Satellite dishes overlooking San Diego. (Photo: Jimmy W, via Shutterstock)OPINION: Fortunately, there is an agenda California can pursue that will benefit these people and will help to ensure a thriving economy for years to come. Three priority areas in on which we have the chance to make a major difference this year are broadband for all, housing affordability, and climate adaptation.
Dr. Barbara O’Connor is chair of the California Emerging Technology Fund; the pandemic is highlighting the need for one of the group’s priorities: getting good, reliable internet to all Californians. Their proposal – the California Network – is being discussed at the Capitol this week.
A woman using wireless broadband launches an app on her tablet. (Photo: Daniel Krason, via Shutterstock) OPINION: California has a responsibility to get Internet policy right. The state’s ranking as the sixth largest economy understates its influence on the world’s innovation economy. One-third of global venture capital is invested in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Los Angeles or San Diego. California is the test bed, launch pad and sand box for thousands of apps and Internet services which, if successful, are launched on the world.
Illustration of online activity at a snail's pace. (mattsabe, Shutterstock)OPINION: In California — and all across the country — there are “digital deserts,” places where it’s impossible to get high-speed Internet access at home and thus impossible to do homework, apply for jobs and be a full-fledged member of the digital economy. These digital deserts also prevent farmers from using Internet technology to improve efficiencies in growing crops and getting them to markets.
Voluminous data displayed on a computer monitor. (Photo: Dimitri Nikolaev)OPINION: California once again is defining a new era of public benefits from corporate consolidations in advanced communications and high-speed Internet access. Consumers and residents will be measurably better off as a result and California will move closer to closing the Digital Divide.
Using a cell phone at a California beach to capture an image of a pier. (Photo: DCornelius, via Shutterstock)OPINION: The conventional wisdom, promoted by some advocacy groups when it suits their purposes, is that seniors are sad, helpless creatures who prefer to sit on the couch clutching their turntables and rotary phones, in front of black and white television sets, searching for reruns of Lawrence Welk. These demeaning attitudes are far from true.
Illustration by Kheng Guan Toh, via ShutterstockOPINION: The California Public Utilities Commission is about to make a landmark decision about the merger of Charter Communications, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks that will have a generational effect on closing—or possibly making permanent—the Digital Divide.
A sports complex with the Time Warner Cable logo. (Photo: Katherine Welles, Shutterstock)Change may be coming to millions of California cable TV and broadband users. A looming $78.7 billion merger between Time Warner Cable and Charter Communications would have a major impact on California’s cable TV and broadband markets, with the new entity, called New Charter, serving nearly four of every 10 customers in the state.
Comcast company trucks await assignments. (Photo: Associated Press, Gene Puskar)A national merger between communications giants Comcast Corp. and Time Warner Cable could lead to an unprecedented consolidation of California cable and broadband markets. The pending $45 billion merger would grant Comcast — already the state’s No. 1 cable provider — a greater share of the California market, stretching from northern California and San Francisco Bay area and Sacramento region, down the Central Valley through the Los Angeles basin, east to the Nevada and Arizona lines and southeast to the Mexico border.