Last week, a California Assemblymember who had sponsored legislation for a broadband affordability law abruptly withdrew the legislation. 

But what really killed the broadband affordability bill in California? Was it opposition to the proposed legislation from within the state or pressure from the Trump administration?

The Bill Was Advancing Until…

Modeled on New York’s Affordable Broadband Act (ABA), the California Affordable Home Internet Act was first introduced in January. It aimed to require Internet service providers that operate in the Golden State to offer a $15 per month broadband service plan for income-eligible households.

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The proposed legislation was introduced as AB 353 by Assemblymember Tasha Boerner and was initially supported by the California Alliance for Digital Equity (CADE).

Over the intervening months, CADE and proponents of the bill offered resources and recommendations on how the bill could be made more effective than the ABA, hoping to avoid the pitfalls that advocates were seeing with the rollout and implementation of New York’s law.

On June 4, the California bill advanced through the state Assembly and moved on to the state senate by a 52-17 margin.

Last week, a California Assemblymember who had sponsored legislation for a broadband affordability law abruptly withdrew the legislation. 

But what really killed the broadband affordability bill in California? Was it opposition to the proposed legislation from within the state or pressure from the Trump administration?

The Bill Was Advancing Until…

Modeled on New York’s Affordable Broadband Act (ABA), the California Affordable Home Internet Act was first introduced in January. It aimed to require Internet service providers that operate in the Golden State to offer a $15 per month broadband service plan for income-eligible households.

Image

The proposed legislation was introduced as AB 353 by Assemblymember Tasha Boerner and was initially supported by the California Alliance for Digital Equity (CADE).

Over the intervening months, CADE and proponents of the bill offered resources and recommendations on how the bill could be made more effective than the ABA, hoping to avoid the pitfalls that advocates were seeing with the rollout and implementation of New York’s law.

On June 4, the California bill advanced through the state Assembly and moved on to the state senate by a 52-17 margin.

Last week, a California Assemblymember who had sponsored legislation for a broadband affordability law abruptly withdrew the legislation. 

But what really killed the broadband affordability bill in California? Was it opposition to the proposed legislation from within the state or pressure from the Trump administration?

The Bill Was Advancing Until…

Modeled on New York’s Affordable Broadband Act (ABA), the California Affordable Home Internet Act was first introduced in January. It aimed to require Internet service providers that operate in the Golden State to offer a $15 per month broadband service plan for income-eligible households.

Image

The proposed legislation was introduced as AB 353 by Assemblymember Tasha Boerner and was initially supported by the California Alliance for Digital Equity (CADE).

Over the intervening months, CADE and proponents of the bill offered resources and recommendations on how the bill could be made more effective than the ABA, hoping to avoid the pitfalls that advocates were seeing with the rollout and implementation of New York’s law.

On June 4, the California bill advanced through the state Assembly and moved on to the state senate by a 52-17 margin.

In the wake of the Trump administration’s re-writing the rules around how federal funds can be spent to expand high-speed Internet access, state broadband offices are in the midst of revamping their broadband deployment grant programs to comply with a “technology-neutral” framework recently imposed on the $42.5 billion federal BEAD (Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment) program.

Though most states hoped to maximize federal grant funding to build fiber networks, the new guidance released by NTIA in June requires states to ignore the aim of Congress enacted under the bipartisan infrastructure law.

The new NTIA rules call for states to de-prioritize fiber and give equal weight to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite technologies – something many observers see as a gift to Starlink and a way for the President’s biggest campaign contributor to hoover up additional subsidies.

As states wrestle with how to re-do their scoring rubrics used to determine grant awards, today four leading broadband deployment scholars working with the X-Lab released an analysis that may help state broadband offices evaluate “the capacities and saturation limits of the Starlink satellite infrastructure.”

The overarching goal is to help states determine where – and if – Starlink can meet federal requirements for broadband, which is defined as delivering minimum connection speeds of at least 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) download and 20 Mbps upload.

In the wake of the Trump administration’s re-writing the rules around how federal funds can be spent to expand high-speed Internet access, state broadband offices are in the midst of revamping their broadband deployment grant programs to comply with a “technology-neutral” framework recently imposed on the $42.5 billion federal BEAD (Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment) program.

Though most states hoped to maximize federal grant funding to build fiber networks, the new guidance released by NTIA in June requires states to ignore the aim of Congress enacted under the bipartisan infrastructure law.

The new NTIA rules call for states to de-prioritize fiber and give equal weight to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite technologies – something many observers see as a gift to Starlink and a way for the President’s biggest campaign contributor to hoover up additional subsidies.

As states wrestle with how to re-do their scoring rubrics used to determine grant awards, today four leading broadband deployment scholars working with the X-Lab released an analysis that may help state broadband offices evaluate “the capacities and saturation limits of the Starlink satellite infrastructure.”

The overarching goal is to help states determine where – and if – Starlink can meet federal requirements for broadband, which is defined as delivering minimum connection speeds of at least 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) download and 20 Mbps upload.

In the wake of the Trump administration’s re-writing the rules around how federal funds can be spent to expand high-speed Internet access, state broadband offices are in the midst of revamping their broadband deployment grant programs to comply with a “technology-neutral” framework recently imposed on the $42.5 billion federal BEAD (Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment) program.

Though most states hoped to maximize federal grant funding to build fiber networks, the new guidance released by NTIA in June requires states to ignore the aim of Congress enacted under the bipartisan infrastructure law.

The new NTIA rules call for states to de-prioritize fiber and give equal weight to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite technologies – something many observers see as a gift to Starlink and a way for the President’s biggest campaign contributor to hoover up additional subsidies.

As states wrestle with how to re-do their scoring rubrics used to determine grant awards, today four leading broadband deployment scholars working with the X-Lab released an analysis that may help state broadband offices evaluate “the capacities and saturation limits of the Starlink satellite infrastructure.”

The overarching goal is to help states determine where – and if – Starlink can meet federal requirements for broadband, which is defined as delivering minimum connection speeds of at least 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) download and 20 Mbps upload.

In the wake of the Trump administration’s re-writing the rules around how federal funds can be spent to expand high-speed Internet access, state broadband offices are in the midst of revamping their broadband deployment grant programs to comply with a “technology-neutral” framework recently imposed on the $42.5 billion federal BEAD (Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment) program.

Though most states hoped to maximize federal grant funding to build fiber networks, the new guidance released by NTIA in June requires states to ignore the aim of Congress enacted under the bipartisan infrastructure law.

The new NTIA rules call for states to de-prioritize fiber and give equal weight to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite technologies – something many observers see as a gift to Starlink and a way for the President’s biggest campaign contributor to hoover up additional subsidies.

As states wrestle with how to re-do their scoring rubrics used to determine grant awards, today four leading broadband deployment scholars working with the X-Lab released an analysis that may help state broadband offices evaluate “the capacities and saturation limits of the Starlink satellite infrastructure.”

The overarching goal is to help states determine where – and if – Starlink can meet federal requirements for broadband, which is defined as delivering minimum connection speeds of at least 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) download and 20 Mbps upload.

In the wake of the Trump administration’s re-writing the rules around how federal funds can be spent to expand high-speed Internet access, state broadband offices are in the midst of revamping their broadband deployment grant programs to comply with a “technology-neutral” framework recently imposed on the $42.5 billion federal BEAD (Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment) program.

Though most states hoped to maximize federal grant funding to build fiber networks, the new guidance released by NTIA in June requires states to ignore the aim of Congress enacted under the bipartisan infrastructure law.

The new NTIA rules call for states to de-prioritize fiber and give equal weight to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite technologies – something many observers see as a gift to Starlink and a way for the President’s biggest campaign contributor to hoover up additional subsidies.

As states wrestle with how to re-do their scoring rubrics used to determine grant awards, today four leading broadband deployment scholars working with the X-Lab released an analysis that may help state broadband offices evaluate “the capacities and saturation limits of the Starlink satellite infrastructure.”

The overarching goal is to help states determine where – and if – Starlink can meet federal requirements for broadband, which is defined as delivering minimum connection speeds of at least 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) download and 20 Mbps upload.

In the wake of the Trump administration’s re-writing the rules around how federal funds can be spent to expand high-speed Internet access, state broadband offices are in the midst of revamping their broadband deployment grant programs to comply with a “technology-neutral” framework recently imposed on the $42.5 billion federal BEAD (Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment) program.

Though most states hoped to maximize federal grant funding to build fiber networks, the new guidance released by NTIA in June requires states to ignore the aim of Congress enacted under the bipartisan infrastructure law.

The new NTIA rules call for states to de-prioritize fiber and give equal weight to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite technologies – something many observers see as a gift to Starlink and a way for the President’s biggest campaign contributor to hoover up additional subsidies.

As states wrestle with how to re-do their scoring rubrics used to determine grant awards, today four leading broadband deployment scholars working with the X-Lab released an analysis that may help state broadband offices evaluate “the capacities and saturation limits of the Starlink satellite infrastructure.”

The overarching goal is to help states determine where – and if – Starlink can meet federal requirements for broadband, which is defined as delivering minimum connection speeds of at least 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) download and 20 Mbps upload.

In the wake of the Trump administration’s re-writing the rules around how federal funds can be spent to expand high-speed Internet access, state broadband offices are in the midst of revamping their broadband deployment grant programs to comply with a “technology-neutral” framework recently imposed on the $42.5 billion federal BEAD (Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment) program.

Though most states hoped to maximize federal grant funding to build fiber networks, the new guidance released by NTIA in June requires states to ignore the aim of Congress enacted under the bipartisan infrastructure law.

The new NTIA rules call for states to de-prioritize fiber and give equal weight to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite technologies – something many observers see as a gift to Starlink and a way for the President’s biggest campaign contributor to hoover up additional subsidies.

As states wrestle with how to re-do their scoring rubrics used to determine grant awards, today four leading broadband deployment scholars working with the X-Lab released an analysis that may help state broadband offices evaluate “the capacities and saturation limits of the Starlink satellite infrastructure.”

The overarching goal is to help states determine where – and if – Starlink can meet federal requirements for broadband, which is defined as delivering minimum connection speeds of at least 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) download and 20 Mbps upload.