The back-and-forth continues over how California’s broadband subsidy programs – grouped under the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) – should be redesigned. Earlier this week, six organisations filed rebuttals to the initial round of comments made last month.
Much of the debate is over how results should be measured and to what degree the organisations that get CASF money should be held accountable for those results. It’s a complicated problem. The answer will largely depend on whether the California Public Utilities Commission reckons “broadband adoption” to be a goal defined by marketing principles – which is where the term comes from and where success is measured by the number of new subscribers – or simply an educational activity.
The CPUC’s office of ratepayer advocates was among those doing some rhetorical counter-punching this week, but one jab went wild. They misread the Central Coast Broadband Consortium’s (CCBC) comment regarding minimum speed levels, and mistakenly thought it applied to adoption programs. It doesn’t.
(Full disclosure: I drafted and submitted those comments).
Instead, the CCBC’s recommendation is to set a minimum speed for broadband facilities that are installed in public housing communities and paid for by CASF grants, which is a separate program. Under the current rules, CASF-funded broadband systems installed in public housing only have to deliver 1 Mbps download speeds, with no upload requirement. We argued that people who live in public housing deserve the same consideration from CASF as anyone else, and funded facilities should at least meet the pitiful 10 Mbps down/1 Mbps construction standard required elsewhere (the eligibility minimum – 6 Mbps down/1 Mbps up – is even worse). Ideally, there should be incentives for projects to meet the standard set by the federal agriculture department and the Federal Communications Commission – 25 Mbps down/3 Mbps up – or better.
So far, the CPUC has asked for recommendations and rebuttals regarding the CASF public housing and adoption programs (and the shut down of the infrastructure loan account). Comments on the big money program – the $300 million infrastructure grant account – are due later this month.
Phase 1 Reply Comments – filed 2 April 2018
AT&T
California Cable and Telecommunications Association
California Emerging Technology Fund
North Bay North Coast Broadband Consortium
Office of Ratepayer Advocates
The Utility Reform Network and the Greenlining Institute