Torching California’s Broadband Future: Why Your State Is Next

[Commentary] Gov Jerry Brown (D-CA) recently declared a state of emergency in three northern California counties ravaged by wildfires. There’s another state of emergency for Californians: It’s called SB 1161, and it leaves Californians without a protector to keep watch on the cost, service quality, safety, and availability of access to information, data, and entertainment – everything on which modern life depends.

Because just a few giant companies control the wires, they’ll be picking the economic and social winners and losers in America. Burning trees, burning up the state’s future – it’s all cataclysmic. Few in the California Legislature likely understood the ramifications of the bill they just agreed to. It seemed to be all about deregulating “VoIP.” But the problem is that the bill covers all “IP-enabled services.” Pursuant to some current Federal regulatory gymnastics, “IP-enabled services” includes not only content and functions that use wires and airwaves but also the physical wires and towers themselves. Everything these days, from thick pipes in the ground to Wired.com, is an “IP-enabled service.” All communications are using the internet protocol, and the FCC has re-labeled all of them “IP-enabled services.” It’s like calling a highway an “electric-car serving conduit” and then making it available for only rich people because electric cars are really cool.