casf

Formal opposition to California broadband subsidy grab filed

24 May 2017 by Steve Blum
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Although objections have been raised, legislative staff analyses have skated around the question of opposition to assembly bill 1665, which would effectively turn California’s broadband infrastructure subsidy program into a drawing account for AT&T and Frontier Communications.

No longer. The Central Coast Broadband Consortium (CCBC) submitted a letter, formally going on record opposing AB 1665. It highlighted the top three reasons it is bad public policy and bad for Californians…

  • Setting California’s minimum broadband standard at 6 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload speeds is a step backwards, at a time when we must all move forward together.
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Telcos' California cash grab gets a nod at the CPUC

22 May 2017 by Steve Blum
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Three parallel efforts are underway to rewrite the rules for California broadband infrastructure subsidies and use the money to support substandard service and technology deployed by AT&T and Frontier Communications. The legislature is considering assembly bill 1665, which would, among other things, add $300 million to the California Advanced Services Fund for broadband construction and operating costs, and effectively give it to AT&T and Frontier. The lower service standards and eligibility restrictions in the bill would keep independent Internet service providers out of most of rural California.… More

Broadband subsidy grab by telcos, cable faces budget scrutiny in Sacramento

17 May 2017 by Steve Blum
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The attempt to turn the California Advanced Services Fund – the state’s primary broadband infrastructure subsidy program – into a piggy bank for AT&T, Frontier and cable companies gets another hearing at the capitol today. Assembly bill 1665 will go before the assembly appropriations committee, which has responsibility for seeing that bills that raise money – in this case, reinstate a tax – and spend it are based on sound fiscal policy, both in isolation and in the context of California’s overall budget.… More

One CASF grant approved, one released and one on hold

15 May 2017 by Steve Blum
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A $511,000 broadband upgrade grant for a cable system owned by CalNeva in Fresno County was unanimously approved by the California Public Utilities Commission at its 11 May 2017 meeting. The commission also signed off on environmental clearances and released $17 million in grant and loan subsidies for the Bright Fiber FTTH project in Nevada County. The $29 million proposal by Race Telecommunications for an FTTH system in the Phelan area, in San Bernardino County was bumped to the commission’s 25 May 2017 meeting.

California broadband subsidy bill fertile ground for monopoly mushrooms

10 May 2017 by Steve Blum
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The attempt to redirect California’s broadband infrastructure subsidy program toward incumbent telephone and cable companies and away from independent, gigabit class projects and public housing communities is descending into Alice-in-Wonderland territory. The amended text of assembly bill 1665 is posted, and it begins with a stirring call to action for the greater good of California…

The availability of high-speed Internet access, referred to generically as “broadband” and including both wired and wireless technologies, is essential 21st century infrastructure for economic competitiveness and quality of life.

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CPUC, California lawmakers need to be as rational as a telecoms monopolist

8 May 2017 by Steve Blum
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Update: the CPUC delayed action on the Gigafy Phelan project, and rescheduled it for consideration at its 25 May 2107 meeting.

Frontier Communication’s request to the California Public Utilities Commission to squash a potential competitor is economically rational – it has a monopoly and wants to keep it – which is why it should be rejected. Utility regulators exist to moderate monopolist impulses, not turbocharge them. If the CPUC rejects a $29 million infrastructure grant request from Race Telecommunications for its Gigafy Phelan fiber to the premise project, it will be handing over effective broadband ownership of 8,000 San Bernardino County homes to Frontier, which in turn will redline 3,000 of them because they haven’t been blessed with federal subsidies.… More

Fresno broadband subsidy proposal scores two major, welcome firsts

4 May 2017 by Steve Blum
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Update: the CPUC unanimously approved the grant for the CalNeva project in Coalinga and Huron at its 11 May 2017 meeting.

For the first time, a cable company is in line for a broadband construction subsidy from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF). The California Public Utilities Commission is expected to decide whether or not to give CalNeva Broadband a $511,000 grant to upgrade former Comcast cable systems in Coalinga and Huron in Fresno County and provide broadband and television service to 5,500 homes.… More

Frontier makes the case, California's AB 1665 is double disaster

3 May 2017 by Steve Blum
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Frontier’s admittedly “late-filed” attempt to kill grant funding for the Gigafy Phelan fiber to the home proposal in San Bernardino County does a much better job of demonstrating why assembly bill 1665 is a bad idea than it does of effectively arguing against the project.

In addition to reinstating a tax on phone bills and adding $300 million to the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF), AB 1665 would lower California’s minimum broadband service standard to 6 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload speeds.… More

Frontier Communications hates double dipping, unless it's licking the cone


Federal subsidies are in the pink.

As might be expected, Frontier Communications objects to a proposed $29 million California Advanced Services Fund subsidy for a fiber to the home project in its San Bernardino County territory. Its first instinct was to try to a backdoor approach at the California Public Utilities Commission, but that was rebuffed. So yesterday Frontier filed formal comments urging the CPUC to kill the Gigafy Phelan project when it comes up for a vote next week.… More

California assembly committee digs a deeper digital divide

27 April 2017 by Steve Blum
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Broadband service expectations are low and the appetite for funding independent, competitive broadband infrastructure is vanishingly small in the California assembly. Or at least in the communications and conveyance committee, which took up assembly bill 1665 yesterday.

Carried by assemblyman Eduardo Garcia (D – Coachella), AB 1665 would reinstate a tax on telephone bills and add $300 million to the California Advanced Services Fund’s (CASF) broadband infrastructure subsidy kitty (and $30 million to other programs).

But it would subsidise a dismal broadband landscape.… More