casf

Broadband subsidies collide in the California desert

23 November 2015 by Steve Blum
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Up, down, who cares? This is as fast as I go.

The 3,800 homes in the Anza area of Riverside County are a big step closer to getting fiber to the home broadband service from the local electric cooperative. The California Public Utilities Commission published a draft decision on Friday giving the Anza Electric Cooperative a $2.7 million grant from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) to pay for 60% of the project.

The project is remarkable for two reasons.… More

Middle mile plan plugs northern California gap but needs open access guarantee

19 November 2015 by Steve Blum
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Open access rules are only as strong as the weakest link.

Siskiyou Telephone Company is asking for a $5.8 million grant from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) to plug a 22-mile fiber gap between the Siskiyou County towns of Happy Camp and Somes Bar. The middle mile project would boost broadband capacity in the region by providing the last link in a fiber chain that runs from Eureka on the coast to Yreka on the I-5 corridor, according to the publicly posted project summary.… More

Intelligent management of broadband subsidies works

18 November 2015 by Steve Blum
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Each taking care of its own.

I had the opportunity to speak at the California Broadband Workshop in Mountain View yesterday, organised by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. Here are the remarks I prepared, which greatly resemble the remarks I delivered…

Good morning. I’d like to make three points.

First, public subsidies provide the greatest benefit to the greatest number when used to leverage private capital and steer it toward public policy goals. Publicly owned assets are a powerful tool for encouraging competitive builds and keeping public policy goals front and center.… More

Rural areas get biggest benefit from higher Californian broadband standard

17 November 2015 by Steve Blum
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Another try at raising California’s minimum broadband standard to 25 Mbps down/3 Mbps up, from the current 6 Mbps down/1.5 Mbps up level, is gathering momentum in Sacramento. Introduced earlier this year by Santa Cruz assemblyman Mark Stone, assembly bill 238 would have raised the bar both for eligibility requirements for California Advanced Service Fund (CASF) subsidies, and for the infrastructure that’s built using that money. It’s stalled now, due to unexpected opposition from rural interests as well as the usual suspects.… More

California mountain community requests $759K for FTTH

8 November 2015 by Steve Blum
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Click for the big picture.

A fiber to the home project in the Tahoe Basin in eastern Placer County has been proposed for a construction subsidy from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF). Submitted by Inyo Networks – one of the companies involved in the Digital 395 network in eastern California – the grant application asks for $759,000, which is 70% of the total $1.1 million project cost…

The proposed Alpine Peaks Broadband Project will serve a designated “Priority Area” community in the Upper Ward Canyon area of eastern Placer County.

… More

Plenty of broadband money for some in rural California, if there's cooperation

4 November 2015 by Steve Blum
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Worlds apart.

If the two primary California and federal broadband subsidy programs – the California Advanced Services Fund and the FCC’s Connect America Fund – were coordinated, many rural areas could see significant infrastructure upgrades. Maybe even fiber to the home systems, or at least fiber to the node. As it is, though, those two programs run completely separately, even to the point of having such disparate service standards that broadband systems built for one wouldn’t necessarily meet the requirements of the other.… More

Telecoms lobbyists tell Calfornia lawmakers which side of the digital divide they're on

2 November 2015 by Steve Blum
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Lobbyists for AT&T and the California cable industry gave state assembly members clear insight into why rural broadband development is such an intractable challenge. It wasn’t exactly the insight they were planning to deliver – that consisted mostly of platitudes about the wonderful work they’re doing and the evils of subsidising independent companies that would dare to compete against them. The insight came from the way they tried to divert attention away from the rural questions that the assembly’s select committee on the digital divide in California is tasked with answering, and toward the investment they’re indisputably making in more lucrative urban areas.… More

Fiber projects grow from Digital 395 middle mile

1 November 2015 by Steve Blum
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Fiber follows fiber.

Slowly but surely, Race Telecommunications is expanding its fiber to the home footprint in eastern California, using money from the California Advanced Services Fund. The latest addition could be several small towns in Mono County – the Gigafy Mono project – and five small mining communities further south, where the company is asking for $7.6 million and $8.9 million respectively. Draft resolutions approving the money are circulating now, with the California Public Utilities Commission expected to vote on them in December.… More

Three ways to bridge California's digital divide

29 October 2015 by Steve Blum
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Not the best way to solve transportation problems either.

I was at the state assembly’s select committee on the digital divide in California on Tuesday, and offered my comments…
Good morning. My name is Stephen Blum, my company is Tellus Venture Associates, in Marina, in Assemblyman Stone’s district. I’m a broadband development consultant and a member of the Central Coast Broadband Consortium. I work for several cities and other regional broadband consortia in California, in both urban and rural areas.… More

Do your own thing is a poor way to plan broadband in California

28 October 2015 by Steve Blum
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“The funding seems to be in silos, how do we break these silos down?”, asked assemblyman Jim Wood (D – Healdsburg) at the first meeting of the assembly’s select committee on the digital divide in California this morning. He was responding to presentations from representatives of organisations that specialise in developing broadband infrastructure for education, health care and public safety agencies. Those networks meet important needs, but for the most part have been, or are being, built with little or no consideration for overall broadband infrastructure development priorities in the state.… More