sb1069 – Steve Blum's Blog

Faster standards for broadband subsidies head to California senate floor, two other key bills killed

19 June 2020 by Steve Blum
casf, rural broadband, sb1058, sb1069, sb1130

A bill to raise California’s minimum broadband speed standard and subsidise fiber to the premise infrastructure was blessed by the California senate’s appropriations committee yesterday. But the bill was amended and the changes haven’t been published yet. Two other bills that would have put emergency preparedness and response obligations on all Internet service providers were killed behind closed doors by senate leadership.

Senate bill 1130, authored by Lena Gonzalez (D – Los Angeles), would raise the eligibility standard for broadband infrastructure subsidies from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) to 25 Mbps download/25 Mbps upload speeds, from the current pathetic level of 6 Mbps down/1 Mbps up.… More

Cable, mobile companies fight rollback of perks they’ve paid California lawmakers big bucks to write

8 June 2020 by Steve Blum
netneutrality, public policy, sb1058, sb1069, sb1130

Special privileges that cable companies and mobile carriers have bought from the California legislature over the years could be rolled back a bit if two bills approved by the California senate’s energy, utilities and communications (EU&C) committee make it into law.

Senate bill 1058, authored by Ben Hueso (D – San Diego), would require “every Internet service provider” (as the legislative counsel’s digest put it) to “file an annual emergency operations plan” with the California Public Utilities Commission.… More

Five telecoms bills cling to life in the California legislature as deadlines pass

2 June 2020 by Steve Blum
ab2163, sb1058, sb1069, sb1130, sb1206, sb431

Compressed deadlines at the California legislature will leave several telecommunications bills for dead, as attention turns toward the 15 June 2020 constitutionally mandated date for passing the annual state budget. With weeks taken out of the normal schedule by the covid–19 lockdown, and committee work hampered by social distancing and quarantine measures, far fewer bills are expected to make it out of the Sacramento sausage machine this year.

Four bills are moving ahead: senate bill 1130, a broadband subsidy bill I wrote about last Wednesday, two bills that lean into broadband regulation – SB 1058 and SB 1069 – that I’ll write about later, and assembly bill 2421, which would require local governments to fast track permit approvals for emergency generators needed to keep cell sites running.… More