The FCC is heading toward a vote on Thursday that would raise its eligibility and minimum service standards for broadband subsidies to 25 down/3 Mbps up and award $20 billion in broadband subsidies as quickly as possible, perhaps in a single reverse auction in November. That’s welcome progress and a great thing for states that either have rational broadband policies or have no interest in broadband policy at all.
But not so great for California, which has irrational broadband subsidy policies.
Higher speed standards and a rapid timeline mean the opportunities for projects that combine money from its new Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) with California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) subsidies are minimal.
In a letter to the FCC last week, CPUC president Marybel Batjer asked the FCC to move more slowly, or at least be more flexible…
Over the past month, CPUC staff have had ex parte meetings with FCC staff and commissioners’ offices to explore the possibility of a federal-state partnership in the planned [RDOF] reverse auction. Based on new information gathered during those meetings, it appears unlikely California would have sufficient time to make necessary changes to existing statutes and program rules to achieve this goal.
Batjer didn’t suggest, let alone commit to, asking the California legislature to raise the abysmally slow CASF speed standards. Instead, she asks for “a set-aside or partnership”, similar to “special privileges afforded to New York and Alaska”. A separate FCC filing made by CPUC staff suggests delaying the RDOF auction until the middle of 2021.
CASF is California’s primary broadband infrastructure subsidy program. It does not match up well with FCC or federal agriculture department programs. The biggest roadblock is the 6 Mbps download/1 Mbps upload speed minimum that California lawmakers set in 2017 when they accepted large payments self-serving arguments from AT&T, Comcast and other monopoly model incumbents, and lowered California’s broadband subsidy eligibility standard (and set the minimum acceptable service level for subsidised infrastructure at 10 Mbps down/1 Mbps up).