casf

One of the mysteries surrounding Californian subsidies for broadband infrastructure is the abysmally low standard that the California Public Utilities Commission imposes on the people who live in public housing, and only on them. The thicket of laws that govern the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) initially set aside $20 million to pay for broadband facilities in public housing communities, with the possibility of adding more when it runs out.

The CPUC is in the middle of rebooting the CASF program, after the California legislature added to the mess by turning the general infrastructure subsidy program – with $300 million in new money – into a piggy bank for AT&T and Frontier Communications.… More

Disadvantaged communities are first in line for broadband education, marketing and access grants subsidised by the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) in a draft plan to implement a new “adoption” program run by the California Public Utilities Commission. The proposed decision, by commissioner Martha Guzman Aceves, also tweaks existing subsidies for broadband service and promotion in public housing communities and winds down a defunct infrastructure loan program.

Two kinds of adoption projects will be funded: digital literacy – i.e.… More

The counter punches landed at the California Public Utilities Commission yesterday, as nine organisations filed rebuttals to previous comments about how the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) should be run. The broadband infrastructure subsidy program is undergoing a complete make over, thanks to last year’s assembly bill 1665, which lowered California’s minimum broadband speed standard and turned the fund into a piggy bank for AT&T and Frontier Communications.

The Central Coast Broadband Consortium’s reply, which I drafted and submitted, led off with a correction – I got the math wrong on service level weightings.… More

Four Internet service providers, all of whom have participated at one time or another in the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) infrastructure subsidy program, offered their ideas on how that money should be managed and allocated. So did a lobbying front representing cable companies – including Charter Communications, Comcast and Cox Communications – which have never participated. The big boys – AT&T, Frontier Communications and the cable industry – want grants on their own terms, while blocking competitors that might threaten their monopoly business models.… More

The main event is finally under way. By yesterday’s deadline, thirteen organisations filed comments regarding how the California Public Utilities Commission should spend $300 million in new California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) money (plus however much more is left in the kitty) on broadband infrastructure subsidies. I haven’t read through them all yet – if you’re interested, I’ve posted them all here – but a top line glance shows that service providers, including the big incumbents who expect to use CASF as a private piggy bank, have a lot to say.… More

In the spirit of no taxpayer dollars left behind, big cable and telephone companies want to help spend grants awarded by the California Public Utilities Commission to groups promoting Internet use and subscriptions, but they don’t want to have do anything in return. Cable companies and AT&T filed rebuttals last week to recommendations made by a variety of broadband and consumer advocacy groups about how a “broadband adoption” grant program, newly funded by a tax on telephone bills, should be structured.… More

When lobbyists for telephone and cable companies convinced biddable lawmakers to turn California’s taxpayer-funded broadband subsidy program – the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) – into their own private, $300 million piggy bank last year, some smaller programs were included. Assembly bill 1665 created a $20 million “broadband adoption” kitty that’s supposed to go toward increasing the number of people who use the Internet. The California Public Utilities Commission is writing new rules to guide how that money is spent, and many organisations, incumbents and non-profit corporations included, have offered recommendations for doing so.… More

The back-and-forth continues over how California’s broadband subsidy programs – grouped under the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) – should be redesigned. Earlier this week, six organisations filed rebuttals to the initial round of comments made last month.

Much of the debate is over how results should be measured and to what degree the organisations that get CASF money should be held accountable for those results. It’s a complicated problem. The answer will largely depend on whether the California Public Utilities Commission reckons “broadband adoption” to be a goal defined by marketing principles – which is where the term comes from and where success is measured by the number of new subscribers – or simply an educational activity.… More