SECTION 1.
The Legislature hereby finds and declares all of the following:(a) Nearly one in every three Californians communicates only via a cellular device and does not own or operate a landline telephone.
(b) Of the 240,000,000 calls to telephone number 911 for emergency assistance placed nationwide each year, 70 percent now originate from cellular devices.
(c) In 2010, 5 percent of all 911 calls originating from cellular devices were dropped, resulting in 8,400,000 dropped 911 calls.
(d) Recognizing the public’s shift toward cellular telephone use, the Legislature passed Senate Bill 1375 (Chapter 332 of the Statutes of 2010), authorizing telephone corporations to deactivate 911 emergency service from any landline telephone not subscribing to paid telephone service.
(e) Given the increased reliance on cellular phones, maintaining signal strength and call reliability for 911 calls from cellular telephones is critical to protecting public safety and saving lives of Californians.
(f) The Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (known as the 9/11 Commission Report) identified the lack of coordination among first responder agencies and communication challenges in the 9/11 attacks and emphasized the need for uniform and reliable communications for all first responders.
(g) The federal Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012 (Public Law 112-96) creates a framework for the public sector to partner with commercial providers to leverage the private sector’s investments in broadband technologies to efficiently deploy an interoperable broadband network for public safety.
That act allocated seven billion dollars ($7,000,000,000) for grants to states to build the nationwide public safety broadband network.
(h) The Federal Communications Commission has found that delays by local governments in approving ministerial requests have delayed the implementation of next-generation broadband services for consumers and first responders.
(i) It is the intent of the Legislature to subsequently amend this measure to include provisions that would increase network capacity on existing wireless structures in order to serve the needs of safety personnel and the people of the state.