Digital Equity

Although we initially supported AB 41 for much of the 2023 legislative session, the bill received hostile amendments late in the year that effectively gutted it. We worked tirelessly to ensure that AB 41 (and AB 2748 and SB 28 before it) made long overdue and much-needed reforms to the Digital Infrastructure and Video Competition Act (DIVCA) – a 2006 law that eliminated all local input and control over cable franchises. The final iteration of AB 41 however, would have moved the state further from digital equity, and would have made California franchise policy worse for communities, worse for localities, and harder for the state to address the digital divide. Working alongside other digital equity coalition partners, we successfully secured a veto of AB 41 by Governor Gavin Newsom.

 The current inventory of publicly available broadband maps fail to fully and accurately illustrate our state’s geographic digital divide.  The inaccuracy of these maps prevents millions of Californians in communities throughout our state from receiving high quality, affordable  broadband service. Whether tribal areas in rural California or ‘digital doughnuts’ in low-income neighborhoods of urban California, we know Californians are not fully represented in our current broadband maps. Signed by the Governor last year, it will improve the state’s broadband mapping efforts and will ensure that households have the ability to share address level data directly with the CA Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) on internet speeds, costs, and more; providing the detail to produce better publicly available maps.