digitalpath

Not every project proposed for a broadband infrastructure grant from the California Advanced Services Fund that could have been waved through and approved administratively was. Nine grant requests from Charter Communications received a “ministerial” blessing, but a proposal from Digital Path was bucked to the five CPUC commissioners for a decision.

Digital Path wants $415,000 from CASF for fixed wireless facilities to cover 279 homes, mostly in Sutter County, with a few in Placer County. Cover, not necessarily serve.… More

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

Internet service providers are trying to fence off their turf from competitors who might bring faster, and maybe even cheaper, broadband service to rural communities in California, and across the U.S. They challenged the Federal Communications Commission’s preliminary list of census blocks that are eligible for subsidies from the new Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF), which is scheduled to award $16 billion in broadband subsidies via a reverse auction in October.

An article by Joan Engebretson in Telecompetitor gives a good overview.… More