California utility regulators this week cleared the way for the state to accept more than $1.4 billion in federal funding to build out broadband in underserved areas.
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Barbara van Schewick, a Stanford Law School professor who helped pass the 2018 state net neutrality law, said it’s essential that the state challenge the federal program’s conditions in court before accepting the funding. She said the federal government’s terms would endanger a 2019 law created after an incident in which firefighters had to revert to using their personal devices while fighting a wildfire after Verizon reduced connection speeds. The federal program can also take back grant money to enforce its conditions.
“You don’t want to fight it out in court whether Verizon has a right to throttle firefighters. When fires are raging, you want Verizon to know they can’t do that, not sort that out a year from now,” she said.
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