The California Broadband Council met on August 12, 2013 in the State Capitol, to review progress on Digital 395, a major Broadband Middle Mile ARRA project, pending broadband legislation, an education tech project in Yolo County, and ICT training for the workforce. The Council also received progress reports from staff from three working groups on surplus state computers, state building collocation, and overcoming local barriers to broadband deployment and adoption.
Council Chairman Michael Peevey, President of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), presided over the meeting. Members of the Council represented were the California Emerging Technology Fund, CalTrans, Department of General Services (DGS), the CPUC, the California Office of Emergency Services (OES), the California Department of Technology, and the California Department of Education. Unable to attend due to the press of Capitol business were Vice Chair and State Senator Alex Padilla and Assembly Member Steven Bradford.
Adelina Zendejas, Deputy Director of the California Department of Technology, reported that she has been reaching out to and attending several meetings with various of the Regional Broadband Consortia, in addition to participating in work relating to the three Council Working Groups. On the state surplus computer project, she reported that a survey is being developed with DGS and CalRecycle to determine the number of old state computers available for refurbishing and then use by school districts that are eligible and interested. She said the survey should be sent out in a few weeks. She reported that in a month or so, maps will be available of state buildings that may be used for public safety and non-public safety colocation of facilities.
Barry Hathaway of The Stride Center, presented information on its training center to prepare individuals from a background of poverty for careers in the ICT field. Participants in The Stride Center’s challenging program obtain credentials and technician certificates that enable them to have a greater chance of employement and earn average salaries of about $18/hour.
Tim Rainey of the State Workforce Investment Board (WIB) discussed the challenges of delivering to one million involuntarily separated workers each month access to a range of social services. He noted how digital literacy and the ability to get online is very important in this effort. He reported that the WIB is completing strategic plans. It believes that ICT skills will be necessary across all sectors. They plan to measure the number of people with ICT certifications. They envision virtual worker centers focused on developing broad-based ICT skills for the unemployed.
Jacqueline Kinney, Principal Consultant to the Senate Committee on Energy Utilities and Communications, reported on Senate Bill (SB) 740, a bill to add $90 million from 2015 through 2020 to the CPUC’s California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) broadband infrastructure program, require an annual CPUC report on the fund expenditures and fund balance, and expand eligible entities beyond telephone corporations to entities like local governments, tribal groups, and Wireless Internet Service Providers. After being approved by the Senate, the bill failed to advance in the Assembly Utilities and Commerce Committee on July 1st. Since then, the author has worked out amendments with the cable industry which originally opposed the bill, and it was reconsidered by the Assembly U&C Committee immediately after the Council meeting. [See story on the passage of SB740 of the Assembly U&C Committee here] She noted no party was opposing the bill, as amended.
DaVina Flemings, Principal Consultant to the Assembly Committee on Utilities & Commerce, reported on AB1299 (Bradford), a bill on smart housing. It would create in the CASF program a new grant and loan program of $25 million for public housing agencies to install broadband infrastructure for tenants. $20 million would be set aside for broadband infrastructure projects and $5 million would be designated for broadband adoption programs. She noted the bill is currently on suspense in the Senate Appropriations Committee, and will eventually be joined with SB740, the funding mechanism for AB1299. She noted that Assembly member Bradford’s District staff had joined the Los Angeles County Housing Authority launch of a pilot program in a 601-unit multi-family unit in Culver City.
Michael Ort, CEO of Praxis Associates, reported on the major middle mile American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) project known as Digital 395. The project is a 535 mile fiber optic backbone stretching from Reno and Carson City, Nevada in the north to Barstow, California in the south, generally running along Highway 395. Digital 395 was the largest ARRA broadband project awarded to the state, and is using $81 million funds from the federal ARRA grant, a CASF grant of $19 million, plus $1 million from the applicants.
The north half of the network which stretches from Reno to Mammoth Lakes has been completed. It also has been completed from Barstow up to Ridgecrest, where there is a hospital. These two sections total about 250 miles. Work is continuing on the stretch from Ridgecrest and Bishop, which is about 130 miles in length, and is expected to finish by September. At present there is a 40-mile gap between Bishop and Mammoth Lakes, including a 9-mile piece through Inyo National Forest. This piece is important to join together the two halves of the network that have already been completed. The funding gap is currently $10.9 million. Most is due to unexpected multi agency environmental review and permitting costs and delays, in addition to new CPUC rules on placing communications fiber on utility poles which increased costs. Ort said the speed of the broadband will increase from 1.5 Mbps to 15 Mbps at no additional cost. Other speed tiers that will be available include offerings of 30 and 50 Mbps. Praxis has applied to the CPUC as to the funding gap and a proposed resolution is pending.
Mayor Cecilia Aguiar-Curry of Winters, California, presented on a broadband education project for her town, which she said has students that are 62% Hispanic, 35% Caucasian and 2% other. She said like many rural areas, Winters suffers from a lack of broadband infrastructure. Through a partnership with the Youcha Denne Wintum Nation Community Fund, a $240,000 grant was given to help the school distrct obtain broadband access and computer and networking equipment for Grades 2-5. Among the equipment purchased were Chromebooks, LCD projectors, wireless network equipment, iPad minis, and Apple TVs for wireless interface.
The mayor said at first, there were big challenges as teachers struggled to transition to different learning techniques that involved the technology tools. However she emphasized that this grant created tremendous excitement for the families, as the parents and grandparents came to the school to get involved with their children and their computers. She proudly noted that the PTA has gone from 8 families to over 170 families due to this project. The school just received its most recent STAR testing and their scores had gone up 10% for the 4th and 5th grades. She believed this project had a lot to do with the increased test scores because the students were more engaged.
She said new goals for the school is to increase broadband to 100 Mbps over three years, to transition to a cloud-based ecosystem, to modify the curriculum to take advantage of computer based learning, and to plan for Grades 6-12 to be able to take iPads home. She also emphasized that at present, most students have no broadband access at home and so they can only use the computers while at school. She said broadband is necessary at every child’s home.
Christine Crawford, Chief Executive of the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCo) of Yolo County, reported on its efforts to be the county wide agency that looks at the broadband issue, following a meeting of 75 elected local officials in the area conducted by CETF and the CPUC in May 2013. Yolo County will now perform a strategic planning effort, and will issue an RFP to enhance a culture of collaboration. It plans to validate the CPUC broadband maps and identify areas with broadband shortfalls in service, and then develop a strategic plan for every community with a broadband gap. Given the high amount of agriculture in Yolo County, Crawford said the broadband service will greatly enhance vocational training in this area.
Rob Osborne of the CPUC staff reported on the State Surplus Computer project, stating there was only one applicant to the program so far, a Riverside school district. The staff has identified four refurbishers throughout the state to help school districts refurbish old state computers since school districts do not normally have IT staff that know how to upgrade, make reusable and install old computers. Osborne said a PR type campaign is next to make school districts aware of the program and to connect them with the refurbishers. He is working with DGS to present at one of its quarterly meeting of state agencies to educate them about the program and to connect them to refurbishers who can accept old state computers and refurbish them for use at schools.
Osborne also reported on the Working Group that is working to identify state buildings and towers that may be usable for broadband infrastructure. He said DGS is matching up state buildings with unserved and underserved areas from the CPUC maps.
As to the overcoming local barriers to broadband deployment and adoption, Osborne said they will create a "how to" video, and focus on suggestions for streamlining overcomplicated processes for use of the infrastructure by broadband providers. They will use places like Yolo County as a blueprint.
A fourth Working Group was recommended and approved by the Council to focus on broadband issues relating to tribal nations in the State.
During public comment, Sean McLaughin of Access Humboldt said he was disappointed by the Council’s meeting, in that nothing was said about pending changes in the federal E-rate program for broadband discounts for schools/libraries and health care, about FirstNet, a key development for public safety communications, the ConnectAmerica fund, or threats to the Lifeline program. Craig Cheslog of the Department of Education responded that Tom Torlakson, State Superintendent of Public Education, was a Task Force Chair for Erate and thus was monitoring the Erate proceeding at the FCC for California, including meeting with Congress members on our concerns. He said progress may be found on Superintendent Torlakson’s Facebook site.
Mark Ghilarducci, Director of California OES, reported on FirstNet, stating that in the last months, FirstNet has focused on hiring executive staff, engaging in negotiations with pending ARRA public safety broadband projects (including two projects in the Greater Bay Area and Los Angeles), and outreach to stakeholders including California to ensure what is built as part of the FirstNet broadband system matches what is required by local first responders.
