With State Plan and Federal Funds, California in Good Position to Close Digital Divide

WASHINGTON, January 25, 2022 – California’s current expansion plans plus federal infrastructure funding puts the state’s efforts to close the digital divide in a good position, counsel at the Electronic Frontier Foundation said Wednesday.

Ernesto Falcon, senior legislative counsel at fiber-access nonprofit the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said on a Fiber for Breakfast event hosted by the Fiber Broadband Association that new money from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will help it focus its efforts on providing access to unserved individuals and work more to improve broadband speeds for those who have access to less than 25 Megabits per second download and 3 Mbps upload – considered underserved.

Falcon remarked that California is making sure to place fiber infrastructure in urban markets rather than just focusing on rural markets – a common mistake made, he said, due to the perception that rural areas are in need of much less connectivity improvement than urban ones.

At the present, urban Los Angeles County is “contemplating how to deliver universal fiber,” he said. And at the same time, certain organizations are working to ensure rural areas do continue to receive sufficient focus, such as joint powers authority Golden State Connect Authority.

Much of California’s broadband policy is guided by its state broadband infrastructure law. Key pillars of the law to the state’s connectivity mission include authorizing the California Public Utilities Commission to help communities develop grants and feasibility studies, and to deploy both rural and urban exchange points through a middle mile fiber network.