Fourteen organisations offered comments on Friday regarding California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) grant requirements and application procedures for public housing broadband facilities and for broadband adoption efforts, which are generally reckoned to be digital literacy classes and “broadband access” programs – i.e. computer centers, hotspots and free computers – programs. Suggestions for how the CASF broadband infrastructure loan program should be wound down were also submitted.
The new adoption grant program, and the revisions to the public housing and infrastructure loan programs were mandated by assembly bill 1665, which was approved by the California legislature and signed into law last year. It also made drastic changes to the way CASF subsidises broadband infrastructure projects, making independent broadband projects all but impossible to pursue and effectively turning the new $300 million account into a piggy bank for AT&T and Frontier Communications. Those new rules will be written later this year.
I’ll have more to say later about Friday’s filings. Full disclosure: I drafted and submitted the comments from the Central Coast Broadband Consortium – I’m as guilty as the rest. For now, you can find links to it all below – fine reading for a rainy weekend afternoon. Enjoy.
Comments on phase 1 (public housing, adoption and infrastructure loans – see appendix B below) of proposed changes to the California Advanced Services Fund program, filed on 16 March 2016:
Regional Broadband Consortia
Central Coast Broadband Consortium
CSU Chico Geographical Information Center (Northeastern and Upstate California Connect Consortia)
Gold Country Broadband Consortium
North Bay North Coast Broadband Consortium
Public Agency
City and County of San Francisco
Internet Service Providers
Bright Fiber Network, Inc.
California Cable and Telecommunications Association
Frontier Communications
Non Profit Organisations
California Emerging Technology Fund
Radio Bilingue, Inc.
Satellite Affordable Housing Associates
Tech Exchange
Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation
TURN
CPUC scoping memo and proposals
Scoping memo and ruling of assigned commissioner, Martha Guzman Aceves, CASF program changes, 14 February 2018
Appendix A, AB 1665 changes to CASF program
Appendix B, CPUC staff proposals for broadband adoption, public housing and loan programs
Appendix C, CPUC staff proposed changes for broadband infrastructure grant, line extension and regional broadband consortia programs