ab1145 – Steve Blum's Blog

California broadband decisions down to the final day

15 October 2017 by Steve Blum
ab1145, ab1665, broadband, public policy, sb649

Mark Miller [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Governor Jerry Brown signed 40 bills into law yesterday, and vetoed 14 more, but didn’t act on the two major pieces of broadband legislation sitting on his desk: assembly bill 1665, which would lower California’s minimum service standard to 6 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload speeds, and senate bill 649, which preempts local ownership of street light poles and other vertical infrastructure.
He did approve AB 1145 which gives cable companies public money reserved for public utilities, without public utility obligations.… More

California lawmakers give cable utility perks, without utility obligations

6 April 2017 by Steve Blum
ab1145, broadband, public policy, utility regulation

Quirky economics.

Cable companies want the benefits of being a legally recognised public utility, but not the responsibilities. One of those benefits is to be compensated when a public works project requires the relocation of lines, either on poles or underground. The California assembly’s communications and conveyance committee thought that cable companies deserve it too, and unanimously endorsed a bill yesterday that would reimburse them for relocation work when a project is being paid for out of bond money that’s been approved by voters.… More