Cal. Digital Divide Fund to ‘Push Envelope’ Seeking Policy Changes

“There are changes that need to occur in Washington,” Motta said: “There are changes that need to occur in California. There are changes that need to occur in boardrooms.” The fund will push to change the criterion for obtaining federal Rural Utilities Service grants from the recipient carrier’s size to the target population, and closer to home will work to ease permit procedures, get owners to make towers available for wireless Internet services “at a reasonable price” and have the state subsidize uneconomical rural buildouts, he said.

“We are doing some reasonable advocacy,” Motta said. “You have to be very careful: It’s a 503(c)(3)” tax-exempt organization, certified in late April by the IRS, he said: “It took us a year, and it was very difficult to get, and we don’t want to lose it.” But “we're going to push the envelope” on advocacy curbs, particularly with PUC Pres. Michael Peevey as CETF’s chmn., and capitalize on sharing 2 board members with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Broadband Task Force, Motta said. Others on the fund’s 12-person board are Assemblyman Lloyd Levine (D-Van Nuys) and former state Sen. Martha Escutia (D-Montebello), an L.A. law firm partner. CEO Sunne McPeak had been Schwarzenegger’s secy. of business, transportation and housing.

AT&T has committed to contributing $45 million to the fund and Verizon $15 million, over 5 years. Closing Cal.’s divide would cost billions, he said: “Clearly, CETF has a monumental challenge ahead of us.” To make the most of its money, CETF seeks at least $190 million in matching funds, Motta said. Board members, including those who work for Cisco, Covad and Google, have strong fundraising connections, he said: “We're not going to sole-fund anything.”

A first batch of 5 grants, decided last week, will be announced by mid-June, Motta said. He wouldn’t give dollar figures or any information on recipients, except to say they were among 15 of the 300 plus groups CETF has met with. They were invited to apply because they have been successful and look like promising springboards for expansion, Motta said. The fund also picked about 5 other groups for smaller grants to help firm up planning, Motta said. And it just opened an application window for all comers, with plans to make 4 more grants near year-end, he said.

CETF is picking its shots, Motta said. An older similar effort, the Community Technology Fund of Cal., spends “money all over everywhere” and there are “different opinions as to how successful that foundation was,” he said. CETF seeks to have the greatest concrete effect within 2-3 years, Motta said. “We're trying to approach this differently than was done” before. The fund is focusing on rural communities, the urban underserved and people with disabilities, acknowledging that the digital divide has other important aspects, including age, education and English proficiency, Motta said.

The fund’s urban strategy homes in on young people, education and public housing, Motta said. “There are organizations out there in the inner cities that on a very focused basis are being very successful,” and CETF wants to take advantage of that head start by using grants to “sustain, expand and replicate” such groups, he said. The CETF board at a meeting last week discussed the possibility that inner-city teenagers’ entree to the digital world may be via cellphone, not PC, Motta said. That would mean many young people already own the hardware they need, though handsets may not have broadband functionality, he said.

In inner cities, the biggest needs are tech support and training, getting and keeping devices updated and offering tools people need, Motta said. Broadband is available almost universally, and the service and devices don’t cost much, he said. “CETF is looking at partnering with One Economy,” an international nonprofit whose activities include the Beehive, a Web portal for poor people with 103 local versions in D.C. and 20 states, Motta said. Motta’s old company, AT&T, has worked with One Economy. The carrier’s Access All program with Habitat for Humanity, to give 50,000 U.S. households PCs, software, broadband, training as a support, is a model for CETF, he said. Motta retired from AT&T predecessor SBC in 2004 as vp-service quality after 34 years with the company.

Motta wants CETF to emulate the widely admired Connect Ky. project by collecting data on rural demand for specific broadband services that service providers may not have appreciated, he said. “There’s no reason” Cal. can’t have a law like Ida.’s, requiring the state to make up the difference between what a service provider could justify spending for a remote buildout and what it truly costs -- public money to be repaid on hitting adoption and profitability benchmarks, he said.

People with disabilities are everywhere, so the fund is asking all grant applicants to discuss how projects they want underwritten will help the disabled, Motta said. It will work to provide hardware, training and support to those with disabilities, and it’s trying to persuade corporations to make their websites more accessible via universal design, he said.

CETF this month applied to the FCC for $13 million over 3 years “to tie together 300-350 health providers to provide a telehealth network to support rural California,” Motta said. The fund had aligned all Cal. telehealth players to keep them from submitting competing proposals to the FCC, he said. The Commission will pay for up to 85% of approved projects, and CETF agreed in Dec. to put up the other 15% for this one, said Motta. The fund has a mandate to spend at least $5 million of its money on telehealth, he said.

Community-based organizations compete so fiercely for scarce money that it’s “going to be challenging” getting “people to work together that maybe haven’t,” as is needed “to do projects of scale,” Motta said: “It’s kind of dog- eat-dog for the majority.”