New York state will give broadband grants to municipalities as part of a $1 billion initiative announced Wednesday by Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) in a State of the State address. The “ConnectALL” effort will empower local municipalities and state agencies to set up nation-leading broadband infrastructure statewide,” Hochul said in a news release. A new broadband office will direct three grant programs, including one that will provide funding to municipalities, nonprofits and others to build open public broadband infrastructure, the governor’s office said. A second program will provide matching grants, plus federal infrastructure dollars, to support last-mile and middle-mile broadband in rural areas; a third will provide competitive grants for connectivity pilot programs, it said. The New York Department of Public Service will develop a broadband map and lead a marketing effort to increase participation in the $30 monthly federal broadband subsidy program, and other state agencies will seek to retrofit affordable housing projects with broadband, Hochul’s office said. The state will develop a digital equity plan and grant program, with a director to be appointed to spearhead those efforts, it said. The state plans regulatory changes including eliminating state use and occupancy fees, streamlining the make-ready process and standardizing right-of-way access for wireless and fiber deployments, the office said. Also, a planned pilot will use existing state fiber to support middle mile, it said. "It is extremely exciting to see New York specifically encourage publicly owned open broadband infrastructure," emailed Christopher Mitchell, Institute for Local Self-Reliance director-community broadband networks. "The communities that need these funds have often waited the longest for high-quality Internet access and they may soon have some of the best access at the lowest prices in the state." New York Public Utility Law Project is "heartened" by Hochul's broadband focus, especially with COVID-19 "imperiling in-person schooling and threatening potential closures again," emailed Executive Director Richard Berkley: The state has more than a million homes without fast internet "and many more households with substandard and expensive broadband." CTIA Senior Vice President-State Affairs Jamie Hastings said Hochul's announcement "recognizes the important role of wireless in helping to close the digital divide."
Ex-NARUC President Paul Kjellander will retire Dec. 31 from the Idaho Public Utilities Commission, he told us Tuesday. After nearly 20 years with the PUC, he will pursue independent contract work, initially in energy, though he isn’t ruling out telecom work, he said. The commissioner had one year left in his term. He will depart NARUC’s board and executive committee but still plans to attend NARUC meetings including Feb. 13-16 in Washington, D.C., he said. Gov. Brad Little (R) would need to appoint a replacement in the new year, the commissioner said. State commissioners’ telecom role “has evolved significantly since I started as a regulator,” the former NARUC Telecom Committee chair said. “I actually am one of the few regulators left -- at least for another week -- who understands the old legacy form of regulation.” Kjellander said he now sees a big “nexus” among the telecom, energy and water sectors, and a “huge opportunity” coming up to use federal infrastructure funding for broadband and advanced communications.
Subscription-based companies should watch a growing field of state automatic renewal laws, said business lawyers in interviews this month. Colorado and Delaware laws take effect Jan. 1, joining states including California and New York. With a recent explosion of streaming and other online subscription services, consumer groups support rules and enforcement for more transparency on renewal policies.
LTD Broadband CEO Corey Hauer condemned the California Public Utilities Commission for allegedly “trying to prevent broadband” and “railroad” it out of the state. On a Broadband.money webinar Friday, Hauer said he was “super disappointed” the CPUC voted 5-0 Thursday to deny LTD the application approval it needed to get about $187.5 million in Rural Digital Opportunities Fund (RDOF) support over 10 years (see 2112160064). Hauer also slammed the agency for granting California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) subsidies Thursday in areas that partially overlap with RDOF awards. Every RDOF winner has experienced an “intentional 18-month delay” to get eligible telecom certification in California, so it’s “ironic” that the CPUC dismissed their opposition to the CASF grants due to the RDOF winners not yet having ETC certificates, said Hauer. The CPUC unanimously granted both the denial and contested CASF grants in one vote clearing its consent agenda, leading Hauer “to believe they didn't read a lot of the things that they voted on.” California is “the only state in the country that … isn’t running a serious attempt to get RDOF funding going,” he said. The commission didn’t comment Friday. Hauer dismissed “chatter around how expensive it is to put in fiber.” Compared to urban areas, rural areas have a “different cost structure” and “cadence of construction” because there are no water, sewer or buried electric lines, he said: “The beauty of the rural areas is our lower cost structure sort of makes up for the lack of density.”
California Public Utilities Commissioners voted 5-0 to deny LTD Broadband the application approval it needed to get about $187.5 million in Rural Digital Opportunities Fund (RDOF) support over 10 years. At a virtual meeting Thursday, commissioners also by unanimous consent cleared multiple California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) grants that LTD and others said partially overlapped areas where they won RDOF support (see 2112140019, 2112090011 and 2112080046). The CPUC got more comments Wednesday on a plan to shift to connections-based state USF contributions.
Judges grilled a Public Utility Commission attorney on why the PUC thought it could stop fully funding Texas USF (TUSF). At a livestreamed hearing Wednesday, the 3rd Texas District Court of Appeals in Austin heard an appeal by the Texas Telephone Association (TTA), Texas Statewide Telephone Cooperative, Inc. (TSTCI), Lumen and Windstream (case 03-21-00294-CV). The rural telcos are challenging the Travis County District Court in Austin dismissing their lawsuit against the PUC for not raising the TUSF surcharge on consumer bills to fully fund USF (see 2107130041). Gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke (D) supported the lawsuit Tuesday.
California Public Utilities Commissioners should reject overlap concerns raised by some Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) winners about proposed California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) grants up for vote Thursday (see 2112080046), said staff in revised draft resolutions posted Monday. “Claims by Etheric and GeoLinks that awarding CASF funding in Resolution T-17749 is contrary to the law and public interest that govern the CASF program do not have merit and should not be considered,” said a revised draft about a proposed $18.8 million grant for Frontier Communications. “While some portions … overlap with RDOF-eligible areas, the commenting parties have not received ETC designation in these areas. Therefore, staff will not remove these RDOF-eligible areas from the projects.” Staff wrote similarly about the same companies’ opposition to a $17.5 million proposed grant to Frontier (T-17754) and $18 million and $5.5 million proposed grants to Plumas-Sierra Telecommunications (T-17750, T-17752). Staff similarly rejected Etheric, GeoLinks, Wavelength Internet and LTD Broadband’s opposition to an $18.3 million proposed grant for Race Telecommunications (T-17751). LTD and Wavelength declined comment Tuesday; other grant opponents didn’t comment. Staff revised another draft resolution (T-17756) for Thursday’s meeting related to staff power to rescind CASF grants (see 2111120030). The changes responded to due process concerns raised by the California Cable and Telecommunications Association. CCTA didn’t comment.
The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission cleared Apollo to buy Lumen’s northwest Wisconsin ILEC assets Tuesday. The Wisconsin ILEC partly operates in Minnesota. The PUC consent calendar subcommittee issued the decision, which becomes a full commission order unless a party, participant or commissioner objects within ten days. The Georgia Public Service Commission cleared the transaction Nov. 9. Lumen still needs OK from the FCC and six states: Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia, said the carrier’s spokesperson. Illinois Commerce Commission staff recommended Tuesday in docket 21-0710 that the agency decide Apollo/Lumen likely won’t diminish the company’s ability to provide adequate, reliable, efficient, safe and affordable service, won’t hurt competition and won’t increase rates to retail customers.
Companies seeking to attach communications facilities to Connecticut utility poles urged the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority to adopt a fast dispute resolution process. In other comments posted Monday, pole owners asked PURA to protect their due process rights and encourage settlements.
The Tax Injunction Act (TIA) doesn’t bar businesses’ challenge of Maryland’s digital ad tax, said the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in a Monday brief at U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland. A “principally punitive” assessment is a penalty, not a tax, said plaintiffs in case 1:21-cv-410-LKG. “Countless individual refund suits spanning many years -- all pending while the Act’s highly burdensome penalty is being exacted -- would not be an ‘efficient’ state-court alternative to a single, pre-enforcement federal-court challenge, within the meaning of the TIA.” Plaintiffs “are waiting for a decision and have no expected timeline,” emailed their attorney Stephen Kranz of McDermott Will. The court hasn’t scheduled oral argument. In state litigation against the same law, Comcast and Verizon last week opposed the Maryland comptroller’s motion to dismiss case C-02-cv-21-000509 at the Maryland Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County. The comptroller argued plaintiffs must first exhaust administrative remedies by waiting to be assessed the tax and challenging it in state tax court or paying the tax and filing a refund claim with the comptroller, but plaintiffs can’t do either until 2023, the telecom companies said. “There is a long history of this State’s courts hearing and deciding constitutional challenges to newly enacted statutes where plaintiffs claim that the statute was beyond the power or authority of the legislature to adopt.”