CPUC Opens SMS, Infrastructure Rulemakings, Debates Frontier Protest to CASF Fiber Grant
California public utilities commissioners all voted for rulemakings​ on SMS classification and communications infrastructure at their meeting livestreamed Thursday. The SMS rulemaking responds to a CTIA petition asking whether text messaging is a telecom service that must pay into state…
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USF and other programs (see 1706200048). Comments will be due 50 days after the order’s effective date, with replies due 10 days later, the proposed decision said. The infrastructure investigation and rulemaking looks at safety and competition issues for conduit and utility poles used by broadband and other communications providers. The proceeding will be merged into an existing matter on whether to apply right-of-way rules of commercial mobile radio service providers to wireless facilities installed by CLECs. “We have poles that are just crammed with stuff,” CPUC President Michael Picker said. “People want to get access to them.” Also at the meeting, the CPUC discussed but postponed a vote until July 13 on a proposed $27.6 million California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) grant that Frontier Communications protested. The grant would go to a Race Telecommunications fiber-to-the-home broadband project in San Bernardino County, but Frontier argued state funding would fly in the face of federal Connect America Fund money supporting a Frontier upgrade in the area (see 1706280054). Frontier’s upgrade won’t cost the CASF, but it’s DSL -- so it’s slower -- and expected to reach 1,100 fewer households than the Race project, said CPUC Communications Division Director Cynthia Walker. Commissioners Liane Randolph and Carla Peterman said they leaned toward approving the Race project. “You don’t want to discourage applicants from proposing projects in areas that are identified as needing service and then having the rug pulled out from under them after another applicant comes in after the protest period,” Randolph said. But Commissioners Clifford Rechtshaffen and Martha Guzman Aceves said they would like CPUC staff, Frontier and Race to confer and find compromise. “I’m very supportive of getting fiber into these communities, but I’m not sure it needs to be every household,” Aceves said. Picker said he’s “struggling with this one” because the CPUC encourages companies to apply for CASF funds but also urged Frontier to apply for CAF. “Either way we are going to fail somebody we made a commitment to.”