sb740 – Page 5 – Steve Blum's Blog

Mobile carriers not convincing key California assemblyman

13 March 2013 by Steve Blum
ab1299, att, broadband, casf, cpuc, mobile, public policy, sb740

Present company not included.

“I know a whole lotta dumb people with smart devices,” said Steven Bradford, a Los Angeles assemblyman and chair of the California assembly’s utilities and commerce committee. He’s a member of the California Broadband Council, which met today in Sacramento. The reason people have $500 smart phones, he said, is because telephone companies “practically give them away and lock them into a long term contract.”

Bradford takes issue with the way telephone companies are enthusiastically – and expensively – building out mobile networks in California and signing up customers, while at the same time letting wired service languish.… More

Bills to extend CASF introduced in California legislature

24 February 2013 by Steve Blum
ab1299, broadband, casf, community networks, cpuc, public policy, sb740

Pork is in the eye of the beholder.

Two bills proposing three changes to the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) made it into the legislative sausage grinder by Friday’s deadline. The changes could be good or bad, depending on your point of view.

Senator Alex Padilla, a Democrat representing the San Fernando Valley, introduced SB740, which would 1. add $100 million to the fund and allow five more years to collect it, and 2.… More