Fiber For All broadband Subsidy Bill Approved

Originally posted on the Tellus Venture Associates Blog

Future proof, fiber-based broadband infrastructure got a big boost yesterday as the California senate’s energy, utilities and communications committee voted to approve senate bill 1130. The bill would raise California’s minimum broadband standard to symmetrical 25 Mbps download and upload speeds, and require projects subsidised with money from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) to be capable of delivering symmetrical 100 Mbps down/100 Mbps up speeds.

As is common, changes were made on the fly and the exact language is still to be determined. The bill’s author, senator Lena Gonzalez (D – Los Angeles) accepted changes that give desperately unserved communities – in practice, mostly rural ones – priority for CASF money.

She also agreed to allow the California Public Utilities Commission discretion to fund projects that provide service as slow as 25 Mbps down/3 Mbps up. How that’s worded will be important, since the requirement that CASF-subsidised infrastructure be “future-proof” and the definition of that term – “sufficient capacity to deliver to end users 100 mbps downstream, 100 mbps upstream” – is still in the bill.

I don’t have the final vote tally yet, but the last count I have put the vote at 10 ayes and two noes. The two noes (and one of the ayes) came from republicans.

Update: the final tally was 11 ayes, 2 noes. All the democrats present voted aye, as did one republican; the two noes were both from republicans.

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