Assembly and Senate bills to update the California Advanced Services Fund cleared their opposite chambers’ Appropriations committees in Thursday votes. Next, SB-4 heads to the Assembly floor and the Assembly-passed AB-14 goes to the Senate floor, said a spokesperson for SB-4 sponsor Sen. Lena Gonzalez (D). The cable industry raised fiscal concerns about AB-14 last week (see 2108160046). SB-4 was amended to "conform with" the $6 billion broadband bill enacted last month (see 2107200056), the spokesperson said. AB-14 will be amended similarly on the Senate floor next week, said an aide to sponsor Assemblymember Cecilia Aguiar-Curry (D).
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) tagged $100 million for a state broadband program, the governor’s office said Friday. That adds to $300 million in federal American Rescue Plan funding that state lawmakers agreed to spend on connectivity in a March budget deal.
Internet industry groups urged a federal judge to pause district court proceedings on Florida’s social media law until the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rules on Florida's appeal of a preliminary injunction. U.S. District Court in Tallahassee Judge Robert Hinkle asked if the case should be stayed (see 2108050053). What the 11th Circuit decides “will go a long way towards resolving the merits of this case, thereby vastly reducing the need for further briefing or discovery and saving this Court from wading through the discovery disputes that have already emerged,” NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association answered Wednesday in case 4:21-cv-00220-RH-MAF. Florida disagreed. “This case presents very important issues concerning the scope of the government’s authority to regulate the content moderation decisions of social media platforms,” said counsel for Attorney General Ashley Moody (R). “There is an overwhelming public interest in resolving this case expeditiously -- before another election in which Plaintiffs’ members are able to manipulate public discourse by censoring their users.”
The FCC high-cost USF fund was scrutinized at the Technology Policy Institute (TPI) conference in Aspen, Colorado. Many said more-accurate broadband maps will help to spend the government money more efficiently. And "you got to get real maps of broadband" before spending infrastructure funds, said Dish Network Chairman Charlie Ergen. Otherwise, "you end up with very inefficient, wasteful spending," he said Monday. Eventually, "where you have electricity, you’re going to have fiber," he said. "I think that’s the end goal and that’s probably a 20-year process." Some got FCC Rural Digital Opportunity Fund money for areas devoid of people, Ergen and others noted. "The FCC is doing the right thing because hopefully without penalty, they will let people turn in the money" they could have received from RDOF in places they won't build out (see 2108130061), he said. "I hope companies are responsible and do it," he said of bid withdrawals. RDOF's problem is how areas were defined, not with the auction itself, said Stanford University Director-Public Policy Greg Rosston. "The mapping problem has got to get solved," he told a later TPI panel. To assist with effects from the COVID-19 pandemic, "the good news is it is billions" of dollars in broadband aid, said National Urban League Chief Operating Officer Donald Cravins. "We’ve come a long way in a short time. But we’ve lost a lot of lives." It's "an opportunity for us in America" and "we’ve got to get it right," he said. "I don’t know that we can afford to get it wrong again." The U.S. may never get 100% to get broadband, said Duke University economics professor Michelle Connolly. Even with landline phones, the country never got to 100%, responded TPI President Scott Wallsten.
The cable industry raised fiscal concerns about a broadband bill to update the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF). The Senate Appropriations Committee placed AB-14 in its “suspense file” Monday, a category reserved for bills deemed to be costly and that will be taken up later. The California Cable Telecommunications Association would support AB-14 if amended to address “serious fiscal impacts,” said Vice President-Government Affairs Bernie Orozco at the livestreamed hearing. Some RF safety advocates raised concerns about the bill supporting wireless deployment. Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and other localities supported AB-14. A companion bill (SB-4) is up for vote Thursday in the Assembly Appropriations Committee. The CASF bills are nearing final votes (see 2107090049). Orozco later opposed a communications disaster reporting measure (AB-1100) as “duplicative and unnecessary.” The committee placed it on suspense. Other bills moved to that file Monday included AB-41 about agency coordination on conduit deployment, AB-74 to require various California LifeLine enrollment and recertification process changes and the cable-backed AB-1560 on distance learning.
GCI raised concerns in comments on proposed drive test parameters and a model for the tests for some carriers participating in the Alaska Plan. Comments were due Thursday in docket 16-271. “Many of the areas where GCI and other providers committed to improve mobile wireless services are extremely remote,” said a filing posted Friday: “The Proposal would likely require GCI to test a substantial number of grid cells that are very sparsely populated (if actually populated at all), roadless, miles from the nearest road, or all three. The efforts required for these tests will validate a very small percentage of [those] reflected in the commitments but require substantial effort.”
NARUC criticized language in the Senate-passed Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (HR-3684) that would extend and expand the emergency broadband benefit. The measure, which the Senate advanced Tuesday (see 2108100062), gives the FCC $14.2 billion for EBB, to be renamed the Affordable Connectivity Fund. “The new broadband benefit ignores critical protections for consumers and for the program itself by extending the partial bypass of the Eligible Telecommunication Carrier designation process, which also bypasses many states that are both interested in and able to protect program beneficiaries,” NARUC said Thursday. “Unfortunately, the industry voices that aimed to avoid oversight carried more weight than NARUC’s concern for sound, reasonable protections for the public.”
Kentucky posted a request for proposals for $50 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act broadband funding. The RFP is open until Oct. 25 and funds may be awarded by April, the office of Gov. Andy Beshear (D) said Wednesday.
Nebraska broadband grant applications will be accepted from Sept. 9 to Oct. 1, the Nebraska Public Service Commission said in a Tuesday order. “We’ve had good participation in this process so far, and we expect that to translate into plenty of applications,” Chair Dan Watermeier said. The PSC is running the state’s $20 million program that Gov. Pete Ricketts (R) enacted May 26 (see 2106080068).
The California Public Utilities Commission seeks comment by Aug. 27, replies Sept. 27 on location recommendations for the statewide open-access, middle-mile broadband network required by the state’s recent $6 billion broadband law, Commissioner Martha Guzman-Aceves ruled Friday in docket R.20-09-001. The assigned commissioner added a third phase to the proceeding earlier last week to implement the bill signed last month by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom (see 2108030041). The CPUC may vote Sept. 9 on Commissioner Darcie Houck’s Friday proposed decision to expand eligibility requirements for a California Advanced Services Fund broadband adoption program that provides take-home computing devices to households that complete digital literacy training.