San Jose Mercury News

San Jose (CA) created the San Jose Digital Inclusion Fund — the largest of its kind in the country. The aim? To bring broadband access to some 50,000 households over the next decade and teach residents who may be new to the web the digital skills they need to navigate it. The city estimates that, even today, around 95,000 residents have no internet access at home. For seniors, the initiative might mean learning how to navigate a health care website that allows them to talk to their doctor more easily.

California state regulators have been ginning up a scheme to charge a fee for text messaging on mobile phones to help support programs that make phone service accessible to the poor. The wireless industry and business groups have been working to defeat the proposal, now scheduled for a vote in January by the California Public Utilities Commission. It’s unclear how much individual consumers would be asked to pay their wireless carrier for texting services under the proposal.

Instead of embracing 5G, San Jose (CA) Mayor Sam Liccardo taxed it.  Beginning in 2015, the city sought up to $3,500 per year per small cell.  Compare that to $100 in Phoenix (AZ) and $50 in Indianapolis (IN) — cities about the size of San Jose that have leapfrogged it in terms of small cell deployment. Excessive taxes charged by big cities deplete the capital needed to build broadband in suburban and rural America. That’s why several dozen mayors, county supervisors, and elected leaders called on the Federal Communications Commission to act.

As President Donald Trump goes to war against Silicon Valley technology firms over what he believes is a left-wing bias against conservatives, a right-wing group has launched a lawsuit targeting this region’s tech giants and accusing them of a conspiracy.

The author of California’s network neutrality bill, which was watered down by an Assembly committee recently, is holding his nose as it’s scheduled to be heard by another committee June 26.  As amended, SB 822 does not have the impact that CA State Sen Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) intended. “The bill, in its current form, no longer protects net neutrality and is not worth passing,” State Sen Wiener said. “However, I am working with the Chair of the Communications Committee, Assemblyman Miguel Santiago, to restore the protections that the committee removed.” Wiener said.

The California State Senate approved a network neutrality bill that has been called the “gold standard” of such bills in the nation, as states grapple with a controversial repeal of Obama-era federal rules meant to ensure an open internet.