The Governor of California proposed an investment of $ 7 billion in public broadband

The Governor of California Gavin Newsom has put its plan for what must be done with the country’s surplus and federal recovery funds, which covers $ 7 billion for three years to build broadband infrastructure. If the state legislature agrees to the May revised budget proposal, California will work on one of the largest public broadband fiber network projects in the US.

“[Universal] Access to high-speed Internet is very important for the economy of the country, education, and basic health and well-being, and will be the main component of the country’s long-term recovery,” the budget rang. “This pandemic has underlined the importance of making a broadband that can be accessed and affordable for the purpose of education, employment, and health.”

According to the budget, 83.4 percent of the population uses broadband but only more than 52 percent can obtain a speed of 100 Mbps. It notes that 51.3 percent of rural households do not have access to 100 Mbps services and also not 28.4 percent of houses in tribal land. The problem continues even in urban areas. About half of the households that lack access to broadband 100 Mbps are located in the part of the country.

The budget describes plans to build a “Middle-Mile” network, effectively broadband broadband infrastructure and the main road. Providers have said that this is a barrier to connect several parts of the state to broadband networks, especially in rural areas. Thus, California plans to create a backup account of a loan of $ 500 million to help nonprofits, local governments and tribes to obtain private financing for city fiber networks (or “local roads” part of the infrastructure). Newsom also hopes to provide other incentives for providers to connect non-served or underlay households to the network.

Along with expanding infrastructure, the main objective is to make high-speed broadband access more affordable for California. Newsom writes on Twitter that country “will close the Digital Divide.”

It will be several years before this network is fully active and running (assuming it is approved). Those who have struggled with IFFY connections while working at home or remote school during a pandemic will not benefit from this plan immediately. However, enhanced public broadband infrastructure will increase internet access for millions of California in the long term and, according to the proposal, it will “create tens of thousands of quality jobs to help the country economy recover from pandemics.”