California Senate Committee Votes to Give Telcos $300m for Slower Broadband

From the article:

"AB 1665 would lower California’s broadband standard from a minimum of 6 Mbps download/1.5 Mbps upload speeds, to 6 Mbps down/1 Mbps up. That’s despite a move by the federal agriculture department to set the minimum acceptable speed for rural areas at 25 Mbps down/3 Mbps up.

The bill would also re-write the rules for the state’s primary broadband construction subsidy program – the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) – in such a way that it will be difficult, if not impossible, for anyone other than AT&T or Frontier Communications to tap into the $300 million allocated for infrastructure grants. It adds further sweeteners for incumbents, such as letting them use CASF grant money to pay for operating costs and, in a nod to the cable industry, allowing them to launder it through individual property owners in order to avoid any direct oversight by the California Public Utilities Commission, which oversees the fund.

Next stop for AB 1665 is the senate appropriations committee. If it gets a green light there, it’ll go to a floor vote by the full senate, and then back to the assembly to reconcile the different versions passed by the two houses."