The California Public Utilities Commission again postponed an AT&T enforcement item that had first appeared on the CPUC’s Feb. 15 meeting agenda and was scheduled for Thursday's meeting. Staff held the repeatedly revised item (resolution T-17789) until June 20, said a Tuesday hold list released in advance of Thursday’s meeting. The proposal would deny AT&T’s plan for correcting failures and improving service after failing to meet the state’s out-of-service repair interval standard in 2021. The CPUC didn’t comment Wednesday on the reason for the continuing delays.
It wouldn’t be an “unfunded mandate” to require ISPs to have $15 affordable broadband plans as a condition of getting support from the California Public Utilities Commission’s federal funding account (FFA), The Utility Reform Network said Tuesday. TURN replied in docket R.20-09-001 to industry objections to the group’s petition asking the CPUC to pause FFA grants until it modifies rules to account for the federal affordable connectivity program (ACP) winding down (see 2405160055). "The courts have previously held that funding conditions for voluntary programs are permissible; funding conditions are not unfunded mandates or rate regulations,” said TURN. "Providers are free to decline FFA participation and instead charge customers whatever they wish.” Existing ISP-designed affordable plans are no substitute for ACP, added the consumer group: Such industry plans "tend to have significantly more restrictive eligibility requirements than the ACP and therefore will not be available to all ACP recipients.” TURN has two other petitions related to ACP's end (see 2405240060).
Reject T-Mobile’s request to make it optional for California Lifeline providers to accept applications for low-income support from people who lack social security numbers, said consumer and low-income advocates in replies Friday at the California Public Utilities Commission. In comments earlier this month (see 2405130044), T-Mobile’s Assurance Wireless raised concerns about “requiring companies to process, review and collect a fluid set of unfamiliar and unverifiable ‘identity documents’ without any safe harbor.” Legal Services of Los Angeles County, the Legal Aid Association of California and other low-income advocates disagreed. "While providers may assist with collecting additional identity documents, the [third-party administrator] will make eligibility determinations based on identity documents, so the alleged basis for the need for providers to discriminate against individuals without SSNs is specious.” The Utility Reform Network and the Greenlining Institute “oppose any call for California LifeLine to discriminate against people without SSNs.” The consumer groups noted that people lacking SSNs include "some of the most vulnerable members of our communities: survivors of domestic violence, refugees, and people facing housing insecurity.” Meanwhile, AT&T urged the CPUC to slow down. That every commenter suggested revisions to the staff's proposal shows that the CPUC should take additional time to develop a plan, said the carrier: Require staff to submit a revised, more-detailed proposal and seek more comments. But the low-income advocates said it’s time to act. “Despite any lingering questions or disagreements … the Commission should immediately change the application and expand the list of acceptable identification documents ... without further undue delay,” they said. “Any other feedback on the staff proposal can be resolved later."
Many applications for federal broadband funds at the California Public Utilities Commission propose projects that would mostly cover already served areas, the CPUC’s independent Public Advocates Office said Friday. PAO has “major concerns about several grant request proposals” seeking federal funding account (FFA) cash, it said in a letter to CPUC Communications Division Director Robert Osborn. PAO reviewed 484 pending applications seeking $4.6 billion from the $2 billion fund. “Even with this oversubscription, the applications appear to cover less than half of eligible unserved FFA locations,” it said. PAO urged the CPUC to prioritize projects that cover the most unserved locations and “especially those that cover low-income and disadvantaged locations.” Also, the commissions should work with applicants to expand proposed project areas to cover more unserved locations, it said.
Despite expectations that the affordable connectivity program (ACP) will run dry in days, telecom companies continued arguing in comments last week that the California Public Utilities Commission should take its time forming its response. However, while larger ISPs slammed consumer advocates' proposal, small local exchange carriers said they would work with the advocates on a compromise that quickly expands California LifeLine support to broadband.
Don’t wait to see if Congress finds funding for the affordable connectivity program (ACP), the Center for Accessible Technology (CforAT) urged the California Public Utilities Commission in comments Wednesday. The consumer group supported a petition from The Utility Reform Network (TURN) and the CPUC’s independent Public Advocates Office to modify a 2022 decision that made rules for the California commission’s federal funding account (FFA), which uses broadband funding from the U.S. government (see 2404150062). The petition “accurately highlights that the current FFA rules will become outdated shortly with the anticipated end of the ACP, and it reasonably requests that the Commission modify the FFA rules to support ongoing broadband affordability,” CforAT said in docket R.20-09-001. “The Commission should not delay based on the efforts currently underway to extend the ACP, as the fate of these efforts is uncertain, and the status quo would result in loss of service for program participants.” The CPUC can hit the brakes should ACP get money, it added. But the telecom industry said granting the petition would delay money going out the door to expand broadband. Also, the industry urged the CPUC to avoid using ACP's possible end as an excuse to relitigate settled issues, echoing comments it made days earlier on a separate TURN petition seeking changes to a different grant program (see 2405140037). Thanks to flexible FFA rules, the CPUC "received an unprecedented amount of interest with over 480 applications and at least two applications per county,” commented AT&T. Granting TURN and PAO’s petition will only further delay awards for the applications that already have been pending for eight months, said the carrier: But the CPUC must make awards by Dec. 24 or send the cash back to the U.S. Frontier Communications said the CPUC should “swiftly deny” the petition. "The Commission should not allow the state’s broadband infrastructure deployment objectives to be diverted or delayed by Petitioners’ agenda to revisit rejected policy proposals addressing affordability." AVX Networks and Cal.net piled on. “There is no reasonable basis to delay FFA awards indefinitely while the Commission considers whether to add a completely new requirement on FFA award recipients,” they said. A group of small rural local exchange carriers agreed. “This Petition would compromise the efficacy of this time-sensitive federal grant program, potentially squandering critical federal support for rural infrastructure deployment and impairing the state’s efforts to close the digital divide,” the LECs said.
Verizon’s Tracfone was chosen as exclusive service provider for California’s next foster-youth pilot program, the California Public Utilities Commission said Wednesday. T-Mobile provided service for an earlier pilot. Tracfone “pledges to meet all requirements of the Foster Youth Pilot, including providing each eligible participant with a smartphone equipped with hotspot capabilities, a charging device, unlimited voice and text messaging, 25 GB of mobile data, and 10 GB of hotspot data, all at no cost to the participant,” Chari Worster, the CPUC’s California LifeLine program and project supervisor, wrote in an email to the service list for docket R.20-02-008. California commissioners unanimously supported the pilot at their meeting last week (see 2405090063).
A possible $2 billion clawback "would keep broadband as a key state priority," California Assembly Communications Committee Chair Tasha Boerner (D) said this week. With the state facing a tough fiscal situation, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) Friday announced a May budget revision that included taking back promised additional funding for the state’s middle-mile network and eliminating a broadband fund for local governments. However, some digital equity advocates are sounding the alarm with state legislators.
The possible end of the federal affordable connectivity program (ACP) isn't an excuse to make sweeping changes to state broadband grant rules, ISPs told the California Public Utilities Commission this week. In Monday comments (docket R.20-08-021), AT&T, Frontier Communications, cable companies and small rural local exchange carriers urged the CPUC to swiftly reject last month’s The Utility Reform Network (TURN) petition to modify rules for the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) broadband infrastructure account (see 2404150062).
A California proposal to allow people without social security numbers (SSNs) to sign up for low-income telecom support was mostly supported in comments Friday at the California Public Utilities Commission. However, consumer advocates sought tweaks to the CPUC staff proposal to ensure maximum inclusion and disagreed with T-Mobile’s Assurance Wireless on whether accepting applications without SSNs should be mandatory. Other companies generally praised the staff plan while seeking more clarity on certain details.