Texas expects to soon get NTIA approval of its initial plan for the broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program, but first it must submit another revision of volume 2, said Texas Broadband Development Office (BDO) Director Greg Conte. NTIA approved plans for Alabama and Florida on Thursday, leaving Texas as the lone state or territory without NTIA approval to access its funding. Administrator Alan Davidson said on a Politico podcast Thursday he’s optimistic NTIA will be able to approve Texas’ plan “in the coming weeks.” He also chalked up Republicans’ recent criticisms of BEAD as a symptom of election-year politics.
Connecticut utility regulators voted 3-0 to deny Verizon deregulation. At a meeting Wednesday, the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority approved an order rejecting Verizon’s petition reclassifying its remaining Connecticut services as competitive and retiring the company’s alternative form of regulation plan (see 2410110020 and 2410030043). PURA found that possible harm to the public interest outweighed the presence of competition in Verizon’s Greenwich market. The carrier’s offer of an enforceable commitment to abide by current Connecticut customer termination procedures and certain state reporting requirements failed to alleviate all the authority's concerns, said the final decision. “Such a proposal requires additional consideration during the course of a proceeding, where the Authority can solicit feedback from other stakeholders." In any case, “such a proposal does not address the Authority’s conclusions regarding the number, size, and geographic distribution of certified telecommunications providers offering service in the Service Area nor the inconclusive nature of what barriers to entry do or do not exist in the Service Area,” PURA said. Verizon didn’t comment. Of the authority's four commissioners, Vice Chairman Jack Betkoski didn’t vote because he wasn’t on the three-person panel assigned to docket 24-06-15, a PURA spokesperson said.
Although the regulatory status of broadband is “in flux,” the U.S. Supreme Court shouldn’t further delay New York state’s enforcement of a 2021 affordable broadband law, the state’s Attorney General Letitia James (D) said Tuesday. James submitted briefs in case 24-161 opposing ISP groups’ petition for a writ of certiorari and application seeking a stay of the New York Affordable Broadband Act (ABA). “The equities and the public interest weigh heavily in favor of allowing the ABA -- duly enacted consumer-protection legislation that aids the State’s most vulnerable residents -- to take effect without further delay,” wrote James.
Maine should harmonize its Chapter 880 pole-attachment rules with recent FCC rules changes, Comcast and Charter Communications commented last week at the Maine Public Utilities Commission. However, the cable companies disagreed with various Maine Connectivity Authority (MCA) recommendations contained in a recent report. Versant Power, an electric utility that owns poles, said Maine needn’t make more regulatory or legislative changes.
With the California Public Utilities Commission planning a vote within days about regulating VoIP, AT&T and the cable industry urged that commissioners at least delay -- if not outright reject -- the controversial item. Industry groups representing voice technologies stressed in comments last week in docket R.22-08-008 that the CPUC lacks legal authority to regulate VoIP.
Communications companies said they’re responding to power outages and network damage in the wake of Hurricane Milton, which made landfall as a Category 3 hurricane Wednesday night. Emergency 911 systems appeared largely to withstand the onslaught, as they did with Hurricane Helene two weeks earlier (see 2409270058). AccuWeather said the total damage and economic loss from Milton will likely be between $160 billion and $180 billion, making it "one of the most damaging and impactful storms in Florida history."
Attorneys general from 13 states and the District of Columbia sued TikTok in 14 separate courts Tuesday. The 10 Democratic and four Republican AGs said TikTok violated state and D.C. consumer protection laws when it allegedly addicted young users and collected their data without consent. TikTok disputed the claims as “inaccurate and misleading.” Separately, more than 20 states asked that a court force TikTok to cooperate with their investigation.
Rules for implementation of Florida’s social media age-verification law state that a "commercial entity willfully disregards a person’s age if it, based on the facts or circumstance readily available to the respondent, should reasonably have been aroused to question whether the person was a child and thereafter failed to perform reasonable age verification.” The Florida attorney general’s office on Monday sent us rules that it adopted for implementing the state law (HB-3) taking effect Jan. 1. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed the law in March after lawmakers approved a revised proposal that includes parental consent after he vetoed a proposal banning kids younger than 16 from having social media accounts (see 2403080063). “Willful disregard of a person’s age constitutes a knowing or intentional violation” of Florida’s social media age-restriction law, the AG rules say. “The department will not find willful disregard of a person’s age has occurred if a commercial entity establishes it has utilized a reasonable age verification method with respect to all who access the social media platform and that reasonable age verification method determined that the person was not a child unless the social media platform later obtained actual knowledge that the person was a minor and failed to act.” The rules define a “commercially reasonable method of age verification” as “a method of verifying age that is regularly used by the government or businesses for the purpose of age and identity verification." Meanwhile, “reasonable parental verification” is defined as “any method that is reasonably calculated at determining that a person is a parent of a child that also verifies the age and identity of that parent by commercially reasonable means.” That might include asking the child for a parent’s name, address, phone number and email address, contacting that person and “confirming that the parent is the child’s parent by obtaining documents or information sufficient to evidence that relationship,” and “utilizing any commercially reasonable method regularly used by the government or business to verify that parent’s identity and age.” Under another rule, social media platforms must permanently delete all personal information related to an account within 14 business days of the account's termination.
The Arizona Corporation Commission should pull back regulations on Frontier Communications while eliminating Arizona Universal Service Fund (AUSF) subsidies for the wireline carrier, Frontier and commission staff argued at a livestreamed hearing Monday. Meanwhile in Connecticut, Frontier pushed back against a proposed $2.48 million fine for missing certain state service-quality metrics.
NTIA hopes it will wrap up approvals of states' and territories’ initial plans for the broadband, equity access and deployment (BEAD) program by month’s end, Administrator Alan Davidson said Friday. At a virtual press conference, Davidson joined White House and California officials in announcing approval of volume two of California’s initial plan. The action greenlights California access to its $1.8 billion BEAD allocation, NTIA said. Just five states still need volume-two approval, an NTIA dashboard showed Friday. They are: Alabama, Alaska, Florida, Ohio and Texas. Timing of the remaining approvals depends “a little bit on the remaining states that are out there,” said Davidson. “We’re really … at the endpoint now and this is all very much still exactly on track and on time.” Davidson praised California for showing a commitment to investing in resiliency in its BEAD plan. Also, he said California has done well to weave together various federal and state funds in its effort to connect everyone. Meanwhile, National Economic Council Deputy Director Jon Donenberg praised the California plan’s emphasis on affordability. California Public Utilities Commission President Alice Reynolds said the BEAD funding is “vital” for bridging the digital divide. “We will maximize these funds,” said Reynolds. "Projects will be deployed in a timely fashion."