With state broadband support dwindling, the California Public Utilities Commission voted unanimously Thursday to double surcharges for the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) and High Cost Fund-A (CHCF-A). The orders highlight structural problems with how the funds collect revenue, said Commissioner Martha Guzman Aceves at the livestreamed virtual meeting.
Texas state legislators, small telcos and rural educators sounded the alarm about the possibility of the Texas USF (TUSF) becoming insolvent by year-end. The Public Utility Commission over the summer declined to double the surcharge on consumer phone bills, with Chair DeAnn Walker instead asking legislators to stabilize the fund when it reconvenes in January (see 2008110047). With TUSF expected to become insolvent in about 60 days, "some of our companies are in a full-on panic,” said Texas Telephone Association (TTA) Executive Director Mark Seale in an interview. State Rep. Brooks Landgraf (R) told us Friday he sees opportunity to revamp TUSF to support broadband.
Google Fiber is “ready to come back out of the shadows” and expand into more mid-sized cities, Public Policy Head John Burchett said Wednesday. On a Fiber Broadband Association webinar, Burchett acknowledged the once-hyped ISP slowed down in 2016. “We got out ahead of our skis and were building in ways that ended up not being the most profitable,” he said. It paused new construction and spent the past few years “figuring out how to retool our business,” he said. Earlier this year, it began increasing construction in existing markets, while exploring new business models with municipalities in which Google won’t handle everything as it did before, he said. In a project announced in July with West Des Moines, Iowa, the city is building conduit to people’s homes and Google Fiber will be among the provider options, Burchett said. “We’re talking to a bunch of other cities,” with talks furthest along in places that had already been thinking about how to expand broadband, have money for bonding and have municipally owned utilities, he said. Google seeks to “catalyze a movement” of “third network providers,” said Burchett. “What we’d like to do is show it’s financially viable and you can be successful coming in as the competitor.” The strategy isn’t only about getting internet to places that don’t have it “but also having competition so that the existing carriers and the new carriers are always incentivized to increase their speeds.” State limits on municipal broadband remain a barrier, the representative said. “All the restrictions on municipalities and on utilities for providing broadband themselves drives me nuts.” The ISP has talked to several cities that want to collaborate, “but the state laws ... prohibit muni broadband or put ridiculous restrictions on them” that make “a really close-call economic project infeasible.” National focus on funding unserved and underserved areas makes it “really hard for anybody but the incumbents to do meaningful expansions using federal resources," he added.
The California Public Utilities Commission should write a broadband plan, said the agency’s independent Public Advocates Office (PAO) in comments posted Tuesday in docket R.20-09-001. The agency opened the rulemaking last month to get more involved in broadband despite jurisdictional questions (see 2009180038). The CPUC should assess whether current state subsidy funds will be enough and consider contribution revisions, PAO said. Small LECs warned not to take an overly generous view of jurisdiction. Charter Communications urged the CPUC to focus on removing regulatory barriers, including those on permitting and pole access. If the CPUC is considering utility-style broadband regulation, it “risks exceeding its jurisdiction and interfering with federal law,” the company warned. Crown Castle said “the quickest and most cost-effective reform” would be to require local and state authorities to approve broadband permits within 90 days, with a deemed granted remedy if the shot clock runs out. California’s previous governor vetoed a bill to streamline small-cells deployment by preempting localities in the right of way.
Auditing Washington, D.C.’s 911 center will uncover any systemic dispatching issues, and more regular reviews could go a long way toward preventing future problems, said experts in interviews. While it's concerning to read reports of the D.C. Office of Unified Communications sending responders to wrong addresses, closer review is needed, and some possible causes, including training and retention, are national problems, they said.
Revised low-income subsidy amounts and standards adopted unanimously by the California Public Utilities Commission will increase free and low-cost mobile broadband for state LifeLine participants, the CPUC said Thursday. The proposal in docket R.20-02-008 adds options for higher mobile data buckets and subsidies for VoIP bundled with fixed broadband. The commission estimated the decision will reduce LifeLine costs by up to $9.2 million yearly by cutting subsidies for wireline measured rate plans. The order requires providers to change to flat rate plans. President Marybel Batjer urged the state’s five largest broadband companies to participate “so all low-income Californians have improved -- if not free -- affordable, high speed connections.” The decision “brings broadband service for the first time into our LifeLine proceeding as the COVID-19 pandemic has emphasized the importance of broadband access for all Californians,” said Commissioner Genevieve Shiroma. Carriers resisted CPUC changes as the FCC mulls federal Lifeline minimum increases (see 2009250043).
Reported 911 dispatching issues in Washington alarmed Republican House Commerce Committee ranking members. Greg Walden of Oregon from the full panel, Communications Subcommittee's Robert Latta of Ohio and Environment Subcommittee's John Shimkus of Illinois asked District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) Thursday for a briefing “to better understand the failure of the ... emergency dispatch system, including whether the 9-1-1 system played a role,” the members wrote Thursday. Not everyone welcomed what they consider politicization.
Frontier Communications’ bankruptcy reorganization must not be “status quo for customers” but instead become “the moment when they started getting the service they deserved and are paying for,” California Public Utilities Commissioner Martha Guzman Aceves said Wednesday at a livestreamed virtual workshop. The telco’s CPUC application in docket A.20-05-010 “can only be approved if the commission can ensure -- not just aspire to or hope for, but ensures -- that a reorganized Frontier provides the best service to everyone in its service territories,” she said. California law requires the commission to determine if the deal will maintain or improve service quality, but Guzman Aceves is “disappointed that Frontier seems to be focusing on maintenance rather than improvement,” she said. “I’m deeply concerned that Frontier intends to prioritize fiber investments ... in those parts of its service territory that are already highly profitable” and not in more expensive areas. “If that happens, the digital divide will get wider.” Frontier is the only provider in large portions of rural, low-income areas and had service-quality problems, Guzman Aceves said. Since 2014, Frontier met the state’s metric to repair 90% of outages within 24 hours in only a few months, she said: “I am very concerned that Frontier is not providing high-quality, reliable and reasonably priced service to many of its customers, and that many of those customers have no other options.” Frontier Senior Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Allison Ellis agreed the 24-hour metric is a challenge but noted the company followed rules to invest twice the amount of applicable fines for failing to meet that standard and is on track to spend $6.8 million once the CPUC approves its proposed resolution to 2019 failures. Frontier General Counsel Kevin Saville reminded the commission that restructuring lets Frontier “remain viable and continue to operate communications services as an alternative option to California consumers,” as well as help the company better respond to “unanticipated economic events such as COVID-19.” Denial or delay will reduce competition and hurt the public interest, he said. The CPUC shouldn’t treat Frontier’s application like other transaction reviews, where regulators can weigh the existing entity against the proposed new company, said the carrier’s outside attorney Patrick Rosvall of Cooper White. “In this situation, Frontier has an opportunity to shed a level of debt that would be crippling going forward.” Frontier earlier got OK from U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, plus several states. Reorg remains under review by others and federally (see 2009210055).
A possible switch from an elected to governor-appointed New Mexico Public Regulation Commission is dividing current and possibly future members. New Mexicans will vote Nov. 3 on that issue and on who will fill two commissioner seats at least until 2023, when the change would take effect. Nine other states also have utility regulator elections this year, with several candidates talking broadband.
The FCC blocking state 911 fee diverters from 4.9 GHz spectrum is “just another example of Washington using the levers of government to punish New York,” one of five states implicated by a major addition to the agency's initial draft order (see 2010050038), a New York State Budget Division spokesperson emailed Monday. “This valuable spectrum is currently in use by public safety entities in New York State.” New York uses 911 fee revenue “to upgrade public safety communication systems and support emergency services operations, statewide, including through the provision of interoperable communications grants,” the spokesperson said. “These programs are providing critical funding to help first responders at all levels of government communicate faster and respond sooner.” By diverting 40% of 911 fee revenue to the general fund, New York "is perpetrating fraud ... and compromising public safety," an FCC spokesperson emailed Tuesday. "This is unacceptable, and it needs to stop."