Maps and More Maps
This February at Digital Equity LA we are:
Feeling the love for every one of our partners and allies in the work to advance digital equity,
Uplifting the history, heroes, and casualties of the ongoing fight for Black equity during this Black History Month,
Honoring the myriad and overlapping battles for equity and justice that are the throughline of our work together as a coalition.
New: we’re opening up our monthly Digital Equity LA coalition meetings. Join us the last Wednesday of every month for information, updates, and planning. RSVP here.
As always, there is much for us to do together. Read on for three things: the most important updates, invitations, and opportunities to engage right now.
And be in touch with what we missed! Hit reply with your comments, suggestions, feedback, resources, and calls-to-action. And share this link with anyone you think would appreciate getting these updates every month-ish.
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1. Mapping the Digital Divide: the Battle to Get Public Dollars Where They’re Needed
At the FCC in Washington, DC, and at the CPUC in San Francisco (and Sacramento), there are technical, too often secret, and extraordinarily important efforts underway to “map” the digital divide, identifying the areas where public dollars will go to ensure access to fast, reliable, and affordable service.
At issue? Who is “served” (locations that can technically access internet at the federal minimum standard, without respect to price or reliability), who is “underserved” (an ill-defined label, sometimes meaning locations that can’t get access at a higher speed or reliability), and how much public money should be expended and where to close the gap.
There are three things muddying the waters:
All of the maps rely almost entirely on information provided by the big ISPs, and it is in their interest to overreport their service to maintain their monopolies - admitting service gaps will mean another company or the local government may get funding to fill them. See this article and this one documenting ISPs admitting that they lie to authorities to block competition.
The CPUC’s map relied on an analysis documenting where networks could be most profitable (without any reference to equity), resulting in the Commission releasing a “priority areas map” that prioritized for public broadband subsidies many of the state’s wealthiest, best connected communities and none of the most disadvantaged neighborhoods in any urban core. From Oakland to San Diego, Vacaville to Los Angeles, Fresno to San Bernardino - neighborhoods in dense, disconnected cities were left out. See this quicksheet for more details.
Proving the maps wrong - both at the federal and state levels - is left to the households, small businesses, and communities left behind. Both the FCC and the CPUC left it to those most disconnected (and thus least resourced to engage the processes to effectively challenge the maps and underlying data) to make the maps more accurate and equitable.
What to do about the bad maps:
Sign on to this letter to Senators Padilla and Feinstein raising urgent concerns about the FCC maps. Deadline: noon PT this Friday, Feb 10.
Give Feedback on the CPUC’s Priority Areas Map - in 300 characters or less, let the CPUC know that you want to see the map revised with an equity screen or taken down, and point their attention to a disconnected area that they have left behind. You can use this map, which overlays the priority areas (in green) with the least connected areas (in shades of red) to identify the area you want to uplift to their attention.
Thank LA City Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson for authoring a successful motion in support of challenging the CPUC map, Supervisor Hilda Solis for authoring a successful motion to put the weight of the County behind fixing the FCC and CPUC maps, and Assemblymember Isaac Bryan for taking the lead on moving a letter from the full Los Angeles legislative delegation to the CPUC expressing concern about the CPUC’s priority areas map.
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2. Holding Charter Spectrum Accountable
Charter (operating as Spectrum) is LA’s near-monopoly internet provider, and it doesn’t operate in ways that advance equitable access to fast, reliable, and affordable internet across the County. We’re holding them accountable for it.
Nearly five months ago, we released the report Slower and More Expensive | Sounding the Alarm: Disparities in Advertised Pricing for Fast, Reliable Broadband, documenting disturbing patterns of Charter Spectrum’s advertised pricing disparities across LA County communities. A summary: Charter offered people who live in higher poverty neighborhoods and communities of color slower service at higher prices.
We’re checking back in. Our report included specific addresses with disparities, including screenshots from the Charter Spectrum sales website. We would hope that Charter would have addressed the issue at least at those addresses. So, we’re repeating the research at a subset of those addresses, and looking at new ones to see if the pattern has changed. Tell us where you want us to look - send a list of addresses to research to hello@digitalequityla.org. We’ll publish an update in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, Charter released its legally required 2022 financial reporting. Of note: the company spent more on “stock buybacks” - putting cash in the pockets of its shareholders and driving up its share price on Wall Street - than it did on new or upgraded infrastructure to better serve its customers - $11.7 Billion versus $9.4 Billion. Learn more about stock buybacks here.
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3. LA Communities Taking the Lead!
Congratulations to LA County, the Gateway Cities Council of Governments, Lynwood Unified School District, the South Bay Cities Council of Governments, the City of Lancaster/CoCo Antelope Valley, the City of Los Angeles Bureau of Street Lighting/Destination Crenshaw, the City of Palmdale, the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments, the City of Glendale, and the City of Monrovia for winning Local Agency Technical Assistance (LATA) grants, bringing more than $3.5 million in planning grant money to our communities.
We await word that the cities of Monrovia, Pasadena, and Pomona will join their ranks in the coming weeks, bringing the total dollars awarded to Los Angeles communities to nearly $4.6 million - more CPUC dollars than have ever before been deployed in LA County - and we continue to work with a collaborative of SELA cities to apply for additional LATA funding when it comes available.
More information about LA’s winning LATA grants here, and a quick reminder of the power and promise of municipalities taking the lead on broadband here.
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Much more to come! Stay tuned for:
How you can support efforts to expand the state’s authority to require equal access (AB41, authored by Assemblymember Holden)
Readouts from our hugely successful Digital Equity LA summit, hosted by USC at the end of January. (Can’t wait? See ILSR’s write up here)
Report back from the first ever “Urban Broadband Bootcamp” hosted in cooperation with the City of LA Bureau of Street Lighting, and how you can bring one to your community
Onward!
Shayna, Director, Digital Equity LA
Natalie, Deputy Director, Digital Equity LA
Reach us at hello@digitalequityla