
California Senate Committee Votes to Give Telcos $300m for Slower Broadband - iokevins
http://www.tellusventure.com/blog/california-senate-committee-votes-to-give-telcos-300-million-for-slower-broadband/
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iokevins
From the article:

"AB 1665 would lower California’s broadband standard from a minimum of 6 Mbps
download/1.5 Mbps upload speeds, to 6 Mbps down/1 Mbps up. That’s despite a
move by the federal agriculture department to set the minimum acceptable speed
for rural areas at 25 Mbps down/3 Mbps up.

The bill would also re-write the rules for the state’s primary broadband
construction subsidy program – the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) –
in such a way that it will be difficult, if not impossible, for anyone other
than AT&T or Frontier Communications to tap into the $300 million allocated
for infrastructure grants. It adds further sweeteners for incumbents, such as
letting them use CASF grant money to pay for operating costs and, in a nod to
the cable industry, allowing them to launder it through individual property
owners in order to avoid any direct oversight by the California Public
Utilities Commission, which oversees the fund.

Next stop for AB 1665 is the senate appropriations committee. If it gets a
green light there, it’ll go to a floor vote by the full senate, and then back
to the assembly to reconcile the different versions passed by the two houses."

