By Andrea Lucia

Click here for updates on this story

HEATH, Texas (KTVT) — Michael Mahan of Heath says it suddenly became clear Christmas Eve there was a problem with his pipes.

“Everything’s backing up the showers are an inch deep in water, nothing’s flushing, nothing’s going down,” he said.

Plumbers got to work, suspecting a tree root might be blocking a line.

“What we found,” he said, searching for the right words. “I don’t think they could have done that if they tried.”

Two fiber optic lines, one belonging to AT&T, the other to Suddenlink, were cutting through his sewage connection.

“I couldn’t believe. They both hit dead center in the middle of it,” Mahan said.

He remembers AT&T laid a line two-and-a-half years ago and Suddenlink sometime after.

Back then, he was single, and even a partially blocked pipe seems to have taken care of business.

Today, he’s married with a wife, son, and his mother living with him.

“We put a lot of pressure on the system and that’s when we noticed the problem,” said Mahan.

Since Christmas, he’s been trying to get the issue taken care of.

“Who do you blame? Like we don’t care. We just want our toilets to flush,” he said.

Mahan says no plumber wanted to risk cutting AT&T or Suddenlink’s lines and, as of Thursday, neither company had shown up.

So, CBS 11 reached out to both.

The next morning, an AT&T crew was at his front door.

By the afternoon, a Suddenlink contractor had arrived, as well.

“When they showed up this morning, I was super happy, like ‘Thank you!'” said Mahan.

In a statement to CBS 11, AT&T wrote:

“As we work to expand and enhance our fiber network to deliver ultra-high speeds to communities, our goal is to minimize the impacts on residents as much as possible. We instruct our contractors to follow all necessary procedures to have utilities located before they begin work. We are working with our contractor to make repairs and restore any impacts from our work.”

By sunset, the company’s crews had repaired the damage.

And Mahan, after some delay, finally got the Christmas gift he’s been after.

“All I want for Christmas is my toilet to flush,” he said, laughing.

Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

The post Telecom fiber strains the supply of house owner’s plumbing issues appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

By Andrea Lucia

Click here for updates on this story

HEATH, Texas (KTVT) — Michael Mahan of Heath says it suddenly became clear Christmas Eve there was a problem with his pipes.

“Everything’s backing up the showers are an inch deep in water, nothing’s flushing, nothing’s going down,” he said.

Plumbers got to work, suspecting a tree root might be blocking a line.

“What we found,” he said, searching for the right words. “I don’t think they could have done that if they tried.”

Two fiber optic lines, one belonging to AT&T, the other to Suddenlink, were cutting through his sewage connection.

“I couldn’t believe. They both hit dead center in the middle of it,” Mahan said.

He remembers AT&T laid a line two-and-a-half years ago and Suddenlink sometime after.

Back then, he was single, and even a partially blocked pipe seems to have taken care of business.

Today, he’s married with a wife, son, and his mother living with him.

“We put a lot of pressure on the system and that’s when we noticed the problem,” said Mahan.

Since Christmas, he’s been trying to get the issue taken care of.

“Who do you blame? Like we don’t care. We just want our toilets to flush,” he said.

Mahan says no plumber wanted to risk cutting AT&T or Suddenlink’s lines and, as of Thursday, neither company had shown up.

So, CBS 11 reached out to both.

The next morning, an AT&T crew was at his front door.

By the afternoon, a Suddenlink contractor had arrived, as well.

“When they showed up this morning, I was super happy, like ‘Thank you!'” said Mahan.

In a statement to CBS 11, AT&T wrote:

“As we work to expand and enhance our fiber network to deliver ultra-high speeds to communities, our goal is to minimize the impacts on residents as much as possible. We instruct our contractors to follow all necessary procedures to have utilities located before they begin work. We are working with our contractor to make repairs and restore any impacts from our work.”

By sunset, the company’s crews had repaired the damage.

And Mahan, after some delay, finally got the Christmas gift he’s been after.

“All I want for Christmas is my toilet to flush,” he said, laughing.

Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

The post Telecom fiber strains the supply of home-owner’s plumbing issues appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

A couple of bills that would profoundly deregulate cell phone tower and antenna placement – essentially giving telecommunications companies complete control over where those facilities can go and overriding most local regulations – are moving quickly through state legislation, almost without news media attention.

A cell phone tower. Image © Justin Smith / Wikimedia Commons.

The measures would allow businesses to freely install antennas on public lighting or power poles anywhere in the state and would not include effective public health considerations.

The Measures Nurse and Health Attorney Catherine Dodd told me

Allows enterprise telecommunications providers to place wireless telecommunications equipment (towers and antennas) anywhere without local control or public input. This includes in front of houses and up to 6 feet outside windows in parks and near schools.

Senator Bill Dodd’s SB 556 (representing a district that spans much of North Bay) sailed through two committees with bipartisan support and only one no vote. It’s on its way to the Senate now.

The measure is sponsored by Crown Castle, which is building cell phone towers.

Senator Scott Wiener, who represents San Francisco, voted in favor.

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A companion invoice AB 537 from Congregation Member Bill Quirk, who represents the Hayward and Fremont areas, would require cities and counties to rapidly approve applications for new mobile phone facilities. It passed the communications committee and the local government committee without a single dissenting vote.

Congregation member Phil Ting, who is a member of the communications committee, voted in favor.

The impetus for the bill are (of course) telecommunications profits. But lawmakers have also heard from parents who complain that their children are not getting reliable internet access during the COVID.

Telecom says putting up new antennas (and adding 5G facilities) will help solve this problem.

Dodd, who worked in the Clinton Administration and ran the San Francisco Health Service System for eight years, disagrees with this analysis.

In fact, she argues, the bill could undermine municipal broadband efforts – which is a real solution to the digital divide:

SB 556 will DO NOT bridge the digital divide, This entrusts the company’s telecommunications companies with the regulation of wireless telecommunications systems (towers and antennas) and gives them access to all masts and signal lights. So they can make money by charging ever higher internet service fees. Telecommunications providers need to be regulated. Local authorities can ensure that internet access is affordable and even subsidized – if SB 556 is passed, this cannot happen

5G doesn’t facilitate voice data or internet connection – It only increases the download speed for videos (like games), is unreliable in bad weather, not cyber-safe, and contributes to climate change as it powers many more antennas.

In California’s cities and counties, WIRED requires a communally operated BroadBand to and into buildings: FASTER, SECURE, ENERGY EFFICIENT and CYBER SECURE. SB 556 prevents municipal broadband!

As far as I can tell from my research, not a single news agency has covered that bill.

So why is it going through the legislature without serious discussion or opposition?

Think about it:

Over the past two years, AT&T has spent $ 250,000 bringing lawmakers to Pebble Beach (called The Speaker’s Cup) for a fancy golf vacation. In 2019 and 2020 alone, the company donated $ 275,000 to the California Republican Party and $ 755,000 to the California Democratic Party. Gavin Newsom’s campaign for the governor raised $ 20,000 in AT&T money.

It’s hard to find a single lawmaker who hasn’t received AT&T money.

Verizon gave $ 73,000 to the California Republican Party and $ 80,000 to the Democratic Party. Verizon also gave $ 10.00 to Newsom.

Many state lawmakers have also received funding from Sprint.

“This is an uphill fight,” Dodd told me. “You have so much power and influence.”

The League of California Cities is against it. Some health lawyers too.

Here’s who’s for it:

Bay Area Council, California Apartment Association, California Builders Alliance, California Building Industry Association, California Business Properties Association, California Retailers Association, California Wireless Association, CTIA, Greater Sacramento Economic Council, Orange County Economic Council, Sacramento Regional Builders Exchange, Chamber of San Francisco of Commerce, Silicon Valley Leadership Group, Verizon.

That’s pretty much a list of people who are on the wrong side on most issues.

And nobody in the Democratic Party stands up against them to protect public health and safety.

The post State Legislature shifting to offer telecom corporations immense energy appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

The price per square foot (square meter) for sales of buildings was a new high in the San Francisco commercial real estate market, according to its owner, Kilroy Realty Corporation.

“This is a clear sign that people are still excited to be a part of San Francisco and its future,” said San Francisco Mayor London Breed in a press release.

Dropbox, which provides data storage and other services hosted on the internet cloud, signed a 15-year lease for all office space in the building in 2017, according to owner Kilroy Realty Corporation.

It was unclear how much of Dropbox’s 60,000-square-foot office property was still in use as the pandemic was relocating technicians to do their work remotely.

Dropbox announced late last year that it was a “virtual first” company, making working outside the office the “primary experience” for its employees.

Dropbox announced in its latest quarterly earnings report that it plans to sublet some of its office space while keeping some for team collaboration.

The technology company reported $ 398 million in “impairment charges” related to its rented space in the last quarter of last year.

Silicon Valley has seen some of its high-profile stars depart as a pandemic shift to remote working and political polarization tarnished the appeal of the tech industry’s premier hub.

The post San Francisco dwelling to Dropbox bought for $1.08 billion, Telecom Information, ET Telecom appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.