CPUC Workshop - 2020-04-23
No chapters available yet
Legend
Transcript markers
- text Sentence being played
- text Search result
- text Intervention cited by the link you opened
Click a sentence to play the video from that moment. Select text to quote it with the speaker, timestamp and link.
More options
California Public Utilities Commission
Follow its sittingsSpeaker 4
This is a quick summary of the actions that the Commission is aware of. Much like the need for broadband, we're also very much aware here at the Commission of the increased energy use that is happening throughout the state. And this is just a little sharing of things that we've instituted. To the credit of many of the regulated entities, they have also stepped up and done this without any sort of consternation. Disconnections on electricity and water and gas are all been ordered by the governor and by ourselves as prohibited.
So customers should not be prohibited, and you are welcome to call us to remedy any situations that you may be aware of. We're also, as you may have heard, suspending any sort of verification eligibility on our programs. And obviously we've called for, and I know many of you have called for the ISPs to do so the same. But some of our big programs are what we call the CARE program, the California Alternative Rates for Energy. That's a discount program of 20% to 35% of your electricity bill.
And also the Lifeline program, which I'll get into a little bit more. And we really want to make sure folks are able to access both of those key programs in our jurisdiction. And just as an example, we are also in this next May 7 meeting as well as the past meeting in April, we've been taking measures to try to provide electricity and gas rate relief and you'll see a few more measures of something called the high use charge. I won't get into it. I just wanted to mention that we're really stretching to try to figure out ways to alleviate monthly bills knowing that the usage has gone up while people are staying at home.
There's a link here, and you can get it off of our front page at the CPUC link to the COVID response and the protections that have been put in place. There are also a list of protections that I'll get into next here on the telco side. Next slide please.
Speaker 4
Our executive director, Alice Devan, did send a letter last month on March 23 to all of the large internet service providers asking them to step up. Some of these elements, as you know, are part of the SEC pledge. We did ask that they eliminate data caps and overcharges, again, to reinforce their commitment to suspend disconnections and to, if they have not yet activated, and there's only a few that have not, to activate their affordable plan offerings. And really stressing the need, I know many providers want to recognize Comcast in particular who has made it really a little more seamless to enroll some of our K-twelve eligibility populations. And our communications director and some of his team are meeting biweekly with these providers to try to further reinforce some of what we're hearing, a lot of what we're hearing from many of you of some of these issues to enrolling in these plans.
And that continues to be an area of consternation. Next slide. Trying to catch up to the slide here. All right, this highlights one of the actions that our team in the communications division was able to effectuate. Many of you may be familiar with the California Teleconnect Fund.
That is a fund that provides a 50% subsidy for K-twelve as well as other nonprofit sectors such as hospitals and libraries. But for the purposes of this heightened need for children, we did set aside a $25,000,000 fund for cooperation with the Department of Education for the most disadvantaged schools in terms of broadband access and they have been developing a methodology for how they've identified these schools and we're coordinating with them on that, including some of the work that's been done on knowledge that many of you have, which is where the current geographical gaps on adoption exist already. And not to anyone's surprise, there's a lot of overlap. So happy to take questions on that later today, but just want to highlight that this is something that's rolling now and essentially schools that let's say had a contract with a provider are now able to extend these contracts to provide hotspots to children in their homes. I'm just realizing I didn't get the punch line in here.
So this is $25,000,000 for hotspots for children. Okay, next slide. And also I'll leave to Selena to discuss the action that's been taken on the CSF side that we hopefully will be voting on May 7. Let me turn now to the lifeline proceeding. And this is really one that kind of call to action to all of you to really see if you can find it within your time to participate in this proceeding.
And this talks about some of the key questions that were put out in Commissioner Schiromo's ruling that went out last week or a week ago. And one of the key provisions that we're asking about is what is the role of the Lifeline program for expanding broadband services? This is not a new concept necessarily. Many of you have suggested this in the past. There are other states that are using this and there's a very low participation on the federal broadband subsidy in Lifeline here in the state.
But this is the time that we really want to reevaluate the role of the Lifeline program for providing the broadband service at an affordable rate, obviously. So I really encourage you to get involved with that and again, happy to answer more questions on that and the timeline for that. We do have a heightened focus about figuring this out within the next few months. Okay, next slide. And again, just I know some of these things I'm going to hold for Selena, but I just want to really share my appreciation for all of the staff and for all of you, as I said in the beginning.
Many people have just stepped up tremendously. Even I will do a little fly, the CSF team and the communications director did get a shout out by the governor this week because of the efforts around the teleconnect fund and the CSF adoption fund. So we have much more work to do, but I'm looking forward to today's discussion to really bring out what those next steps should look like and really encourage our continued communication as difficult as it is now, to just be maintained and hopefully amplified. Thank you very much. And Selena, I'll turn it over to you.
Speaker 5
Thank you, Commissioner. Good morning. Welcome to the BASF workshop. My name is Selena Huang, and I'm the program manager for the Communications Division's Broadband, Video, and Market Branch. First of all, I hope everyone is staying healthy and safe during this challenging time.
The COVID-nineteen situation has had a significant impact on all of our lives. I understand that many regions and stakeholders have gone into emergency mode. For example, many of you had to focus on getting through and had other priorities. So on behalf of the team, we thank you for your time and participation today. Broadband is more important than ever, especially in light of the shelter in place orders, and we recognize the potential impact.
Next slide, please. Commissioner Guzman Ostabas already mentioned the CPUC actions, But in terms of BASF, we have also taken some actions so far. For example, on March 26, the assigned commissioner, which was assigned or, like, Commissioner Guzmana Zapas issued an ACR requesting comments on the CASF rules and application. The ACR consisted of 25 questions covering various accounts. Question number one focused on issues pertaining to COVID-nineteen.
Comments and reply comments were received earlier this month. Comments on all the other questions were due on April 15, and reply comments are due on April 27. So I encourage, if you haven't already, take a look at the comments and file reply comments by April 27. And then on March 30, the Communications Division Director sent a letter to adoption, consortia, and public housing grantees stating that the Commission is considering taking steps to explore options to expand completion dates for all of the existing BASF projects based on the duration of the Governor's Executive Order. We will be sharing more information later this week or early next week.
And on April 17, the Commission issued a draft resolution that proposes to adopt criteria and process for the distribution of GWENT from the adoption account. And that is working with the California Department of Education, which will determine the specific school and school districts need for funding allocation. And this is in response to COVID-nineteen. And we also propose to set aside an amount not to exceed $5,000,000 for this distribution. Comments are due on April 27 and reply comments are due on May 1.
The proposal will be on the Commission's May 7 voting meeting agenda. And next slide, please. The Competition OII or Order Instituting Investigation Decision directs staff to conduct the study of consumer broadband speed experience measured by the CalSPEED Fixed Location test. The Commission, in partnership with California State University, or CSU Chico, and CSU Monterey Bay, are looking for volunteers to help collect quality measurement using the new CalSPEED Home measurement device. And please help spread the word about CalSpeed Home.
Sign up to participate as a volunteer. And we'll order samples of measurement results at calspeed.net. And if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer that later during the Q and A session. Next slide, please. Today, we're here to help facilitate collaboration regarding cost effective strategies to reach the BASF program goals and bridge the digital divide.
Before we get started with today's workshop, I'm happy to introduce the two new supervisors for the BASF program. Louise Fisher, whom you already met earlier, is the supervisor of the BASF Infrastructure and Market Analysis section. Her section handles the Infrastructure and Line Extension program. James Tang is the supervisor of the BASF Adoption and Access section. His section handles the adoption, consortia, and public housing account.
And I would like to thank Commissioner Guzman Asabas for being the keynote speaker and for her great leadership on the BASF program. I would also like to thank Rob Osborne, who is the new Communications Division Director. And he's been really supportive for us to move things along. Last but not least, thanks to the team for putting together the workshop today. From IT and AV support, we have Joe Haga and Robert Stanford, Our workshop coordinator, we have Melanie Belfort.
And the presenters, we have Jessica Honeyfield, Jill Anas, Carlos Jennings, Grace Liu, and Peter Pratt. And we also have a lot of folks who are providing support to make this happen today, including Vincent Kopi, Lindsay Tong, Taylor Chine, Sunshine Palmer, Michael Minkus, Oban Wakti, and our Consortium Moderator today is Trish Kelly, and Consortium Panelists are Tom West, Steve Blum, David Espinosa, Connie Stewart, and Cole Prisabola. And thank you all for joining us today. With that, let's get started.
Speaker 6
Okay. Thank you, Selena. This is Jessica Honeyfield, and let me pull up my presentation. Okay. Good morning, everyone.
My name is Jessica Honeyfield. I'm a Senior Telecom Engineer with the California Public Utilities Commission, and today I will be presenting on the California Advanced Services Fund Infrastructure Account to go over eligibility and the application process. So a little bit about the program and where we are today. In 2017, the Internet for All Now Act changed the codes that govern the CSF program and amended $300,000,000 in funding to the broadband infrastructure account. The Commission then adopted new rules and requirements and guidelines for the CSF infrastructure account in December 2018.
Speaker 6
infrastructure program is to provide broadband access to no less than 98% of households in California. California is divided into 14 consortia regions, and currently we have three consortia regions that have met that goal. Now, say that not to imply those areas are not eligible for a CSF grant. It is not our intent to leave anyone behind, but just to point out that we still have a lot of work to do. So who may apply for a CSF grant?
Any broadband service provider is eligible to apply for a grant that includes entities with CPCN holders, wireless carriers with WIR, and even nontelephone corporations. Also eligible to apply are local government agencies, including municipalities and tribal entities that wish to bring broadband into their community. So for project eligibility, an area for a project to be eligible, the area has to be defined as unserved, meaning there is no broadband access of at least six megabit download and one megabit upload. CAF II areas or Connect America Fund Phase II areas are currently ineligible to receive CSF funding. However, that statute expires in July, at which point it would be eligible.
If your project includes middle mile infrastructure, it must be indispensable to accessing the last mile infrastructure. Currently, the CSF cannot fund middle mile only projects. And it's up to the grantee to determine what type of technology it wishes to deploy as long as the solution can provide a minimum of 10 megabit download and one megabit upload, that project would be considered eligible. So one of the most significant changes to the code is in the funding criteria, which allowed the Commission to approve up to 100% funding for an eligible project meeting certain criteria. So the baseline for an eligible project would receive 60 percent reimbursement, meaning that the commission would pay for 60% of the or the fund would pay 60% of the construction cost.
But there are several opportunities for a grantee to earn up to 100% funding if the project met certain criteria regarding low income customers or going into a low income area or also an area that is totally unserved with no broadband access. Regarding performance criteria, a Commission approved project must be able to complete within twenty four months after CEQA approval. If the project is found to be CEQA exempt, the project must complete within twelve months of the project start date. As I mentioned earlier, the minimum requirement for a project is it must provide 10 megabit download, one megabit upload to all households within the project area, and there are latency and data trap requirements that must be adhered to. We also require that the grantee provide an affordable broadband plan for low income customers and we do require a two year pricing commitment on all broadband plans two years after project completion.
So how to apply? If you would like to apply for a CSF grant, please work with your local consortia. They will be able to help you identify eligible project areas and put together an application. All applications will be evaluated against information contained in the California Interactive Broadband Map, so it's very important that you utilize that tool or that map to identify your project areas. Within the broadband map, there's also a CSS application tool, which will extract information for you that's required for the application, such as the median household income, the number of households within your project area.
And I want to mention that if you find a discrepancy in the broadband map, are able to challenge the broadband map and include that information in your project summary with the census blocks or area you would like to challenge. As part of the application, there are 20 application items that need to be provided with the submission. The project area does not have to be one contiguous area. It could be two separate areas. But we do require those 20 application items for the project area.
For more details on those application items, we have that information on our CSF infrastructure website. These slides will be made available on the website, so you'll be able to find the links there. The application deadline for 2020 application cycle is May 4. And again, if you have any questions, please work with your local consortia. The contact information for the CASF Infrastructure team is also listed below CASFapplicationquestionscpuc.@cpuc.ca.gov.
As Selena mentioned, there is an ACR out for comment regarding potential rule changes to the CSF program. There's still an opportunity to provide comments. Reply comments are due on April 27, and we do encourage you to let us know what you think. With that, I will turn over the presentation to my colleague, Bill Ennis, to talk to you about Lyme extension program.
Speaker 8
Good morning, everyone. Thank you, Jessica, for that introduction. I just want to make sure that my slides are up and everyone can see them. I'm going to talk briefly this morning about the California Advanced Services Fund Line Extension Program, and we call it LEP, which in our memo also means limited English proficiency, but we'll use Line Extension Program. Legislation in 2017 changed the California Vet Services Fund to provide a $5,000,000 pool of money to allow individual households or property owners to apply for funds to connect their households to broadband through facilities based providers.
The Commission created programmatic rules in decision 2019 to start the program. The two slides of interest that I will talk about next are who may apply and what makes an eligible project. An eligible applicant essentially needs to reside at the location or be a property owner of the location. Applicant eligibility is based on income, and that threshold is met two ways, through either our California Lifeline or California Care program. As Peshmer Kismetasenas mentioned earlier, those are two public programs to support low income utility provision.
Applicants who are not enrolled in one of those programs can still meet the income criteria threshold for line extension. And that is currently, this slide needs to be updated, 51,500 for a household of four, median household income. Bill, Also, the can
Speaker 3
those technical difficulties I apologize for. We need to get your slides over to Joe.
Speaker 3
Yes. Are we good now, Joe? And Carlos, when you go next, do all that too. Carry on, Phil.
Speaker 8
I feel like I was talking to the board at this point in time. The slides will be available on the website. I believe they're available at this point in time. In terms of who may apply for Lyme extension program grant, representatives of providers may apply for individuals as well. And one example that we did have in the twenty nineteen-twenty twenty timeframe was a representative of the facilities based carrier applying on behalf of a household.
An eligible Lyme extension program project in three criteria, essentially that the applicant has not been provided a Lyme Extension grant in the past, and that the project for the household does not have a connection to any facilities based broadband provider. So the only way they would be getting their broadband at this point in time would be through mobile. That is something that we've asked a question about when Commissioner Bismata Services signed Commissioner ruling for people to comment on. Third criteria is that a project must be exempt from California Environmental Quality Act requirements. You can subsidize up to 100% of the cost of a line extension program grant, and it is based on technology.
That would be a max of $500 for fixed wireless installation and a max of $9,300 for a wireline installation. Information on how to apply is up on our website. Our next application deadline for Line Extension Program grants is 06/01/2020, and we will be taking applications quarterly thereafter. If you have questions you would like to direct at us on staff, the email is below. Program results for twenty nineteen-twenty twenty is the grant of one line extension program grant in the Central Valley near Fresno.
And again, we are trying to reevaluate the rules to see if we can use the funding to fund essentially more of these grants. Thank you. And I will be available for questions at the very end of all of the presentations. And with that, I will turn it over to Carlos Jennings. He is an analyst who works on the geographical information systems.
And he will be making a presentation on areas that may be right for CSF infrastructure grant funding. Thank you.
Speaker 9
All right. Thank you, Phil. Hello, my name is Carlos Jennings. I am the GIS analyst for the TASF infrastructure team. And as Phil mentioned, I'll be showing slides of higher density unserved areas that are eligible for CASF infrastructure grants within the seven consortia that are participating in today's workshop.
And we highly encourage providers and other eligible entities to apply for infrastructure grant in these locations, which would make a significant contribution to achieving the CASF program goal of deploying high speed broadband Internet to 98% of California households. So let me pull up my slides here. Okay. So I'm going to go through the seven consortia. I selected a couple of areas in each consortia.
And I tried to find areas that are higher in density, that have a significant number of households that are unserved. So in the beautiful Redwood Coast, the Redwood Coast Connect Consortium, there are some prime grant eligible areas in Crescent City and Camp Klamath and Hoppe. So in Crescent City, let me tell you a little about the map. This is the CASF eligible layers. And it's broken down by, there's one that just shows you the eligible layers and then there's another layer that shows you the density by household, so that's what we're looking at.
So the darker the colors, the more yellow and red, the higher the concentration of households in those areas. So here in Crescent City there are 126 unserved households and the median household income for the combined census block groups is just over $40,000 So this qualifies as a low income area based on the care threshold of $51,200 And this figure is adjusted annually, so it will be adjusted again very soon, I believe in May or June. And so the baseline for funding for a grant application for an approved grant is 60% of funding. And however, additional funding can be provided if, for various reasons, one of them is if the area is a low income area below that threshold, 51200, and that would qualify for an additional 30% of funding. And if the provider if there's also a low income subscription plan that is a low cost subscription plan that's $15 or less, will qualify for an additional 10% of funding, which would bring the total to 100%.
And there are other ways to achieve 100% funding. So let's move on to a little further south along 101. There is some rural areas around Klamath and Hopau, also in Del Norte County. I was corrected, it's Del Norte, not Del Norte. Unserved households, are five zero three unserved households and this is also a low income area.
And so you might see that there are some diagonal lines on some of these census blocks that indicates that these are also Connect America Fund areas, CAF II areas. And these should become eligible after July 1 according to the CSF rules. And in the remote Northeast Kingdom Of California, beautiful Northeast California Connect Consortium, two communities, Boerne and McCall, to take a closer look at. Bernie has two seventy three unserved households. And as you can see, this is a very low income area.
The median income is just over $16,000 And so again, we highly encourage applicants to consider applying for a grant in this community. And a little to the Southwest Of Boerne there's the community of McCall. And this has four twenty four unserved households. And this would also qualify for additional funding because of the the median household income in this area. Next we have the Upstate California Connect Consortium, And I selected three locations here because this area has one of the lowest rates of percentage of served households, it's around just under 79%.
So in Lake County, a few miles south of Clear Lake, there are some communities, a cluster of communities, Hoburg's, Cobb, Whispering Pines with one Eye, and there are nine zero five unserved households in this area. And while this is not a low income area, well, it's possible that if you select, if it was broken up into several projects, then some of them may qualify. Altogether, this area would not. But nevertheless, we do want to achieve 98 deployment. And this is a rural community, so we also want to make sure that we reach as many people, as many households as possible in California.
And just a few miles to the north, on the North Shore of beautiful Clear Lake, there are the communities of Lucerne and Nice. And we have a total of six fifty unserved households and also a low income area. And there are just a couple of calf blocks, not that many. AT and T is the provider for those calf blocks.
Speaker 9
the east in Caloosa County, Williams, the community of Williams, which is along I-five heading north out of Sacramento, there are seven zero nine unserved households. And then a little further south, where I am in Sacramento, this area is represented by the Connected Capital Area Broadband Consortium. And there's two communities, Waldo Junction and Rancho Murrieta. Waldo Junction is in Yuba County. It's near the Diehl Air Force Base, and there are 140 unserved households in this area.
It's not a low income area. And also to the Southeast of Sacramento there is the upscale bedroom community of Rancho Murrieta with sixteen forty one unserved households. And for some reason this area does not have high speed broadband. There are some past grants surrounding it that AT and T has, but not within Rancho Meteorite, the exception of the one orange colored census spot there at the top. And then moving a little to the Southeast into the foothills and into the Sierras, represented by the Central Sierra Connect Consortium.
This is a very rural area with lots of rugged terrains to qualify for additional funding under the rules. And there's two areas that have a cluster of unserved households, Blanchard and Barrett in Tuolumne and Mariposa Counties respectively. There are over five seventeen unserved households and I am from San Antonio, Texas, so I noticed one of the census blocks looks like the state of Texas, so interesting. Also in Central Sierra there is a community of North Wawona, 70 unserved households. And although these are not a low income areas, we do want to, reach as many people as possible so that we can achieve the program goal of 98% served households, or broadband deployed for 98% served households.
Okay,
Speaker 9
the North Bay Area and beyond, North Bay North Coast Broadband Consortium. Up in beautiful Mendocino County, there is the very artsy and rural community of Covelo. There are seven seventy two unserved households in this area. And this is also a low income area and there are a lot of past areas that Frontier was awarded. We'll see after July 1 what is left.
And then little to the Southeast, excuse me, the Southwest of Covelo, along 101, the town of Laytonville. It's a low income area and there are five thirty two unserved households here. And then heading down the coast, south of the area in Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties, the two communities of Brookdale and Post and Pfeiffer Big Sur. Brookdale is a community North of Santa Cruz in Santa Cruz Mountain. And there are 111 unserved households in this area.
Found in Monterey on the rugged and gorgeous Big Sur Coast, communities of coasts and areas around Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park. This is a very large geographic area. It's very rugged, hard to reach, but there are five thirty three unserved households in this area. So that concludes this portion of my presentation. Thank you very much.
So if you have additional CSS information, please go to the website at cpuc.ca.gov/casf or email cassapplicationquestions@cpuc.ca.gov. We also have a broadband interactive map, and that is broadbandmap.ca.gov. And if you have questions about the broadband map, feel free to email me, cj1@cpuc.ta.gov, and I'll be happy to set up an appointment, and we can go over the map or other eligibility criteria for the program. Okay. So bear with me.
I'm going to stop sharing this and bring up my web browser. Share. Anybody Okay. Oh, here it is. Okay.
Long tab.
Speaker 9
is the CASF Interactive Broadband Map. Well, it's not just CASF. There's a lot of information on here about broadband deployment, and we have an excellent team who works tirelessly to maintain this map and keep it up to date and are constantly making improvements. So when you go to broadbandmap.ca.gov, you'll see the menu on the left, and the default layers are CASF infrastructure eligible areas and CAF II eligible areas. And now, the updated rules require CASF applicants to submit a complete list of subscriber addresses, and it is very important that they be official US Postal Service addresses with the correct suffix abbreviations, no PO boxes, and the correct five digit ZIP code.
Please refer to the data format for geographic locations of households. On our website. And there's also a pre formatted spreadsheet which is available to download which has the fields formatted in the proper way according to the template. So be that as it may, we also have a handy CASF application assistant tool on the California Interactive Broadband map where applicants can obtain additional corresponding census block information to determine the geographic boundary of the project, which is also required in the rules, as well as required demographic data such as medium household income, land area in square miles, the number of households, and whether the area is actually CASF eligible. So I'm going to give a brief demonstration on how to use the tool and the various layers that are available.
So as I mentioned, when you first go to the website, two layers are automatically populated. That's the infrastructure eligible areas, CAS two, excuse me, eligible areas. There are various subcategories menus on the menu bar. There's broadband adoption. There is broadband deployment, so it's to show you where broadband is available by technology type.
And then we have the broadband grant section. So this is where the eligible areas and the CAF II eligible areas are located. We also have a Cal State and Public Feedback section, community anchor institutions, and political boundaries, so like census blocks, block groups, counties, tribal lands, urban areas, state, senate, and assembly districts, and congressional districts. There's a legend. There's a toggle switch to make the legend appear on the map, or you can just keep it on the menu.
And some layers are they're scale dependent. So some of them won't pop in until you zoom in to the to the scale, and then the corresponding legend will populate as well. And then at the bottom of the menu, have various tools. There's an address search. You can search for a specific address for a community, city, town.
There are various space maps. You can look at a satellite view. There's a terrain map, and there's the default map. And this is the window in the way here. And dark.
And then below that is the CSS application assistant tool. And before I give a demo on that, let me just finish going through the menu items. There's a tool to identify Internet providers. You click on an area, and it will show you the providers that are in that area and the technology that is available. Populates here.
There we go. So I clicked in the CSF eligible area, and you can see there are no providers. You can also look at mobile, and there's a little bit of geographic data available as well. We have a Zoom to provider, which you can choose providers by technology type, and it will give you all of the providers that are available in an area. So let's see.
Alright. I won't I won't do that at this time. Or you can zoom to a region. So this is very handy for finding ZIP codes, political districts, counties, tribal lands, etcetera. So let me go back up to the application assistant tool.
And so you can't use this tool to get addresses that required, but it's a very useful tool to check for eligibility and to get other information that is required. We do still require a boundary of the project area, so census blocks is a good way to submit that. That does not substitute for the addresses though, I want to stress. And so there are four ways that you can select areas and get information, and there you can export the retrieved data into eScript sheet, which is very, can be very useful. So there are four methods to select areas.
So there's a point, and you just click on the census block that you want more information about. You can draw a line segment. So you click, draw your line segment, double click to close it, and any census blocks or whichever layer you have selected will be selected that intersect that line. There is a polygon. Oops.
Yep. You have to double click. There we go. Polygon. You can draw a polygon of any shape.
There we go. And double click to close it. Or you can draw there's a circle feature, which will also select all the areas that intersect in that area. Hit get features, and you'll see on the right hand side, the data will populate. So there's four tabs.
There's data by census block, which is the layer that we're reviewing, and also the corresponding block groups, the corresponding census tracts, and anchor institutions that are in the area. You can see here the information that shows the full 15 digit census block number, and the zero, the leading zero is very important. That is part of the number, so they have to be 15 digits. So please include the the leading zero for applicants. It will tell you the land area in square miles, which is one of the one of the criteria that we ask in applications.
The estimated population, the number of households. You can see here whether it's unserved and eligible for CASF, which these blocks are, and the corresponding information with the other, you know, geographic areas, block groups, census tracts. And if you click this Excel icon, it will export all the data into a spreadsheet. And just a word about median household income. You need to use the block group tab to retrieve that, because that block group is the smallest geographic area for aggregating medium household income.
And that is all I have. We're running a little bit ahead. So what just should we move on to the next or should we have more discussion? Carlos,
Speaker 9
Excellent. Okay. Thank you very much. So I'm going to hand it over to Grace Lu who will talk about JSF Consortia and maybe we'll have a little more time at the end for Q and As, which may be good. Okay.
Thank you. Grace?
Speaker 2
Thank you. Yes. Thank you, Carlos. Let me first bring up the presentation. Do you guys see the presentation?
Speaker 2
morning. My name is Grace Liu. I am the lead analyst on the CASF Consortium account. Before providing a brief overview of the Consortium account, I would like to thank the Consortium members for taking the time out of your busy schedules and being on the consortia panel today. So thank you and welcome to the workshop.
So just a brief overview, as you are familiar with AB sixteen sixty five, which established the funding continuation of the consortia account with additional 10,000,000 in program funding. Subsequently, the Commission adopt the October 2018 decision, which is the rulemaking for the program. So, the major program change is the shift of program focus from previously broadband adoption, access to broadband deployment, as specified by AB sixteen sixty five. The account funding shall be used to facilitate the deployment of broadband services by assisting infrastructure applications. So this slide shows the eligible organization types, such as local and regional government, public safety, education, along with other entity types.
There are 17 consortia regions throughout the state. Most consortia groups have received multiple grant cycle funding. Currently, have 11 active consortia grants. I will get into more details on the funding status in the next slide. Then for the regions that are not currently represented or funded by CASF, we have reached out and communicated with the members.
We are working on opening another grant cycle. The solicitation announcement letter will be sent out to the CASF distribution list today. Applications are due to Communications Division by June 5. We will accept consortia grant applications from both existing and newly formed groups for the regions that are not currently funded by CASF. So since the program inception of the total authorized $25,000,000 the consortia account has awarded approximately $17,300,000 as of today.
So, the table here lists the grant start date, end date, number of grants awarded, the approved budget, and the total disbursement by grant cycle. The first grant cycle is complete. The second grant cycle is concurrently running with the third grant cycle. This is because some of the second grant cycle grants have a later end date. So, based on the total disbursement, it is about 70 percent completion for the second cycle.
And as I highlighted here, the third cycle started in November 2019, as we are moving into the new cycle with the revised program goal focusing on broadband deployment, I am sure we are all thinking about how to promote broadband deployment and work together to meet the 98% statutory broadband access goal. And this is why we are here today. Basically, we would like to have more conversations altogether and better understand the achievement, progress, and the issues, so we can work to the best of our capacity to implement the program. We would like to collaborate and consult with regional consortium members, stakeholders, and everyone to find more CASF projects and learn from consortia's experience and expertise. So, before I hand over to the consortia panel facilitator, Trish Carey, Managing Director of Vision Valley, here is the Consortium Program website and email address if you have additional questions.
Thanks, Trish.
Speaker 7
Good morning. This is Trish from Valley Vision. Thank you so much, Grace, for all your support and help for us today and for all the team and for commissioner Guzman Oceves for your leadership. It's greatly appreciated as we are all in this mission together. And as noted by Selena earlier today, this mission is more important than ever, especially that COVID nineteen has elevated and accelerated the issues of deployment and adoption that we've all been working on for many years.
The first slide, please, Grace. Thank you. So our mission is to close the digital divide in the Sacramento Capital Region. Valley Vision is a nonprofit civic leadership organization, and we have been managing the consortium since 2012. So our work mission is to collaborate, connect, advocate, and try to get as many infrastructure projects as possible to meet our 98% threshold.
But also, we have a strong role in communication about broadband issues and resources across the region. And we work with a large network of state, regional, and federal partners. So support from the PUC has been really critical for our region as we elevate the issue. Next slide please, Grace. To give an overview of our region, our planning region, which aligns with our Council of Governments, is actually six counties.
It includes Placer and El Dorado Counties to the east. For the purposes of our consortium, we cover four core counties, and, they are a mix of urban, rural, and suburban. So we have approximately 20,000 unserved households as identified by the PUC mapping project, and we know that we have thousands more underserved households as well as many areas around the region, including our rural communities, older business centers, and we have a lot of pockets in our urban areas of underserved or communities with low adoption rates, which has really been manifested right now through the challenge for remote learning. So we have also a very strong partnership and collaboration model, and I'll talk about those in a few minutes. But to look at our broadband grades, these are based on the PUC data reflecting cost, speed, reliability, competition, and other factors.
So even though, as we like to say, we're the capital of the fifth largest economy in the world, our grades are poor in most areas. And it makes it really hard not only to support our households but our communities. So that's our mission. Next slide, please, Grace. So these are some of the areas in which we are working.
These are our priorities and our some of our core partnerships. Broadband is a critical regional infrastructure priority. We are currently working on our Capital Region Prosperity Strategy, which is a federally funded strategy. That's a core partnership with our Metro Chamber, our Council of Governments, and our Greater Sacramento Economic Council and Valley Vision. So not only is infrastructure for broadband embedded in connectivity with transportation infrastructure, but it's it's a high regional priority.
And that includes, as a foundation for talent development and digital skills. We also, of course, are working to support our providers to develop infrastructure projects. So the data and information provided by the PUC has been really helpful for us as we work, to deploy across our region. We are all, of course, focused on improved mapping and data and that to improve our eligibility for funding both at the state and federal level. And as I mentioned before with Chico State, we work a lot in our local governments and partners work a lot to get people to take the CALSB test, so that's been a valuable tool.
One of the key areas on which we're working is to, identify and provide model policies and ordinances around permitting, planning, guidelines for local communities so that we can help expedite infrastructure projects, especially joint use and big ones. So working with our statewide network of other consortia has been really valuable. And we do national research and connect with leadership organizations. But this is something where the consortium network has really been a great learning network and, of course, also the work that CTF and others have developed. And I just wanna note that we work very closely with the consortia in our surrounding areas, and we really appreciate those partnerships.
One of our other projects is to really improve our connectivity for rural areas. We have a very vibrant food and ag economy. It's over $7,000,000,000. We have one of the best global assets in UC Davis. We really want to accelerate adoption for ag tech to support not only our food and ag economy, but our rural communities and to improve resource efficiency in water and energy and other uses and be a showcase for resiliency.
But we cannot use ag we cannot adopt ag tech without broadband in our rural areas. So another thing is our state, federal, regional partnership projects. We are working on the strategic broadband corridors with the PUC, the broadband council, Caltrans, and others to identify high all the consortia have identified high priority corridors across their regions and how we can leverage transportation projects to achieve adoption or deployment for, broadband infrastructure. We have partnered with Chico State and the Fresno Broadband Consortium for the San Joaquin Valley with funding from CETF, the California Emerging Technology Fund, to do an ag tech pilot, to show how the important broadband is to adopt ag tech, as I mentioned earlier. So we, use these partnerships and leverage additional resources to show the make the case for investment.
So we also work closely with a broad network of partners, including California Forward, CTF, and state partners for the governor's broadband for all strategy. Another key area for us is digital inclusion. We support a digital inclusion coalition for Sacramento with the city and the library, and we're trying to do some initiatives there. It's a huge issue for us, especially as we've seen with schools and remote learning. We've had a school to home project That's been really valuable for us to generate some resources and show how important it is to start addressing the homework gap early on.
Another area that we're really working is to improve our federal program eligibility with the USDA reconnect, FCC funding, etcetera. We had the FCC chairman out last year as a result of our work. And we in our region and across California are often locked out of these resources. Working with the PUC, Peter Pratt and others, has been very valuable for us. We work with not only FCC and USDA, but NTIA and EDA to make the case.
Last slide please, Grace. So I just wanted to highlight the issue of digital literacy and digital adoption being so critical to regional economies. Two years ago, the Brookings Institution did an analysis for us and showed a greatly increased demand for digital skills. And this chart shows the change in the need for digital skills across jobs. So 75% of our jobs now need some level of digital skills.
But if we do not get in the forefront of this with starting with digital literacy early on, our region is going to fall behind. And this is a huge equity issue for us because those residents who are most at risk of jobs displacement are those who need these digital skills. So that concludes my comments. And now I would like to turn it over to Tom West from the North Bay North Coast Broadband Consortium. And thank you again for the opportunity to participate.
Speaker 13
Thank you very much. The North Bay North Coast Broadband Consortium consists of four members, the counties of Marin, Mendocino, Napa, and Sonoma. There have been two actions that have been taken within this consortium to facilitate broadband deployment. One is that three of our counties I should say that our consortium is divided into four teams. We actually have five work plans.
In three instances, three county teams are in the process or have completed countywide strategic broadband plans. The second action within our consortium is that Calvin Sandeen, the leader of the Sonoma team, has actually created a neutral, non for profit corporation called We Can Do It. And I'll have more to say about that later on. Why are we developing countywide strategic broadband plans? It's about taking ownership and control of our future broadband decisions.
Thank you. It gives us a clear articulation of priority broadband needs and requirements within each of the counties. It also starts to address the issue of the need to integrate current stovepipes for the good of all and not have everybody solving their own problem but not solving the overall problem. And it provides the basis for future broadband deployment and adoption projects. Why did Calvin create a statewide not for profit?
The idea is here to provide neutral ownership for middle mile broadband infrastructure assets across the state and to ensure open access to these middle mile assets, which is not the case today, and be an entity that has the tools and expertise to assist local entities, local ISPs with last mile deployment projects. We find that most of our local ISPs do not have the resources in terms of staff or money to mount a CASF grant application. So that's what we're up about at this moment. And next I would like to introduce
Speaker 14
I think, Grace, I'm gonna save my slides for later on when we get into the, into the five questions we're supposed to both supposed to address. Just as a a brief overview, the Central Coast Broadband Consortium covers Santa Cruz, Monterrey, and San Benito Counties. We've been in existence now for about twenty five years, a little over twenty five years. We were originally, created as a task group by the, Monterey Bay Area Association of Governments, and we've gone through several, several different life cycles. About ten years ago, eleven years ago, during the 02/2010 stimulus program, federal stimulus program.
We kind of came together in our current form. We're an ad hoc organization. We have members and participants from all over the three counties. We do a number of things as task groups. We're a coordinating body for a lot of the broadband activities that go on in our region.
The work we do under our CASF grant is focused on our CASF consortia grant is focused on broadband infrastructure deployment. Our fiscal agent is the city of Watsonville. The grant project project is managed by the Monterey Bay Economic Partnership. And one of the things we really focus on is getting broadband infrastructure out into the community. Sometimes that's VSC ASF grants.
A few years ago, UC Santa Cruz, led a project, that ended that created a 90 mile access, 90 mile long open access fiber route, middle mile fiber route from Santa Cruz down through Watsonville, Salinas, and the Soledad, And that has been the backbone of a lot of broadband development, both for incumbent providers and independent projects. But we're not limited to CASF funded projects in the broader work that the ad hoc group does. A couple of examples, City of Gonzales just is in the process of finishing distribution of 2,000 hotspots, mobile hotspots. The city is paying for two years' worth of service plus the hotspots. This is in partnership with T Mobile and the Gonzales Unified School District.
Every household in town can get a hot spot. There's about 1,800 homes in town, households, and another couple 100 in the surrounding unincorporated area with kids that go to Gonzales Unified. So that is a project that our consortium has supported. Another one, another way of getting things done is action before the CPUC. And I think a good example of that was the Charter's acquisition of Time Warner Cable Systems.
That was reviewed by CPUC in the normal course of business. We intervened. The City Of Gonzales, the County Of Monterey intervened. And one of the conditions that came out of that was that Charter was required to upgrade their analog cable systems. You can get 36 channels of 1950s grade TV for, I think, dollars 105 a month before.
Now they have full broadband access. Mean, in terms of numbers, that project alone got about 100,000 people online that did not have adequate service before. So I think that's an overview of what we do. Will like I say, I'll reserve the slides when we get further into our discussion. But I'd turn it over to Doctor.
David Espinosa up in Chico.
Speaker 10
Thank you, Steve. I'm David Espinosa, broadband specialist at the CU Chico Geographical Information Center. This center is the coordinating agency of the Upstate and Northeastern California Connect Consortium. The map here shows the Upstate Consortium in orange, which serves the counties of Glen, Colusa, and Lake. And the Northeastern Consortium in blue, which serves the counties of Butte, Tajima, Lumas, Shasta, Lassen, Sixty Two, and Modoc.
Both consortium consists of ISPs, local governments, community and co institutions, community based organizations, county offices of education, and business chambers among other local partners. These consortia support the California goal to achieve 98% broadband availability across the state and in each consortium. The tables here shows broadband service status at the California standard of 61 in both consortia and in each county. These percentages are based on latest 2019 CPUC broadband availability data. We can see that the Northeastern consortium is currently at 89% and the counties with the lowest levels are Modoc at 44% and Lassen at 67%.
The counties with the highest levels are Shasta at 90% and Butte at 95%. The Upstate Consortium is at 78% and deployment levels in the three counties range from 63% in Colusa to 85% in Wayne. So based on these broadband levels, there is still a lot of work to do to achieve the California goal of 98%. Next slide, please. Then to get to the 98%, the upstate and northeastern California COMET Consortium under our current CSF Consortium grant have been working on supporting ISPs, local governments, and other eligible entities to file applications for state and federal broadband infrastructure grants such as the ASF and the USDA Reconnect Program.
We have been supporting local governments to develop strategic master broadband plans and policies to promote broadband expansion. Policies include this one's policies and ordinances. Our consortia have also been working with statewide agencies and organizations to find collaborative approaches to expand broadband. For example, in collaboration with Caltrans, CPUC, CTF, CBT and other broadband consortia or actually all broadband consortia, we've worked on the strategic broadband corridors. We have been also collaborating with CMIC and CTN to expand broadband to more education and healthcare facilities, especially in rural areas.
We have also been working with local partners to validate reported broadband coverage and speeds using CPUC tools, such as the CavaSpeed application and the CPUC Public Feedback Forum. These works will potentially open more CDSF eligible areas. And that's an overview of the Upstate and Northeastern Consortium. And I will pass it over to the next presenter.
Speaker 11
Hi there. This is Connie Stewart from Redwood Coast Connect Consortia up in Humboldt, Del Norte, and Trinity Counties. We also have 11 federally qualified tribes in our region, and some of those tribes have the lowest connectivity in the region. Our consortia actually was started many years before CASAP actually existed And originally our consortium was started because there was not enough cable or enough copper wire to have more phone hookups in many communities and Pac Bell decided to try to bring fiber optic into our community and got into a long protracted fight with Caltrans about right of way. And so that really, that experience really sort of still colors where our consortia focus is now.
We did a comprehensive study thanks to funding from the California Emerging Technology Fund. We were one of their first grants to look at adoption, I mean, look at the possibility of deployment and adoption by focusing on the anchor institutions and seeing people's willingness to pay. And what we determined was in order to provide deployment in our region, we really did need to enhance public and private relationships and investment so that we could take advantage of it. Right as we did that study, BASF was created. And so it's been a wonderful partnership for being able to get some public engagement and public funding into our region.
Our critical issues are the lack of wireline in our region. We have some of the lowest wireline of any region in the state of California, which impacts backhaul ability and access to backhaul is directly related to cost. And also even for areas that are served impacts reliability. So we have frequent outages even in areas that are well served. As a matter of fact, of the reasons I don't have slides is because we experienced an outage in our most urban areas that lasted for about eight hours on the day that we all were working on our slides.
One of our other critical components is economic development and although BASF is a household based program, in our region there are more than 2,000 businesses that work out of their home that have zero to four employees. For an economic development standpoint, if we can get resources to those households, to those businesses, and they all hire one more employee, would be an amazing economic advantage to small communities in our region. We focus a lot on policy and especially what we can do locally to improve policy to increase access to deployment from telecom companies, we created in Humboldt County the first telecom general plan element so that we could work to coordinate policies that would improve and allow companies to come in with ease. We're still working on implementing some of those suggestions in our general plan. We struggle because we have many geographic challenges.
We have many frontier communities and you may have seen recently some of our most frontier communities have been in the LA Times, Sacramento Bee and on NPR because we have school systems that are really experiencing challenges all of the time. But COVID has really increased the urgency to get them services. For those of you who are coming from a more urban area, the difference between a rural community and a frontier community. I live in a rural community which means that when a mountain lion came and sat by my car yesterday, I was able to get a notice for next door that I might not want to go out into my community. If you're in a frontier community, you probably shrug when a mountain lion comes and sits by your car.
We struggle with environmental challenges. There's a lot of agencies that we have to work with in order to deploy broadband. We have right of way challenges. We have
Speaker 11
of private landowners in order to get broadband across to folks. And so I'll talk more when we get to the panel about some of our best practices on working with those things. And we really, we've been through a lot of grants through all sorts of CASF projects during the years where legislation has changed. And we're really excited about the fact that we are going to see a lot of our telecom providers applying for grants in the next cycle. I'll stop there and pass it on to Cole.
Speaker 12
Good morning. My name is Cole Prizabella. I am an economic development director for Tuolumne County. We are the innovation and business assistance department. So I am not an actual director of our central Sierra Connect broadband consortium, but rather a member, and an active member in the sense that my goal was to encourage broadband infrastructure build in our county to then encourage economic development.
So that was the standpoint I got involved, and from there I started to connect partners. So I involved CNIC, I involved our Northeast Central's Upstate California Connect consortium. I involved Steve Blum at Health Ventures about understanding this data to bring it all together. And from there we created events utilizing a lot of those partners to bring together Stephanie Tom from our California Department of Technology and quite a few other different presenters to really bring the ones that will make some difference in having some influence in infrastructure. And with that, we also included our five regions and five counties, which are Alpine, Amador, Calvert, Tuolumne, and Mariposa.
And what really worked was we created an event that had speakers and that had some action plans in it, but we created a pre conference meeting where we got supervisors, some of the speakers together to really talk about what it is that from a county level we could control in increasing that infrastructure. So what came out of that meeting was a five region goal to create a very similar DIG one policy and then also a broadband plan utilizing some of that preferred scenario information with SCENIC. And so I'm happy to report that we are right up until COVID kind of went about. We were putting in our DIG-one policies at a five county region, and we're still having that broadband plan discussion. And so we can go into it a little bit farther.
That's the basics of how I got involved, and it's very exciting, and I'll pass it off.
Speaker 7
Thank you very much, Cole. This is Trish again and now we're going to shift into our panel discussion talking about a series of topics and issues that Grace mentioned. So the first issue that we'd like to discuss is how the consortia will share about their successful experiences, best practices, and or CASF infrastructure project cases. So I'd like to start with Connie, please, first.
Speaker 11
Thank you. Up in the Redwood Coast, as I said, which is Humboldt, Del Norte, and Trinity County, we have had great success with CSF grants. One of our key findings, as I mentioned, was the lack of backhaul and wireline. And so in the early days of the program we identified some strategic corridors that we needed backhauls so that we could develop a co op, open access co op model that would allow our ISPs to buy service off of those lines so that they could offer more last mile services to communities at a reasonable price. One example of that project, which was an early win in CASF, was the Highway 36 Broadband Project, which extended across Humboldt, Trinity, and into Shasta County.
That project not only allowed us to provide last mile service to some really remote communities, but it also improved the reliability of service to our major urban area and improved economic development. Very early on we wrote a paper. We had a whole series of outages and we wrote a paper on the economic experience that we had. Hospitals couldn't do surgeries, the airport shut down, other major experiences from not having that wireline reliability. So we were able to partner and get some private funding in to help augment.
That was back in the days when CASF was only a 60% program. We have several other real successes and I'd like to thank everyone on CSF staff who's been working closely with the Kirk and Yurok tribe on the May 7 agenda. We've got an augmentation request to allow the tribe to build a middle mile, last mile project. That was under the previous AB 65 grant, which will serve some of our most remote tribes with service. And so we've had companies that have applied and we've had new corporations that have also stepped up and formed similar to what Tom West was talking about to serve.
And I would say one the most important things for success is to make sure you engage political leaders in your community and all of the stakeholders. Also to really document the need. And I had a recent call with Frontier Communications that's putting in an application for one of our remote communities and was really impressed with the fact that they said, we will never forget that public meeting we had there where the community impressed the need for service on us and so we're happy to be able to apply for a CSF grant there. So being able to connect the community need to the providers is critical. Another big success I think for our consortia is staying neutral.
We don't have favorites among our providers. We want to work with each provider to assure that we can provide success. So we do not sign NDAs or any agreements to only work with one provider in a region. We stay neutral as much as we can. And then also we really focus on making sure that we are outreaching and make policy leaders understand the need and their impact locally on the provider's ability to get into communities.
So we have gone back to our communities who are sort of anti wireless and talked to them about the implications of writing policies that make it more strenuous for wireless providers to come in. I'll stop there and I believe David is going to also answer this question.
Speaker 7
Yes, thank you Connie. And I can say in addition to you being a frontier community, you're also a pioneer because you were the first region to really start working on the issue in a more concerted way. So moving across to the North, state. Yes. David, you're next, please.
Speaker 10
Thank you, Trish. Thank you, Connie. I will start with the infrastructure project cases. After CPUC completed the CASF infrastructure grant rulemaking at the 2018, our broadband consortium reached out to potential applicants, including incumbent, competitive, and potential new entrant ISPs. We sent to ISPs a CHF infrastructure grant application package, which included, first, the rulemaking and application documents second, a summary of the grants highlighting important guidelines and requirements and third, we included maps of eligible areas which showed potential funding levels from 60% to 100% of these based on CSF funding level criteria.
We generated these maps using CPUC, broadband availability data, census data, and geographical data. This information package helps to bring to the attention of ISTs some potential CSF projects in our region and help them to carry out initial business assessments, which incorporated priority areas and some ISPs responded and our consortium further assisted them with different application items. To gather support for these projects and coordination, we also work collaboratively with partners such as CDTF, elected officials, and local consortia partners. As a result, two ISPs, Frontier Communications and Plumacera Telecommunications, filed a total of six projects in the 2019 application cycle to carry out deployments in the counties of Motoc, Laseg and Plumas. These projects will deploy a total of six thirty six households located in hard to reach areas using VDSL, fixed wireless, and fiber optics.
The projects included middle mile and last mile deployments. And for the 2020 application cycle, we are carrying out the same approach. Another area that our consortia has been working on is supporting local governments to develop policies and strategic master broadband plans to support broadband expansion. For instance, we have assisted counties, cities, towns to develop and implement D1's policies in order to maximize access to excavation projects in the public right of way and to optimize resources for completing installation for fiber optic deployment. Our consortium developed Diguan's ordinances recently passed and adopted by the cities of Portland, Lakeport, and the town of Paralyzed as part of its revealed efforts.
Regarding developing master plan, these plans included comprehensive assessments of the landscape of broadband services based on CPUC broadband availability data. And the plans also provided recommendations to improve broadband coverage and speeds by upgrading, expanding or launching broadband networks. These plans also provide the recommendations for developing and implementing policies to support broadband deployments. We developed a master broadband plan, was recently adopted by the city of Lakeport, and also developed countywide plans, some of which are currently being reviewed for potential adoption. Thank you, Trish.
Trish, back to you.
Speaker 7
Okay. Thank you very much, David, for all your excellent work in the North State and for your partnership with us here. Next, I'd like to go to the next issue question, which is sharing consortia engagement with providers, local government stakeholders, and consumers. And you've already heard some of the partnerships, but now we'll switch to Tom. Could you take it away please, Tom?
Speaker 13
The key for us has been to have our four county members, as I mentioned before, Marin, Mendocino, Napa, and Sonoma, to have the counties to take ownership of the issue of broadband. At some point in time, our regional consortia is not going to be funded. So we have organized with an oversight committee, which
Speaker 13
one board of supervisors from each of the counties and one board of supervisor who is an alternative. So the intent here is to try to have them eventually take this responsibility back to the board and have it become part of the infrastructure thrust of specific county. In addition to that, we've had two counties, Sonoma and Mendocino, that have had community advisory groups made up of citizens as well as stakeholders from across each of the counties. And they've been in existence for well over a decade. And those two advisory committees have been very instrumental in those respective counties.
In the case of Marin and NAPA, they have formed task forces, which really consist of people within the government who are taking this responsibility on. So the first key is engaging your local governments, namely the counties, and having them undertake the ownership. In terms of providers, every effort is made to engage the providers on an ongoing basis. That is somewhat of a challenge in certain of our counties where there are a number of local ISPs. And as I mentioned earlier, it is very difficult.
These people are family owned businesses. They find niche markets. And when you come and talk with them about applying for a CASF grant, they immediately tell you they're overworked and underpaid and that they don't have the staff resources nor the money that is necessary to mount such an effort either for federal or state grants. So this is really an interesting challenge. On the other hand, we have a couple providers, like Comcast and Sonic, that have not been interested in taking federal money but at the same time have been moving fairly aggressively within our regions and that is good.
And then, to be frank, our incumbents seem to be treading water. So that's where our assessment is, getting the counties to take ownership, continuing to engage the providers, and try to move the ball down the court with advanced technology for the future.
Speaker 7
Thank you so much, Tom, for all your efforts there. Next, I'd like to talk to Cole. Cole, you've given a little bit of an overview of your partnership strategies, but please carry on.
Speaker 12
Yeah. So I'll expand a little bit. So what really worked for our event, because that's really what was the catalyst for our, five county region to do a broadband plan and big ones policy, what really worked at our event was to have it more than speakers. And to expand a little bit on Tom's, what Tom's saying about the county supervisors, that's exactly right. It's so important to get those county supervisors to be on board, but more importantly, to even understand what broadband means and what broadband infrastructure is.
But also then what we found out is very off of the basics, so terminology. So whenever we have an event or you have time to talk to supervisors, remind them and use verbiage that makes sense for them on terminology because we start to talk to Internet service providers. We wanna make sure that the supervisors understand what they're talking about. So, what I'm saying is make sure you compare what those Internet speeds are like dial up, DSL satellites to the things they understand. Like in our cases, we were comparing them to cattle trails versus highways versus interstate.
And we really kind of outlined what's the difference between speeds and data and all those terms about wireline and wireless that we all know as I'm not a broadband expert, but you're most likely a broadband expert. But when you talk to a supervisor and economic development directors, we are not experts. So we went through and outlined all those kind of terminology, and then really explained what a DIG-one policy was, what a broadband plan was, so they could feel confident when we went to this larger event about making statements on, we are going to go forward with the day one policy. We are going to go forward with a broadband plan. And then, at the other thing that we did in tandem to make sure that Internet service providers also wanted to be involved and come to this event is we really partnered with the CPUC and the California Advanced Services Fund staff.
And so somehow we convinced Jessica Honeyfield, our telecom or one of the CPUC's telecom engineers to come to the meeting and the event and beforehand have private conversations with internet service providers. And it sounded like about four of them had never even heard of advanced services funds, and they are moving forward with projects. So that was a very another fruitful thing that we did with those private meetings with Internet service providers. And then at the event, it wasn't just speakers. We had California Advanced Services Fund maps that we posted so that everyone could really understand where are the fixed line, where are those wireless gaps.
And then also again, making sure that everyone was on the same page about what we were talking about. We had those comparisons of what are the speeds that you need to run a screen versus what are those needs that you need as a millennial family with five different screens going on. And so that again really helps to lead the discussion along. And one of the things that was also very important for that event that we found that was very successful was getting those state partners to our region and seeing actually what is the topography, what does the county look like, and why do we continually say that while, putting in some towers is really helpful, it may not be the ultimate solution as in a fixed wireline or kind of other solutions. So again, I think it was, as Tom said, really having those county supervisors understanding and being a part of the conversation, educating them, and then bringing in all those providers and different stakeholders that then can understand from those supervisors standpoint why this is so important.
And that's what I have.
Speaker 7
Thank you very much, Cole. That's great. This is Trish again. I'll give a little overview of what we've done in our region here in the Capital region. Valley Vision's role in all of our projects is partly to be a convener and a collaborator, to foster collaboration and also to generate information and data that helps decision makers on policies and actions as well as community stakeholders.
Generating a lot of the information about our broadband gaps and deficiencies and status has really helped us be able to mobilize our leadership in our community. So we take this approach in a multipronged approach. We have met with almost all of the supervisors in our regions over the years, and we brief them and we talk about ways that it integrates into their general plans and their priorities. And we we have a mechanism that our metro chamber sponsors each year. It's called cap to cap, a capital to capital trip.
It's the largest delegation that goes across the country to Washington to advocate on policy issues that are critical to the region. And so over the years, broadband has really migrated to a top level issue across many different topics. It's, like, seen as a core foundational infrastructure. So there's a lot of leadership support, for deploying broad broadband more cohesively across the region. And there are elected officials in that network.
And then we also work closely with our council of governments, SACOG, which has membership from all of our cities and counties. So that's another leadership overlay. And then as part of our normal day to day work for the consortia data gathering and helping our communities, normally what we do is we work with the planners and the staff in each of the counties. Some counties are more organized than others, like Yolo County, through a lot of this work early on, did a Yolo County Broadband Plan. And so they have an ongoing task force that reports to the Board of Supervisors each month.
And so we have a natural connectivity there to work with staff and points of contact. But we have a network of partners that we work with locally in each county. So we convene. We work with Steve Blum, who's a consultant for us. He generates data on the mapping.
And each county is able to identify more deeply what their priority target areas are and talk about developing infrastructure projects with providers. We also have region wide convenings where we bring in all the partners, including anchor institutions, local governments, planners. We work closely with our economic development staff, and then also providers to try to provide a platform where we can talk about our regional priorities and how to make progress there. With our council of governments, we have worked closely with them on the strategic broadband corridors project. And I wanna thank Tom West again for his leadership along with Martha Van Voorjen the in 02/1819 to help canvas all of the regions about what their critical priorities were for the corridors.
And that has enabled us to work closely with the PUC, Caltrans, the Broadband Council, California Emerging Technology Fund, and others to convene the partners and to really understand what we need to do on our end to be ready. So one of the issues that came out, for instance, is that providers have a lot of challenges getting projects through the permitting process in Caltrans districts because there's variability about the way that those processes happen. So if things can happen at the state level, it will improve outcomes on the ground. And so through that work, we're also coordinating with our council of governments on the Metropolitan Transportation Plan, which is the twenty year plan to invest infrastructure funds. So to make sure that we're doing joint use and dig once.
And I wanna also acknowledge our partnership with the California Emerging Technology Fund. They have funded a school to home project for us, a preferred broadband scenarios project, and our ag tech pilot, which is a partnership not only with Chico State and Fresno State, but also with partners like USDA, University of California, our local farm bureau, lots of ag commissioners, lot of partners. And so it really enables us to highlight issues that we feel also have relevance for other regions of the state. So that's our that's a part of our approach in dealing with our engagement. Now I'd like to go to our next question which is the consortia experience in identifying CASA priority areas and developing cost effective strategies.
So I'd like to start with Steve. Thank you, Steve.
Speaker 14
Thank you. If we could go back to my slides now. Boom, boom, boom. Next one. One more.
There we go. In developing priorities, the first thing we had to do here was decide what our goals were. As I said earlier, we're an ad hoc organization. We've been around for twenty five years. We bring in cities, counties, educational institutions in our membership, as well as private companies, health organizations, and internet service providers, both incumbents and competitive internet service providers.
So in trying to figure out what we wanted to do before we set priorities, it was what do we need here? And in doing that, we looked at different broadband standards. CASF standard is six down and one up. If you have that, you're considered to be served. We found that to be absolutely unacceptable.
That suits some business plans out there, but it doesn't suit the economic and social development goals of our region. So could I have the next slide, please? We went out and we took as we did a survey, in partnership with the Monterey Bank Economic Partnership. We did a survey of people in all three of our counties, in the cities, in the rural areas, in the remote ranch land of San Benito County, in Silicon Valley, which is creeped into Santa Cruz. It it it didn't matter.
We got the same response back, in terms of what people need, what people are doing online. And if people didn't believe it then, you've got to believe it now with the COVID-nineteen situation where kids are going to school online and it doesn't matter if a kid is sitting in bitter water in, the ranch lands of San Benito County or in Downtown Santa Cruz, which is as fiber rich as they come. It doesn't matter. They're doing the same things. If you're running a business, you're doing the same things no matter where you are in our region, whether you're whether you're a rancher or a farmer or you're, running a hotel or you're a software developer or anything.
You have the same needs. It doesn't matter where your home is. You're looking for the same type of information, entertainment, and enrichment out there. It doesn't matter if, you know, what your job is, what your social station is, if you're a farm worker or a corporate CEO, it doesn't matter. It's all the same.
That's what our survey said and that's what we're finding out now. And what that need came back as when we did the survey, to quantify it was that for most, nearly all residential purposes, 100 down, 20 up, 100 megabits download, 20 megabits upload speeds were sufficient to meet the needs. Those speed levels are also sufficient to meet most of the needs of small to medium sized businesses. It doesn't really get to the needs of large scale businesses and institutions.
Speaker 14
be deployed on a mass basis, which is what CASF is about, those were the speed levels that we found we needed. So that's what we focused our development work on and how we set our priorities. Can have the next slide, please? Using that, using that 100 down 20 up as a minimum and the Californian average as, as the average, the Californian average, by the way, is, the average Californian has access to broadband speeds, broadband service from two providers at, one, a telephone company at roughly on the average, median, 30 megabits down, five megabits up, and also from one cable provider on the median, 400 megabits down and 20 megabits up. And that is the Californian average, although you don't really have to go through the math to figure that out.
If you just look at what's available in LA County, that tends to be the Californian average for just about anything simply because it's such a large part of our population. But when you set that as the average as a C and 100 down 20 up as as barely passing is the minimum necessary and you do a little bit more math on the stats from around the state, You come up with a grading scheme, and what I've got up here on the slide is at a county level. You can see that if you live in Alameda or San Francisco Counties, you're doing pretty well. Your broadband infrastructure rates a fee, but as you get further out from those centers, it drops off. Can have the next slide, please?
So using, using these standards, what we did is we went out and we operate our own online mapping resource. We do our own analysis here. We don't duplicate what the CPUC does on their online map because that wouldn't be so helpful. But our analysis, we try to dive down a little deeper into market conditions in our region. And by the way, when we run the data, we just run a statewide data set.
So if anybody wants to come on to our website, centralcoastbroadbandconsortium.org, it's a catchy web name, you can see those tools are available for the entire state. It's actually easier to run a statewide data set than to try and carve out individual counties easier and cheaper. But what we did was, and what we continue to do, is we look at population density versus broadband gaps. And what you're seeing up here on the slide here is San Benito County. It's the analysis we did a few years ago when the CPUC asked a consortia to set priorities.
And we've continued this approach on through to identify areas that are eligible for CASF grants and have the greatest need. Can I have the next slide, please? The last slide. We've used these mapping tools, and these, you know, our quantitative research into what broadband speeds, what minimum broadband speeds are necessary. We've used that to identify areas where broadband infrastructure is lacking.
And over time, we have built up a portfolio of broadband projects in our region that began, with the federal stimulus program in 2009. And some of the projects got built and got funded, Some didn't make it so far, but every project that we've put forward, built or not, funded or not, has provided a base for projects going on. So that's how we've set priorities and we've identified areas where we need broadband infrastructure. And we've worked with local internet service providers, independents, and incumbents alike to try and get those done. As a consortium, we will provide support on a neutral basis to any ISP that wants to submit a CASF application.
We're not here to tell people they can't submit a CASF application. We will support anybody, but we also, as a consortium, identify areas where we need the infrastructure and we need the service, and, we actively work to, to develop projects in those areas as well. So that's I'll, I'll turn it back to you, Trish.
Speaker 7
Thank you so much, Steve, and thanks for all the support you provide for all of us across the state. Next, I'd like to ask David to talk about the experience in the North State. Thank you, David.
Speaker 10
Thank you, Trish. Our consortium worked on identifying CSF priority areas based on two main inputs. First, CPUC, broadband availability data, and sensor data. And second, input from local partners such as local governments, including elected officials and staff, and also input from local organizations and residents. To expand on using CPUC and census data, we use this data to carry out geospatial analysis to identify areas that were unserved at sixone at the census block level.
Then, within these areas, we also identified low income areas, rural areas, dial up and no service areas. The results of these geospatial analyses were maps of each county, of each of our 10 counties, which clearly identified these areas. Then we set meetings and conference calls with local consortia partners, such as the local governments in counties, cities, towns, or other consortia partners, and show them these maps and ask for their input regarding which areas were priorities for their communities. Local partners know what and where their needs are, which in addition to unserved residential areas can also include important aspects for their communities, such as connectivity for educational and healthcare institutions, and business and commercial areas which are important for economic development. This local input is very important because it helps to identify and aggregate broadband demand that can ensure sustainability in the long term for broadband infrastructure deployment.
In the end, the core infrastructure of broadband networks can serve together residential customers, community anchor institutions and businesses. After defining priority areas, we also worked with ISPs including incumbent, competitive, and potential new entrants in order to develop cost effective strategies, which might include expanding ISPs footprint, reuse existing infrastructure, or turning out brand new deployments. For us, it was also important to find partnerships, to find synergies and collaborative approaches to maximize access to existing resources and broadband infrastructure. Our consortium other consortium have been working in partnership with local governments, community and co institutions, Caltrans, CMIQ, and CTMs, for example. In the case of local governments and core institutions, partnership with them is very important because they can make publicly owned assets available through master lease agreements.
ISTs can also work collaboratively with Caltrans to install conduit in construction projects along state highways. CELIC and CETN have also been working collaboratively with ISPs and consortia to assess access to core broadband infrastructure that connect education and healthcare facilities in rural areas. That's a summary of the approach our consortium have been taking on this point. Thank you. Back to you, Prish.
Speaker 5
This Yeah. Is I can hear you. So we have about thirteen minutes remaining for this discussion.
Speaker 7
Okay. Great. Thank you. So, we'll be concise, but this is an important issue now about consortia feedback and recommendations, broadband maps, and infrastructure application process. A very hot issue right now.
So, Steve, I'll start with you. If you can give a quick overview of your recommendations, please.
Speaker 14
Having worked on CASF applications since since 2009, I can say that the last round of applications, the process went very smoothly. There was, I think, good, it was excellent work on the part of the CASF staff to review those applications and get proposed draft resolutions out in a timely manner. Challenges were dealt with, I think, properly. And the appeals that were filed and disposed of by the CPUC earlier this year well, actually, I guess, when was it the last meeting, a couple of meetings before shows that it is a rigorous process. I think if things can continue in that fashion, I think we'll be in good shape.
Having struggled sometimes over the years and enjoyed the process over the years, I think that is going very well. I do think we need another application window for this year. The CAF exclusion expiration is I don't think we need to wait until next April to look at those areas. The other issue, of course, is the whole COVID-nineteen problem, which we had, I think, three or four projects from applicants that just got shelved as soon as the lockdown hit simply because they don't have the time or the resources to pursue those projects right now and can't make predictions about capital spending and those things. So I think that's something we need.
In terms of the mapping, I know the mapping data, from, it originates with the FCC's, form four seventy seven data. I know the CPUC vets a lot of that data and processes it. And I know it all gets a lot of criticism. I can tell you as somebody who works with it on a daily basis, it is not perfect. But, you don't need perfect data in order to figure out where you have broadband gaps and where you need to pursue projects.
I I wanna go back. I just wanna something that we said earlier earlier today, you know, about, about Apollo eleven being, being less complicated than this. We went to the moon and back on three significant figures with these things. This is this is what got us to the moon and back. Three significant figures.
That was a degree of precision that got us there. And I think the data we have on the maps and then the underlying data is more than sufficient for our purposes right now. The key is to read it intelligently, not take it at face value, and do some critical analysis of what's in front of you.
Speaker 7
Great. Thank you so much, Steven. We concur in our region with the desire to have another round of application for all the reasons that Steve mentioned. Okay, David. I'll ask you to give a quick input on your recommendation.
Thank you.
Speaker 10
Thank you, Trish. I agree with Steve that CESA infrastructure grant application cycle in 2019 had very clear guidelines and requirements, and the application process was streamlined and fast. Within six months, project applications were reviewed and funded. For assessing potential CSS infrastructure projects, the CPUC, broadband availability, data, and maps were instrumental to help potential applicants to clearly identify and serve areas and priority areas. Congratulations also to the CDSF team, which was also very responsive regarding application item inquiries from potential applicants and from consortium.
My recommendation, also agreeing with Steve and what you said, Rich, is that to open a second application cycle each year. Due to circumstances and events, sometimes ISPs, are willing to work on CSF applications, have to give their potential and resources to other urgent matters. For example, some ISPs need the April and the May 2019 application cycle due to investing and working on enhancing independent energy systems in preparation for PG and E's public safety power shutoffs. And now in 2020, the COVID-nineteen emergency situation also impacts ISPs as they respond to peaks on demand in the existing markets. So for this type of unusual circumstances, it will best to have two application cycles each year in order to maximize opportunities for applicants to prepare and file applications.
And that's all I have. Back to you, Trish.
Speaker 11
Hi. First of all, I would like to reiterate what Steve said. The process for mapping and application is getting better all of the time. And thank you. I know that's not been an easy journey for CASF.
I know that the CPUC wasn't really initially set up to run programs like this. And so it's been a great journey and we thank you for everything you've done. As far as mapping is concerned, I would agree with exactly what David and Steve emphasized. I think the maps are good enough and it's really up to us as consortia to when we see a discrepancy, provide the information. The apps have been, incredibly helpful, and, we look forward to working on the CALSBED project in our area.
Some of the areas have been exaggerated for the quality of their speed and CSF staff has been amazing at working with us to update those maps as we go along. I do also want to put a shout out for what Steve said. It's really up to the consortia to translate the maps into usable maps and not just for application purposes but also for educational purposes. And I'd like to give a shout out to Steve and David because their consortia have really emphasized mapping and have been willing to, with the help of additional funding, map for the regions like mine that aren't really focused on mapping. And thank you to the California Emerging Technology Fund for over the years supporting additional funding to allow that mapping to happen.
We were able to take advantage of Steve's ranking grading to get that grading in our own region too. And so that was really helpful to us. As far as the application, one of the major challenges with the application project that we have experienced is because of our geographic area we are only doing our best guess when we apply for applications about the cost. And so thanks to CASF staffers, As I mentioned, the Kuruk and Yurok tribe are coming back and asking for additional money. And I know Digital two ninety nine, which is a project that we're currently working on, is also doing the same.
We're not asking for an increase in the percentage, but we are asking for the grant to be right sized to that percentage because of changes based on the amount of time it's taken to do the applications, what's come out of the environmental reviews and also just the geographic challenges when you actually do the engineering. So that been a challenge in our area and I cannot say enough about how staff our applications have always pushed the envelope and staff has really worked with us to try to solve problems staying within the letter of the law. So thanks so much for that and we look forward to working on this round and I want to emphasize what my colleagues are saying another round would be important this year.
Speaker 7
Great. Thank you Connie. And I want to validate and express again our appreciation to all the support not only to our regional partners like Steve and David, but really to the PUC staff who's been phenomenal helping us through all of the data and how to use it. And for us it's really important not only for the applications but as Connie mentioned, the educational purpose. We use the maps and visual displays to educate our leadership and our community stakeholders, the visuals really tell the story.
So we use them in policy briefs and presentations that are very cross cutting. So thank you for that. So we have a few more minutes left, and I'm going to turn it over to Tom to share a few consortia challenges and issues encountered, but focus on lessons learned as well. So thank you, Tom.
Speaker 13
Well, I'm going to probably not say anything given what I want to say. Great job to the CASF staff. The issue is well beyond them. I guess I will be a curmudgeon. There are too many stovepipe efforts going on in California.
We've been at it for thirty six years since the divestiture. In 2008, the California Blue Ribbon Task Force called for all Californians to be connected to broadband. And here we are twelve years later, faced with COVID, and we haven't done anything in terms of reaching that goal. And it's not only because it's really because we lack an overall statewide strategy.
Speaker 7
Thank you, Tom. And I hope with the Governor's Broadband for All Plan, we have the leadership at the state level and with our agency partners and we're we the region stand ready to help support this goal. And I think everybody's heard today it's not just connecting households and residents, but it's this critical infrastructure for employers, for our emergency services, distance learning, telemedicine. There's just a whole range which we all know and want to support to see that achieved. Thank you again to everybody for your participation and the opportunity to be part of this great process.
Speaker 2
Okay. Thank you so much for the very productive discussion, Trish and the panelists. Next, I would like to introduce our next presenter, Peter Price, who is the Senior Analyst with Communications Division. Peter will talk about RDoS related topics. So let me stop sharing.
Speaker 1
Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Grace. And I would ask Joe if we could bring up my slide deck. There we go. Thank you.
We wanted to spend a half an hour going through a very large federal program, which I'm sure many of my former colleagues in the consortia. It's wonderful to hear your voices and to talk with you again. Next year, we're going to be together again in the same place as we were a year ago. So wanted to talk about the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund of the FCC. Joe, if we could have the next slide.
And this is a, as we'll see, a very well financed program, very complex. But we felt as our commissioners have felt in the leadership they have given us in talking to the FCC, talking to other states, talking to members of congress since literally the day that the notice of proposed rule making came out last August, we wanted to give you the benefit of the time our commissioners have allowed us to put into this because, as the top slide says, because of the opportunity we see for our state. So number one, the World Digital Opportunity Fund, RDOF, it's a broadband infrastructure and operations funding program of FCC. It was announced, last year in the late summer. It is financed, as, all of the public purpose or most of the public purpose programs at the federal level are from Universal Services Fund, of course.
It is one of the largest single broadband infrastructure and operations funding cycles in US history. Of course, it's gonna have a short cycle, but we'll see in a moment just how much money is going out in this very short period of time within the next two years or so. RDOF is focused on broadband unserved areas, and we'll see a little bit about the eligibility of those areas in a moment. Joe, if we could have slide three. Talk about funding.
RDOF's total amount of federal money put out across our country will be $20,400,000,000. It will go out in two phases. All of you, Steve, and other folks mentioned the experience of many folks here going back to Recovery Act stimulus period. This is geometrically more, even in just the first phase than that. It's geometrically more than the USDA's current reconnect program that we talked about a year ago.
So it's broken down into two phases. The first phase will launch in reverse auction in October. Unless it is delayed because of the current national emergency, unless it is delayed for more reconsideration of working with the states, which, again, our commission has been in the leadership of the entire nation in asking for this to be done more reasonably. But in the same sense, at the state level, we have to assume that phase one will launch on October 22, like it says in the rule making. We'd like to tell you about how we've looked at this and and gotten prepared for it.
The second phase will launch, we think, sometime, in the third or fourth quarter of next year. And without getting into all the details because we're limited for time, the second phase turns exactly on improving the accuracy and granularity of broadband data and mapping from the federal level. We are about to see a sea change, thankfully, in that. Thankfully, the FCC will catch up with better granularity and accuracy, like we try to engage in literally by the day at CPUC. But that new protocol for broadband accuracy called the broadband serviceable location fabric will have to be deployed and voted by the FCC before the second tranche of money can go out.
So much more to talk about at that point, but we're gonna move on with the with the program structure now. What are the support terms of the award? So, again, think about how bids go into this thing called a reverse auction starting in October. And then after the process of winning and getting certified for those awards, what happens? Very similar to the Connect America Fund phase two, which as you know, in the in the price cap sector is coming to a close at the end of this year.
That goes out for infrastructure payments from RDOF for the first six years. For the balance of up to a ten year cycle, the last four years, they're allowed to pay for operations of those new networks. Rather unheard of, as you know, to mix those two together. But we think this is a good thing because rural networks are very costly to operate, let alone build. So authorized awardees after the auction round, after the certification, which we'll get into in a moment, then get that money paying out in equal monthly installments over the ten year period.
Joe, next slide, please. RDOF, like Connect America Fund, is a cost model based. What does that mean? Hearing from our consortia folks, we heard a little bit, from from Connie and others about how sometimes it's difficult, particularly for smaller carriers or providers, to determine what we should put in to build a rural network. The cost model is supposed to address that.
Like any model that's applied across the country, it isn't accurate everywhere. We'll see in a moment what we've tried to do to bring those numbers forward for our state. But what the cost model is, is it's based on a series of algorithms. It's been developed by a private sector contractor working for FCC. And it says, essentially, it's more expensive to build any type of broadband, let's say, in low density areas of the Sierras than it is in exurban areas in Sonoma County.
As indeed, that's correct. So the model takes those factors into account nationally. It also adjusts for more robust tech types. It's more expensive to build fiber gigabit service than, upgraded DSL or fixed wireless, etcetera, etcetera, and moves those all into a relatively accurate projection by Census Block Group of what it costs to build a network. Again, this model, we have said to the FCC that it's unfortunate that you haven't updated the model, really, since 2011, 2013 era when it was first deployed.
It is the model now used for Connect America Fund. So number one, we looked at funding. Number two, we looked at the fact it's a cost model based. Number three, if we could have the next slide, please, Joe. The money will be awarded in competitive reverse auctions.
Key issue to remember, irrespective of all this nice federal money going out, it's not a traditional grant process. Number one, it is allocated on a cost model basis. Number two, it is competed in two reverse auctions. One for each phase. The second phase will be developed on a new data and mapping protocol.
So, again, let's let's focus on just phase one, so called auction nine zero four, which again begins in October. So, again, the data for that is from the FCC form four seventy seven. FCC publishes blocks of census blocks, census block groups, to begin to analyze, as we'll see in a moment, as we've analyzed from California, analyze what areas will be eligible. In the narrative of the rule making, what's eligible in the first instance are all unserved areas that are below twenty five three. There is a particular priority in phase one given for unserved areas below ten three and also tribal areas.
So there are incentives established for those two groups of areas. Lastly, as my last bullet says, as I'm sure you've read, applauded by many, not applauded by every provider or state or carrier, there is an incentive in the current auction structure for phase one to build more robust networks. Again, if you're building gigabit fiber somewhere, that will, in the auction structure, give you a greater incentive to bid into that type of solution than a lower speed, higher latency service offering. Again, because we're tight for time today, we can talk going forward about phase two. Again, thanks again to the leadership of the management in CD and our commissioners, we are on to what the next broadband mapping and protocol will look for, not only because that is key to the last $4,000,000,000, but that will help us better map with granularity and accuracy what's going on in California.
Joe, if we could have slide six, please. So alright. So we've looked at the cost model. We've looked at the gross level of funding going out nationally. We've looked at reverse auction.
Each one of these, I can tell you, has a bevy of FCC bar association attorneys, consultants, and others looking at this. At the CPUC staff, we don't claim to be your counsel or your consultant, but we are trying to assist you in insisting in assisting providers and carriers in getting under the hood, if you will, on a program that has the ability to put a lot of money into California, but it is very complex. The first thing, if you have a provider, if you have a carrier that wants to look for RDOF money, the first thing they must do is they have to qualify in the so called short form process. That's a process essentially, as we see here, FCC requires basic business identification and business qualification, information. How long have you been in business?
What's your credit worthiness? Etcetera, etcetera. The post auction, the award, if you win in the auction and walk away with an actual award to go build a network, requires an ETC certification here in California issued by our colleagues at the CPUC. Thankfully, what the FCC says is you don't have to present ETC certification until after you win. And on top of that, again, with the assistance of our commissioners, what we're doing is we're bringing forward a streamlined process.
So new entrants, newer carriers or providers that might not have ETC status from the commission to date, we will have a or we hope to have a proceeding in which ETC applicants can come forward. And if you've won RDOF money, we're going to propose to the commissioners that we streamline that process to get you an ETC quickly so that you can certainly collect your money and deploy new infrastructure in California. As you may have read about ODDOF, if you're digging into it as the real mavens of this know, there's been a lot of controversy about the stringency or otherwise of letters of credit. Again, it sounds like one of those small details, but again, there is a speed bump there. So potentially, if we get some good awards in California, maybe there are some things that we can do in that space with agencies that specialize in that for rural carriers.
Joe, if we could see the next slide. So as I said earlier, we're on a fast track here. Our commission, our state, many states across the country, many analysts have said, woah. You're gonna put out the the largest amount of money in the history of funding broadband infrastructure by the FCC in two tranches under twenty four months, and you know the maps are inaccurate. And this isn't just us saying this.
It's both aisles in both houses of congress. But we have to assume, as the agency that's on the front lines of wanting to help you at the consortia area, help your providers, help your carriers, we have to look very closely at all those dates there, especially the one in red, which is now in the FCC regs. The other ones are our best estimates based on what FCC staff is telling us, and past practice of the Connect America Fund auction nine zero three, which there are some good winners in California as well. So again, if you wanna reach out to us, if you're talking to carriers and providers, the thing is get your short form in by, we believe, late July, and get prepared with really understanding the structure and the nature of reverse competitive auctions. And again, as we see in auction nine zero three, the awards we think that we think the auction will close off in November.
The awards will probably be announced by early in in the New Year. And then there's kind of, almost up to six months, four to five months of the awardees get their paperwork together. They certificate their ETCs. They get their letter of credits together. And, again, as we can, we'd like to help with at least information delivery on that score.
So you can see again, can't stress enough, this is not a traditional grant or loan structure. Those are the milestones. And in a moment, we'll show you how to access the rules, but those are really the milestones that any partner you find in the field and would like to support, and we would like to help you support them. Those are the milestones they they have to comply with. Bill, if we could look at the next slide.
So what does this all mean for the state of California? $20,400,000,000 going out in about twenty four months or so. 16,000,000,000 going out relatively in the new term. We we have devoted resources and and, again, our commissioners and the management of communications division have been extremely supportive in allowing us to shift some resources so that we can tell you at the most granular level possible how much of this money can be estimated under the right conditions to flow into your consortia areas, into your counties, into other regions. How have we done that?
Very briefly, if you follow the RDOF proceeding, they come out with a series that led up to a series of draft decisions that led up to the rule making issued within the last sixty days, and we've tracked those. We've mapped out using the internal systems we do the broadband mapping with to see, alright, what do we think is gonna be eligible? Just over a month ago, FCC issued their first preliminary block of census tracks to tell us where they think that money's gonna go. We'll see in a moment our estimate. We believe that's a little high for reasons we'll get into in a moment.
And we've used our systems in place that you see the interactive map supported with today. So if we could go to the next slide, please, Joe. Thank you. This is our current staff estimate of phase one of RDOF, what it could mean for California. If, again, this is not a grant process per se.
The money you're looking at, the locations you're looking at, there's no guarantee because there's no state by state allocation. The only way to get that money into our state is to build infrastructure, capacity building in the field to attract as much of that money as possible. We wanna work with you to do that within the limits of, what you can do as a consortia and the resources we can bring to it. So, what we did, just before the preliminary estimates came out, we were working on this for over a month. We reached out to the people that actually make the model, Costquest Associates, headquartered in Cincinnati, nationally recognized.
They did the cost model for FCC. They're the experts, so we called them up. And we've talked to them a couple of times, and this is what they estimate. And we concur with this based on the background data we did. We believe in RDOF phase one, three hundred and eighty thousand locations.
Locations, again, being housing units and business facilities in California. We believe in phase one, somewhere in the range of 380,000 locations will be financed or will be competed if all of that if all of those locations are successfully awarded. We believe, along with CostQuest, that that relates to approximately $1,600,000,000 under phase one. When you look at the graded map over to the right, it's very reminiscent of some of the maps our consortium members just put up, isn't it? But what this tells us is the lower density counties that have the greatest challenge for building broadband infrastructure.
If you look at the sliding scale there, what it tells us is the FCC, just as we talked about in the cost model, will pay more per location in those higher cost, low density areas. And one would say, isn't that the way it's supposed to be? It costs a lot more money to to build it in the low density areas of Indio County than it does in exurban and suburban areas as we well know, as everyone on this call knows. So what we're trying to do now as the FCC refines their estimates and comes out with the final census block and location counts probably in the next sixty days, we wanna make this publicly available to you and anyone else that would like it so you can go in and take our data and move it into your regions to assist, again, providers or carriers that might wanna go after this money. We say that this is a preliminary estimate only.
We developed it fully with the free support of the people that developed the model. They tend to wanna take a call from the state that has the largest assessment of RDOF coming into us. So if we could go to the summary page, Joe, on page 10. Thanks so much. So this has been a very quick summary level view of a very complicated program that will have a lot of moving pieces.
But again, we really wanna stress the magnitude of this program. $1,600,000,000 thereabouts, If we could get a high percentage of that, it would be a tremendous victory, in moving forward this agenda, particularly as we now have a governor that has expressed at the highest level a policy agenda to move it forward, and you're talking to one of the five commissioners that has moved that agenda forward in in the state so very well. So some takeaways I could recommend you just think about, and we'll show you some resources and, you know, an email that we've set up to take your questions in the near term as we start to pull more information on this. Again, sorry to repeat it another time. It's not a traditional grant program.
This is not the recovery act where we go out and we get four or five counties together and call up all our elected officials. There's no track for that. We didn't make the rules. You know, we our commission and staff has been asking for six months for closer partnership between states and the FCC on this. We have some some relief on some of the more troublesome regulations, but we don't have a full partnership.
So this doesn't speak to some of those attributes that that we know so well from the CASF program, that we know so well from the RECOVER gap. Again, it will issue the funds on a cost model basis. We're here to help you understand how that looks in your community. By all means, we're giving you some links to resources to read into that as well. It will be conducted in two reverse auctions.
The first one is all important for let alone for the money it's it's putting out. Again, we we can talk to any provider or carrier you come up with about strategies that we understand those reverse auctions will run on and some resources out there to assist folks. Again, if you have someone that's interested in it, gotta remember that date and the date about sixty to seventy days before that. We think in mid July of the opening of the registration window to file the short form. That's a ticket.
Without getting certified for the FCC short form, you're not in the auction. That's the way it works. Going forward, particularly with the consortia folks, there will be a new broadband data and mapping protocol. Just very, very briefly, the commissioners and staff has commented to FCC on that extensively as well. In February, two of us from indications spent an entire day with FCC staff and commission advisers on what California wants for for mapping.
So again, if you're interested, please think about, as you go forward, kind of what I would say are the touchstones here for success. Understanding the rules, certificating in the short form, coming up with a winning bid strategy in this thing called reverse auctions that not everyone's familiar with, and then eventually, the long form certification. If you're talking to a provider or carrier, we're willing to work with you on what the long form certification looks like, because we don't want people walking away with awarded money that they default on. Joe, if we could see the, next to last slide. Here we're giving some summary resources.
Again, if you've looked at RDOF, you're aware of all this, but these are some easy links, and we'll put this slide deck up and we'll show you a new resource that our director just asked us to put up. It's gone up in the last day. Here are what we think are the easiest accessible resources to look at RDOF. There's an online fact sheet. There's a webinar coming up in early May.
The the rules for the auction technical guide. Lastly, Jill, if we could look at the last page. We've also brought up a new federal funding site within the communications division site. Again, thanks to our director Rob Osborne sensing the need to get information out and Selena and James really moving resources to get this page up. Not the most elegant page yet, but it shows you some of these resources over time.
We'd like to update you on other federal ongoing programs, to partner with you on those as well as we try to do with Trish Kelly and her great work along with Steve on ReConnect. We hope for a better day for ReConnect for California. But again, the information is changing quite frequently. We wanna get information out there for you. Lastly, for now, there's my, email on commission staff.
If you have any questions, be happy to set up consultations, conferences. We hope to have some field, hearings and workshops on RDOF in May if we can pull the resources together and then in August after the short forms go in. So we're here to help, but for now, take my personal email from our commission staff. We'll expand this with more facilities, but we're here to help. Again, we think it has a lot of opportunity.
Our commissioners and our division wants to help you capture that opportunity for rural California. Thanks so much for your time.
Speaker 3
Thank you, Peter. Sorry, this is Louise speaking. So thank you very much, Peter. Are at 12:42 and we are going into Q and A and next steps. Robert, do we have the Verizon operator ready to take questions?
Speaker 3
Let's let the public jump in first. Give them another few more seconds. Operators are standing on by. Operators are standing by. Sure.
Let's open it up to the panelists but let's try not to jump all on each other. So go ahead. First question, I think that was Tom.
Speaker 3
And when you ask a question, please state your name so we know who's asking.
Speaker 14
Blum. I'll ask a question. Will there be a second window for CASF applications this year?
Speaker 5
Sure. This is Selena. And as you know, the ACR that was issued included a question on this issue. And so staff has been looking at the comment and will be looking at the reply comment, and we will make a recommendation. Our goal is to basically improve the 98% or achieve the 98% goal ASAP.
So it is possible, but at this point we do not have a specific date or plan yet, but we did hear your concerns, especially the concerns that were raised today, as well as the concerns that were raised in the comments.
Speaker 5
Yeah. We're trying to move as quickly as possible. The commissioner can also weigh in, but we've been having all the check-in meetings, like, every week to make sure that we're trying to move as quickly as possible. Like, for example, last week, we moved really quickly on the CAFF adoption draft resolution. Did it in So a right now, we are coordinating and we've been coordinating with legal division, ALJ division, the commissioner's office, the team to also move as quickly as possible.
And we did say in the ACR that the Commission intends to have a proposed decision or PD by the second quarter of this year. So our goal is to meet that second quarter of this year. But like I said, you know, we're trying to work through all the issue.
Speaker 14
We we don't you don't need a fee you don't need a decision to open a second window. That's that's that's staff discretion that's already been granted by the
Speaker 5
I did see that in some of the comments and we are aware of that. Right now we're trying to move us in our internal procedures on the next step, what the right process is to do that. And I think especially with the concerns that were raised today and the concerns that were raised in the comments, we are aware of the need.
Speaker 4
Yeah, and I appreciate, this is Commissioner Guzmana Serras. I appreciate the, maybe I'll take a little more liberty because I know Selena has to walk a fine line as well. But obviously we heard what I've seen so far in comments and what I've heard today is a fair amount of consensus on the need. And if anyone wants to actually comment on a proposed timing, I know some of the comments were just general, but if folks want to speak to another proposed timeframe for the additional round, that would be good to hear now.
Speaker 13
This is Tom West. Steve recommended July. I recommended October 1. And the rationale for October 1 is there's a legislation, potential legislation AB eleven thirty. And if that were to pass, that could be confusing if the application date were in July.
If it were in October, we would be clear of that. If that passed, then the staff would have time to adjust the guidelines appropriately. That was my position in my reply comments.
Speaker 14
If eleven thirty passes, there's going to be a need to go through the same process that commission went through to implement the AB sixteen sixty five changes. What we've got this year on the table is the AB sixteen sixty five rules. And I mean, think October is fine too. I think, you know, if, you know, I think a July 31 time is timeframe is that sufficient to get us through the, I think this immediate crunch we're feeling with all the COVID-nineteen responsibilities we have, and also to get clear of the CAF exclusion. And I think it would be a great thing to open a third window in October, November.
But I think for the immediate task at hand, July 31 or thereabouts, think would work for the folks that we're working with in our region.
Speaker 5
Yeah. So, if I may, I just wanted to, for those that are listening or watching right now, it's actually FB eleven thirty, not AB eleven thirty. Oh,
Speaker 5
people want to look for that bill. And thank you again for the question. We are considering all of those issues, the potential next steps with SB eleven thirty.
Speaker 4
And Selena, can I interrupt before Tom you go again? If we could ask the operator to remind the callers how to get in the queue, that would be helpful.
Speaker 15
Hi, this is Keith with Hunter Communication, a service provider looking at applying for CASA funding here. The question concerning in some of the rural areas that the CASA funding is structured at, what if we run into an issue with geographical areas? Because you're telling us that the completion date has to be within twenty four months. Is there any exceptions to this due to the fact that some of these areas are very remote and geographically challenging to build through?
Speaker 6
Yeah, there's in the rules and guidelines, there is a process to request an extension, a project extension. Basically, you write a letter, submit a letter to the communications director stating that you would like a project extension, when you expect the project to complete and the reasons for the delay.
Speaker 15
run into CEQA, is that going to be twenty four months after CEQA has approved a certain project area?
Speaker 6
-Correct. So it's after CEQA has been approved and you've been authorized to begin construction. That's when the twenty four months start.
Speaker 7
Valley Internet Incorporated, and I have a question about RDOF. South Valley Internet obviously is very interested in this program, and we've been doing a lot of research on this. And one my question pertains to the letter of credit that needs to go out once the RDOF funds are awarded. Has the state considered guaranteeing the letters of credit? I have been told by people in other states that, you know, they are that other states are doing this, and I wanted to know if the state of California has considered this or would consider it.
Speaker 1
Thanks so much Louise. We have looked at all options. We're aware that our colleagues in broadband programs in other states have talked about that. If you're aware of a state that's actually posted a model to do that, if you could send it to our attention, we'd like to look at that. Again, as you well know, there's been a lot of discussion in the RDOF proceeding the docket about letter of credit because many smaller providers thought it was too high a bar.
So we really wanna look at that and we would be open to recommending to management and the commission any type of strategy that we think is reasonable, particularly if other states are looking at it, query if we would have the legal authority to do that. And, again, I don't wanna speak for management or or commissioners. But, again, as the commission did say multiple times to the FCC, this is a very high priority of ours. California is a has a net, outflow of federal funds in universal service account. It's time that we start to capture more than our fair share of that.
So if you see my email at the end of this presentation, please send a note over and we'd love to talk to you about that. Thank you for the suggestion.
Speaker 3
Peter, we're gonna keep you on. We have a question that came in through the email. It is from Robert C from Davis, California. He's asking, what is the interaction between FCC RDOF and FCC Rural five g efforts?
Speaker 1
Yes. Thank you, Luis. And, hello, Robert. Nice to hear from you, remotely. Haven't seen you in, since the en banc.
Yeah. I yes. The the five g fund, which is, I believe, gonna be voted on this week. It's certainly in its final draft in front of the commission. The five g wireless fund for $5,000,000 $5,000,000,000 for rural America is following very much in in the footsteps of phase two of RDOF.
As you know, Robert, chairman Pai and his colleagues have said, we kinda sort of think that we don't wanna issue this money until we have the new mapping in place. Again, staff has not proposed policy recommendations to our commissioners on this point, but clearly, commissioner Guzman Oceves and president Thatcher and their colleagues have been have been leaders in The United States saying to the FCC, do not put this amount of money out without accurate mapping. And it isn't just us, it's other states, it's both sides of the aisle in Congress. So Robert, I would think, would love to chat with you about it. I think that it's a better than even bet that the 5,000,000,000 for rural five g will not be seen in California or any other state until we get that mapping in place.
We are estimating that that will be no sooner than probably summer of next year. And we are already talking to our internal contractors about how we can adjust the broadband interactive map to accommodate those new protocols. Hope that answers your question. Hope hopefully, we can have a chat about that. Thank you.
Speaker 5
additional questions at this time. But as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, One moment please to see if we gather any additional questions.
Speaker 3
We do not have any more workshop related questions coming in through email, but we will keep this open for four more minutes. Are there any other general questions?
Speaker 13
Yes. This is Tom West. I would like to ask Peter Pratt. Peter, you referred to housing units and that is a different term than housing households. And you're estimating 380,000 of those in California.
In the RDOF, the number was like 421,000. So two questions, housing units versus households and the differential between your estimate and what was put in the RDOF document.
Speaker 1
Tom, as always, I can see you're following this as closely. And now being a constituent of your consortia, I'd expect nothing more. So no, thank you for that. You've clearly read into it. The 421,000 and change locations for California was issued on March 17 in what the FCC calls their preliminary estimate.
We concur with what Costquest has told us, Tom, that we expect that will be discounted by about 40,000 locations, taking us down to that approximate 380,000 locations. And those discounts come about for service areas that are found to be above twenty five three, areas that have been funded by the other FCC program for what in California we call the small lex, and the scattershot areas that have gotten USDA money as a legacy going back probably over the last decade plus. We think that 421,000 is high and we think it again it will be brought down more like $3.80 to $3.90 and we'd like to work with you and all the other consortia as those final numbers are are developed. Does that make sense, Tom?
Speaker 13
Yeah. Could I could I make a point? The official 2019 CPUC availability data and mapping has a number that even exceeds those two. It's a high 400,000. And that's households, not housing units.
And it is my understanding, The percentage of housing units is like 4% or 5%, maybe 10% more than housing households. So we have those numbers floating around. Certainly appreciate the fact that we'll target on $380,000 for the moment.
Speaker 1
Okay, thanks. And very briefly, Tom and our colleague Carlos and his colleagues in our great GIS department can talk about how the ratio between housing units and households varies between our urban and rural areas as you know. So that's gonna skew more towards rural because it's a rural program. The numbers also are going to skew because remember, as we said in the slide deck, the chairman and his colleagues in Washington have said RDOF phase one will favor the most remote, most high cost, low density areas. So that's that's going to skew slightly differently than our numbers even at the same speed threshold stump.
But we'd love to talk with you or any consortia about it. Thank you.
Speaker 16
Good afternoon. First, I I just would like to thank the commissioners and staff for all their effort and support. It's an interesting time right now, and for us to be able to continue the conversations, I think, is is really important. I I'd also like to echo on the time frame or the timing for additional applications. I I am in agreement that July, I think, would would be a good time frame to be able to at least take the next round of applications.
And to Tom's point, I I agree that or or Steve, I'm not sure which one, an additional window as well. I believe that there's been a long time now that that we've been waiting to be able to submit new applications, I think that it would be good for us to be able to at least take a shot at it early and then as well again in that, you know, October, November time period.
Speaker 3
Okay, thank you. Does anybody else on the CASF team have anything to add to Raul? Okay. Thank you Raul. And full disclaimer Raul is one of our service providers who's been doing a lot of work in the CASF broadband project.
Is there anybody else? Vince, do I have anybody on email? Robert, do I have anybody on the line? Panelist?
Speaker 14
This is this is James. We have an email question. The question is from Heidi Hillstrom from Tahoe Basin Project, and she's asking about the next consortia application cycle that they've been funding since last September and would like to open up an application window. And Grace has spoke about this, earlier in the presentation that we're working on a new window with due date of June 5. So we're looking to release that information soon, and I believe Grace also is planning an informal webinar for that as well.
Speaker 3
Okay, thank you James. That was James Tang, the supervisor of the Consortium and Access sorry, Adoption and Access Group. Do we have anything else from any other questions from panelists? All right. Well, Selena, are you still there with us?
Speaker 5
Yeah. I just wanted to thank everyone again for joining us today. Thank you again to Commissioner Guzman of Service, the CAFF team, and the consortia panelists and members. And in terms of next steps, I want to make sure that everyone is aware that reply comments to the ACR, those are due on April 27. So I encourage those that want to weigh in on the schedule, on the other 24 questions, please file your reply comment.
And if you need help, feel free to contact staff and we can walk you through the filing process. And as James and Wade mentioned earlier, the new round of consortia solicitation, that letter is being sent out today. So please be on the lookout for that. And with that, Commissioner Guzmana Zavas, do you want to say anything else?
Speaker 4
Yes, please. And just one additional thought. Again, thanks everybody for your participation and your input, and particularly on those last points. We hear you very clearly. Also, I failed to mention in the opening remarks that the other great work that this team has put together is they've assembled the ISV Broadband adoption, the Broadband Affordable Plan offerings that they currently offer, then they developed an interactive map where folks can put in zip code or school districts to see which affordable offerings are available in their areas.
I believe most of you are hopefully already aware of that, but I just wanted to let folks know that that is available and we can follow-up with anyone if there is not access to it. But it is on our website. And anyhow, thank you all very much again for all the work you're doing today with this crisis and that you'll continue to do. And I look forward to continuing the dialogue. Thank you very much.
Speaker 3
So my last comment is I'll be looking forward to doing this next year with everybody. And I hope that we will be doing this live here in Sacramento or San Francisco.
Ask anything about this video — I analyse its transcript to answer.