casf – Page 6 – Steve Blum's Blog

Frontier’s sins make a longer stay in California bankruptcy purgatory more likely

13 July 2020 by Steve Blum
casf, cpuc, frontiercommunications, public policy, rural broadband

A lukewarm reply to demands that the California Public Utilities Commission take a hard look at its post-bankruptcy plans makes it a good bet that Frontier Communications won’t get a green light in California until sometime next year. Last month several organisations, including the CPUC’s own public advocates office, protested Frontier’s request for quick and painless permission to hand control of its business in California to a new set of owners. Last week, Frontier responded.

Like the protests, Frontier’s reply runs through the long list of problems that the company has experienced, if not caused, in California.… More

Democrats in D.C. and Sacramento in sync on fast fiber for broadband. So far

9 July 2020 by Steve Blum
casf, public policy, rural broadband, sb1130

If you can’t get high quality broadband service with at least 25 Mbps download and upload speeds, then you’re unserved according to a $1.5 trillion infrastructure bill passed on a partisan vote by democrats in the federal house of representatives. $80 billion of that money is set aside for broadband service upgrades, with symmetrical 100 Mbps service considered the minimum acceptable and preference given to subsidised projects that deliver 1 Gbps down and up.

Unlike California, republicans matter in D.C.… More

Short broadband to-do list for California legislators upon return from summer vacation

6 July 2020 by Steve Blum
ab570, casf, rural broadband, sb1130, sb431

California lawmakers are taking an abbreviated summer break. They usually leave Sacramento for a month around July, but since they were off for so long earlier this year due to covid-19 and because of the uncertain condition of the state budget, their effective vacation was trimmed back to less than two weeks. They’re scheduled to return to the capitol a week from today. When they return, they’ll have just a handful of broadband-related bills to act on.… More

FCC chokes on Digital Path’s map spam, CPUC still chewing on it as broadband subsidy decisions for rural California are made

2 July 2020 by Steve Blum
casf, cpuc, digitalpath, fcc, rdof

Spam

Nearly 426,000 California “locations” – homes, businesses, institutions – are eligible for the Federal Communications Commission’s $16 billion broadband subsidy auction in October. The California Public Utilities Commission has about $145 million for broadband infrastructure grants, primarily in rural communities. Both agencies have to sort out challenges from incumbent Internet service providers that want to block subsidies in order to protect their turf, as well as decide where to spend subsidy dollars.

In theory, the FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) could bring faster, cheaper and more reliable broadband to as many as 8 million rural Californians, because the program’s rules require ISPs to serve everyone in a given area, whether eligible for subsidies or not.… More

Bill to beat down broadband subsidy program drops in California assembly

1 July 2020 by Steve Blum
ab570, casf, public policy, rural broadband, sb1130

It was long expected. On Monday, assemblywoman Cecilia Aguiar-Curry (D – Yolo) gutted an affordable housing bill and substituted text that would, if enacted, reaffirm that California’s broadband standard is stuck in the 1990s at 6 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload speeds, and make it even more difficult to use the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) to bring modern service to rural communities.

Assembly bill 570 is the cable and telephone industry’s response to senate bill 1130, which is carried by senator Lena Gonzalez (D – Los Angeles) and would raise California’s minimum broadband speed to a symmetrical 25 Mbps down and up.… More

Frontier’s “pervasive lack of credibility” drives FCC’s rejection of its service claims; CPUC urged to ignore its “high level rhetoric and promises”

1 July 2020 by Steve Blum
casf, cpuc, fcc, frontiercommunications, rdof

There’s rapidly increasing skepticism in San Francisco and Washington, D.C. of Frontier Communications’ corporate honesty. Frontier was blasted in two separate agency actions in recent days: the California Public Utilities Commission’s review of its post bankruptcy plans and the Federal Communications Commission’s broadband subsidy auction, as it prepares to distribute the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund.

Challenges filed by incumbent broadband providers, aimed at blocking federal subsidies in their captive rural markets, were largely dismissed by the Federal Communications Commission last week.… More

California tops up federal broadband subsidy bids, as FCC trims RDOF eligibility list

30 June 2020 by Steve Blum
ab82, casf, fcc, rdof, sb1130

Californian communities lost potential broadband subsidy money last week, but might have gained some back yesterday. On Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission eliminated 48,000 “locations” – homes, businesses, community facilities – in what appears to be 3,100 census blocks from the preliminary eligibility list for the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF), following a review of tens of thousands of challenges from incumbent broadband providers who wanted to freeze out potential competitors. I say “appears to be” because the FCC’s numbers don’t line up with census bureau stats – that discrepancy should be resolved eventually.… More

One California rural broadband subsidy bill goes to the governor, another moves on to the assembly

29 June 2020 by Steve Blum
ab82, casf, cpuc, rural broadband, sb1130

Friday was a good day for broadband at the California capitol, as two bills expanding eligibility for infrastructure subsidies won lopsided votes. Senate bill 1130 was approved by the senate, and now awaits action in the assembly. Following senate approval on Thursday, assembly bill 82 was blessed by the assembly and is now on governor Gavin Newsom’s desk. He’s expected to sign it today.

The big, difficult and high impact bill is SB 1130. It would raise California’s minimum broadband to 25 Mbps download/25 Mbps upload speeds, and encourage – but not require – the California Public Utilities Commission to spend California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) money on infrastructure projects that deliver similarly symmetrical 100 Mbps down and up service.… More

Nearly all broadband subsidy proposals could survive California’s chopping block. Nearly

24 June 2020 by Steve Blum
ab1665, ab82, casf, public policy, rural broadband, sb1130

CASF funding status Part 3:

There won’t be enough money in the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) to pay for all the broadband projects proposed for subsidies last month. Grant requests total $533 million, but there’s only $145 million in tax revenue projected to be available for CASF infrastructure projects, as the program is designed and run now.

Something has to give. But not everything. One potential remedy is to top up project budgets with federal money.… More

California broadband subsidy fund dwindles to less than a third needed for pending projects

23 June 2020 by Steve Blum
ab1665, casf, public policy, rural broadband, sb1130

CASF funding status Part 2:

With only $145 million in collectable tax revenue left to spend on broadband infrastructure subsidies, the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) will run dry this year. Last month, 54 broadband projects totalling $533 million in grant requests were proposed for CASF funding. Many, if not all, will be trimmed and some will almost certainly be rejected completely.

My blog post yesterday details the $130 million shortfall in tax revenue collected for CASF – actual and projected – over the final five years of the program, assuming that the legislature doesn’t extend it or the California Public Utilities Commission can’t raise the tax rate applied to in-state phone bills that funds it.… More