Rocky Mountain News reports. Analysts are skeptical since Qwest faces some of the same challenges as AT&T, which is opting for a similar strategy: Delivering video over a copper-based DSL that can't deliver broadband whatsoever to about a fifth of their multi-state service areas and at sub-video speeds in large segments where service is available.

Fiber may be the future, but copper is now for cable rustlers

Fiber may be the future for telecommunications but for meth-addicted thieves, copper is now:

Verizon spokesman Jon Davies said the company had lost $297,795 in copper since 2006 in California alone, not including money spent on work to replace the wire or loss of service to customers.

"This is a national problem," he said. "We try to keep our cables high on the poles to make it harder to get, but the people who do this are highly motivated, and they have the equipment to get at it."

BPL technical standards announced

For many rural residents, the acronym for Broadband over Power Lines, BPL, might as well stand for Broadband over Propane Lines. Neither is delivering broadband as an alternative to wire line broadband offered (or frequently not) by cable companies and telcos.

Illustrating the still nascent state of BPL is a news release issued today by the IEEE Standards Association that establishes technical standards for BPL.

Tech coalition wants to use TV airwaves for broadband

The Washington Post reports Microsoft, Google Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Intel and Philips are pursuing an alternative fixed terrestrial route for wireless broadband using unused TV channels. The companies must first demonstrate the technology is feasible using a prototype device being developed by Microsoft and persuade the Federal Communications Commission the service won't interfere with existing broadcasts, The Post reported.

"Broadband drought" in the land down under

A first step is to build fibre-to-the-node (FTTN), extending optical fibre from telephone exchanges to street-corner nodes from where houses would be served by their telephone connections.

Telstra has offered to invest $4.2 billion in FTTN but has it on hold because the regulatory environment does not suit it.

Meanwhile, it is pursuing persuasion and public relations. "We have a broadband drought in this country, there's no question of that," Dr Burgess says. "This week the Government announced a broadband program at 256 kilobits per second, at almost the same time as Singapore announced a program to bring 100 megabits per second to 95 per cent of its population."