Steve Blum's Blog
It’s time to close the door on the last round of applications for broadband construction subsidies from the California Advanced Services Fund. Of the 32 proposals submitted on 1 February 2013 – nearly a year and a half ago – 17 were funded for total of $48.6 million in grants and $127,000 in loans. The final two were approved by the CPUC in June – an FTTH project in Mono County and a fixed wireless system in Shasta County.… More
Assembly bill 2272 is primed for approval by the California assembly. It would jack up the cost of subsidised broadband infrastructure projects – nearly double in some cases – and make it harder, perhaps impossible, for independent Internet service providers to get money from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF).
On Friday the appropriations committee, by a 13 to 4 margin, sent the bill forward to a vote on the assembly floor. It didn’t quite split along party lines – republican assemblyman Eric Linder, who represents the Corona area, joined the dozen democrats on the committee in voting aye.… More
“Just so we understand, it screws five families”, said an animated Michael Peevey, president of the California Public Utilities Commission as he lambasted a move to slice $373,000 from a proposed Fresno County broadband project.
Ponderosa Telephone Company asked for a $1 million grant from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) to build a fiber optic middle mile line to the mountain community of Cressman, use it to upgrade DSL service for 65 homes there, and then extend it two and a half miles to five more homes in Rush Creek.… More
A 91-mile fiber optic middle network for the Salinas Valley, stretching from Santa Cruz in the north, to Watsonville, Moss Landing, Castroville, Salinas, Gonzales and Soledad in the south, is on the way. On a unanimous vote this morning, the California Public Utilities Commission approved a $10.6 million grant to Sunesys, LLC from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF).
“The key point for me was that typically that these projects only make a price commitment for two years”, said Commissioner Michel Florio.… More
California’s pioneering attempt to regulate online ride sharing services such as Lyft and Uber seems to be going as smoothly anyone could expect. The California Public Utilities Commission was briefed this morning on progress made since it adopted rules setting safety, training, insurance and other operational standards for transportation network companies, as it now calls them, including…
… MoreObtain a permit from the [CPUC]…require criminal background checks for each driver, establish a driver training program, implement a zero-tolerance policy on drugs and alcohol, and require insurance coverage.
Update 13 March 2014: The CPUC delayed the vote on the Cressman project to 10 April 2014.
Commissioner Michel Florio wants to trim five homes from a project proposed by Ponderosa Telephone Company in Fresno County, and save the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) $373,000. The project in and around the remote community of Cressman has been stalled for months, at Florio’s request, and now it’s clear why…
… MoreThe fiber optic extension from Lower Cressman to…Rush Creek will cost $621,700, or 36% of the total project costs.
The latest update from the California Public Utilities Commission shows that 12 projects are still in the hunt for subsidies from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF). Eleven projects, totalling $30 million in grants and $41,000 in loans, have been approved. Nine have either been rejected by commission staff or are on hold.
One of the pending projects – a $1 million DSL upgrade proposed by Ponderosa Telephone Company in Fresno County – is due for a vote by the commission next week.… More
Once again, the California Public Utilities Commission has set an expectation that publicly subsidised middle mile fiber should be available on a wholesale basis. To gain approval for a $1.8 million subsidy for a fiber to the home system in a remote area of Madera County, Ponderosa Telephone Company agreed to sell access to the fiber backhaul line that will feed it. According to a CPUC staff presentation to commissioners…
… MorePonderosa has affirmed that wholesale access to the network will be provided in the project area.
“I’m a big supporter of fiber to the home, but fiber to the vacation cabin is a different thing”, said commissioner Michel Florio as he argued against giving a $1.8 million grant to the Ponderosa Telephone Company to build broadband infrastructure in a remote area of Madera County. His fellow commissioners did not agree, though, and the project was approved on a 4 to 1 vote.… More
The towns of Pt. Arena and Gualala in Mendocino County, on California’s northern coast sparked debate at the California Public Utilities Commission last week. Commissioner Michel Florio used them as examples of communities that don’t have Internet service at all, as he questioned whether the CPUC should spend $1.8 million to build a fiber-to-the-home system for somewhere between 32 and 159 households in the Sierra National Forest, in Madera County.… More