Speaking of Bandwidth

State politicians who are probably more accustomed to dealing with shortages of schoolbooks, police cars or tax revenue have identified another precious commodity in short supply: bandwidth.

The Senate Committee on Energy, Utilities and Communications has scheduled an unusual hearing in Sacramento on Tuesday to “help find solutions to the World Wide Wait.”

The committee has invited representatives from leading high-tech companies, including Intel, Pacific Telesis and Cox Cable, to explain what is perceived to be the slow delivery of high-speed data networks and to suggest ways the Legislature can help.

“What we’re hoping to do is get a dialogue going and get economic and regulatory hurdles out of the way,” said one of the scheduled speakers, Robert Jenkins, a vice president at Intel and chairman of the California Manufacturers Assn.

It’s unclear what the state government can do to speed up the delivery of high-speed networks. So far, the greatest obstacle has been lack of a perceived payoff for the costly job of upgrading telephone or cable TV systems. Experts say that was the reason Pacific Bell pulled the plug on its $16-billion project to upgrade its network from copper lines to fiber-optic cable a few years ago.

Still, state officials say there is no harm in trying to prod these companies along.

“The state’s not sitting on a billion dollars it can throw out to subsidize these networks,” said Randy Chinn, consultant to the state committee. “But maybe we can target some incentives. We’ve been letting the market go, but I think there’s a lot of dissatisfaction about where it’s taken us so far.”

The meeting is being organized by Sen. Steve Peace (D-El Cajon), who is chairman of the Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee and helped spearhead the recent deregulation of the state’s utilities industry.