casf

Four ISPs claim California right of first refusal for broadband subsidies, but big telcos sit it out

18 January 2018 by Steve Blum
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Four Internet service providers exercised their jus primae noctis right of first refusal for California broadband subsidy priority by Tuesday’s deadline. That’s assuming all four got it right, which is doubtful.

When the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) program was turned into a piggy bank for AT&T and Frontier rewritten last year, one of the benefits lawmakers slipped into the bill was an annual opportunity for incumbent providers to claim unserved areas, in exchange for a promise to upgrade broadband service within six months.… More

Blame game won't stop California broadband subsidy giveaway

19 December 2017 by Steve Blum
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The California legislature intended to protect AT&T’s and Frontier Communications’ rural broadband monopolies and subsidise their low speed service, when it passed assembly bill 1665 earlier this year. In effect, that’s what the California Public Utilities Commission said last week as it approved a resolution that allows the two biggest incumbents to claim exclusive rights to broadband infrastructure subsidies in the rural communities they serve (or not).

Telephone and cable industry lobbyists re-rigged the California Advanced Services Fund program and found enough friends in the legislature – democrat and republican – to approve it by more than a two-thirds majority.… More

California broadband decisions hide in D.C.'s shadow today

14 December 2017 by Steve Blum
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The big broadband news will be coming from the FCC later this morning (although there won’t be much, if anything, that’s actually new). But the California Public Utilities Commission is also meeting today, with a handful of broadband-related issues to decide.

One of the resolutions up for a vote would slap down a request from the CPUC’s office of ratepayer advocates to take another look at how cable companies are (not) held accountable under California’s statewide franchising law.… More

Frontier orders a California broadband subsidy sandwich

3 December 2017 by Steve Blum
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The first application for construction (and maybe operations) subsidies from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) since the program was gutted by the California legislature landed in the hopper at the California Public Utilities Commission.

Frontier Communications is asking for a $1.8 million grant, without specifying how much, if anything, it’s willing to pay out of its own pocket. It wants the money to pay for a fiber to the home system in and around the remote San Bernardino County town of Lytle Creek…

Frontier’s proposed project will cover about 4.4 square miles and is a combination of middle-mile and last-mile infrastructure using Frontier’s existing poles and rights of way to deploy fiber-to-the-home (“FTTH”) facilities capable of providing High Speed Internet, Ethernet, and VoIP service with speeds of up to 1 Gbps download and 1 Gbps upload.

… More

Incumbents get first grab at California broadband subsidies and subs in January

15 November 2017 by Steve Blum
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Yesterday, California’s broadband infrastructure subsidy fund began its transition from a bottom-up program focused on independent, locally developed projects, to a top down one that’s gamed for the benefit of incumbents. The first post-assembly bill 1665 rules for the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) were put on the table by the California Public Utilities Commission.

The draft lays out the process for facilities-based incumbents – broadband service providers that own and operate their own equipment, wired or wireless – to exercise their right of first refusal for unserved areas.… More

California broadband subsidies will be top down, incumbent focused

9 November 2017 by Steve Blum
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The California Public Utilities Commission plans to take a more active role in deciding where and how broadband infrastructure will be subsidised, and to work more closely with incumbents in the process. Yesterday, commissioners discussed how they will run the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) program under new rules adopted by the California legislature. Assembly bill 1665 was signed into law by governor Jerry Brown last month. It requires the commission to periodically designate which communities in California can receive CASF money, based on a slower minimum broadband speed standard – 6 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload – that will slash the number of eligible households from 300,000 to just 20,000, according to one CPUC estimate.… More

Broadband redlining in rural California, a tale of two mayors

1 November 2017 by Steve Blum
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Internet access in rural California is fantastic, and it’s awful. Those two messages were delivered to the California Public Utilities Commission last week by, respectively, the mayors of Mammoth Lakes and Oroville.

The reason for the difference? A big, fat open access middle mile fiber route, paid for by state and federal subsidies. The same type of project that the California legislature and governor Brown banned from future funding by the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF).… More

Santa Cruz fights fire with fiber

26 October 2017 by Steve Blum
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As a wild fire burned in the Santa Cruz mountains, a key AT&T fiber line was cut nearby, reportedly by a road maintenance crew doing previously scheduled work just before 5:00 a.m. on Tuesday of last week.

In 2009, a break in a different AT&T cable effectively knocked Santa Cruz, Watsonville and most of the rest of the county off of the Internet for most of a day. Since then, AT&T, Comcast and independent broadband companies have upgraded and diversified cable routes running north and south.… More

California broadband subsidy program heads for the deep freeze

20 October 2017 by Steve Blum
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With the stroke of a pen, governor Jerry Brown transformed the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) into a piggy bank for AT&T and Frontier Communications. Carve outs for federally subsidised service areas and the right of first refusal on unserved areas give them an opportunity to claim CASF money for the projects they want to do, and block independent projects virtually everywhere else in their service areas.

Going forward, two questions need to be answered: what will happen to pending CASF infrastructure grant applications and how will the California Public Utilities Commission implement the new rules?… More

California broadband subsidies are now a rigged game

18 October 2017 by Steve Blum
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The era of state-subsidised independent broadband projects is over in California. It ended Sunday night when governor Brown signed assembly bill 1665 into law, with immediate effect.

AB 1665 added $300 million to the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) specifically for infrastructure subsidies, but drastically changed the way the money can be spent. It’s messy and meandering, like most pork laden bills, but the key elements are:

  • The money has to be spent in areas where broadband service is available at less than 6 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload speeds.
… More