New Orleans is mulling how it may legally deploy municipal fiber under competitive restrictions, said city Chief Information Officer Kimberly LaGrue Monday at NATOA’s virtual conference. State rules prevent cities from creating fiber broadband networks, LaGrue said: “We’re looking for legal opinions.” To ease potential ISP concerns, the city plans to make “some offers" for "partnerships that they could live with,” she said. “We don’t want to offer service to residents.” Municipal fiber is key to equitably distributing internet “as a utility to our residents,” said the CIO. The project recently got city council OK; the locality next will design fiber rings and seek bond funding, she said. Dublin, Ohio, has a fiber network for government, public safety and businesses, but the city isn’t selling to residents, said CIO Doug McCullough, although “eventually, we are going to have to become a service provider if we want to see broadband as a utility.” Boston Broadband and Cable Director Mike Lynch said broadband “should have been a utility back in 1996,” but “25 years later, we can’t put the cork back in the bottle.” That creates a “dilemma” for local governments seeking to address digital equity, he said. “I don’t think we can go back and make it a utility. On the other hand, we have to find the dollars to make it available.” Boston’s Wicked Free Wi-Fi uses the city’s network that’s “supposed to be for municipal use only,” so the municipality is careful to limit hot spots to parks, government buildings and business districts, Lynch said. “We do not try to make it available in home. We are not seeking to compete with broadband providers who gave us this fiber under the caveat that we would not compete with them.” NATOA plans to return its conference to Denver in 2022, this year’s original location before it went virtual due to COVID-19, Executive Director Tonya Rideout said. “What about 2021?” Rideout asked. “Well, the truth is we don’t know.” Depending on the pandemic and restoration of members’ travel and training budgets, next year’s conference could be virtual, in-person or a hybrid, she said.
California broadband legislation appeared stuck hours before Monday’s legislative deadline. Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D) won’t allow a vote despite agreement between the Senate and Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), said supporters of SB-1130 by Sen. Lena Gonzalez (D). “We are still trying to get something done on broadband before midnight,” George Soares, aide to Gonzalez, emailed us Monday. Failure would mean the internet speed standard under the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) stays 6/1 Mbps, and the dwindling fund won’t get more cash.
The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission sought to retain telecom authority while agreeing Thursday to propose changes to some state rules to reflect changing competition. “We can improve our regulatory construct while continuing to exercise our jurisdiction responsibly,” said Vice Chairman David Sweet before commissioners voted 4-0 for an amended NPRM at the PUC’s teleconferenced meeting. Later in Wyoming, CenturyLink said it’s complying with a 2019 agreement to get landline deregulation in rural areas of that state. California and Texas commissions also mulled telecom matters at Thursday meetings.
The Regulatory Commission of Alaska may close its telecom deregulation rulemaking at the agency's Sept. 23 meeting. At a teleconferenced Wednesday meeting, RCA Chairman Robert Pickett supported Common Carrier Specialist David Parrish’s suggestion to vote at the agency’s second September meeting since it will come after the agency’s yearly review of eligible telecom carrier filings. Before RCA can resolve docket R-19-002, commissioners must agree what general powers they retain after 2019 deregulation law SB-83, or seek clarification from the legislature, Parrish said. Commissioners have been weighing that question for months (see 2006100048), and Commissioner Daniel Sullivan said Wednesday that sorting out how far the legislature intended to go remains challenging. Clarifying legislation may be needed, he said.
Local governments are considering next steps in response to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision two weeks ago mostly upholding the FCC’s 2018 wireless infrastructure orders on small cells and local moratoriums. The court rejected local government claims that the FCC inappropriately preempted their authority in the federal agency’s effort to streamline 5G deployment, and upheld the agency’s one-touch, make-ready order (see 2008120048).
California cable and wireline providers resisted statewide backup power rules sought by consumer and county groups. Installing "ubiquitous wireline backup power would be extraordinarily burdensome, result in little resiliency benefit, and cause extensive congestion, noise, and air quality impacts in local communities,” AT&T said in Friday reply comments in docket R.18-03-011. The California Public Utilities Commission should take a more targeted approach to wireline resiliency than it did for wireless, "one that focuses on the most critical customers and the California residents most in need of a wireline option, given the nearly ubiquitous availability of wireless service,” the carrier said. “The power needs of wireline networks are more widely distributed than wireless networks, and the benefits of backup power in wireline networks are severely limited by the lack of backup power at the customers’ premises.” The California Cable and Telecommunications Association urged support for its plan to provide 72 hours of backup power to wireline facilities in tier 2 and 3 high fire-threat districts (HFTDs). Reject consumer and county groups' “sweeping, infeasible, and counterproductive” proposal to extend the requirement statewide and to residential customers, CCTA urged. Few customers have backup power sources for their home wireline equipment, and "it would take massive, cost-prohibitive reengineering to maintain power throughout their cable networks for 72 hours, create unacceptable risks, and cause unacceptable harms to surrounding areas and communities,” the cable group said. Most Californians use wireless services in emergencies, but the CPUC required wireless providers to provide backup power only in tiers 1 and 2, CCTA added. The CPUC can’t expect no outages during disasters, CalTel and other rural LECs said. “Some level of network impairment is inevitable, especially in networks that serve rugged, remote terrain.” Rules requiring large spending “will either take away from other priorities -- such as deployment of broadband-capable facilities or customer service -- or it will risk creating an unfunded mandate whose costs cannot be reasonably or efficiently recovered through the rate case process,” the RLECs said. The California State Association of Counties reminded the CPUC not to forget “numerous communities within California that do not have sufficient wireless coverage and ... are limited in how they receive emergency messages.” The CPUC’s Public Advocates Office proposed “a phased approach by which wireline service providers are first required to provide backup power in Tier 2 and Tier 3 HFTDs within six months of the adoption of the decision or by May 2021, whichever is sooner.” Providers would have to cover outside areas within a year, the office said. Carriers are challenging the CPUC’s July wireless resiliency rules as wildfires spread across the state (see 2008200038).
The Chapter 11 reorganization plan by Frontier Communications satisfies the bankruptcy code’s best interest test and other statutory requirements, said U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York Judge Robert Drain at a teleconferenced virtual hearing Friday. Frontier filed a fifth amended joint plan of reorganization for approval earlier in the day. The Communications Workers of America urged the FCC Thursday to take more time to carefully review the transaction.
The New York Public Service Commission will hold Altice to a “higher standard” on disaster resiliency, after problems in the cable company’s response to Tropical Storm Isaias, Chairman John Rhodes said Thursday at a Senate-Assembly joint hearing on utility and communications failures. In California, where wildfires are blazing, the wireless industry sought rehearing Wednesday of a California Public Utilities Commission order requiring 72-hour backup power in certain high-threat fire areas (see 2007160065).
A 100 Mbps symmetrical speed goal will be added to a California bill that would allow 25 Mbps downloads and 3 Mbps uploads in proposed California Advanced Services Fund projects, Assemblymember Cecilia Aguiar-Curry (D) said in a statement Tuesday. The change to AB-570 follows Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) seeking 100 Mbps download speed targets through executive order (see 2008180045). Aguiar-Curry expects to move the measure out of the Senate Appropriations Committee this week, she said. A rival bill, SB-1130 by Sen. Lena Gonzalez (D), is also expected to get a vote this week in the Assembly Appropriations Committee. Newsom’s order “reads like an implementation statement for AB 570 and is a great signal for the prospects for my bill,” said Aguiar-Curry. The lawmaker hopes the EO will be "a catalyst for continued cooperation between the Administration, Senator Gonzalez and myself so we can be successful in closing the digital divide with technology that will meet the future demands of all Californians, in small towns and big cities,” she said.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and state legislators expect to talk broadband, after the governor set a goal of 100 Mbps download speeds through executive order Friday, said the governor’s office and an aide to Sen. Lena Gonzalez (D) this week. Legislators are weighing two bills to raise the state standard from 6 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload for the California Advanced Services Fund. The executive order put legislative negotiations in flux, said Electronic Frontier Foundation Senior Legislative Counsel Ernesto Falcon.