The California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has just completed a report on the state of California broadband and has included suggestions on how the state can speed up the rate of broadband deployment. I am disappointed by the mildness of the recommendations presented by the PUC. There’s no sense of urgency and none of the solutions proposed came anywhere close The California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has just completed a report on the state of California broadband and has included suggestions on how the state can speed up the rate of broadband deployment. I am disappointed by the mildness of the recommendations presented by the PUC. There’s no sense of urgency and none of the solutions proposed came anywhere close to what needs to be done to close the gap between California and countries like Korea. The report goes to the Governor and state legislature where, one hopes, they do something radical to help the state catch up.
Just to emphasize how far behind California (and just about every US state is: Anthony Townsend, who spent a few months in Seoul, Korea on a Fulbright grant, explained at an Emerging Tech Conference organized by the Media Center in Palo Alto this week, that the slowest broadband subscription you can get in Korea is 10 MBps and the average cost of broadband service is about $20 per month. Needless to say, a lot of Koreans are getting 50 Mbps and that’s no big deal over there. Those who say, “well Korea is densely populated” should search around in New York, another densely populated city, for comparable broadband service and email me right away.
To read the PUC’s draft report, go to:
http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/PUBLISHED/COMMENT_DECISION/43597.htm
Don’t miss Appendix B, which has a chart of broadband policies and practices in the US. Check out which states place limits on the deployment of municipal broadband networks (scroll down the page to Appendix B):
http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/PUBLISHED/COMMENT_DECISION/43588.htm
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