- Authorize extended collections (no less than $100M per year for at least 15 years) (sufficient to net $1B in revenue bonds) to “bring forward the future” to invest now in high-speed Internet infrastructure to jumpstart economic recovery.
- Prioritize rural unserved areas (including Tribal Lands) and urban poor underserved neighborhoods (regardless of speed thresholds).
- Set thresholds if necessary for definition of unserved-underserved (such as 25/25), but prioritize rural unserved and truly poor urban neighborhoods.
- Require fiber middle-mile infrastructure construction with end-user speeds sufficient to support distance learning and telehealth (dynamic performance standard that can be modified by CPUC as needed). Can set goal of 100 down.
- Allow connection of all anchor institutions along the path of deployment in the spirit of “dig once” and “dig smart” (fair cost-sharing determined by CPUC).
- Require open access for all subsidized projects (at least middle mile) and allow IXPs and signal into fields for ag tech along path of deployment.
- Provide 1-time only “first right of opportunity” for ISPs (no more than 6 months) to step up or step aside with limited challenges.
- Establish explicit right to apply for Tribes, Local Governments, Special Districts, School Districts, County Offices of Education, and other public agencies.
- Prioritize Infrastructure Account grants for applications that drive to achieve the Legislature’s goal of at least 98% deployment in reach region (encourage building at scale for economic efficiencies instead of cherry picking).
- Streamline approvals and permitting of Infrastructure Account grants (public sector to approve and permit at the private-sector speed of construction).
- Dedicate funding for Adoption Account and improve administrative efficiencies.
- Dedicate funding for Regional Consortia to involve Local Governments to adopt smart government policies and permit streamlining to accelerate broadband deployment and adoption.
