CPUC Workshop - 2021-03-30

30 March 2021

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Mon, 29 Mar 2021 California Public Utilities Commission

Follow its sittings

00:00 - 00:06

Speaker 1

You have reached the California Advanced Services Fund Annual Public Workshop. Selena Wong, you may begin.

00:06 - 07:13

Speaker 2

Thank you. Good morning. Welcome to the California Advanced Services Fund or CASF Annual Workshop. My name is Selina Huang and I'm the Program Manager for the Communications Division's Broadband, Radio and Market Branch. Before we get started, here are some logistics announcements.

Today's workshop is being recorded and is available online via admin monitor and Verizon call in. The call in for public comments and questions is 5017. The passcode is 1767567. Questions may also be submitted to casfworkshopcpuc. Ca dot gov.

If you experience any difficulties calling in for public comments or questions, please contact IT technical assistance at (415) 703-2598. It's been just over a year since the COVID-nineteen pandemic started. The pandemic forced the CPUC to adapt to mostly the work from home environment. BASF staff have had to juggle competing demands, a record number of grant applications coupled with a huge federal funding opportunity and on top of that, they care for their children and school and homeschooling. Last year in April, many of you joined us for our first virtual CAFF annual workshop.

This year, I'm glad to see that many of you continue to join us and we also have some new participants. On behalf of the team, we thank you for your time and participation today. Like I said last year, broadband is more important than ever, especially in light of the pandemic and people working from home and students doing distance learning. The pandemic has proven that broadband is a necessity as evidenced by all of us attending our second BASF workshop 100% remotely. Unfortunately, some people in California still do not have access to reliable broadband.

Since 2008, the BASF program has helped close the digital divide in California by providing subsidies to build and expand broadband facilities to unserved areas of the state. The program has funded different projects with a goal of making broadband available to 98% of households in each consortia region by 2022. Next slide please. Last year post several major challenges, but despite that the CPUC approved 11 new infrastructure grants totaling approximately $20,000,000.02 consortia grants worth $900,000 60 adoption grants worth $3,100,000 three public housing grants worth $148,000 and nine tribal technical assistance grants worth $538,000 The tribal technical Assistance Program is a new grant program to support tribes in approving broadband access on tribal lands. Also in response to the pandemic, the CPUC leveraged $5,000,000 in the CASF adoption account funds to help school districts purchase devices for remote learning.

Next slide please. The CPUC received a record number of 54 CAFF infrastructure grant applications that, if awarded, would exceed the remaining funds available. Assembly Bill 82 passed in June 2020, allowed state leveraging of federal funds. The prohibition on funding broadband infrastructure costs that are also funded by federal programs sunset on 07/01/2020. And after the Federal Communications Commission's announcement of Rural Digital Opportunity Fund or RDOF Auction nine zero four winning bidders, the CPUC created new procedures to account for possibility of federally funded projects overlapping those contained in CASF applications.

However, we still have a lot of work to do. Today, as part of our implementation of the CASF program, we gather regional consortia, stakeholders, local governments, existing facility based broadband providers and consumers to facilitate collaboration regarding cost effective strategies to reach unserved areas and bridge the digital divide in California. Next slide please. We have a full agenda today and we are very delighted to host FCC acting chair, Jessica Rosenworcel And we are very pleased to have President Badger and Commissioners, Assembly Member Aguya Curry and George Soros, Policy Consultants for Senator Lina Gonzalez join us. And I would also like to thank other speakers, Louise Fisher, James Tang, David Espinosa, Sabrina Tam and Angela Chen.

And I want to express my thanks and appreciation to the staff for working so hard to get us to this point. Special thanks to Communications Division staff, Vincent Cookie, Taylor Chime, Commissioner Advisors, Pilar Manrique, Sarah Schopf, Aileen O'Dell, Sarah Thomas, Marina Melacci from our Office of Governmental Affairs and Robert Stanford and Joe Hagos from IT for putting together the workshop today. Last but not least, thank you very much again for joining us today. Now let's get started. Next slide please.

I would like to hand this off to President Batcher to lead us with the introduction.

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