California has agreed to accept its $1.86 billion in federal BEAD funds, but is putting the NTIA on notice that the new conditions being imposed by the Trump administration will not amount to giving up its power to regulate Internet service in the Golden State.

In a Nov. 2 letter accepting the Notice of Award under the BEAD (Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment) program established by the 2021 infrastructure law, California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) President John Reynolds said the agency does not read the new federal grant conditions as requiring California to forfeit its legal rights or to stop enforcing state law, and that the CPUC will sign BEAD grant recipient agreements only if and when the state and NTIA resolve its disagreements.

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At issue is Section 50 of NTIA’s updated grant terms, which would require states to commit not to enforce laws that regulate broadband rates, impose net neutrality, require open access, “or other utility-style rules on broadband internet.”

*The following story by Broadband Breakfast Reporter Jake Neenan was originally published here.

The head of the Federal Communications Commission has prepared an order that would preempt California’s copper retirement rules, the agency said Thursday.

AT&T asked for the move in May, following a March FCC order that invited companies to ask the agency to set aside state regulations that hindered their copper retirement efforts. The request has been supported by the wireless industry and opposed by state regulators and consumer advocates.

The FCC has already granted AT&T’s request to turn off copper telephone service at more than 184,000 locations in California. The California Public Utilities Commission has more stringent rules about what qualifies as an adequate replacement service — FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has been happy to accept reported wireless coverage — which has prevented the company from acting on the FCC approval.

ISPs are eager to decommission their old copper networks, which are costly to maintain and no longer provide competitive broadband speeds. The FCC and state agencies regulate the process to avoid rural areas being stranded without essential 911 services.

In a release, the FCC said its proposed order would preempt California regulations that prevented companies from moving forward with discontinuances approved by the FCC.

The Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians recently reached a major milestone with the launch of the Tribe’s long-awaited Chumash Fiber Network, providing next-gen, affordable broadband access to a California community long-neglected by regional private monopolies.

For generations, telecom giants treated Tribal reservations and rural enclaves across California with predictable neglect: underinvesting in core infrastructure, charging exorbitant rates for slower asymmetrical copper, and insisting low population density makes modern fiber deployment economically unviable.

Like many communities, the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians has taken matters into their own hands with the Chumash Fiber Network, now providing speeds up to five gigabits per second (Gbps) to reservation residents.

Spanning 13 miles of underground fiber across 1,400 acres of ranch land, the network is slated to connect roughly 400 locations — serving an estimated 853 residents — alongside Tribal administrative buildings, health facilities, and the new 143-home Camp 4 residential development.

Funding for the network was provided by Tribal Technical Assistance and federal planning grants via the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program (TBCP), as well as a $4.7 million grant awarded under the California Public Utilities Commission’s (CPUC) Last Mile Federal Funding Account.

State grant support was coupled with California’s open-access Middle Mile Broadband Initiative (MMBI), which is attempting to give emerging competitors and municipalities a leg-up in a market long-dominated by extractive regional telecom monopolies.

Unlike legacy cable and phone providers that nickel-and-dime captive subscribers with hidden fees, usage limits, and arbitrary speed throttling, the Chumash Fiber Network was engineered as an essential public utility.

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.

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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.”

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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).

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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.”