California regulators are locked in a fierce battle with AT&T over state residents' access to life-saving emergency communications.  

Officials have accused the telecom giant of actively misleading the public as the state considers stricter rules to make wireless coverage maps more accurate, and providers more accountable for reliability failures.

At the heart of the standoff is California’s Carrier Of Last Resort (COLR) obligations, which mandate that state residents have reliable access to voice calls, 911, deaf and disabled assistance services, customer service support, protection from unwanted charges, and flexible billing options.

AT&T lobbyists have worked tirelessly to eliminate such requirements in 20 of its 21 state service territories, falsely claiming the regulations stifled the company’s ability to install next-generation fiber. In reality, AT&T has long been criticized for cheaping out on fiber investments, and is primarily interested in eliminating already dwindling oversight.

Image

In many areas, AT&T has refused to upgrade aging DSL infrastructure, instead shoveling California residents off to “good enough” wireless service. But AT&T’s wireless service isn’t consistently available, affordable, or reliable – particularly when it comes to providing Californians dependable access to essential 911 infrastructure.

Despite this, more than 80 percent of 911 calls in California are now placed from a wireless device. CPUC data also shows that of the more than 1,000 recent wireless service outages in California, many lasted longer than 24 hours, including 359 that lasted longer than 72 hours.

The Hoopa Valley Tribe is celebrating the opening of its new fiber network operations center as the Hoopa Valley Public Utilities District (HVPUD) expands fiber-to-the-home Internet service throughout the Hoopa Valley Reservation and into neighboring communities just outside of its Tribal lands.

To mark the occasion earlier this summer, more than 50 community members, Tribal leaders, HVPUD staff, and project partners attended the July 17 opening celebration.

At the celebration, Hoopa Valley Tribal Vice Chairman Jordan Hailey hailed the milestone moment:

“This is truly a great day for the Hoopa Valley Tribe, for the department and for the Hoopa people. It makes me proud as a Hoopa Tribal member and a member of this community to see everything that they’ve accomplished.”

Though the new network operations headquarters is a storage and transport data center, General Manager of HVPUD Linnea Jackson made it clear that it is not a hyperscale/compute AI data center that have sparked controversy and protest in numerous local communities across the nation.

“The (data centers) that are sucking up all those resources — water, land, and energy — those are the AI data centers. Ours is a network hub, not a huge footprint,” Jackson tells ILSR. “We’re talking about servers and rack space for (Tribal) government operations and records, not a demand on our water resources — completely different from a large AI data center.”

Image

Establishing Data Sovereignty

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) says it has approved another $74 million in California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) grants to expand affordable high-speed Internet infrastructure to underserved communities across the Golden State.

According to the CPUC’s recent announcement, the funding will support six new Internet access infrastructure projects across Marin, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, and Sonoma counties, bringing reliable, high-speed Internet service to nearly 1,800 previously completely unserved homes and businesses.  

Three providers will be spearheading the six expansion projects:

• Surfnet Communications will receive up to $33.2 million to construct the Santa Barbara Fiber and Central Coast Fiber Broadband projects, serving 1,293 unserved locations across Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, and Santa Cruz counties.
• WiConduit and GigabitNow will receive up to $32.4 million for the Forestville Connect Extension, Graton Connect, and Sonoma Coast Connect Extension projects, bringing fiber broadband service to 341 unserved locations in Sonoma County.
• Hankins Information Technology will receive up to $8.5 million for the West Marin Project, providing fiber broadband service to 154 unserved locations in Bolinas, Nicasio, Point Reyes Station, Stinson Beach, and surrounding communities in Marin County.

The investments are an ongoing part of California’s landmark $6 billion Broadband for All Initiative, which prioritized closing the digital divide in all of California’s 58 counties, which recently culminated in the launch of the state’s new $3.2 billion Middle-Mile Broadband Initiative (MMBI).

California residents are engaged in a protracted, ugly battle with telecom giant AT&T over their ability to receive life-saving communications during an emergency. 

The battle comes as the telecom monopoly attempts to eliminate most meaningful oversight of the company’s communications networks, actively putting human lives – and state rights – at risk.

At the heart of the standoff is California’s Carrier Of Last Resort (COLR) obligations, which mandate that state residents maintain reliable access to voice calls, 911, toll free calls, deaf and disabled assistance services, customer service support, protection from unwanted charges, operator services, directory help, and flexible billing options.

AT&T lobbyists have worked tirelessly to eliminate such requirements in 20 of its 21 state service territories, falsely claiming the regulations stifled the company’s ability to install next-generation fiber access. In reality, AT&T has long been criticized for cheaping out on fiber investments, and is primarily interested in eliminating any dwindling oversight.

As COLR obligations are eliminated, customers are frequently shoveled from traditional copper-based landlines – which operate even during power outages – to frequently less reliable and significantly more expensive wireless alternatives. In many cases that results in California elderly residents losing access to essential lifesaving services entirely, particularly in areas where cellular connectivity is spotty or unavailable.

California community leaders, activists, and a coalition of partners gathered earlier this month to celebrate the launch of a new broadband infrastructure project at Sequoia Courts and Sequoia Courts Terrace in Fresno, bringing free high-speed Internet access to more than 350 residents.

The plan to bring broadband access to residents at no cost was made possible through a partnership with Fresno Housing, Fresno Coalition for Digital Inclusion (FCDI), United Way Fresno & Madera Counties, and Central Valley Community Foundation (CVCF). The Fresno Housing Authority will own and maintain the finished network.

The expansion, which leverages a hybrid fiber-wireless approach, was directly funded by California’s ambitious Broadband For All initiative, a $6 billion effort aimed at dramatically boosting broadband competition and access across the Golden State. Much of that effort was funded, in part, by the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).

Image

The Fresno grant was for $471,000, with $1,000 or less per unit cost to build, according to details on the project included in a California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) filing, which notes that the enterprise-grade wireless mesh network used in the project was more costly, but provided “flexibility and scalability for future expansion.”

Today, the American Prospect published an analysis – “A California Democrat Is Trying to Gut the State’s Broadband Watchdog” – authored by our own Sean Gonsalves that examines a recently filed bill in California which aims to “strip telecommunications oversight authority away from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and shift it to a more easily lobbied state legislature and a hypothetical state broadband office that doesn’t yet exist.”

The piece details how the CPUC has become a national model for broadband consumer protection, extracting landmark affordability commitments from the proposed Charter-Cox merger, launching a state-funded broadband subsidy program, and administering the only public loan fund in the nation dedicated exclusively to community-owned Internet networks.

Here's a few excerpts:

“Given what the CPUC has done over the past several years to ensure that every family in California can afford internet access, Boerner’s characterization of her poison pill is enough to make Orwell blush and MAGA operatives smile.”

“To understand what’s really at stake in Boerner’s proposal, it helps to understand what the CPUC has built, mostly behind the scenes, and what would be lost.”

“On telecom issues, the CPUC is not just a passive regulator. In the words of Ernesto Falcon, branch manager of the Communications and Broadband Policy division of the agency’s Public Advocates Office, the CPUC is something closer to ‘a public defender in the regulatory space.’”

“The office employs 22 public servants—attorneys, researchers, and policy specialists—whose sole job is to advocate for California consumers in a regulatory arena dominated by monopoly telecom companies with virtually unlimited resources to influence lawmakers and set the agenda.”

In the last few years, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has been more intensely focused on ensuring that broadband in California is affordable. 

So it’s curious to see the California State Assembly vote 67-1 on May 18 to strip telecom oversight authority away from the CPUC and shift it to a more easily lobbied state legislature – and an as-yet-undefined state broadband office.

The effort still has a long road before it’s formalized.

Assembly Constitutional Amendment 9, authored by Assemblymember Tasha Boerner, D-Encinitas, now moves on to the California Senate, where it needs to secure a two-thirds vote before appearing on a statewide ballot before California voters.

Image

The proposal would remove the state constitutional requirement to define and regulate telecommunications as a public utility, something long supported by telecom giants. Boerner’s amendment (and companion bill AB 2289) gives lawmakers leeway to strip the CPUC of its telecom portfolio and hand it over to a newly created state broadband office by 2028.

Consumer Advocates Are 'Shocked' and Skeptical 

Boerner’s proposal is being sold to state lawmakers and the local press as a way to keep the CPUC focused on soaring electrical costs.