updates

In a deal reached with the federal justice department and lobbyists for major telecoms companies, California attorney general Xavier Becerra agreed not to enforce senate bill 822 when it takes effect on 1 January 2019. In return, the telecoms companies and the Trump administration will push the pause button on their challenges to the law in a Sacramento federal court.

The plan is to wait until a federal appeals court in the District of Columbia rules on whether the Federal Communications Commission acted properly when it repealed net neutrality rules last year.… More

California’s new network neutrality law might not go into effect as planned in January. Politico is reporting that California attorney general Xavier Becerra is considering making a deal with the Trump administration and lobbyists for AT&T, Charter Communications, Comcast, Frontier Communications and other monopoly model telecoms companies….

Sources familiar with the negotiations say government officials and representatives from USTelecom, CTIA, NCTA and the American Cable Association would propose delaying litigation over the state’s law while the D.C.

That didn’t take long.

Less than two hours after the announcement that governor Jerry Brown signed senate bill 822 and made network neutrality the law of the land in California, the federal government struck back. The federal justice department filed a lawsuit challenging it with the federal district court – the eastern district – that covers Sacramento.

They had their finger on the button. Two filings and the obligatory press release were ready to go. One is a complaint, um, complaining that California “seeks to second-guess the Federal Government’s regulatory approach”.… More

Network neutrality is now the law of the land in California. Governor Jerry Brown signed senate bill 822 today. That’s according to a tweet by the bill’s author, senator Scott Wiener, (D – San Francisco).

It reinstates network neutrality rules that were scrapped last year by the Federal Commission. The three bright line rules established by the FCC in 2015 – no blocking, throttling or paid prioritisation of Internet traffic – are back on the books.… More

The changes made Monday to senate bill 460 were posted earlier today. Instead of requiring all state and local agencies to buy broadband services from companies that abide by network neutrality rules, it now only applies to contracts of $100,000 or more, and contains generous exceptions to that restriction. The amendments were approved by the assembly’s appropriations committee, which often acts as a proxy for assembly leadership – democratic and republican – but were suggested last week in a staff analysis prepared for the assembly privacy and consumer protection committee.… More

Senate bill 460 was approved yesterday by the assembly appropriations committee, on a party line vote. The legislature’s online information systems says it was passed “as amended”, which means the committee made some changes. The new version of the bill hasn’t been posted yet, and there’s no online video replay – I wasn’t able to listen in yesterday.

SB 460, which requires state and local agencies to only buy Internet service from companies that abide by net neutrality rules, is a companion bill to SB 822, which would establish those regulations and apply them across the board in California.… More

The California assembly’s communications and conveyances committee approved senate bills 822 and 460 on party line votes this afternoon. SB 822 would reinstate network neutrality rules; SB 460 requires state and local agencies to buy Internet service only from ISPs that abide by those rules.