During the pandemic, we all saw kids sitting outside Taco Bell for a free Wi-Fi connection to complete homework because their families didn’t have broadband. The COVID shutdown shined a bright light on the persistent disparities in broadband access across California.
The latest state data collected by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) found that at least 362,000 households are not served by an Internet service provider. To address the digital divide, in 2021, the Legislature and the Newsom administration approved $6 billion for a “Broadband for All” funding package to promote the development of new broadband infrastructure in underserved and underserved communities. These funds were provided primarily by the federal government and were to be used before December 2026. A significant portion of this funding was placed under the administration of the CPUC, which had already administered a broadband infrastructure grant program for several years with some success .
Fast forward to 2024. What does California have to show for that investment? Not much. We have two years left before the deadline, and the CPUC has yet to give a dime to any project. No new families have been linked to this funding.
Why is she? There are several reasons. On the one hand, the CPUC and the California Department of Technology, the state departments charged with implementing broadband infrastructure, are not measuring the success of the funding by the number of households connected under or without service. Instead, they focus on miles of wire in the ground. Not only that, but these two state departments are, at best, talking past each other and, at worst, disjointed in their coordination.
The CPUC is the state agency charged with many responsibilities for only six commissioners. CPUC commissioners are tasked with things like electricity rate hikes, utility security and climate change, while the less urgent but equally important work of administering grant funds for broadband infrastructure wide seems to have fallen to the side.
As the chair of the House Committee on Communications and Transportation, I believe we are actively failing to connect our underserved and underserved communities. It is clear that the CPUC has not made progress and will not prioritize progress. The agency has become so outspoken that it even refused to make a commissioner available for a legislative oversight hearing.
How to deal with this problem? Most other states have dedicated state agencies charged only with broadband, and many of these states already have shovels in the ground and are connecting their residents.
If California truly cares about connecting our communities and ending the digital divide once and for all, we must get serious about addressing the CPUC’s structural failures and seriously consider removing broadband from their oversight. The CPUC is not the agency to do this. The CPUC was originally intended to regulate monopolies, not administer grants, in a competitive broadband market.
As a state that always claims, “As California goes, so goes the nation,” we must not fall behind other states. We should not normalize children sitting outside fast food restaurants to do their homework. We can do better for the future of a California for all.
Tasha Boerner is a member of the California Assembly for District 77.
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