Based on its degree of collaboration on creating a new State Broadband Action Plan by Dec. 31 with funding information, a deployment road map and tribal lands inclusion, members of the California Broadband Council are “well-positioned to move into 2021,” Stephanie Tom, deputy director for strategic planning, broadband and digital literacy at the California Department of Technology (CDT), told the California State Board of Food and Agriculture at its meeting Tuesday. Tom and Justin Cohan-Shapiro, CDT’s chief strategist, updated the board on the CBC’s progress since Gov. Gavin Newsom called for the new action plan with Executive Order No. 73-20 on Aug. 14. Among the takeaways:
• CBC’s broadband focus has two workstreams, Tom said. First is the action plan, which is due by year’s end and will likely inform future work on digital equity. Second is delivery of “the ordered tasks within the Executive Order … .” This includes 15 orders, one being specific to the action plan and the others being collective actions around topics such as data mapping, funding, deployment and adoption.
• Because feedback is key, the CBC is spearheading listening sessions in four key audiences comprised of tribe members, Internet service providers, community members and local governments. The CBC also created an online survey that has attracted 31 community responses to date. Its highlights, Tom said, echo familiar sentiments.
“Around broadband, we need to make sure that it’s affordable. We need to make sure that we’re focusing on students, and we need to make sure that we’re focusing on the underserved,” she said.
• COVID-19 has turned the state’s conversation about broadband away from regarding it as an economic development opportunity to something more personal as parents ensure their children are connected to online learning before working online themselves, Cohan-Shapiro said, calling the transition “a long time in coming.” It’s a chance, he said, for officials to “think about how we pull the levers” across the state and its government to focus on the access and usages that residents will need in the 21st century.
“The reality is that there are inclusion gaps … in terms of access, in terms of devices, in terms of literacy, in terms of the way that people can effectively use technology in ways that are going to be important for delivering some of the basics,” he said.
• Resilience, Cohan-Shapiro said, is another key aspect of the discussion — ensuring residents have the services they need when they’re most necessary. The year’s historic fire season has emphasized this point.
“As this fire season has … ripped across our state, making sure that our networks are resilient and robust is also something that’s very much top of mind and helps frame the work that we need to do,” he added.
• Asked where the intersection lies between the Executive Order and the Legislature, Cohan-Shapiro pointed out the CBC has representatives from the state Senate and Assembly, both of whom are “really involved in the writing of the action plan, which is intentional to help drive some alignment with the Legislature as we do this work.”
“In this discussion, as far as the Executive branch and the Legislative branch, I will have to say, broadband absolutely is a bipartisan topic,” Tom said, describing herself as “proud” of the teamwork she’s seen.
“It’s a very positive, collaborative environment and I do think that we’re well-positioned to move into 2021,” she said.
