Operator: You have reached the
California Advanced Services Fund Annual Public Workshop.
Selena Wong, you may begin.
-: Thank you.
Good morning.
Welcome to the California Advanced Services Fund
or CASF Annual Workshop.
My name is Selena Wong
and I'm the program manager for
the communication division broadband
retail and market branch.
Before we get started,
here are some logistics announcements.
Today's workshop is being recorded
and it's available online via admin monitor
and Verizon call in.
Then call in for public comments and questions is
+1-800-857-1917.
The passcode is 1767567#.
Questions may also be submitted to
casf_workshop@cpuc.ca.gov.
If you experience any difficulties
calling in for public comments or questions,
please contact IT Technical assistance at (415) 703-2598.
It's been just over a year
since the COVID-19 pandemic started.
The pandemic forced the CPUC to adapt to mostly
the work from home in environment.
CASF staff have had to juggle competing demands,
a record number of grant applications
coupled with a huge federal funding opportunity.
And on top of that,
they care for their children and homeschooling.
Last year in April,
many of you joined us for our first roadshow
CASF annual Workshop.
This year, I'm glad to see that many of you
continue to join us
and we also have some new participants.
On behalf of the team,
we thank you for your time and participation today.
Like I said last year,
broadband is more important than ever.
Especially in light of the pandemic
and people working from home
and students doing distance learning.
The pandemic has proven that broadband is a necessity.
As evidenced by all of those attending
our second CASF Workshop,
100% remotely.
Unfortunately, some people in California
still do not have access to reliable broadband.
Since 2008, the CASF program has helped
close the digital divide in California,
by providing subsidies to build
and expand broadband facilities
to unserved areas of the State.
The program has funded different projects with a goal of
making broadband available to 98% of households
in each consortium region by 2022.
Next slide please.
Last year posed several major challenges
but despite that,
the CPUC approved 11 new infrastructure grants
totaling approximately $20 million.
Two consortium grants worth $900,000.
60 adoptions grants worth $3.1 million.
Three public housing worth $148,000.
And nine tribal technical assistance grants worth $538,000.
The tribal technical assistance program
is a new grant program to support tribes,
in improving broadband access on tribal lands.
Also in response to the pandemic,
the CPUC leveraged $5 million
in the CASF Adoption Account Funds to help school districts
purchase devices for remote learning.
Next slide please.
The CPUC received a record number of
54 CASF infrastructure grant applications
that if awarded
would exceed the remaining funds available.
Assembly Bill 82 passed in June, 2020,
allows State leveraging of Federal Funds.
The prohibition on funding broadband infrastructure costs
that are also funded by federal programs
was set on July 1st, 2020.
And after the Federal Communications Commission's
announcement of Rural Digital Opportunity Fund or RDOF
auction 904 winning bidders,
the CPUC created new procedures to account for
possibility of Federally Funded projects
overlapping those contained in CASF applications.
However, we still have a lot of work to do.
Today as part of our implementation of the CASF program,
we gathered regional consortia, stakeholders,
local governments, existing facility based
broadband providers and consumers to facilitate
collaboration regarding cost effective strategies
to reach unserved areas and bridge the digital divide
in California.
Next slide please.
We have a full agenda today.
And we are very delighted to host
FCC acting chair, Jessica Rosenworcel.
And we are very pleased to have
President Batjer and Commissioners
Assembly Member Aguiar-Curry and George Soares,
policy consultants for Senator Lina Gonzalez join us.
And I would also like to thank other speakers.
Louise fishers, James Pang, David Espinoza,
Sabrina Pam and Angela Chen.
And I want to express my thanks and appreciation
to the staff for working so hard to get us to this point.
Special thanks to communications division staff,
Winston Cookie, Taylor Chen, Commissioner Advisor
Polar Enrique, Stella Sharpe, Eileen Odell,
Sarah Thomas, Maryann Mel chi
from our office of governmental affairs.
And Robert Bedford and Joel Hagar from IT
for putting together the workshop today.
Last but not least.
Thank you very much again for joining us today.
Now let's get started.
Next slide please.
I would like to hand this off to President Batjer,
to lead us with the introduction.
-: I have to take myself off mute, never forget (laughing).
Thank you so much Selena.
And I really wanna join you in thanking the CASF team
and what a great job you all are doing,
under sometimes pretty difficult circumstances
and a lot has happened this year
during a COVID pandemic for sure.
So thank you so much.
And thank you for putting this program together
and for this workshop agenda.
And I would like to add my thanks to my advisor,
Michael Maloney for also assisting me
in my preparations for today.
I would like to of course extend my gratitude
to Commissioner Guzman Aceves,
for leading the Commission's efforts
to improve broadband infrastructure
and affordability for all Californians.
I'm delighted to join today's workshop
and look forward,
very much look forward to
hearing more about the progress of the
California Advanced Service Fund,
as well as about the initiatives
at the Federal, State and local levels,
to address the deep need as you mentioned Selena,
for better connectivity.
Like all of you,
I have heard many frustrating accounts
about the detrimental impact
that the lack of connectivity has
on individuals and entire communities.
We've faced significant and unique challenges
for ensuring all Californians have high-speed,
reliable and quality services.
Of the 50 States,
California has the largest population,
the third largest land area,
the greatest number of people living in poverty
and is the second most expensive State in which to live.
California is incredibly diverse,
which is one of our richest.
Richest things that we have to offer
and has 110 Federally recognized tribes.
There are an estimated 2.6 million people.
2.6 million people that do not have high speed broadband
in the State of California.
And a full 38% of rural households
lacking significant access.
These communities lack quality service,
if they have service at all.
Many fixed wireless and mobile wireless services
do not reach everyone in the community,
especially in the rural areas.
Where terrain can be an impediment
to receiving the wireless signal,
satellite services are expensive and have limited capacity.
Most of these communities rely on a legacy DSL in 2021.
Services that are more than 20 years old,
but are still the best and only service
that is available to them.
These challenges and inequities have exacerbated
the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on these communities.
It is no longer just an inequity or an inconvenience,
it is a matter of public safety, public health
and economic resilience.
As the families without access are not benefiting
from tele-work, tele-health and tele-learning opportunities.
It is clear that every household could be.
Could before or can continue
to afford $50 or more a month subscription
for a high quality, high speed internet connection.
Too many families have and continue to make
the conscientious decision to forego that necessity.
Over the past year we have endeavored
to close these gaps where possible.
I am proud too of the efforts that the CASF program
to provide devices to students
in coordination with the California Department of Education.
As well as the efforts of the California Tele-connect Fund
to provide a subsidy for hotspots for students.
We did that early on in the pandemic.
I'm grateful that many internet service providers
have made improvements to their affordable plans
in this past year.
I am relieved that Congress allocated funding
for the $50 a month emergency broadband benefit program
to provide low income individuals.
Low income individuals,
a subsidy that will meaningfully
meet their connectivity needs.
I am thrilled that Congress is also looking
to heavily invest in the infrastructure
that is essential to closing the digital divide
as part of the Federal Stimulus Plan.
These have been and continue to be extraordinary times.
We must continue to develop the solutions
and make whole, bold investments
that will meet the needs of all Californian's today.
But also we must develop durable solutions
that will provide us for the challenges of the future.
Californians Universal Service Programs and Regulations
are historic
and have well-served many millions of Californians.
They were instrumental
in the proliferation of voice service in the last century.
While updates have been made,
many of these programs and regulations
are still geared towards voice services and broadband.
The Commission surcharges
that support the state universal service programs
are limited to voice services,
at a time when most States,
most States have already migrated
to a more equitable pre-subscription surcharge mechanism.
The high cost fund supports voice networks,
with little regard to whether those networks
are providing sufficient broadband access.
And most importantly,
our programs must ensure that everyone at all times
and especially during this pandemic
can afford a reliable connection.
Economic standing must never be a barrier
for basic services.
I am optimistic about the future.
I am heartened by the commitments made by
President Biden and his administration,
the vision of our acting FCC Chairwoman Rosenworcel
and the "Broadband for All Initiative"
led by our Governor, Governor Newsom.
And the many encouraging proposals being put forward
by the members of the California Legislature.
I believe this will be a landmark year
for broadband as we endeavor
to connect all Californians once and for all.
Thank you and I would like to turn it over to
Commissioner Cliff Rechtschaffen
for a few opening remarks, Cliff.
-: Thank you very much President Batjer.
I'm glad to participate in this workshop,
it's a very important workshop.
Although I won't be,
I won't be here for the entire time.
I just want to follow up on the
excellent framing provided by President Batjer
and also Selena.
This could not be more timely.
This workshop.
The CASF program is more important than ever.
COVID of course has altered how we think about everything.
And as President Batjer has noted,
COVID made it abundantly clear if it wasn't before
that access to broadband is no longer a luxury,
no longer a thing that's nice to have.
It is an essential public service.
It is just as important
to the health and wellbeing of the public
as electricity, gas and water.
The other basic services that we regulate.
Broadband access,
broadband service fits in that category now.
We don't regulate it as such,
but in terms of the needs of the public,
it is every bit as important.
And as Selena and President Batjer outlined,
we face a very big challenge in California.
We're a big state.
We have a lot of resources, but we have a lot of needs.
And the challenge is to provide
broadband service that is accessible.
That's affordable and that's quality.
And that's high quality.
It can't be barely.
It can't be bare services anymore,
it needs to be high quality to support the needs
that people demand from the internet these days.
You heard some figures from President Batjer,
by some estimates there's close to
a quarter of the entire State,
over 11 million Californians have
broadband infrastructure but they can't afford it
or they can't afford sufficient service.
And we have over 670,000 households
that are not connected at all.
Which is more than any other State.
A lot in rural areas, a lot in tribal lands.
Those areas are disproportionately affected.
We have.
At the Commission we have an affordability proceeding
that looks at the bundle of utility services
that people pay and ask how much is affordable
in light of those services
and the other essential needs they have,
particularly housing costs?
We're gonna be issuing our first annual report very soon.
And the report shows
in the telecommunications area unsurprisingly,
that affordability needs are acute in certain areas
where the costs of service is high
and the populations are predominantly low income.
And they're particularly acute needs in urban areas
in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
But the needs are also great in rural areas
in many parts of the State.
Including Butte County, Sacramento, Fresno,
Kern, Imperial, and Riverside.
So we have a very significant problem.
We do have, as folks know,
we have a low income subsidy program
that about a million and a half Californians subscribe to,
the LifeLine Program.
But that doesn't provide sufficient funding
to support broadband needs.
For tele-working, tele-health, distance learning
or other needs.
And while the major internet service providers in the state
offer reduced cost plans,
so far they only have limited subscribership.
Only about a half a million subscribers combined.
You contrast this with our
low-income subsidy programs in the energy area
where we have millions of people who are subscribed,
far higher participation rates.
So there's lots of people who these programs
are not reaching.
The CASF program accomplished a lot this year
as Selena outlined.
It's especially impressive what it did
given the challenges of COVID.
I think we should be very proud of how responsive
the program was to COVID.
And like many other folks at the PUC,
the staff working on the CASF program
over-performed and overworked I would say,
over the past year,
meeting the needs of the public
in trying to respond to COVID.
It's important to note,
in addition to what Selena said.
we had a record number of applications in the program
this past year
and the program is over subscribed.
We have grants totaling more than the
amount left in the fund.
So we know we're gonna need much more funding
from the State, from the Federal Government
and from other sources,
to build out the remaining areas of the State
that currently are unserved,
so that they all receive high quality infrastructure.
I'm very heartened as well by the actions that
President Batjer mentioned.
As she noted and we'll hear more from
Chair Rosenworcel in a bit,
the Federal Government has stepped up with
an emergency broadband benefit.
And this is helpful and important.
It increases the subsidy available to $50 a month,
but it's only one time funding
and we don't know how long it's gonna be extended.
It's very helpful that in Congress there's other legislation
to potentially expand this program.
We may hear more of that from Chair Rosenworcel.
And we're very excited as President Batjer said
about the new wins of a new FCC
and working together cooperatively,
and not in opposition to protect consumers.
You'll hear later about the important legislation
that Senator Gonzalez and Assembly Woman Aguiar-Curry
have sponsored that would extend
funding for CASF to modernize the program,
prioritize projects in underserved communities.
Very, very important and helpful legislation.
And as President Batjer mentioned,
Governor Newsom has made Broadband For All
a very important priority of his.
He talked about the barriers and challenges
in January in a budget announcement.
So there's lots of need,
but lots of encouraging developments.
There're also very important
topics to be covered later on about
the program going forward.
And I welcome everyone's participation
and look forward to an interesting discussion.
-: Thank you President Batjer and Commissioner Rechtschaffen.
I would like to introduce Robert Osborne,
Communications Division Director
to provide an overview of RDOF, CalSPEED
and emergency broadband benefit.
-: Thank you Selena.
I'm Rob Osborne,
I'm director of the Communications Division at the PUC.
I want to recap two important milestones from 2020
and share some of the behind the scenes activity
as well as highlight an upcoming FCC benefit,
that could have a huge impact on California
which Commissioner Rechtschaffen just referred to.
First off the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund or RDOF.
RDOFF presented a big challenge for our review
of the record number of 54
infrastructure applications this past year.
Many of the CASF infrastructure grant applications
overlap with RDOF locations.
And since we're charged with the stewardship of scarce funds
we encourage CASF applicants to participate in the auction,
which adding up all the locations and all the reserve prices
was over $2 billion in potential Federal Funding.
Moreover, we were cognizant of the RDOF rules
prohibiting awarding State Money prior to
the Phase One reverse auction.
So as was not to disqualify a CASF applicants RDOF chances.
So not wanting to repeat the experience of CUSP II
Auction 903 which preceded RDOF,
where half of the available money
for California went unawarded.
We focused on maximizing provider participation in RDOF.
And our efforts included first hosting a presentation
by FCC staff on the RDOF phase one auction
that covered how internet service providers
can participate in the auction.
We brought in a consultant to help with data analysis
and help us better understand how California
can leverage Federal Funding.
We created a web page
to provide information on the auction to interested bidders.
And we created a California RDOF map that provided,
you know, the locations of the RDOF areas,
as well as the build-out cost and
the estimated reserve price for each of those locations.
We don't know yet what the final outcome
of the RDOF phase one reverse auction will be.
Thus far, 15 companies have provisionally won
$695 million total over 10 years
for almost 365,000 locations in California.
While the reserve price
as I mentioned earlier for California totaled two billion.
California bidders bid that down by 66%
and CPUC President Batjer's February ex-parte letter
to the FCC suggested that
steps the FCC should take to ensure
State benefit from promises
that the providers made in the auction.
The recommendations included first
evaluating the provider financial operational
and technical capabilities.
Second allowing providers with inadequate capabilities
to surrender their awards with minimum penalties.
So sort of a graceful exit.
And then forward looking program reforms
like coordinating with States,
recognition of cost as a barrier to broadband availability
and also forward-looking speed and data caps.
Another milestone I want to mention is CalSPEED.
We restarted and improved the Statewide mobile testing
covering 4,000 locations.
A mix of tribal, rural, urban locations
and completed the first round in the fall of 2020.
Those results which include
T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T and fast net
are available on the California interactive broadband map.
Now I believe we have
the FCC acting Chair Jessica Rosenworcel on,
so I'm gonna hand it back to Selena
to then take it from there.
-: Thank you Rob.
Yeah, it looks like the FCC acting chair is on.
Let me see if I can see her on camera.
President Batjer, would you like to introduce
FCC acting Chair Jessica Rosenworcel?
-: Yes I surely would Selena.
And thank you so much,
I'm pleased and indeed honored
to welcome the Federal Communications Commission
acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel.
She brings over two decades
of communication policy experience and public service
to the FCC to which she was appointed in 2012.
Prior to joining the agency,
she served as a senior communications counsel
for the United States Senate.
Chairwoman Rosenworcel, has worked tirelessly
to promote greater opportunity, accessibility
and affordability to our communication services
throughout the country.
From fighting to protect Net Neutrality,
to ensuring access to the internet for students
who have been caught in the homework gap
and expand the reach of broadband to schools,
libraries, hospitals and households across the country.
Everyone please join me
in welcoming acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel.
Good morning (laughing).
She might not be on the telephone yet.
So we'll wait till she gets hooked up,
in terms of the telephone connection.
We use two different technology.
Oh, there you are.
-: Hi, how are you?
-: Great, acting chairwoman.
How are you this morning?
-: I'm doing fine.
Can you hear me well?
-: Yes, we can hear you perfectly fine, thank you.
-: Okay great.
-: We've done a brief introduction.
Because I know our time is very short with you today
and we are so honored to have you with us.
So we'll just jump right into the fireside chat
if that's okay with you?
-: Absolutely, absolutely.
-: Great, I'm joined by my fellow Commissioner today.
Commissioner Rechtschaffen. Cliff Rechtschaffen.
And I think Cliff's gonna ask the first question
to get us started.
-: Okay.
-: Thank you so much.
Welcome Chair Rosenworcel.
We're gonna tag team the questions
and we're gonna start off with
a simple easy question.
How telecommunications services are classified.
And this is obviously of
critical importance because how the,
how broadband or the internet are classified
under the Federal Communication Act,
makes a great deal of difference in
how these services can be regulated.
They were classified in 2015 as a Title II.
They were reclassified in 2017 as Title one.
The question we wanted to ask you to start off is
will you propose to reclassify broadband
as a Title II Telecommunication service.
And maybe you can give some more background
about this topic and your thinking.
-: Sure, well thank you for asking the question.
As you may know,
I supported Net Neutrality
when the FCC put rules in place in 2015.
And then I opposed the rollback of Net Neutrality
that took place during the next administration in 2017.
And now I find myself at the helm of the FCC.
But I will also want to acknowledge that
I have an agency that's right now is evenly divided between
two Republicans and two Democrats.
So the things we are able to do in the short term
are going to be limited by our ability to find consensus.
But the one thing that's become clear to me
during this pandemic,
is that broadband services are no longer,
nice to have it's need to have for everyone everywhere.
And policies like making sure we have
universal access to broadband
and that that access is open and fair
and consistent with the principles of Net Neutrality
is really important.
And it's really important that
the FCC has the authority it needs to make that happen.
And that's a discussion I hope the agency can have
going forward and also with Congress.
So that's where we are for right now,
because of the makeup of the agency.
But I am a strong supporter of Net Neutrality.
And I do hope we can be in a position once again
to make it the law of the land.
-: Can I just ask you a couple of quick follow up questions?
As far as you know,
and I know you don't control this completely,
when is the fifth Commissioner
likely to be appointed to the FCC?
-: Oh yeah that's a great question.
And if I had a crystal ball,
maybe I could offer you some thoughts.
But honestly that is a decision
that's gonna be above my pay grade.
I do think the agency functions best
when it has all five members.
But we are doing work now
and I'm still proud of the work we're doing on
network resiliency, broadband affordability, 5G policy.
And we're doing it all on a bipartisan basis.
And I don't want us to slow down,
I want us to keep pressing on.
Some issues are harder
to find consensus on though than others.
-: And if you don't mind,
could you just give us a couple of examples of
the kind of regulations that
are enabled if broadband is classified as Title II
versus a Title I of information service?
What's the--
-: In the end it comes down to this.
How much oversight do you want
by a Federal Authority over broadband service?
The FCC since 1934 has been
the nation's communications overseer
and historically has worked to make sure that
telephone services reach everyone.
That necessary,
other types of communications reach everyone
in this country.
And it just seems to me that
broadband is part of that mix
and making sure we have the authority
to make sure it reaches everyone
and that it's something that
everyone can afford to have in their homes.
These are things that when the agency has
full oversight authority I think are more possible
and the agency can be more creative in making it happen.
-: Great, thank you so much.
-: Thank you.
Definitely a 2x2 make up is a bit challenging
and we express our respect for how
you are meeting those challenges.
And as Cliff said, really look forward to
President Biden appointing that fifth Commissioner soon.
So moving on to our second question,
we are witnessing large scale disinvestment
of telephone networks in rural California.
And within two years some communities
will be without a telephone provider
or a fixed internet provider
and spotty mobile service at best.
May I ask what is your vision
for communications providers of last resort
for rural areas where the major ISP's refuse to go?
I'm sure we're not.
I know we're not unique here in California
with this real huge dilemma.
-: Yeah, I think we're gonna have to have
a national conversation about
carrier of last resort responsibilities,
which is an idea that feels really wonkish
and maybe even dated.
But when the telecommunications act of 1996 was passed,
these ideas were embedded within it.
But frankly the responsibility fell
to State law and State utility Commissioners to make.
There was assurances that there was some carrier
that was willing to provide service
everywhere within the State.
And then task the FCC with universal service support
to assist with provision of that service.
I think that this ongoing dance between
State Law and Federal support,
is gonna need some clarification in the future.
Because we have to make it clear that
no matter where you live in this country,
no matter who you are,
you're gonna need access to
water, electricity and modern communications.
And so these are policies that I think
were at the margins of the telecommunications act of 1996.
Have been central historically to
State policies involving telecommunications,
but they need an update for the digital age.
And the goal of that update needs to be
having a way to make sure we serve everyone everywhere.
-: Thank you.
Indeed uniformity and uniformity frankly of enforcement.
It will be extremely helpful, I agree.
We have some real concerns here in California.
I won't names, you probably (indistinct) to.
Of who those those concerns
or where those concerns are derived from.
So I'll toss it back to Cliff for the next question.
-: I wanted to ask you Chair Rosenworcel about the
emergency broadband benefit program.
Congress took action
in a Stimulus bill or it's rescue bills
and it's a $3.2 billion program.
So I wanna ask you a couple of questions.
Can you tell us what the FCC has done?
What's next for the program?
And thinking more broadly,
this is only a temporary program.
I don't know if the funding lasts
through the end of the Summer or early Fall.
What you envisioned for the future
when it comes to the broadband affordability?
-: Well these are all such good questions.
And this is part of a broader dialogue
about broadband affordability
that I hope the FCC can have
with our state counterparts.
It comes down to this.
In the appropriations legislation signed late last year,
Congress created this new emergency broadband benefit.
It's really historic.
It's the nation's largest ever broadband program
focused on affordability.
For low-income households
those who were struggling during the pandemic,
it provides as much as $50 a month for broadband support.
And that number goes up to $75 a month on tribal lands.
In addition, there's the possibility of another $100
for a tablet or a computer.
The goal is to keep every household we can online,
and make sure that price isn't a barrier.
So the neat thing about this program is
it's big and it speaks to the idea that
broadband is an essential service.
And if we wanna tackle the digital divide,
it's not just about deployment,
it's also about affordability.
Getting every households connected.
But you also mentioned something that's supported.
This program is sized at $3.2 billion.
That's a one-time appropriation.
And what that means
is at some point in the future
those funds are gonna run out.
So we're gonna have to identify as policy makers,
what it is that we can create in the next?
Is there a new program modeled on this
emergency broadband benefit that Congress can recreate?
Or are we going to fall back on
our traditional LifeLine Program
and try to give it a boost so that
it is more meaningful in the digital age
and more broadband centric.
So I think we have to watch this program carefully.
Because there'll be clues in how it's rolled out,
that will help us understand
what program we need in the future
to keep households connected.
Especially when affordability is
proving to be such a barrier.
But I wanna also point out a few things.
I'm very proud that this agency,
my agency got this program up and running
on a bipartisan basis within 60 days.
We're gonna have it available to consumers
by the end of next month.
And right now we have hundreds
of providers of service
who are enrolling to participate.
We're setting up IT systems
and we are doing a lot of outreach.
And in the end I think that outreach is so important.
Because it's not gonna come from us in Washington.
It's gonna come from State and local institutions.
You know, people in communities who they trust,
who can get the word out
that there's a program to help households stay connected.
Even if they've lost a job or are struggling
to put food on the table during this crisis.
So that outreach is really important
and I hope you'll encourage
local institutions in California to participate.
We even set up a webpage
to take in their information so we can
pump information back out to them
about what providers are offering service in their area.
And we've got a lot of information in different languages.
We're really looking towards
local and State authorities to help us get the word out.
Because we know that there are households in need
who may not have service today
or at risk of it being cut off.
And we wanna make sure that they can stay connected.
This program is there to help them do that.
-: Thank you and it's very encouraging that
it's been set up and up and running so quickly.
And we have been talking among ourselves
about the best ways to publicize this benefit
with providers here, social service agencies.
We have community-based organizations
that focus on underserved communities
and trying to get the word out through those channels.
President Batjer back to you--
-: Terrific just you know,
in the end I don't think people in Washington
can tell you what works best in California.
I wanna be able to have you involved
and have you help us figure that out.
And I think this program will really be effective
if we can figure out ways to partner with
local and State officials to make it so.
-: Thank you.
And we welcome continued advice from you as well.
And we'll try to give you our best
understanding of what works here.
President Batjer, back to you.
-: Yeah, thank you Cliff.
I think the only way we're all gonna be successful frankly,
is as you've said,
we weave together.
We (indistinct) the communications and the information about
the programs and the benefits of them.
And we also can leverage and work,
frankly off of each other's programs to build further.
So really I join Cliff in thanking you.
All you've done,
a remarkable amount of work in a short period of time
in the new administration.
And I know how hard that can be.
So switching gears a little bit,
another real softball question here.
What are the FCC's plans for our RDOF?
-: Okay, yeah.
RDOF for the uninitiated is
The Rural Digital Opportunity Fund.
Which was organized and sized during the last administration
to help with deployment
in underserved and rural areas of this country
that don't really have broadband
or they have broadband speeds that are inadequate.
So the good news that's there is,
has been a lot of work on this.
But I think, and also good news,
is that we should have done a little more work
before we made our preliminary commitments
in The Rural Digital Opportunity Fund.
I think the record reflects that
I thought we should do a little more work
before we started handing out the dollars.
Nonetheless, the last administration
made commitments of $9.2 billion
about a week before the election.
And those preliminary commitments right now
are under review at the FCC that I lead.
So here's what we're doing.
We are taking a finely tooth comb
to everything that's been filed before us.
We are performing a technical review,
an operational review and a financial review
of all of the successful bidders in that first go round.
And only after they perform with all those reviews
will we commit to making those funds available.
We know our dollars for extending broadband are scarce.
We need to make sure that they go towards
technologies that are truly viable
and providers who can be there for the long haul
and serve the communities with the infrastructure they need.
-: Boy, I can't tell you how that's music to my ears
and to all that are are listening.
That's extremely important and
we couldn't ask more.
So thank you very much for that.
Cliff, do you wanna either follow up with any comment?
-: Well, I agree completely.
It is music to our ears and our state partners and those at
The National Association of Regulatory Commissioners
have all been very active on this issue.
I wanted to ask you a question
specific to the PUC.
I mean, it's not specific to the PUC,
but it results from something that PUC asked for.
And this deals with information sharing
between the Federal Government and the States.
The FCC earlier this month
took action on a longstanding petition from us,
from the PUC,
asking the FCC to share outage information during disasters.
I'm wondering if you can tell us
a little bit more about this decision
and why it was one of the first that
was taken under your leadership.
-: Sure, and this is one of those where I'm gonna say,
legitimately California was there first.
It was a decade ago that the California PUC said to the FCC,
"Hey, you collect a lot of outage reporting data,
maybe you could share it with us
because it might assist us
in disaster with service restoration."
And you know for reasons I can't even imagine
that petition sat on the shelf
and gathered dust in Washington.
So when I took over,
I took a look at what had happened in our world
during the last few years.
And even the last month we had
a winter storm in Texas that was devastating.
We've seen wildfires out West,
that you're all more familiar with than I am.
And we've seen floods and hurricanes in the South East.
I mean, we are seeing once in a lifetime weather now
with recurring frequency.
And what often accompanies those storms,
are service outages and communication failures
that make recovery really difficult.
So the FCC has for a long time collected
network outage reporting data.
It has a voluntary system
for disaster information reporting.
These data are all confidential
and we have traditionally shared them with
The Department of Homeland Security,
which is good as far as it goes.
But it's really doesn't go far enough,
because we're shutting out people on the ground,
working on service restoration
and emergency response in the State.
So here I am now I take over
and you know I can't remember every fire,
hurricane and snowstorm but it's eerie how
the names of them like you know,
Kemp and Maria and Irma and Harvey,
these things stay with us over time.
And it feels to me that what we need to do
is develop for the future
a way for state authorities to share that data
and pass it on to the emergency authorities
who can do something with it in real time.
And we set up a framework for doing just that.
It's still confidential,
but it is designed to make sure
that State, local and tribal authorities
have real-time information
that the Federal Government has about
service failures and communications outages.
I think with that real-time information
available on the ground,
we're gonna do a better job at service restoration.
I'm proud that we were able to do it last month,
we did it unanimously.
But I don't have a response for you,
when it comes to why it took us so long.
But I know that mother nature's wrath
is gonna visit us again
and having this new system in place
could be really helpful.
-: Well, we're less concerned that
it took so long at this point
and just delighted that
you've taken a leadership role on this
and you nailed it.
The disaster in Texas and other natural events,
extreme events are front of mind for all of us.
They keep coming here in California and elsewhere.
And this outage data really is critical
as we fashioned responses for the multiple disasters
that we face.
-: Yeah, and I also agree with Cliff.
It's not our way to look back,
we've gotta look into the future.
-: Yeah. -: Yeah, absolutely.
All of us, particularly right now.
But this will be extremely important to us
as well as our emergency managers
and for our overall strategies for these disaster--
-: Yeah, and you know what,
let's talk about that.
I hope that,
you know you're a State that has had disasters in the past.
You've had fires.
You've had a lot of them,
but I hope that we can also fine tune the system over time.
If we got something wrong, let's work to get it right.
The goal is to make it useful
for people on the ground responding to an emergency.
So I'll put you on notice,
you were ahead of the curve California before.
Maybe you'll be ahead again,
because I do think that
we should look at the system we created
and if there are refinements we need to make,
please let us know.
-: Well unfortunately,
we get a lot of practice at this stuff (laughing).
And practice has not made us perfect in this case.
And we're looking into a really tough Summer season.
And that means a tough wildfire season.
We're way below our snow pack numbers,
or probably April one is gonna be closing in on
only 50% of normal,
and what that and
in Southern California,
I'm in Northern California
but Southern California has had
next to no rain this winter.
So I personally and I know that
my fellow Commissioners as well as our
colleagues at CAL FIRE and at
the Office of Emergency Services.
We're all really steeling ourselves
for a pretty tough year ahead.
So the sooner we can
make sure that our communications
to the people that are impacted so badly,
the better off we all will be.
-: Mm-hmm, I agree.
-: So, let me to turn to
another topic that I think has been.
You have become very well known
for your work with "homework gap."
Which before the pandemic meant,
the kids who were not able to do their homework
because they didn't have internet at home.
With the remote schooling brought on by the pandemic,
this issue has taken on a whole new dimension
throughout the country.
And some of the statistics are just frightening.
Earlier this month,
Congress created a new $7 billion fund
for the FCC to tackle this issue,
which we welcome very much.
Can you tell us what the "homework gap" is for us now
and what it has meant during the pandemic,
and how (indistinct)
that you will be starting up soon will fold out.
-: To me the "homework gap" is one of those,
especially cruel parts of the digital divide
and it needs attention.
When I was growing up if I wanted to do my homework,
it took paper, a pencil and my brother leaving me alone.
You know and that last one was the hard part.
But today kids everywhere they need internet access,
seven in 10 teachers assign homework
that requires internet access.
But one in three households
do not consistently subscribe to broadband.
And where those numbers overlap
is what I started calling a "homework gap."
And then we had this pandemic.
We sent millions of kids home.
We told them to go to school online.
But what happens if you don't have internet access?
The virtual classroom is closed.
You know, maybe you thought too.
But this is one of those images that stays with me.
It went viral this Summer.
It was Salinas, California.
It was a picture of two little girls
sitting outside of Taco Bell.
And you know, they weren't there for lunch.
They were sitting on the cement,
with laptops perched on their knees
to get the free wifi signal from the restaurant.
-: Yep. I remember.
-: It was the only place they could go,
to get the connection they needed for school.
If that it didn't break your heart,
you know, I don't know where to begin.
But it just feels to me that
in the United States of America
it shouldn't be that way,
we can do better.
So during the last administration,
I clamored heavily for the FCC
to rethink its E-Rate program.
E-Rate is the nation's largest education technology program
and it's helped connect our schools and libraries now
for decades with internet access.
It provides more support
in communities that are rural
or have higher percentage of the students
on the free and reduced lunch program.
It's quiet powerhouse.
It's brought all of our schools to the digital age.
And I just felt like,
how can we be creative about using that
to get kids connected at home?
How can we use that for instance,
to make sure every school can loan out a hotspot?
The student has a fair shot of
maybe getting on at home or nearby.
And I encountered some resistance,
but with the new Congress we started again.
And in the American Rescue Plan,
we now have more than $7 billion that is allocated
for emergency connectivity funds
to help close the homework gap.
And this is very exciting because look,
this is not just a pandemic problem.
It's a post pandemic problem.
We have gotta figure out
how to get every child in this country
connected to the internet they need
to succeed in school.
It's just as important
as in another generation it was
making sure they had a science textbook
or a grammar workbook to take home at night.
And so the FCC very swiftly sought comments
on this new law.
Comments are due April 5th,
reply comments are due the 23rd of April.
We want input from
educators, regulators, parents nationwide,
because we're gonna have to look at this law
and come up with the fairest way to distribute these funds.
But I am optimistic that with a new $7 billion program,
we are gonna make a meaningful dent in the homework gap.
We are gonna make it normal in this country
and we're gonna figure out a way
to get every student connected
so they can be successful in school.
It should've been that way before the pandemic.
It should have been that way before this crisis,
but let's use this crisis
so that we're stronger when we come out of it
and no child's left offline.
-: Well, thank you very much.
Those are comforting words and critical words.
And thank you for remembering that horrible image
of those two little girls in Salinas.
When you started talking,
chairwoman that's exactly the picture that came to my mind.
That was unbelievable, heartbreaking.
It brought tears to your eyes.
And as policy makers and regulators,
shame on us for not being there for them.
Years ago frankly, just as you've just said.
And with the pandemic,
I hope there's strong lesson for goodness sakes,
when it comes to tele-learning, tele-health tele-work.
Excuse me for being a little harsh here but,
if Congress doesn't act positively now
when in the heck are they going to?
-: Right.
-: So I really welcome
your leadership on this vital vital question.
So I'll toss back to Cliff,
we only have a couple more questions--
-: Do you have time for a couple more questions Chair?
-: I do. You know, before I jumped my next show.
-: Okay, I just,
as a brother who bothered his sister
all the time doing her homework,
I did take a little offense to the last comment.
But I do agree with everything else you said,
but did rub me the wrong way.
(all laughing)
-: That's the responsibility of a brother, right?
You know.
-: Exactly, what good is a little brother
except to bother his big sister
trying to do her homework?
-: Oh my gosh, that sounds familiar.
-: I wanted to ask you about broadband mapping.
You've launched a broadband data task force at the FCC
to jumpstart efforts to improve the FCC maps.
Could you talk about that and in particular
the role that you envisioned for
State and local officials in that effort?
-: Yeah, so let's back up a little bit.
It's no secret the FCC broadband maps
leave a lot to be desired.
We've heard that from members of Congress,
cabinet secretaries
and frankly the American public.
You know in the before times,
when I would travel around the country
I would almost always meet someone in a rural community
who was struggling without access to the internet
at their home or their place of business.
Or are they felt that the service there
wasn't what it needed to be.
And at some point they do some research
and they'd happen upon these maps with the FCC.
And they would get frustrated
because it would say that they had service
when they knew in her bones
from their day-to-day life that they did not.
And you know, there's a reason for that.
And I think you're all wonkish enough to understand it.
Which is that the FCC has historically used a methodology.
It assumed that if there's a single subscriber
in a census block,
that service is available throughout.
And if you can think about it,
that means that we are systematically overstating
where service is in this country.
We're not getting it right
with the level of precision we need.
I mean, maybe that methodology worked years ago
but it's no longer good enough.
Right now when we know we have to serve 100% of us.
So Congress actually took some actions
to try to push the FCC along.
Last year they passed the Broadband Data Act.
And then provided funding for us to implement it.
So that's good news.
You know, the bad news is that
we really should have started this years ago.
Like there's no doubt in my mind
that we've been talking about
how bad the maps are for a long time,
but we haven't been doing enough.
So the next best time is right now.
And I took over and immediately started
a broadband data task force,
put some real experts in charge.
We hired a data architects,
we're changing our IT systems.
We have begun the procurement process
for a broadband serviceable location fabric.
We started a portal for consumers to just write in
and tell us where service is and is not.
You know which is just a way for looking at
broader patterns so we can understand
what's going on across the country
and frankly already thousands have done so.
And we are now making some strides
in figuring out our next steps,
but what's really important for you from a State level
is to understand that we set up our rules
in a way where State, Local and Tribal authorities
can participate and provide us with facts.
And that we have a presumption
in favor of the data you file.
In other words, carriers are gonna have to respond to it.
Because we know that you have a lot of facts about
what's happening on the ground.
And we want make sure that
carriers respond to the data that you have.
This is a big task.
Not everyone uses the same data gathering techniques.
Figuring out how to mesh all this stuff together is complex.
The wired services are complex
but they're location specific.
The wireless services are complex,
but they rely on assumptions about propagation of signal.
Again, these are things we should have started years ago.
I regret that we didn't.
I came to the agency and not a lot's been done.
So I decided that we're gonna
just get started and do a good job right now.
And build these kind of
permanent architecture for thinking about maps.
Because over time you might imagine
we can do things about deployments.
Perhaps then we can overlay them with adoption.
Then we can start asking ourselves about telemedicine,
what's available where?
Where do we have ailments that might be able to be
successfully responded to with telehealth?
Are there correlations that we can see?
You know there's a lot of creative things we can do,
when we build a good data system.
So we're starting to do that right now.
And I wanted to make sure we do it right.
-: Again, we'll be your greatest cheerleaders from California
and yeah, we don't want.
We're not gonna worry about
what we haven't done in the past.
We're just thrilled at your depth of knowledge and
your sense of urgency in so many areas.
And that you're,
if y'all are not even at the 100th day
in the Biden administration and much has gotten underway.
-: Yeah, I wish we could move on this as fast as possible.
We're gonna do the best we can.
But I really wanna build
an infrastructure that's here for the long haul.
That not only the Federal Government gets to use,
but State and localities can rely on to.
-: Yeah. Yeah.
Well, we're cautious of your time of course.
We'll have one quick last question
if that's okay?
-: Great, that's all that I have time for so okay.
-: And yeah.
And it's one of the most important ones I think.
It's about broadband speed.
So in your statement to the FCC's
2020 broadband deployment report,
you called for a 100 Mbps download and standard.
And the FCC should reconsider upload speeds.
The FCC currently uses, I think at 25/3 standard.
Why is the broadband standard important?
Which I think most of the folks--
-: Yeah. Oh my gosh.
This pandemic has been--
-: And why should it get to be increased?
-: Yeah, oh my gosh.
First of all, let's be ambitious.
-: Yes (laughing).
-: You know, like dream small?
I don't think we need that. Right?
Like let's set a standard
that we should aspire to for everyone everywhere.
For the last several years
I've at least suggested a 100 megabits downstream.
A 100% of us should have a 100 megabits.
We're gonna have to look.
We traditionally had deeper asymmetries
in the way that we set our broadband standards.
You see that that 25/3,
we've gotta revisit that too.
I mean this pandemic has involved
a whole bunch of synchronous activity
where upload speeds start mattering more than they used to.
It's not just consumption activities,
it's creation activity.
But I want us to have
higher standards, higher speeds and bigger and bolder goals.
I hope that I can convince my colleagues of that.
Perhaps the next opportunity to do so
will be as we start to shape out the next
annual broadband deployment report which is
a byproduct of Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act.
And I hope we can have a conversation about it,
but already we're getting congressional letters about
improving our standards and being more ambitious.
I think it's time to be more ambitious nationwide.
-: We totally agree,
let's stream big together.
-: Oh I like that, I like that.
-: Nobody likes streaming little.
Okay, Chairwoman thank you so much.
This has truly been an honor.
-: Yeah, thank you.
And listen, we're looking to make sure that
we're partners with States in a lot of these activities.
I don't think we're gonna
know everything or get everything right,
if we don't talk to you with frequency.
So I appreciate the opportunity to do this
so soon after I took over.
And I hope you'll stay in touch with my office,
we look forward to your input.
-: We absolutely will and thank you so much.
And as I said, we're cheering you on
and don't hesitate to reach out to us either.
-: Okay.
-: Thank you so much.
-: Thank you.
-: Have a great day.
And I think Selena
we now turn on the dais back to you.
-: Great, thanks President Batjer,
Commissioner Rechtschaffen
and also FCC acting Chair Rosenworcel.
Looks like we are ready for the next section.
I believe President Batjer and Commissioner Rechtschaffen
will leave just due to the BK issue.
And we're waiting for
Commissioners Guzman Aceves and Houck to join us very soon.
-: Thank you Selena.
I'm gonna sign off now.
-: Thank you.
-: I will as well.
Thank you Selena.
Again, I thank the team
for putting such a wonderful workshop together.
Appreciate it greatly.
Hi Martha and Darcie,
have a good session.
-: Thank you. -: Bye bye.
-: All right, looks like we have both
Commissioner Guzman Aceves and Commissioner Houck.
Commissioner Guzman Aceves,
would you like to introduce yourself?
-: Yes, thank you Selena and good morning everyone.
I hope everyone has enjoyed the morning so far.
Really great to be with everyone today
on our annual meeting.
I did wanna just take a moment to reflect on
all the progress that was already mentioned
and share a little bit more about
some of my favorite work that the program has done.
And talk about the exciting year before us
both also at the federal level and at the state level
as we move into the legislative discussion.
Of course we've already mentioned,
but just the highlights. (dog barking)
Excuse me, my puppy (chuckling).
My puppy wants to go outside, sorry.
And, to recognize that
the program really responded to the COVID needs so rapidly.
Particularly with the partnership with
The Department of Education on
all the adoption needs of our children,
particularly at the most neediest schools.
In addition, I wanted to also recognize the creativity.
Excuse me, (chuckling).
That was taken
with tribal assistance grants that were developed
and the technical assistance capacity that was
began this year.
Very exciting to see
all the amount of capacity that's being built
in these really remote areas in the state,
including our tribal communities.
So very exciting to see that.
And just all of the work that has already been mentioned
in partnership with trying to bring down
some of the federal funding to
yield that every additional dollar of this program.
And finally just wanted to talk about the
excitement of this year,
in particular all of the legislative enthusiasm
around the need for broadband infrastructure
and in particular,
as we're gonna head into this next panel
wanting to reiterate some of the points
that were made already which is,
looking to the future
and having a program that really invests
in local governments.
Really invest in making this infrastructure future-proof
and really the most resilient for our community.
So looking forward to that
and looking forward to hearing from the public today
on all of their thoughts
on what's happened thus far
and what could happen in the future.
And I wanted to also turn to Commissioner Houck
who is gonna be taking the reins of this program
and looking to her leadership.
Just personally, I'm very excited that
Commissioner Houck has taken this on.
Her knowledge of the State of California
and all of it's the diversity
both in the geography
and in the different types of
community needs that are out there,
is really gonna be an asset
to this proceeding and this program.
So Commissioner Houck, I'll turn to you.
-: Thank you Commissioner Guzman Aceves.
So I am filling some big shoes here,
taking this on from Commissioner Guzman Aceves.
And with that, I'd like to welcome all of you
to this next portion of the
Annual CASF Workshop.
As you know, this workshop occurs each year
in this forum to discuss broadband needs for access
to broadband needs for areas of California
that continue to lack access to services.
So I first want to recognize
the hard work of our communications division staff.
Selena Wong, Lou Fisher, James Tang, Taylor Chan,
Vincent Knapp and Rob Osborn among others.
And again, a special thanks to
Commissioner Guzman Aceves and her staff,
including advisors Sarah Sharp and Pilar Enrique
who have all dedicated so much time
to preparing for this event
and who have spearheaded many of the panels
that are gonna be presented today.
I wanted to acknowledge that
planning for this event was well underway
when my office came on board.
The heavy lifting for putting this important event together,
came from Commissioner Guzman Aceves's office
and the communication division staff
who did an excellent job in creating this event.
As I'm sure you can see
from the first part of the conference today.
I'm excited to be a part of today's workshop.
Again, as Commissioner Guzman Aceves mentioned
was recently assigned to the CASF rulemaking.
And over this past year
of adjusting to life under pandemic conditions,
I think we've all seen that
access to high-speed broadband is fundamental
to full participation in daily life
from working and schooling online,
to accessing telehealth services.
We've also been reminded
how critical our broadband networks are
for public safety and emergency response,
allowing Californians to access safety alerts
and other critical information
you know requires broadband services.
It's clear that these functions are not luxuries,
but are baseline activities
that all Californians need access to.
In order to ensure that
all Californians have access to these services.
We must focus our efforts
on the most vulnerable communities.
Specifically remote communities, tribal communities
and disadvantaged low-income communities.
Eliminating the digital divide
could not be more urgent than it is right now.
And this workshop provides a forum to discuss
strategies for expanding broadband access
throughout the state,
to discuss current legislative proposals
and to hear from stakeholders and the public.
While the need for a strong CASF program
has never been more clear,
we continue to face challenges
in reaching our goals and expanding
high-speed broadband throughout California.
I'm looking forward to hearing from
those legislatures working to address these challenges.
Including ensuring that the program
has sufficient funding to accomplish this goal
of getting all Californians access to high-speed broadband.
As we get closer to that goal,
we need to think outside the box
and collaborate with local governments, tribes
and service providers to come up with solutions
for serving communities
that are the most difficult to reach geographically
and ensuring that solid services are provided
to the most vulnerable communities in urban areas as well.
Crossing the finish line will take hard work,
creativity from government, communities
and all of our stakeholders.
And finally, this workshop allows us the chance
to look forward.
Earlier, you had an opportunity
to hear from FCC acting chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel.
We greatly appreciate her participation in today's event.
While California has long been a leader
in expanding broadband access,
we look forward to exploring additional opportunities
with the federal government
to ensure that all Californians
have access to high speed broadband.
So I welcome everyone again to today's workshop,
and look forward to the opportunity to listen and learn
from the participants today.
And to hear from stakeholders and the public.
So thank you.
And I'll turn it back over to
Commissioner Guzman Aceves.
-: Thank you Commissioner Houck.
And I'll turn it over to Director Osborne.
-: Thank you Commissioner Guzman Aceves
ang Commissioner Houck.
We're pleased to have two members are.
Two representatives from the assembly and the Senate today.
There's been significant interest
in the CASF program from the legislature.
There are currently two major proposals
that are being considered.
Assembly Bill 14 and Senate Bill 4.
Today we'll be hearing from two legislative officers
offering these bills.
That have been championing broadband this year
in the legislature.
And so I'd like to introduce it
Assembly member Aguiar-Curry.
And George Soares, a policy consultant
for Senator Lena Gonzales.
And I have a number of questions to ask them.
I'd also be happy if Commissioner Guzman Aceves
and Commissioner Houck want to join in to the conversation,
please feel free.
How are you doing today Assembly member Aguiar-Curry?
-: I'm great.
I'm anxious and excited about this conversation.
And I first of all,
would like to thank Commissioner Guzman
a long time friend.
I'm excited about where we're going with this.
As well as you Rob,
we've been good friends for a long time
and you've seen my struggles and my excitement
about broadband.
So thank you so much for having me today.
And I look forward to the questions and the discussion.
And I look forward to.
I'm glad George Soares could join us today.
Yeah. So thank you so much.
-: Great thank you.
And I think also George.
Mr. Soares are you on?
-: Yeah. Hey, how's it going everyone?
Thank you so much for having me.
Sorry that Senator Gonzalez can not be here,
but I will, you know, do everything I can to fill in for her
and just really appreciate everyone's work
from the assembly woman, to the PUC
and everyone involved in this.
So I look forward to the conversation.
Thank you.
-: Great, thank you.
So I'm gonna start off with the first question.
And so I'd like to ask each of you.
I'll start with Assembly member Aguiar-Curry.
Could you please speak to why you feel
the CASF program is important
and why you think it should be extended?
-: Well, before I came to the assembly,
I worked for years trying to promote
broadband internet in my small community.
And I worked those years
with other local elected officials to connect our students
and with technology.
And it just, we always came up against barriers.
And I've seen firsthand how to,
how accessing technology can change
those students, families, our community,
our business community.
And so I been instrumental in trying to make sure
our rural communities have access to
access to the internet.
You know, if we haven't learned one thing
due to the pandemic,
rural constituents like mine,
even urban constituents like Senator Gonzalez's,
we've known for many years.
The availability of internet technology
provides access to healthcare, access to education,
job training and small business access
to the digital economy.
And we're changing people's lives.
The extension of the CASF
the California Advanced Services Fund
will be accompanied by democratizing the fee
so that landline users
are not burdened with funding the entire program.
In amendments we will be taking in the future,
all telecommunications customers
pay the same tiny fee of 23 cents a month
for your phone line.
That's a very small price to pay
so that all Californians can have reliable service
and contribute to our economy and the future.
And so that we can keep pace
with improvements in technology
as the FCC updates its standards.
And that's a really important part here,
is that we always have to look to the future.
And my concern as we go forward is that,
what works today may not work in the future.
And that we have to have some flexibility.
And I really think that by us
having a stable funding fee of 23 cents
is very minimal when we look at the entire picture.
-: Great, thank you very much.
I'm glad that there's focus on
funding and continuing the funding
for the California advanced services program
as you heard earlier.
With the 54 applications, we were oversubscribed.
So we're certainly hoping that
the program could be extended.
I'm gonna hand it over to Mr. Soares.
I'm sorry if I'm mispronouncing your name.
But is it Sorez or Suarez?
-: No. Either way is fine.
Yeah. Thank you. -: Okay.
-: Yeah and you know, I totally agree
with everything that the assembly member said.
And, you know I think that that's something that's
important here is that by extending the program
and why it's important is because,
the digital divide is still not closed.
I mean, it's as simple as that.
And the assembly member mentioned that,
it's only been highlighted by the pandemic.
And I think something else that gets missed sometimes
is that this is one of the very few sources
of infrastructure funding in the State of California
to build broadband infrastructure.
So I think it's absolutely essential that we continue it
because the infrastructure gap isn't solved
and that will be a big solution to a lot of the other
issues around affordability and access and literacy.
And then at the end of the day,
I think we saw this for the past four years
is that the federal government's not always
gonna be able be there to help us with
resources and funding.
So we must have some sort of
kind of California reliability
to meet the broadband demand that
(clears throat) the state needs.
Particularly during these very tough times.
So, I think that is plenty reason as to why
this program is important and should be extended.
Thank you.
-: Great, thank you.
-: I'm gonna hand it over to the Commissioners
to see if they have anything to add.
-: Well, thank you Rob.
And thank you both for being here again.
I know that your schedules are always so frantic
(Cecilia laughing)
and I do remember actually Assembly member,
we went to your district and actually visited
a startup there that was doing direct wireless.
And it was a really great example
of the innovation that takes place in communities.
And this particular company was,
was able to attach not too far away
to some high-speed fiber.
But was limited in the rest of the infrastructure
in terms of how far the direct wireless
could actually meet and reach out to
different parts of the community in winter.
-: Yeah.
-: And so I just wanted to maybe
ask you about some of the questions,
some of the comments you just made
around the future proofing and really
making sure that we're prioritizing
this type of infrastructure
that could really last for decades
in rural communities and in urban communities.
And just wanted to hear.
Hear your thoughts on it because this has been a limitation
in our funding programs in the past
and really looking to the future
and giving your thoughts on that.
-: Well quite frankly,
I think the way to go.
I mean, I know the way it goes to have fiber.
Fiber can be expanded, it's future-proof.
It's been proven time and time again.
I've been investigating other States and what they're doing.
And they've tried different solutions
that have not necessarily kept up with the the times.
And so the recommendation from many of them
that I have spoken to is that
fiber by far is the way to go.
And as we use,
in our rural communities we have done
different formats in trying to be
as flexible as possible.
But again is that we've had issues
if we're trying to do line by line.
And I'm trying to figure the word.
Transmission on some inter-rural communities.
You know your internet might work one day,
but it won't work the next day
and people will,
"Gosh, I've had this best connectivity ever."
Well, you know what if it's a cloudy day,
we may not have connectivity.
If the leaves are growing on the trees
and it blocks the linage passage,
we may not have connectivity.
So there's so many things that get in the way.
You could have the internet five feet
from one person to the next person.
So in my community you might have
an internet service provider, a big one
and across the street you have no connectivity.
So we need to keep the flexibility.
And I truly, really do think that we need to have fiber.
I think that we dig once we put the fiber in.
We suggest that whenever there's
infrastructure projects going in
that the fiber goes in as well.
So one of the success stories I will tell you,
as I was sitting at the dais as a mayor
and we had a new development coming to town
and on the dais it dawned on me and it was,
dawned on me,
"What about the internet?
Why don't we have fiber going in
as you put in a brand new subdivision?"
And during the development agreement,
the gentlemen came up to the dais he said,
"If you will do a handshake right now,
we'll put in the infrastructure for internet right now
in all the homes that we're building."
We did a handshake and I'll be darned if
he sold all his homes for $4,000 more,
because he had internet connectivity in that neighborhood.
So yeah, I think that we've gotta be future-proof
and I think fiber will be the success for that.
-: Thank you.
I'm gonna hand it over to Commissioner Houck
to see if you have any follow-up questions.
-: I wanna thank.
Assembly woman, I wanna thank you
and Mr. Soares for both being here.
This is such an important program
and it's so great to hear your commitment to it.
Especially given this last year
with what we've all been dealing with with the pandemic.
And I think you heard Mr. Osborne indicate,
Rob indicate that you know, we're oversubscribed.
We got a flood of applications this year,
which just even shows how critical it is
that we be able to move forward,
especially right now with what we're looking at
for next year.
And the change in what's happened with schools and work.
And I just, I didn't know if you wanted to provide
any additional comments as to,
you know, your thoughts about the program
and the fact that we do have so many applications
and just the critical need to reach these communities
that really need access to broadband.
Especially some of the remote communities
and tribal communities,
both in Southern and Northern California.
I just wanted to see if you had any additional comments.
-: Well, you know in my district,
I know that there have been four
I believe, infrastructure projects applied for
there's only been one that's been started.
And I've heard nothing but complaints about
the one that's been started.
And it's a small rural community.
A lot of issues have come up there.
There's lots of frustrations.
I have the school that thought that
they had internet up and running
and they were going through their testing period
at the high school.
And they ended up starting everybody on the testing,
and it died.
And it didn't die once, it died all day long.
And they have timeframes to get this done.
So I met with the school superintendent,
some of the teachers.
And to this day they're still very frustrated
by the implementation that was supposedly done.
Also by a current ISP vendor
that said that they had everything fixed in that community
and they have nothing fixed in that community.
So I think the program itself, has very good intentions.
I think that we need to make sure
that the funding continues.
I think that we need to.
I think the CPUC has done a really good job
on trying to make sure that we get everybody
(indistinct) have the applications,
we got barriers to applications
and I think we've got some solutions to that.
And I think Martha has helped us quite a lot
of trying to identify some of the barriers
that we've had going forward.
-: Great thank you.
I want to hand it over to Mr. Soares.
So he has some time to comment as well.
-: (clears throat) Yeah so, with the you know.
I mean the need is obviously there right,
by the influx of applications from this last year.
A lot of different things that we're doing in SB4 and AB14,
are really going to be helping that you know.
And one is providing not just long-term sufficient funding,
but as you know more funding on an annual basis.
And then also, you know
adding this bonding component,
to really help our local governments
where they're completely unserved
or have just inadequate internet
and providers aren't able to serve.
So kind of taking the matters into their own hands.
So by doing that, we're adding a lot of funding
and then we're also opening up the eligibility,
which is great because you know,
folks they need internet and
they need high quality internet future-proof.
So those are the things
we're really looking forward to accomplishing
in these two pieces of legislation.
So yeah, we really appreciate the question.
-: Great, thank you.
I'm just going to follow up Mr. Soares
with the next question which is,
if you can provide some examples of challenges
experienced by your constituents.
Especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic
and how you think CASF might be able
to address those concerns.
-: Yeah. So Senate district 33 is obviously,
you know an urban district
in Los Angeles County, Long Beach and Southeast LA.
And you would initially think that, you know,
maybe all of those areas are served,
or connected to the internet,
but that's not always the case.
There are a little kind of
connection deserts so to speak throughout
the urban landscape.
And aside from that,
you know there is a big issue with affordability
on the current plans offer.
So a lot of the times there's only
maybe one or two providers
and the prices are just way too high for
many of the residents and constituents
and in Senate District 33.
So quick case, you know,
we believe that we could you know,
by opening up the eligibility and getting more
infrastructure projects (clears throat)
across the whole state,
we can help connect communities
that are completely unconnected
and then help some of the affordability issues.
And then kind of,
I'd say the third part to that would be that
by making sure we have funding in advanced services fund,
we could also benefit the other sub-accounts
when it comes to adoption and digital literacy.
Because that's been an area that Senate District 33
has been able to utilize.
And you know, I think that's something
I could talk about a little bit more later.
But yeah,
so those are some of the primary challenges.
Is a surprising amount of access
and then having affordable plans and digital literacy.
-: Yes and as acting chair Rosenworcel said earlier today
about the emergency broadband benefit,
it has the appearance of possibly
a prototype for an ongoing Lifeline type
approach to broadband.
So it certainly could help on the adoption side
if we look at how we can combine
federal funding with state funding.
Assembly member I'm gonna ask you the same question
with regard to broadband challenges
experienced by your constituents
in light of the COVID-19 pandemic?
-: Well, so many things came to the surface
during this period of time.
Let's just start with obviously our school children,
a lack of access,
but the one that really hit home the most
during this period of time was telehealth
and the lack of connectivity during that period of time
that so many people wanted to use telehealth services.
Many of the doctors that I've spoken with,
as well as our healthcare providers have said to us,
you know thank God for telehealth,
but still we're still lacking that in our rural communities.
So that was one of the biggest challenges
that I feel like that we had other than the school district,
and the other one is quite frankly,
that we've moved to Zoom
and we're trying to have this connectivity.
And I can't begin to tell you how many times
we're having very difficult conversations on the phone
and excuse me on Zoom and they just cut out.
And you don't know what's happened on the other end.
And the screen goes black.
And then I keep thinking to myself,
"You know what that's still in the urban areas
as well as it is a rural areas."
So we have a lot of work to do.
We need to make sure we have quality connectivity,
reliable connectivity.
So, those are the things that really came to mind
during the pandemic.
And it really came to mind that
everybody in this state has a right to be connected
and why we continue to have this disagreement
is just incredible.
We've tried to get a similar bill through before,
and it was always about.
"Oh we don't wanna raise the fee."
Come on 23 cents?
When you really look at the entire picture here,
this is minimal.
This is minimal cost to us.
When you think about the reducing GHG
by all of us working at home,
less people on the road.
I mean we can go on and on about
23 cents is minimal to make sure that
everybody has connectivity.
-: Yeah, certainly.
And that's been discussed even at the broadband council
the amount of greenhouse gases
that have been reduced through tele-work,
certainly a huge benefit
and you know something that came out
of the COVID pandemic as well.
Commissioners, I'm gonna hand it back to you
to see if you have any additional comments on this question
with regard to COVID-19 specific challenges.
-: You know, it's difficult when you see
there's so many challenges, right?
-: I know exactly.
(all laughing)
-: You know, which one do you want to pick?
-: Which one?
-: You know, I mean I just.
You know we can give anecdote after anecdote,
but, you know having
getting folks vaccinated has been the latest
you know, reflection.
Unfortunately the Governor has now taken
a much more directive approach on
filling in the gap that was, you know,
showing in terms of the racial disparities
and who's getting vaccinated.
But a lot of that is due to the fact that
we don't have equity on access to broadband
to even find out about the vaccination.
So what's resulted is all of this really great work
in communities and the pop-up clinics to really
permeate with that.
But it's just the latest example
of the real essential need for having that access though.
Thank you for--
-: It's very interesting like you said,
is that communities are coming together
or nonprofits are coming together to get the word out.
And those have been pieces that keep
the pandemic at bay a bit,
trying to get the vaccinations done.
But can you imagine if everybody could just get online
and they could just see quickly
where they can get a vaccination
or what the next steps were?
You know, when we have some of my rural communities
that are being resistant on getting vaccinations.
I think to myself,
"If they had the information online,
if they could realize where they could go get a vaccination,
if they could see other people of color
that are getting their vaccinations."
I mean, how would that change?
How would that change that
getting those out?
So I think this is just one of the many things
that we can have an anecdotal conversation
about what we've seen so far.
-: Great, thank you.
Commissioner Houck anything to add,
or shall I move on to the next question?
-: No, I think you can move on.
I think we could probably go on all day on
the difference circumstances
and impacts that are broadband and COVID related.
So I'll let us move on and we may end up coming back to this
as we answer other questions.
-: Okay, so Assembly member Aguiar-Curry,
I'm gonna ask you the next question which is,
if you have any success stories or other anecdotes
that illustrate innovative solutions
that you'd like to share?
-: Well, can I say not enough? (laughing)
We cannot force the private sector
to build out services that doesn't pencil out for them.
You know, if they would support that
then we would all be done, but we're not.
So since the passage of AB 1665,
we've had a few of our projects in the fourth district
which I welcome.
In Williams for instance,
half the community the upgrade service under
the California Advanced Services Fund.
That's great, but what about the other half of the people?
I know that internet service providers
have to run a business,
which means cost must meet revenues.
But if you asked me,
if they don't want to build
even with the California Advanced Services Fund subsidies
and we can't force them to build
with or without the subsidies,
then they need to get out of our way.
They need to get out of our way
so we can get service to those communities
who have been left behind.
That's why both the Senator and I
are greatly enhancing the ability for local governments,
the tribe, regional government even co-op,
like the Plumas-Sierra Electric co-op,
which now runs its own broadband networks to participate.
And I am looking at lots of co-ops
that are starting to do this
and investigating this throughout the United States.
So I'm also working with Trish.
Trish and some of Valley Vision who've been very helpful
on trying to get projects going in our district.
There's a lot of work to be done but
I will say is that everybody get out of our way.
Let's get this shot done, I think we can do it.
I know we can do it.
I know our communities wanna do it.
I know that they want to figure a way of doing it.
They're looking for some funding.
This is a time for us all to move forward.
I never thought I'd say thank God for a pandemic.
But I am saying that because it's moving us fast forward
and moving this to the top of the list
throughout the nation.
-: You make a really interesting point.
Assembly member about
how the model that we've relied on for so long
has been successful up to a point.
And now we're faced with communities
where we're seeing disinvestment in the telephone networks
and not investment in broadband.
So the question is, how do we fix the broadband?
How do we provide broadband
to these communities where it doesn't pencil out?
And I think as you indicated,
we're gonna have to start looking at new models.
It's not just an either or.
Either we invest or we don't.
It's in what way do we invest?
In what way do municipalities get involved?
Or do nonprofits get involved?
And you mentioned co-ops as well, Plumas-Sierra.
There's also Anza Electric Co-op in Southern California.
I'm gonna go over to Mr. Soares
to see if he has anything to say on this topic.
-: Yeah so (clears throat),
something I wanna mention is you know,
just to commend the work that has been done
on this project to this point.
And you know, I think the assembly member mentioned earlier
it's all well-intended
but it's only worked for certain parts of the state.
And what we really aim to do with SB4 and AB14
is to make it work for the whole state.
There's definitely a demand from,
all of California to have this broadband connection.
You know, something that I would share
from Senate district 33 is that
we have had zero infrastructure projects.
And I think a lot of that barrier comes from,
the 6/1 megabyte per second eligibility speeds.
So by raising that,
we'll have some community interests
I think for sure across LA County
and across the whole state which is excellent.
You know, a couple of things that I wanna highlight is
we've had some adoption and some digital literacy
dollars go out from the different sub-accounts in CASF,
which is great I think we need to continue that.
And that's part of this too,
but we really wanna focus on the infrastructure
and really giving our local governments and nonprofits
and so on and so forth the ability
to build these networks where providers just won't.
And we get those challenges there,
but like it's been mentioned on this point
in the last few minutes,
we have to re-imagine the way that we connect folks,
because it's it's absolutely essential.
You know, we think about folks getting back in the workforce
after the pandemic or kind of right now
as they're transitioning out of it
or getting relief during the pandemic.
They absolutely need to be able
to connect to the internet to do so.
And we look forward to moving this legislation forward
and helping folks.
-: You know, it's such an exciting time.
Like you said is that we need to think outside the box.
And this is the time to think outside the box
and we're gonna take some risks
and there's going to be some challenges,
but I'm confident our cities and our counties
are looking forward to doing something.
And I've had conversations with
the League of California Cities,
the California Special Districts.
I've had conversation with nonprofits,
you know just kind of putting it in the head,
"Can you imagine if you could take on this?"
And they're like, "How do we do it?
What's the technical expertise?"
Well, we know we're going to have to depend upon
making sure we have adoption
and we're gonna have a good plan for that as well.
But the fact of matter is
to be able to tell some of the ISP's,
"We don't have to wait for you any longer.
We're gonna do it. We'll get it done.
We'll be creative."
And we're gonna have to start looking outside the box
of what other States and cities and counties
are doing right now.
Others are doing the same thing
and there's lessons learned along the way.
And that's what we need to do,
is we don't necessarily have to recreate the wheel,
but we can sure jump on the bus with everyone else
and make sure we can internet for all.
-: Absolutely and I know that Commissioner Guzman Aceves
is in charge of a proceeding that's looking at
some alternative ways of deploying broadband.
Commissioner I'm not sure if you'd like to
comment at all on that.
-: Well, thank you.
I mean there's so much good things have been mentioned.
And I know one of the favorite models I like to highlight
is actually in Senator Gonzales's district,
with the South Bay Cog down there,
where they really saw even in their own County buildings
and local government buildings,
the lack of infrastructure or high-speed connectivity
in very urban areas.
And they took on that leadership role
developed their own capacity
and actually use a local transportation bond money,
for building out their fiber network.
So they did such a tremendous vision
and now their vision continues to grow
on how they can use that backbone
for even more opportunities for their communities.
I think that's kind of the innovation that we need.
And I do think, you know,
thinking of the capacity that
some local governments have versus others,
some communities versus others.
As you know one of the areas we were able to
approve within our current framework
was the technical capacity for tribes.
But I do wonder,
if you see the program itself in this
continuation of the program,
if the legislature and your leadership obviously
is looking at.
what is the role of the program
to enhance the technical capacity of local governments
and tribal governments?
-: Well I think without a doubt,
we realized I think more and more is that
there's accountability and there's transparency.
That we need to make sure everybody can get on board.
And the adoption is,
if we can't do the adoption in the tribal areas
as well as anywhere else,
I think we're gonna.
Not that I think.
I know that we are going to need the technical expertise
that you all have offered in the past.
I can think of my small communities,
they don't have technical expertise
to use local government,
but maybe we could do it as a regional.
Maybe we look at this as a regional solution
for technical expertise.
In the smallest districts,
there's just not enough people
and the bandwidth is so small also.
I think that's one of my biggest concerns,
but I think we can, again, as you say
the cog down in Senator Gonzalez's area has found a solution
and again maybe we just mirror what they're doing
and just take those good parts and move forward
and find different ways there to approach it.
-: All right thank you.
I'm gonna move on to question number four
and this one we'll to Mr. Soares.
So aside from CASF,
what are your other legislative priorities
in the broadband space?
-: Yeah so, a couple that I want to highlight is,
Senator Gonzalez is also authoring SB378.
Which is a bill that has to do with some of,
streamlining at kind of local levels,
when it comes to the permit approval process
for micro-trenching and when projects are being proposed.
So just trying to speed up the timeline
and we're working with all the different folks
involved with that from the different utility,
folks from local governments to make sure that
everyone's comfortable with that Bill.
But just when there's a provider,
whether it be small, medium, or large provider,
or local government eventually building their own network,
we want those (clears throat) processes to be done
in a mindful way, but in a quick way right?
'Cause people needed this internet a long time ago, right?
They needed broadband connection.
So we're trying to do everything we can
just to speed up that process
and that's something that the Senator looks forward to.
Advancing this year as well kind of as,
even though it's not directly linked to SB4 and AB14,
it's sort of a companion measure
to really you know,
help out with the projects.
And then, something that we're all
kind of monitoring as well
and I think we're in support of is AB34.
It is the bond measure and
that would go to the ballot in 2022.
And (clears throat) I believe it's
a $10 billion number at the moment.
And that's something that we are excited about
and look forward to working on as well.
Making sure there's all the kind of
proper requirements for that,
as far as build out speed and eligibility speed
for that money.
But those are the two that I would like to highlight.
And I know there's a lot in the legislature,
but I I don't think I could
get to all of them at the moment (chuckling).
-: That's fine, thank you.
Thank you.
How about you Assembly member Aguiar-Curry?
-: Oh, you know, Mr. Soares,
I have to chuckle because
everybody wants to get on the broadband wagon.
Because, you know I think there's no doubt about it,
but Senator Gonzales and I realized
that we feel that ours is the framework
for other people's Bills to get this thing going.
So I get the giggles out of it.
But I have been passionate about my rural communities
and primarily because I call,
it's the number one thing that comes to mind is access.
Lack of access.
And so yes lack of access of the internet,
lack of access to the education,
lack of access for healthcare.
And so I'm proposing AB32
in partnership with a big coalition
of advocates and legislators,
which helps protect the health
and wellbeing of Californians,
particularly in our most vulnerable communities
throughout the state.
You know, the pandemic brought on a lot
during this period of time.
And we really realized that that period.
That during this time is that
healthcare is
a valuable need
that everybody should have healthcare.
So after visiting a public place
through the pandemic has subsided,
we must continue to guarantee
access to care for our senior citizens,
our working families that must forego pay,
for every moment spent traveling to and from a doctor.
Those without access to local health professionals
and those with mobility issues.
Telehealth can revolutionize how we provide
safe and effective healthcare.
We know that the cost of healthcare
for an unhealthy population,
far exceed the cost for a healthy population.
Lack of access forces many people to wait
until they are in distress
to access a healthcare system.
That hurts them and it hurts their families.
But the insanity is,
it also is more expensive for the health plans,
the hospitals and clinics
and doctors and our tax payers.
So the time has come for Californians
to assure access to health benefits that we pay for
are received as part of our employee compensation
or are eligible for government services.
Telehealth is a huge tool for
assuring that access to healthcare for all.
So during this period of time,
I can't believe how many people
have accessed telehealth.
And it was on a temporary basis.
We had our Bill went through under Emergency Declaration
and now we wanna make it permanent.
That everybody can have access to telehealth
and the doctors and providers they pay for.
So AB32.
Let's all here vote for AB32.
(all laughing).
That's what I have,
but I will tell you is that,
I've met with the speaker.
Assembly Speaker and he showed us about
14 bills that people have throughout the assembly.
I have not had the time yet
to go through all those Bills yet,
but it looks like there's quite a plethora of ideas
that are out there.
But by far Senator Gonzales and I
feel that ours is ready to go.
We have a few amendments we have put through.
We have a lot of support behind us
with assembly and Senators.
Our leadership has been reviewing all of our Bills,
as well as the administration.
We've gotten the input from the CPUC
and I'm sure we'll have more,
but we're ready to go.
I mean, we can talk and talk and talk
until we're blue in the face
but come on everybody's,
let's just get this over the finish line.
And I'm very confident that
we can get this one over the finish line.
I'm going to give the Governor an ink pen to get it done.
(all laughing)
-: Well I guess Telehealth really just underscores
the necessity of broadband.
You know, I remember several years back,
someone asking me, "Well, why should we subsidize
people's ability to watch Netflix?"
And that's not even brought up anymore with the pandemic.
You know, this is a lifeline now
connecting everyone to the world.
So I get that--
-: You know, Rob mot even that is something
that has bothered me, is it because you know.
now we have the Netflix,
we have all of these subscriptions to watch
Disney+, or Amazon or whatever the case might be.
For $4.99 here, 4.99 here.
I believe Verizon now has new iCloud product, it's 19.99.
I mean, we keep adding a stuff
and we're complaining about 23 cents?
Come on guys, let's get this across the finish line.
This is not difficult.
And you know, I gotta tell you
with the CPUC and the leadership that we have there,
I'm totally confident that we can move forward.
But you know, we've got lots of work to do
and think out of the box.
I wanna be at the table.
I know the Senator would like to be at the table too.
We've got lots of work to do
and I'll be there for it.
-: Great, I wanna thank you Assembly member Aguiar-Curry
and Mr. Soares for joining today's discussion.
I'm gonna see if the Commissioners
have any closing comments.
-: Thank you, Rob.
I'll just reiterate and thank you both
for the leadership that you've shown
early and continuously.
And I do very much look forward to an exciting year.
I know there are many good proposals
and looking at different elements of this puzzle.
So I want us to continue this dialogue
and know that we are obviously a resource to
all of you as you move through this very
organic process as the legislation process always is.
And we're so fortunate obviously,
for the Governor's leadership on this (clears throat).
As Rob mentioned the Executive Order from last Fall,
and now the budget prioritization that he's given to it.
So there's without a doubt,
I think his pen is probably ready to go as well.
So thank you and
I look forward to our continued dialogue.
-: Thank you.
-: I also want to join in everything that
Commissioner Guzman Aceves said
and thank both of you for joining us.
I'm new in my role,
but this is something that's very very important to me.
And it's great to hear
how important it is to both of your offices.
And I'm excited to be able to be part of this team
and work with all of you to get across the finish line.
So please let us know,
how we can be helpful and what we can do to
help make sure we reach this goal.
So again, I'm excited and thank you both
for joining us today.
-: Thank you very much.
We appreciate the time
and go back to see my grandchildren.
Thank you everyone.
(all laughing)
-: Thank you so much for having us.
We really appreciate it
and look forward to working with you all.
-: Thank you very much.
All right Selena, I'm gonna hand it back to you now.
-: Thank you.
Thanks Rob and thanks Commissioners.
And thank you Assembly member Aguiar-Curry and George.
So next I would like to introduce
Louis Fisher and James Pang.
For our CASF overview presentation.
Louis is the supervisor for the
CASF infrastructure and market analysis section.
Her section handles the Infrastructure Account
and Line Extension Program.
James Pang is the supervisor of the
CASF Adoption and Access section.
His section handles
the adoption, consortia, public housing accounts
and tribal technical assistance.
And both of them will provide
an overview of the CASF programs.
With that, I'll hand it off to Louis.
Thank you.
-: Thank you Selena.
Can I get a nod, is everybody hearing me okay?
Okay, great.
Go ahead to our next slide please Joe.
Okay, well first off
thank you to everybody that went before me.
I was saying this is a really tough act to follow.
So I hope I can now hold your attention.
I'm gonna talk about
the Broadband Infrastructure Grant Account,
which is the account that we gave the money
to the service providers to build and deploy
the broadband networks throughout the State.
And as most of you know
the goal is to provide broadband access
to at least 98% of all California households
in each consortia region.
Next slide please.
Here's a quick overview.
As it's been mentioned several times
we have $565 million in funding,
of which 265 million has been awarded.
Since the inception of the program back in 2012,
we've had 91 projects which is serving,
we'll call it about 325,000 households
or as they call it homes passed
throughout 39 counties.
A recent resolution T-17709
increased the surcharge to collect
another 66 million during 2021.
So let's see,
in terms of eligibility this breaks up into
sort of two parts.
People that received the service
and the people still were getting the service.
So eligible households are in areas which are underserved,
meaning they're defined as
lacking access to broadband service
at speeds of at least or bandwidth of at least
6 Mbps down 1 Mbps up.
The service providers,
the people we give the money to,
can be either telephone corporations.
Those that have a CPCM, wireless carriers,
facility-based broadband providers
or local governmental or tribal agencies.
So the 2020 cycles, which we've been speaking about.
Boy did we have good marketing.
So little shout out to my colleague James Tang,
his team and all of our consortium partners
who you will hear from shortly.
We received requests for
way more money than we had 533 million,
from 11 different providers.
We had some new providers, so welcome.
And we had 54 applications.
14 projects total were approved.
There were a few stragglers that came in in 2021.
So we did have 14.
The remainder of the 2020 projects
are still under deliberative review,
pending the outcome of the RDOF,
or Rural Digital Opportunity Fund awards.
Okay next slide.
All right, this is just sort of
repetitive so that I wouldn't forget.
The total approved awards 265 million.
The amount of funding that we've already dispersed
in the program is approximately 173 million
and thanks to my colleague Vince,
who churns these numbers out,
that is as of the beginning of March.
Okay next slide please.
So the question we keep getting
and I hope that many of you saw the letter
that went out on March 26th,
if not please contact me
and we'll make sure you get that.
The final action,
we would call sort of a Dean denial
of all 2020 applications that were sent to us in May.
The final action has been postponed
till December 31st, 2021.
And as I mentioned,
this is pending the certification of the
RDOF Phase I Auction 904 results.
We don't want to overbuild in those areas.
We want to work together sort of synergistically
and have CASF remaining funds
be used in the most efficient way possible.
CASF staff, my staff,
are continuing to process some of these applications.
So they are in process
and there will be some more projects,
I should say applications
that will fund projects throughout the year.
So by no means are we just stopping everything,
we are continuing to move forward.
The 2021 cycle has been postponed.
It should have been April 1st next week.
That has been postponed until February 28th of 2022.
Primarily due to the various uncertainties.
Okay, so that was the Broadband Infrastructure Account.
Next slide, I will be talking about
the Line Extension Program.
So what the Line Extension Program does
is it provides grants to individuals.
The individual low income households or property owners
that will help offset the cost of connecting
to an existing or proposed broadband provider.
So this is for the area of the household
or the property owner that's already
in an area that is served,
but it's too far away and it's very costly.
This was primarily a low income program.
Next slide please.
Okay so there was a carve out
from the infrastructure grant account
of $5 million in funding for this.
It started in 2019
and so far we've had one project awarded in 2020,
for $5,200 total.
The eligibility.
Sorry, customers that are eligible for this
are individual household or property owners
that can apply, sorry.
These customers must meet the low income threshold.
Now this would be either CARE or Lifeline.
Foreign special circumstances
can get an exemption from Commissioners.
And I'm getting.
Okay, sorry I interrupted myself there.
So in the 2021 cycle,
we have actually gotten a lot of interest in Line Extension.
What has often happens,
most of these requests don't meet
the stringent low income eligibility.
We the staff are looking into this
and we're hoping to mitigate this issue
in the upcoming CASF proceedings.
And that is all I have.
So James, I'm going to turn this over to you.
-: Thank you Lou.
Good afternoon everybody.
I'll be continuing the overview
for the accounts in my section.
Next slide please.
The first account is the Broadband Adoption Account.
The purpose of this account is to
provide grants to increase publicly available
or afterschool broadband access and digital inclusion,
such as digital literacy training programs.
Next slide please.
The adoption account is authorized
for $20 million in funding.
And since inception
$11.2 million have been awarded
for 25 projects serving over
300,000 participants in 30 counties.
In addition to those awards as mentioned earlier,
CPUC has distributed $5 million to
the Department of Education during COVID
to distribute devices to schools.
Currently approximately we have about
$1.3 million remaining in funds.
Eligible participants of the adoption account are
local governments, senior centers, schools,
public libraries, nonprofits organizations
and community-based organizations.
There was three project types.
Digital literacy, broadband access
and broadband call centers.
For the 2021 application cycle,
which is January 1st cycle this year,
we receive over $4 million in requests
for 49 projects from 17 applicants.
This is three times more than we have
in remaining funds.
We anticipate that the funds will be exhausted.
Unfortunately not all applicants
will be able to participate because we're over subscribed.
Next slide please.
Now this is a picture of a project for
the City of Sunnyvale.
And this is a graduation of a class for digital literacy.
This project provided training to
low income English learner community.
Next slide please.
The next account is the
Rural and Urban Regional Broadband Consortia Account.
And the purpose of this grant is for
regional consortia to facilitate
deployment of broadband infrastructure
by assisting infrastructure grant applicants
in the project development or grant application process.
Next slide.
This account is authorized for $20 million in funding.
So far $18.2 million have been awarded,
with approximating the $6.8 million in remaining funds.
The grant provides a funding cap per consortium
of $150,000 for up to three years.
Eligibility includes local and regional government,
public safety, elementary and secondary education,
healthcare, libraries, post-secondary education,
community-based organizations, tourism,
parks and recreation, agriculture,
business workforce organizations and air pollution control,
or air quality districts.
We currently have 12 active consortia.
We're still in the process of
working on one additional application
from last year's cycle that is for
resolution T-17726 for Tahoe basin project.
And that one's slated to be on the Commission agenda
for the April 15th meeting.
Comments are due by April 5th.
And in the latest February, 2021 cycle
we received four applications.
And those applications are currently under review.
Next slide please.
This is a picture of the
Connected Capital Broadband Consortium.
This consortium serves
the counties of Sacramento, Yolo, Sutter and Yuba.
Next slide please.
The next account is the Broadband Public Housing Account.
The purpose of this grant is to provide funding
dedicated to broadband connectivity and adoption
in publicly supported housing communities.
Next slide please.
This account was authorized for $25 million in funding.
So far we have awarded $13.9 million.
Eligibility is under a publicly supported community
that's owned by a public housing agency
or an incorporated nonprofit 501(c)(3).
Projects since inception,
CPUC has awarded a total of 323
housing infrastructure projects
and 128 housing adoption projects throughout California.
I just want to point out that
as per Public Utilities Code Section 281,
all remaining unawarded funds
as of December 30th of 2020,
are to be transferred back to the
Broadband Infrastructure Account,
So what that means is that
we're no longer taking new applications,
but we're continuing the administration
of projects that are already on progress.
Next slide please.
This is a picture of
the Lockwood Gardens Apartments in Oakland.
This is owned by the Oakland Housing Authority.
And this project provides onsite digital literacy training
to (indistinct) for low income residents.
Next slide please.
As mentioned earlier,
we have a new Technical Tribal Assistance Program.
This provides grants to tribes to develop
market studies, feasibility studies and business plans
to pursue improved communications.
Next slide please.
This account provides up to $5 million in funding.
Just wanted to point out that
the portion of the CASF funds is
the state operations portion that funds this account.
This program was recently adopted last year in August
in decision 20-08-005.
And we had our first cycle in October of 2020.
There's four cycles a year.
So every three months.
January and April,
July and October.
Eligibility are California tribes,
with or without federal recognition
that demonstrate tribal leadership support.
And the grants are not to exceed 150,000 per tribe
per fiscal year.
Through the first two cycles
October of last year and January of this year,
CPUC has approved a total of 15 projects
to eight tribes for over $887,000.
Next slide please.
That takes us into our next segment
and I'm gonna turn it back over to Selena.
Selena: Thanks James.
Commissioner Guzman Aceves and Commissioner Houck,
do you wanna add anything
before we take a quick break
and then we can resume
the Consortia Engagement and Adoption Stories
and Q&A and next steps?
Martha: I just wanna thank everybody.
Obviously I think there was as I mentioned earlier,
so much flexibility used by the program
to be responsive this year.
And I think that there's a lot to be learned
in some of our limitations from what's
been playing in statute,
but also in some of what we did administratively.
So I do look forward to us being continuously adoptive.
And I'm very excited obviously
for some of the some of the more recent work
that we've been doing with this program.
And I've got nothing else thank you.
Darcie: And I'm just looking forward to again,
being part of the process as we
start to look at how we can think outside the box
and move forward both administratively
and seeing what comes out of the legislation that's pending.
So with that,
I don't have any additional comments
other than to thank everyone
that participated in the panels earlier.
Selena: Thanks Commissioner Guzman Aceves
and Commissioner Houck.
So with that, let's take a 12 minute break.
And we'll resume the
Consortia Engagement and Adoption Stories
portion of the agenda at 12:30.
Thank you.
(upbeat music)
All right, welcome back everyone.
So it's 12:31.
Let's get started with our next section.
And the next portion of the agenda is called
Consortia Engagement and Adoption Story.
And I'll hand it off to James Tang
who will introduce our guests and speakers.
David Espinoza, Sabrina Tang and Angela Tam.
-: Thank you Selena.
Our first speaker is David Espinoza
representing the Connected Capital Broadband Consortium.
David is our program manager
for innovation and infrastructure at Valley Vision
that supports the efforts of the
Connected Capital Area Broadband Consortium,
to reduce the digital divide in the Capitol region.
David's pursuit to reduce the digital divide incorporates
conducting multi-disciplinary data-driven analysis
and working with broadband stakeholders in the region
to develop cost efficient, sustainable
and scalable models for expanding
affordable, reliable, high-speed internet (clears throat)
services to unserved and unserved areas.
Welcome David,
I'll turn the dais over to you.
-: Thank you James.
I was wondering if we can make the slides
auto maximizing because there're some maps.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Okay, next slide please.
I'm gonna start with a brief overview of
the Connected Capital Area Broadband Consortium.
This consortium is funded by
the California Urban Services Fund,
Rural and Urban Regional Broadband Consortium.
The consortium is managed by Valley Vision.
A regional civic leadership organization
based in Sacramento and covers four counties.
Sacramento, Sutter, Yolo and Yoba.
Which can be seen circled in blue
in the map on the left.
The scope of work of the consortium
includes supporting the California goal
to achieve 98% broadband access to households.
And to that aim,
we support providers and other eligible applicants
to apply to CASF infrastructure grants,
and other funding sources.
We also promote the broadband congressional speed-testing
using CPUC tools
and support local governments,
providing their model policies
to expedite program deployment.
We also support
the expansion of broadband to rural areas.
And in the presentation,
I will go over the results for some of these items.
Next slide please.
We use CPUC Broadband availability data
to assess where the current broadband coverage
in our consortium region.
In this linear map,
we kind of see the colors for different
broadband speed standards.
And the map shows that
for the gigabit standard,
only the Sacramento City Metro area has
availability of this gigabit speed.
Then coverage of 100 megabit down, 20 megabit up
are available also in densely populated urban areas
and also some suburban areas.
Then for the next speed standard 25/3,
it's available in urban areas, suburban areas
and extends to some rural areas.
Then for the California Standard of 6/1,
it extends a little bit more to more rural areas.
But there's still we can see
yellow and red unserved areas.
Those are areas that are below the 6/1 standard
or doesn't have internet service at all.
Next slide please.
This table shows
the number of served and unserved households
at the different speed standards.
And for the four counties and for the whole CCAC region.
We can see that at the 6/1 standard,
we are served at 97.4%
leaving our own 17,000 unserved households.
At the FCC 25/3 standard,
we are around 96.9%
and we have a little bit more than
20,000 unserved households.
Next slide please.
Now we use the number of unserved households
and also reviewing CASF infrastructure grant projects
from 2013 to 2019,
to estimate the cost of a fiber to the home deployment,
fixed wireless per household.
Then using both the number of unserved households
and the estimated cost per households.
We estimate that how much would it cost to
connect all unserved households at the 6/1 standard
and also the unserved households that doesn't have the
speeds at the 25/3 standard.
We calculated that
connecting these unserved households at 6/1
would cost around $200 million.
And the unserved households at the FCC standard
around $250 million.
But then if we add into the equation
that some deployments can be carried out
using a fixed wireless,
then the prices, the total costs
started going down a little bit.
That's because in some rural high cost areas,
with a local vegetation in a forested area,
in some cases fixed wireless will makes sense.
Next slide please.
We have been working with internet service providers
and other eligible applicants
to apply to CASF infrastructure grants.
And in the 2020 applications cycle,
one of the projects was approved.
That was a project by Digital Path,
a wireless internet service provider.
And this project will provide connectivity
to 279 unserved households
and will make available the speeds of
50 megabits down 10 megabits up,
with capacity to reach 100 megabits down too.
This project is,
as you cans see in the map on the left,
is in the circle in blue.
And it will carry out deployment
in Sutter and Placer County.
There are other three projects
that are currently being reviewed.
One by Frontier to carry out
fiber to the home deployments in Sutter and Yolo counties.
That aims to serve 104 unserved households.
Then we have other two projects by Digital Path
to deploy fixed wireless services in Sacramento
and Yuba and Butte Counties.
Next slide please.
We have also reached out
or are in the process of reaching out
to winners of the RDOF auction,
which were announced in December.
Some of the ISP's that have been,
were announced in December in our region were
Cal.Net, Geolinks, Frontier, LTD Broadband and Space X.
We understand that this process is still going on.
So we will wait a few months
to learn about the specific areas
that these ISP's will be awarded.
Also a few years ago,
from the Connect America Fund-Phase 2 auction,
Cal.Net will be carrying out deployment
in three Counties in our consortia region.
We have also been working, encouraging and assisting ISP's
to develop develop project applications
for USDA improvement grants.
More specifically for the Reconnect Program
and the Community Connect.
Unfortunately we didn't have applications
completed and submitted yet,
but hopefully in next coming cycle.
Next slide please.
So in order to identify more potential projects
and areas that need broadband expansion or upgrade,
we have been working with local governments
to identify a specific priority area.
And we gathered a list of cities and towns
and unincorporated communities across the region.
I started assessing what are unserved areas
nearby these priority areas.
Next slide please.
We have been trying to identify Middle-Mile
across the Four County consortia region.
The neighboring consortiums were very kind
to share their information.
Thank you to North Eastern and Upstate consortia
and Central Coast Broadband Consortia.
We share information about
potential fiber optics and middle-mile routes
across all regions.
This information or this data is not provided
directly by ISP's as that's proprietary information.
But this is more potential locations that
different consortium were gathering in the last few years.
Next slide please.
We have been also working with the
Sacramento Area Council of Governments or SACOG,
and Caltrans to identify potential transportation projects
that can incorporate broadband infrastructure along.
So as a result reducing the cost of deploying
broadband infrastructure especially to reach unserved area.
This is some of the roads of the Caltrans Project,
listed in Caltrans global opportunity map.
Which includes a
State Highway Operations and Protection Program Project
or SHOPP project.
Also Project Initiation Documents Project or PID Project.
And the last few years our
consortium also work with Caltrans,
CPUC, CETF, the California Department of Technology
and regional consortia across the state
to develop the strategic broadband corridors.
That's also data that we are incorporating
in our analysis.
Next slide please.
CENIC was also very kind to be our
broadband champion for continued expansion in the state
and the Capitol region.
So they shared information and data about
their network and their nodes located in our region.
This information includes the location of the nodes,
the providers, the capacity and the technology used.
Currently many of these nodes,
are educational institutions that connect to
these higher speed network.
It has your rate (indistinct)
Which should by sense
allow to extend the connectivity beyond
the school's property.
However by learning the infrastructure
that ISP in order to reach some of the schools,
that help us to have some information that
would allow us to reach out to these ISP's
and assess and evaluate the opportunities
to expand from these infrastructure facilities
to unserved areas especially in rural area.
Next slide please.
Part of our data prepping analysis includes
identifying potential assets,
owned by different local government jurisdictions,
at different government levels.
And also assets owned by public utilities,
and other relevant Government stakeholders in the region.
We have been identifying the footprint
of different electric utilities
assets in the ground,
along with land ownership.
That will help assess if some areas,
especially in remote rural areas
might need additional energy or power deployments.
Next slide please.
We shall also identify from local governments
what are the public right of ways among other assets.
Next slide please.
If you can recall from the unserved areas map,
the unserved areas were scattered and located
in different rural areas across the region.
So in many cases,
they were in low density of population and household areas
and high cost areas.
So in order to make a more
attractive business case for ISP's
to put together applications and projects,
we have also identifying what is existing
business government correlation in the region.
Next slide please.
So we use CPUC broadband availability data,
but for business broadband service.
And identify what is the existing footprint
and using also from local government
zoning and parcels data,
we assessed was the current coverage
in agriculture, commercial and industrial areas.
And determine which areas where unserved
for the business broadband service.
Then using the footprint of buildings in this area,
we could estimate what was the number
of potential business customers in this area.
So altogether, unserved households
and potential business customers,
would make a more compelling case for ISP's
to expand to those areas.
Next slide please.
We built with product information
presented in the previous slide
profiles for the different communities.
Unserved communities in our consortia region.
For example this is the profile
for the Brownsville-Challenge community,
located in the Northeast part of Yuba County.
We listed the existing
ISP for residential and business service.
Next slide please.
And also the number of unserved households.
And number of unserved buildings
for agriculture, commercial, industrial and business,
and potential business customers.
We included also if there is a potential
partnerships with carriers that might have middle mile
along that area.
Also if there's any Caltrans government project
in the next few months or year,
and if there is also CENIC facilities
or any items for the asset inventory.
Next slide please.
So we built these profiles for the different communities.
This is the one for the community of Wheatland,
to the South of Yuba County.
Next slide please.
Putting together the aggregated potential demand
which includes unserved households,
and potential number of business buildings
for business customers
and potential partnerships.
Next slide please.
Another important area we have been working on
is broadband Speed Validation across the region.
Next slide please.
We have requested the CPUC data
about the number of speed testing.
This is for fixed broadband in the last few years,
you know four County region.
Next slide please.
And this is from mobile broadband testing.
So we are trying to increase this number of testing
to a number of thousands in the next few months.
Next slide please.
More regarding CalSPEED testing
is that currently based on input
from educational partners and school districts,
we are in the process of reaching out our request
to the CPUC
to develop the CalSPEED version for Chrome OS.
which is widely using Chromebooks,
which are distributed to schools.
To students in schools across the region
and across the state.
We also are requesting and in the process to reach out
to the CPUC to request CalSPEED
home broadband study data,
in order to put together an index that can help
internet service customers to make a more informed decision
about which service they want to purchase
based on the performance of their ISP's
and the technology.
Next slide please.
This is some of the other priorities
and areas of work we have been working,
including in partnership with SACOG, Metro chamber
and Greater Sacramento Economic Council,
developing the Capitol Regional Prosperity Strategy
which incorporates broadband as a regional priority.
That project was funded by EDA
and a project also in partnership with (indistinct).
Sacramento partners include
developing the strategic broadband corridors.
Then also in partnership with CETF,
we updated the best practices for
local governments resource guide,
which will be rolled out in May this year.
And also developed the Preferred Scenarios Report.
Currently with the Yuba Water Agency and Yuba County,
we're also developing the
Yuba County Strategic Master Broadband Plan.
And last but not least,
we're working with different partners
in the Greater Sacramento region
such as the City of Sacramento, The Public Library,
higher education institutions.
We are leading the
Sacramento Coalition of Digital Inclusion,
which has three main areas of work.
Which are government access and adoption,
access to hardware devices
and digital skills and digital literacy.
Next slide please.
And that concludes my presentation.
Thank you.
-: Thank you David, for your presentation.
And for sharing your insights
and work that you're doing for your community.
Our next speaker is Sabrina Tam,
from the Computer Technology Network, also known as CTN.
They are a nonprofit organization that provides
digital literacy training
to economically disadvantaged people
with a special focus on seniors for over 12 years.
Principally in the Bay Area,
but also in Austin, Texas.
They offer their services both in person
and now with COVID, online.
They have experience of working with the CASF grantees.
They have worked with or are presently partnering with
six grantees from the CASF
Public Housing Account for (indistinct) five projects
and 14 adoption account grantees
for 40 projects.
They're also working directly with nonprofits
on how to be trainers.
And how to access the CTN curriculum.
Sabrina Tam is the Senior Program Manager.
She's been with CTN since 2017
and she currently manages and oversees
all CASF funded programs which CTN is supporting.
Before we bring Selena.
Sabrina on,
I just wanted to point out that she has
technical difficulty connecting to WebEx.
So we won't be able to see her video,
but she is on the phone.
Sabrina, are you there?
Sabrina: Yes hi, I'm here.
-: Sabrina welcome. -: Thanks.
-: Since you're on a phone,
please go ahead and give a verbal cue
when you need to turn over the slide to the next slide.
Sabrina: Okay, thank you.
-: That's good.
Okay, thank you Sabrina.
The dais is yours.
Sabrina: My name is Sabrina.
Thank you for the introduction.
We can move on to the next slide please.
And thank you for having me today.
And in the next 10 minutes or so,
I'm going to tell you a little bit more about CTN.
What do we do?
Give you a summary of
all the CASF assessment programs
that CTN has supported or is supporting now.
Some challenges that we've faced, lessons learned
and I wanna share a success story.
Next please.
So CTN just turned 13 on March 3rd.
We are officially a teenager now
and we are very excited about it.
Currently, we have offices in San Francisco
as well as Austin, Texas as mentioned before.
We work in partnerships with
nonprofits and government agencies,
including the CPUC,
Department of Disability and Aging Services,
MOHPD et cetera.
CTN's mission is to transform lives
through digital literacy.
And to accomplish our mission,
we provide basic/intermediate digital literacy training
for low income adults and seniors.
We cover different types of devices
and we offer training in multiple different languages.
In addition, we also offer training for trainers.
And there's an increasing demand of that.
Next please.
Before the pandemic.
Before the pandemic,
all the training were done in person
at our partner locations.
Including senior centers, housing development,
community centers, schools et cetera.
We offer structured classes,
typically ranging from three to six weeks programs.
And again we offer classes
on different types of devices
based on the learners needs.
Next.
So from 2015 to February 2020,
roughly a five-year period.
We have partnered with nine organizations.
We offer our programs in 60 sites.
We trained a little over 1600 learners,
an average of 323 per year.
Over 50% of these learners are seniors,
37% are low income families
and just under 10% are adults living in SRO.
Next.
In March 2020,
we now know that everything's changed.
All of our partner locations were closed.
We could no longer teach in person there.
All of our programs were either on hold or delayed,
but after a couple of months in May.
I think it's in May.
CTN and some of our partners
were able to adjust to remote training.
We piloted with one or two partners
and then we gradually offered the online program
to more and more partners.
Next.
So since March, 2020,
we have been working with seven partners
through 29 different programs.
And we trained 137 trainers this one year,
which is a huge drop from previous years.
If you remember it's 300 plus learners a year.
But we are proud that our staff
and our partners were able to least see this off
and accomplish that
considering all the challenges that we face.
And I'll talk about more about these challenges
on the next slide.
So over one third of these learners are seniors,
the majority are families.
A small percentage are clients living at SRO.
Next.
So challenges.
We face a lot of different challenges.
Number one, it's learners.
What makes it so hard to convert
the digital literacy literacy program to virtual?
Well that's because the majority of these learners
lack the skills for independent online learning.
Many of them don't have email accounts.
Many of them don't know how to join Zoom meetings.
So how are you gonna teach something on Zoom,
if all of your students struggle to get on Zoom?
You know they don't have the skills.
They also lack access to stable wifi at home.
In the past,
they were able to attend classes at a senior center
or maybe if they lived at affordable housing,
they could take the class in the community room
where there's usually free wifi.
But because of the shelter in place order,
no gatherings are allowed.
Everyone's was bound to take classes
in their own apartment or in their own unit,
where they may not be,
they may not have wifi.
The trainers also have to redesign and modify
the curriculum to fit for remote training.
So like all of a sudden,
Zoom became the most popular topic.
So did telehealth.
The handouts that we usually give to the learners,
we had to put a lot more step-by-step guides,
even for the simplest things.
Very detailed notes
and also not only the learners
need to adapt to this virtual learning environment,
the trainers themselves also have to,
learn how to use Zoom.
How to teach efficiently online.
So there's a learning curve for the trainers as well.
Last year, there was a shortage of low cost devices.
Whether they're new or refurbished,
they just went out of stock.
The devices that we usually use,
they were out of stock.
We had to look into different options.
We were not able to get the new device that we wanted,
we looked into refurbished,
so a lot of time spent on just, you know,
purchasing these devices.
And it's a lot more difficult to outreach,
simply because limited in-person interaction,
there are no more like community events
where we can set up a table and talk to the clients.
We have to rely a lot on phone calls
and which is not the most efficient way to outreach.
Training space issue.
I think even if things gradually reopen,
this is going to remain an issue for,
a certain period of time.
Since we have to keep people
at a certain distance in the classroom.
In the past we could fit like 10 people in a room,
maybe down to three to five now.
And this doubles or triples the programs cost
because we have to split into smaller groups
and do the same class training.
Some rooms without proper ventilation
and wouldn't be suitable for even small group lessons
and therefore we have to continue on with virtual training
or be put on hold for a longer time.
On the right, you see a couple Non-COVID related issues.
The limited eligibility for take home devices
has made a little bit challenging
for some of our partners.
Especially their housing partners.
All of the residents at this low income housings
meet the criteria, of income criteria,
but since not all of them are enrolled in SNAP,
or the school lunch programs,
under the current guidelines they are not eligible
to receive a take home device.
Or maybe I should say that it's not reimbursable.
So make it difficult for them
to participate or take advantage of the program.
We do see some advantages of virtual classes.
And this could be something to stay,
even if we're open to teach in person again.
But however, virtual classes has made reporting
more complicated.
Many of our partners have multiple sites of programs
and it's been hard to fill an online class roster,
with participants from just one single site.
So therefore we have at least became very creative.
We have some crossovers
and allow multiple people from multiple programs
to participate in the same class.
But you can imagine that
that makes tracking and reporting
much more difficult or complicated.
When you have people from different programs on
in the same class.
Next please.
And we do have a success story we wanna share.
Center of Elders Independence.
CEI is one of our partners,
that has six programs approved and currently ongoing.
They are in organizations on the Easy Bay,
based on the Easy Bay.
And they provide all inclusive care for Seniors
from healthcare to recreational services.
We were right in the realm of faith
and then the pandemic hit us last year.
We switched from.
We quickly switched from planning for in-person
to virtual classes from the get-go.
So since May 2020,
we graduated 41 seniors in 10 months.
And we also have a number of incomplete,
whom we've been trying to help them
complete all the training.
We use SIM enabled iPad's for these trainings.
So there's no need to worry about,
whether or not the seniors have wifi at home.
These are very tiny groups.
We only two to three seniors on Zoom.
We usually sign up for five,
although I would say we have to over recruit
because oftentimes not everyone can join
the Zoom class successfully.
Usually only, if you have five signups
two to three can attend successfully.
But the key success factor is that we have
a very dedicated partner.
They do one-on-one orientations
with these seniors to make sure
the seniors know how to join the Zoom call.
They also stand by on each Zoom class,
provide IT support on the Zoom call
in case the seniors encounter any technical difficulties.
They were able to utilize
their existing distribution and delivery system
to distribute the device and training booklets,
so we don't have to worry about
shipping or anything like that.
And they're also you know,
able to outreach to their existing clients.
So all in all,
CEI have been very dedicated partners
which I think is a key success factor for this program.
Next.
Quickly, I wanna share this great picture.
He's a learner from CEI,
who took the classes with the help of his wife.
And his name is David
and CEI sent them a graduation packet,
with caps and certificates to celebrate.
And we do a graduation Zoom call
with all the learners and the teachers
and staff from CEI.
Next.
So from now to 2023 or beyond,
currently we still have seven partners
that we're working with and we're adding six new ones.
We have 29 current programs and adding six new sites.
We're targeting to reach 2000 learners
in the next couple of years.
This is an ambitious goal.
We're all in to close the digital divide.
That's what CTN is here for, and that's my dream.
Thank you.
That concludes my presentation.
Thank you.
James: Thank you Sabrina for your presentation.
It's nice to see that
you're continuing to serve the participants
in light of COVID and continuing to do so.
Thank you very much.
Our final speaker is Angela Chan.
She is representing the City of Sunnyvale.
Angela is a Youth and Family Resources Manager
in the City of Sunnyvale,
Department of Library and Recreation Services.
She manages the programs, services
and partner organizations that operate
out of the Columbia Neighborhood Center.
A one-stop resource and learning center
for youth and families in North Sunnyvalle.
She has worked in her current role for 14 years
and has over 25 years of experience in working with
youth and families with a focus on underserved
and under-resourced residents.
She has a master's of arts degree in social work,
and has worked in municipalities, school districts,
and (clears throat) nonprofit organizations.
Welcome Angela.
I'll turn the dais over to you.
Angela: Thank you James.
Thanks for having me.
We can go ahead and go to the next slide.
So here's a quick background on
the City of Sunnyvale's digital literacy program.
The city is the lead agency.
We were funded by CASF in January of 2019.
We have multiple partners on the project.
CTN and Sabrina have been
a great partner from the beginning.
We also partner with Sunnyvale School District
and the Google Foundation was essential in helping us
bridge some funding.
We actually have six different grants,
with six specific schools in Sunnyvale School District.
The schools were identified either as Title I schools
with high numbers of free reduced lunch students
or high numbers of english learners.
So those were the two populations we were targeting.
The overall combined goal of all six grants
is that we will at the end of the project,
serve 650 adults or parents
who have completed the basic literacy training
with eight hours.
And that we have about 300 families
who subscribe to internet services.
Next slide please.
We had our first six months ramp up period,
from January to June to 2019,
kind of the significant accomplishment
during that period for us.
We contracted with CTN
and they worked on curriculum development
and looked at an instruction specifically for our project.
We met with all the school leaders
and developed specific outreach
and recruitment plans with a plan to start recruitment
and serving their families in fall of 2019.
We secured a grant from Google Foundation.
One of our goals with this project
was to make sure families who completed the project
was able to keep a Chromebook and take it home.
The CASF grant allowed us a maximum of 67 devices per grant.
And we were serving between 75 and 125 families.
And so the Google grant helped us
bridge that funding difference.
So that we were able to issue a Chromebook
for every family and participant
that completed the program.
And we also met with Internet Essentials program staff
based out of San Jose
and they were great to kind of
brainstorm with us and educate us about
what their low cost internet program at home looks like.
Gave us ideas on how we can partner with them
when we were ready to get the information out to families,
as well as bring in other vendors outside of Comcast
to present a comprehensive list of vendors
that families can meet and talk with.
Next slide please.
So our year one of our project
was from July 1st of 2019, to June 30th.
The chart is a snapshot of kind of
what our actual numbers of that project was.
Our plan for year one
was to follow the academic calendar
and offer between three to four sessions
at each of the six schools.
So a Fall session, a Winter session, a Spring session.
And if we needed it,
we were gonna offer a summer session.
We were able to implement the first two sessions as planned.
So we issued,
we implemented in-person fall 2019
and winter 2020 sessions at all six schools.
And a traditional parent education program,
we offered it either in the evenings or on Saturdays
and with partners,
with our school partners we had childcare if needed.
We provided kind of light refreshments
and obviously CTN came on board
and taught our classes.
And we also have city staff
as classroom aides when they were in person.
And then in March, 2020,
because of the COVID pandemic,
we shut down with all of the programming.
So really we were only able to implement
50% of what we had planned to offer that year one.
And kind of those numbers reflect that.
Next slide please.
The participants we recruited were
parents, guardians that were on free reduced lunch.
We had a lot of help from our school staff
and partners to make sure
we were targeting the right families.
And that worked out really well.
We were on track to kind of hit our targets for year one
before the pandemic hit.
And then again, we were able to do just
50% of what we have planned.
We were trying to be strategic about
planning a technology fair at the end of year one.
We thought we would have enough graduates at that point
to have a really nice event
that we'll invite actually an entire community to
and not just kind of the graduates.
And again, the idea was to invite
multiple vendors to talk about technology
and present all of the different offerings.
And we were not able to do that
because of the pandemic
and hope to bring that back in the future.
We have a picture of
one of our school graduations happening.
We actually have multiple pictures of all our graduations
for the first two sessions we offered
and then an actual in-person class
with one of the CTN instructors
is what you see in the front of that picture.
Next slide please.
Year one challenges again,
we can't say it enough
the pandemic really ended
all of our in-person activities
right after our winter session.
Sabrina mentioned this in her programming.
In her presentation.
We realized a couple of months into the pandemic that
we were gonna have to get creative,
otherwise we weren't gonna be able to
continue serving the families
with digital literacy training.
So CTN went ahead and modified their curriculum
and piloted a virtual learning class for us in May.
And what we did was
we went ahead and reengaged participants
that were not able to complete the classes
in Fall and Winter.
So either their schedule got busy
or the work schedule changed
and they started a couple of classes with us,
but they did not finish all of the in-person classes.
So we reached out to those specific participants
that missed one to three classes,
either in the fall or winter.
And then when CTN modified and piloted
their virtual programming,
they designed either two hours of virtual learning
or four hours,
plus two to four hours of homework assignments
that the participants had to complete and turn in
to demonstrate the skills that they learned.
For them to be able to say,
"Oh yeah, I spent some more time on this curriculum,
on these assignments.
On top of what I learned with Zoom."
We went ahead and re-engaged 17 participants through
kind of the pilot program in May.
And out of that 17,
13 of them completed the eight hour training virtually.
So that's about 76%.
Next slide please.
So for us, year two is what we're in right now.
July 1st of 2022, June 30th, 2021.
We are all virtual only.
And that program design is
six sessions of one hour Zoom classes,
with two hours of self-learning independent assignments.
That the participants complete
and turn into the instructors
for a total of eight hours of digital literacy training.
As you can see between the Fall and Winter numbers,
we have gotten better in terms of
understanding the needs of the participants
and what they need virtually.
The instructors and support staff have gotten
stronger in their ability to make sure
participants are signing on,
understanding what needs to happen.
And then that means that,
our number of participants per session
have gone up from eight to 15.
Before they start the first lesson,
they actually make an appointment to come in
to Columbia Neighborhood Center,
where the program is based
and get an in-person orientation with staff,
pick up the Chromebooks,
show us that they actually
can figure out the basics of how to log on.
We download the Zoom link for them.
All of that happens within
a 45 minute in-person orientation,
before they take the devices home
and log on to the first Zoom class.
Next slide please.
Some summary of our year two challenges and successes.
We're thrilled to be able to offer,
continue to offer the program.
We are still seeing the need more so than ever now,
because of how important being online is
during the pandemic times.
So we were happy that we could
pivot and continue to offer the program online.
We've been really lucky with great partners.
(silence)
Woman 1: Preamble is requiring the seniors
to be enrolled in CalFresh,
unfairly disqualifies individuals
who live in residential care facilities,
from participating in digital literacy programs
funded by the CPUC.
They cannot enroll in CalFresh because,
their residential homes include a meal plan.
The question is,
will the Commission rescind its requirements
and determine eligibility
based on the seniors meeting the financial threshold
for CalFresh and therefore not require them to be enrolled?
Selena: Thanks for the question.
So we are aware of this issue
and the Commission has been meeting internally
to discuss ways to address this issue,
because ultimately the goal was to
make sure that those that are eligible to receive devices,
should be able to receive devices.
So please be on the lookout
for additional updates on the CASF proceeding
and the proceeding number is R20-08-021.
And thanks again for reminding us of this issue.
Like I said, we've been working on it
and please stay tuned.
Woman 1: So I have one more question
and it's maybe the host, I'm not sure.
The question is can the CPUC mandate that
telco providers, I assume meaning service providers.
Telecom providers
offer technical assistance to
older adults who sign up for internet service?
Leaving the hookup and signing onto the internet.
Sorry, I'm having trouble reading this.
Leaving the hookup and sign on to the internet
up to the older adult customer
may prohibit them from using this service.
So I think that's a technical assistance question?
-: Thank you Angela for-- -: All right Rob,
would you like to take this question or Commissioners?
Martha: Sure, Rob I wasn't sure
if you were going to jump in.
Unfortunately, right now we're very limited
on what can we mandate of internet service providers.
Although I think the recommendation is a very,
a very, very good one.
And interestingly enough,
when we do these types of things on the energy side,
we very much have the electric and gas utilities
provide that sort of technical assistance for enrollment
in those low-income programs.
But unfortunately until,
as we discussed with the FCC Chairwoman this morning,
until there's a change in how we regulate the internet,
we're currently limited to require
specific things from these providers.
But Rob, if you have a more creative answer
on how we could do it please chime in
or Commissioner Houck.
Darcie: Yeah, I don't know that
I have anything else to add to what you said,
Commissioner Guzman Aceves.
I don't know if staff has any but I think that
we do definitely wanna see what possibilities
there are with looking at how we're revisiting the program
and what opportunities we have
to make it as user-friendly as possible
and ensure that people have the services they need
to use the technology.
-: Thank you Commissioners. -: The only thing.
Sorry Selena, the only other thing I would add
is it just reinforces the importance
of having adoption funding.
So that there are organizations like those
we've just heard from to help with that sort of role.
But I agree that the more holistic and direct approach
would be to have the authority to require
that coming from the providers.
But short of that,
it just highlights the importance of
having more funding in the adoption fund.
Thank you.
Selena: I agree with that, thanks Commissioner.
So, let me see if there's any other questions
from the Verizon telephone line.
If not, we can move on to the next step.
Because we only have five more minutes.
Operator, do we have anyone on the line?
Operator: We do, we do have Eileen Harris.
Your line is open.
Eileen: Thank you all so much.
And I represent Human ATE,
which is a nonprofit that currently works on
a CPUC grant particularly around,
with broadband access and digital literacy.
And I had one comment and a question as well.
And so we're part of the
National Digital Inclusion Alliance,
which has really elevated
how progressive California has been in terms of
being ahead of the curve when it comes to
investing in broadband adoption
and having these public conversations.
I think, oftentimes we're reminded in that group
how fortunate we are to be
operating in the State of California,
because so many other States
don't have this type of leadership.
So I just wanted to make sure that
reflection came back to you all at the CPUC.
And in terms of the question,
one thing you know I've heard a lot
in terms of infrastructure being very essential
and that second question is once people have that access,
and particularly for those in urban areas,
we find there's still a huge concentration of people
who can't necessarily afford that access.
And not only afford it, but aren't aware.
We saw a study recently from Commonsense Media
that acknowledged about 70% of consumers who are
eligible for a low cost option
aren't aware that it exists.
So we find awareness continues to be
one of the biggest gaps there.
And so we are really incredibly grateful that
the broadband adoption account exists.
And we were able to sign up about
4,000 low-income households in 13 months
through the grant at CPUC.
We know that right now that fund is set to
tap out in this next round,
about two years ahead of schedule.
And so I think this was answered a bit earlier,
but I wanted to ask the group
if there's room to expand funding within that particular,
you know broadband access project,
knowing that the need is so high.
And if there's anything that community-based organizations
can do to support folks at the CPUC and otherwise
to really drive more funding and resources
towards that type of work?
Selena: Commissioners, do you wanna
quickly respond to this?
Martha: Oh sure, I'll take a crack.
And then Darcie, Commissioner Houck feel free to add.
Unfortunately, the funds
the fund accounts are not interchangeable,
with the exception of what we were required to do by statute
on the housing funding when it was unused.
So you know, I think the greatest focus for all of you
that recognize the need for this,
is to talk to your legislators and
really encourage not just the extension of the program
but perhaps the consideration of
the augmentation of this particular need.
I think it's just something they all know
and but I think that's probably the most,
probably the quickest way to augment the fund
would be to have the legislature act in that quickly.
But yes, I unfortunately don't think we have any
flexibility within our program now.
Selena: Thank you Commissioner Guzman Aceves.
How about Commissioner Houck?
Darcie: I agree that the legislation
is the place to focus
and we have some champions over at the legislature.
Obviously this is something that
is very important to the representatives
we heard today and their offices
and the Governor's office.
So I agree with Commissioner Guzman Aceves,
I think we know we need some changes to the program
and we need to figure out how to get
access and resources in place
to make sure we can serve California.
I don't know that I have
unfortunately much more I can add to that,
but we are looking forward to hopefully
being able to move forward once legislation is passed
to expand the program and what we're able to do
in that regard.
Eileen: Thank you so much Commissioner.
Martha: And actually Commissioner Houck,
as you were speaking one thing I was
remiss about is there's a small chunk of funding
in what's called the Digital Divide Account,
that we are currently in a separate rulemaking,
the broadband infrastructure deployment rulemaking,
which I'll ask maybe my staff to put in the,
I don't know if the public can see the chat or the Q&A.
But anyhow that rulemaking currently deliberating on
is a small amount of money $1 million for adoption purposes.
So that's one venue that's currently again
being deliberated.
Well thank you Selena for`the rulemaking (indistinct).
I dunno, hopefully it's rulemaking 20-09-001.
But again, it's a very small amount
and really what we need is
the extension of the program and the augmentation.
Thank you.
Selena: All right, thank you.
So unfortunately the workshop is a little bit behind.
It's already 1:31.
So, I'll just quickly, sum up what the next steps are.
As we learned today, broadband is very important,
it is a necessity.
So we still have a lot of work to do
to close the digital divide.
But I hope that those that were able to join us today
can participate in the CASF proceedings.
Again that's the rulemaking 20-08-021.
And we're looking at the reexamining
the issues in that proceeding,
based on the discussions that we have
and the legislative updates that you heard earlier today.
We do need to think outside of the box.
And we will continue to review the
unprecedented number of infrastructure applications
that we've received in 2020.
And looking into how to incorporate the RDOF funding.
So please continue to make your voices heard
in the legislature,
and pushing the legislators to support Bills
that ensure the CASF program can continue
and will keep up with the changing needs.
So let's stop.
I want to thank everyone again for joining today,
and thanks to the Commissioners and President Batjer
and all all the other speakers and staff
that helped put together the workshop today.
With that, any last minute remarks from
Commissioner Guzman Aceves or Commissioner Houck?
Martha: No, just thank you very much
for all the hard work
and for everyone's continued engagement.
Thank you.
Darcie: Yes, thank you everyone for your participation.
This has been very helpful for me.
And I look forward to doing more work in this area.
So thank you.
Selena: Thank you.
So the workshop is adjourned.
Thank you everyone.
Bye bye.
Operator: Thank you all for participating
in today's conference,
you may disconnect your line
and enjoy the rest of the day.