Broadband in California’s rural counties was in the spotlight Tuesday at an informational hearing at the State Capitol.
Members of the Assembly Select Committee on the Digital Divide in Rural California heard testimony from a wide array of speakers from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), the California Emerging Technology Fund, the Department of Technology and state CIO Carlos Ramos, and many other organizations and companies.
“I think some of what we heard today is that the system is pretty complicated, and that why I wanted to develop a baseline of information here.
“The funding seems to be in silos and how do we break the silos down and look at these things programmatically rather than individual pockets or resources? I don’t see how we get to the deployment and uptake that we desperately need unless we figure out ways to have all these silos working together,” said Assemblymember Jim Wood, D-Healdsburg, chair of the select committee, after hearing three-plus hours of testimony.
Tuesday’s full three-hour hearing is available on video. Wood said the committee would reconvene at another hearing on Dec. 15.
Cathy Sandoval, a commissioner with the CPUC, said 95 percent of California’s land mass is rural, which provides both challenges and opportunities. She said CPUC continues to hear great frustration from rural communities and Native American tribes about their inability to get broadband; the backbone and middle-mile infrastructure isn’t adequate.
Sunny McPeak of CETF said much progress has been made, but there are at least 250,000 households in California unserved by broadband service that are yet to be reached. That number also depends on the definition of what is adequate broadband speed, which she said is a moving target. The FCC’s definition is 25 megabits (Mbps) per second downstream and 3 Mbps upstream.
The state of California’s goal is to provide broadband service — wireless or wireline — to 98 percent of the state.
The Assembly Select Committee heard from representatives of the cable industry and Internet service providers, as well as the Corporation for Education Networks Initiatives in California (CENIC), and the California Telehealth Network.
