In their first meeting since Gov. Gavin Newsom’s recent Executive Order on broadband, members of a state broadband group discussed what might go into an action plan on that topic.
The California Broadband Council, which is chaired by state Chief Information Officer Amy Tong, director of the California Department of Technology (CDT), has a great deal of work ahead of it — though as CDT’s Stephanie Tom pointed out, the task is not insurmountable. In EO No. 73-20, which he signed Aug. 14, Newsom directed the CBC to create a new State Broadband Action Plan by Dec. 31 and to review it annually. The EO also set a minimum broadband speed goal of 100 megabits per second download speed for state agencies under Newsom’s authority. It also specified that plan goals should include a road map to accelerate deployment and adoption of broadband by state and local government; publicly available information on all federal and state funding opportunities; and “provisions to maximize” the inclusion of tribal lands in broadband access and adoption opportunities.
“I know some of you have reached out to me saying, ‘Wow, four months seems like a very quick time,’” said Tom, CDT's deputy director for strategic planning, broadband and digital literacy. “If you think about, honestly, all the work that we’ve done in other areas, it’s actually quite a bit of time. So, I am confident that we can execute this together.” The group will hold monthly working sessions on the Action Plan, Tong said. Among the takeaways:
• California has a broadband action plan, Tom said — but it was created more than a decade ago. Wednesday’s discussion centered on five central questions aimed at defining the Action Plan through answers to five questions presented by Justin Cohan-Shapiro, CDT’s chief strategist. These were: What’s the problem the Council seeks to solve with the Action Plan; what criteria should a successful plan have; what’s in scope; what are some of the constraints members face as they build it; and how do they want to build it.
Cohan-Shapiro presented a foundational query in a PowerPoint: “What tangible, evidence-based actions will the state of California in partnership with key stakeholders take in the next year to stay on track to achieve California’s broadband goals by 2025?” This, he said, “is an indication that the action plan should be an annual thing,” but members should also have “stakes in the ground for a longer time frame, and (make) sure that we’re aligned around what those mile markers are.”
• As it was written, Cohan-Shapiro said, Newsom’s EO focused on deployment in a longer-term traditional sense. But, he added, another question is “to what extent is the immediate connectivity issue surrounding COVID and equity elements that that entails, in scope for this work?”
Anne Neville-Bonilla, director of the California Research Bureau at the California State Library, said the Council should focus as much on infrastructure and affordability as it does on devices and literacy.
“For a long time, the infrastructure question has been front and center, and the adoption piece, the devices, have almost always taken a back seat over the last number of years for many different reasons,” Neville-Bonilla said. “We can’t have the equity we’re seeking without those other assets.”
• Criteria “explicitly” mentioned in Newsom’s EO include creating transparency about where the state is today on broadband versus where it is in its vision — i.e., how many Californians lack “target download speed broadband” — and tracking progress over time. Council member Martha Guzman Aceves, also a California Public Utilities commissioner, emphasized the urgency around residents losing broadband through being disconnected, describing it as “even more imminent” an issue than devices.
“This is obviously part of the Action Plan, but we need an immediate plan for carriers to not disconnect people. It is an essential necessity right now,” Guzman Aceves said.
• Actions that could be in scope as part of the plan include those around developing and deploying new broadband infrastructure, from RFP stage through completion; building better data around quality of service, knowledge gaps and demand forecast versus supply; driving adoption in target populations; creating new partnerships to enhance the state’s ability to meet its broadband goals; improving deployment planning with local governments; and identifying other action opportunities to meet broadband goals.
