The path to closing T-Mobile/Sprint eased Wednesday as a California Public Utilities Commission judge proposed conditional OK. Hours earlier, the state's Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D) agreed states wouldn't appeal clearance by U.S. District Court for Southern District of New York. CPUC Administrative Law Judge Karl Bemesderfer’s proposed decision tees up a vote at commissioners' April 16 meeting.
The California Public Utilities Commission would conditionally allow T-Mobile to buy Sprint, under a proposed decision issued Wednesday by Administrative Law Judge Karl Bemesderfer. The PD tees up a commission vote at CPUC’s April 16 meeting.
As disagreement continues on enforcement and other sticky issues, Washington state’s privacy and facial recognition bills appeared to be headed to House-Senate conference Monday, with three days to work out differences. The privacy bill's fate is uncertain but odds for agreement might be better than last year, said some observers. The legislative session concludes Thursday at 11:59 p.m.
The Washington House voted 63-33 Friday on a bipartisan basis for a facial recognition bill (SB-6280). Members amended the bill to add language on private use of facial recognition that had been in the state’s comprehensive privacy bill (SB-6281). Lawmakers decided in recent days to remove the controversial section from the main privacy bill and move it to the other bill, Rep. Norma Smith (R) told us on the phone from the House floor Friday. Smith, who voted aye, praised the amendment by Rep. Debra Entenman (D), which included a private right of action and made other changes. "I originally wanted a ban" on facial recognition after learning about racial bias and other issues, Entenman said on the floor. "This technology does not see me as a brown-skinned person and as a woman." She urged supporting the bill with her amendment to add "moral guardrails." SB-6280 next goes to a House-Senate conference. Friday was the last day for floor votes, but as of 6 p.m. EST, the House hadn't voted on SB-6281 or its more than 25 amendments. The bill coming to the floor allows individuals to bring lawsuits under the state’s Consumer Protect Action, Smith said. Debate over enforcement and facial recognition divided Washington state lawmakers (see 2002280070).
State Democrats are pressing forward with net neutrality revivals with hope that last year’s Mozilla decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit alleviated lawmaker concerns that killed bills in previous sessions. The D.C. Circuit cleared a “path to be able to set our own net neutrality rules,” said Connecticut Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff (D). He and other legislators and stakeholders spoke in recent interviews.
AT&T is putting “real money” into backup power systems in California, after last year’s public safety power shutoffs, Assistant Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Fassil Fenikile told California Public Utilities Commissioners at an en banc hearing. Cost is the biggest barrier to carriers adopting longer-life backup power at cellsites, said witnesses. AT&T has “taken a very high note of what happened in October” and will brief commissioners soon on its actions responding to the outages caused by power shutoffs, said Fenikile: “There is a lot of work underway.” The carrier is using portable, diesel-based generators with a focus on high-fire-risk areas, he said. All AT&T towers have battery backup system of up to eight hours, enough time to bring portable generators to sites without fixed generators, he said. There are “some scalability challenges” to deploying renewable backup systems, and space can be a limitation, he said. Without requirements or incentives, telecom operators make decisions about buying fuel cells based on what has the least immediate capital cost, said Darin Painter, Plug Power director-sales. Customers don’t consider long-term costs, he said. “The operators are looking for the initial investment, and they don't want to go beyond that,” agreed Ray Schnell, NantEnergy vice president-global business development. “Realistically, if you want 72 hours of storage like California's starting to think about, you really need a low-cost energy storage.” Adding value to backup power would help the business case, said SolarVision Consulting CEO Andrew Skumanich. "If you're going to be asking the telecom companies to be putting in assets that are essentially insurance for when the power drops, you're asking them to put out a capital outlay for assets that may be used 1% of the time, if that." The challenge is getting enough data and machine learning so a system knows when to switch energy sources, said Skumanich. There is such optimization software, said Schneider Electric Microgrid Competency Center Program Director John Ahrens. Earlier Wednesday, CPUC members heard about broadband adoption (see 2003040048).
Communications Workers of America opposes pre-emptive 5G language in New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s (D) proposed state budget as “another push for deregulation” by telecom companies seeking to avoid accountability, CWA District 1 Assistant to the Vice President Bob Master said Tuesday at a livestreamed presentation to state legislators in Albany. Co-hosts Sen. Rachel May (D) and Assemblymember Sean Ryan (D) raised concerns about the 5G section in A-9508 and S-7508 that tries to streamline wireless infrastructure deployment by pre-empting local government in the right of way (see 2002140037). Stripping local authority is “bad news,” said Ryan. Democratic assembly members in attendance included Internet Subcommittee Chairman Clyde Vanel, Marianne Buttenschon and Nily Rozic. Don't pre-empt local authority, said Master, who suggested legislators question claims that 5G will bring broadband to rural areas. The union wrote Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D) Feb. 19 to urge her to oppose the 5G language.
California Public Utilities Commission members pondered their power to increase broadband adoption, at an en banc livestreamed Wednesday from San Francisco. The CPUC should take an active role, including by funding open networks and issuing more aggressive speed guidelines, said Preston Rhea, engineering director of local ISP Monkeybrains. AT&T and Comcast officials described an informational role for the agency to spur adoption as they promoted their own low-costs programs. Commissioner Martha Guzman Aceves cited flaws in programs like AT&T Access and Comcast Internet Essentials.
An Oregon bill to expand state USF to broadband and extend fees to VoIP and cellphones cleared the Joint Committee on Ways and Means at a webcast Friday meeting. HB-4079 reduces the fee to 6% from 8.5% and would take effect Jan. 1. Oregon had missed out on millions of dollars in broadband support because the state couldn’t put up matching funds, said sponsor Sen. Arnie Roblan (D). Cellphone bills could increase 40 to 60 cents, noted Sen. Lee Beyer (D). Sen. Rob Wagner (D) said he was opposed last year but would vote yes despite lingering “heartburn.” Wagner, whose district includes part of Portland, thinks it’s “a little bit problematic and maybe even perverse that we're talking about an urban-rural divide in this state when the folks that are utilizing cellphones in my Senate district are not people who would be benefiting from this last mile or rural broadband expansion.” No Republicans attended the meeting due to their walkout over a climate-change bill.
New Jersey regulators continue looking at potentially statewide service problems with Verizon and other ILEC networks, said Board of Public Utilities officials in interviews. Asserting state power to protect consumers, the board is fighting lawsuits by cable operator Altice on a prorating rule. The Rate Counsel Division supports public hearings about telecom problems but worries the agency won’t aggressively respond, Director Stefanie Brand told us.