Lumen and AT&T officials cited concerns about draft pole attachment rules being considered at the Florida Public Service Commission. The PSC is to start regulating attachments next year due to a law enacted this summer (see 2109010053). Written comments are due Nov. 15 on draft rules for pole inspections, repair and replacement, vegetation management and monetary penalties, PSC Senior Attorney Adria Harper said at a livestreamed hearing Wednesday. Staff tried to minimally hit each point of the statute, she said. The agency should revise vegetation management rules that would kick costs from electric to telecom companies, said Lumen Director-Government Affairs Christie Mason. Overgrown plants are a bigger concern for electric companies because contact with power lines could cause a fire; it affects telecom companies only because they share the poles, she said. Lumen will contribute to management costs, but requiring telecoms to pay in full would be an unlawful “regulatory taking,” she said. Lumen seeks flexibility for companies’ pole inspection intervals, said Mason, noting the telco reviews about 2.2 million U.S. poles every 10 years, with about 10% in each jurisdiction inspected annually. AT&T Senior Counsel Tracy Hatch agreed with Lumen concerns on vegetation management, saying the PSC proposal raises technical and logistical issues. Hatch doesn’t see how it helps the commission to require companies to report on how companies trim plants or on how many poles they relocate, he said. PSC Engineering Director Tom Ballinger said the agency isn’t making standards, and information can be useful.
A federal court date for argument on the Texas social media law could change, plaintiff NetChoice's General Counsel Carl Szabo told us Wednesday. U.S. District Court in Austin on Tuesday scheduled for Dec. 10 at 9 a.m. CST argument on NetChoice and the Computer and Communications Industry Association’s preliminary injunction request (case 1:21-cv-00840-RP). The law is to take effect on Dec. 2 (see 2110220064). “With the court’s schedule still in flux, we expect the hearing will be moved up,” Szabo emailed.
California agencies are advancing on broadband action items from the state’s multibillion-dollar effort to increase access, the California Broadband Council was told its final 2021 virtual meeting. The council is seeking to do more to sign up consumers for the emergency broadband benefit (EBB), said Chair Amy Tong. Much work must be done to implement recent $6 billion broadband funding and California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) revamp laws, said California Public Utilities Commission Assistant General Counsel Helen Mickiewicz on an FCBA webinar later Wednesday.
Congress didn’t intend for VoIP customers to pay more for 911 than landline users, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday. The court denied Autauga County and other Alabama 911 districts’ challenge to an FCC order restricting state, local and tribal governments in Alabama from charging higher 911 calling fees for VoIP than traditional telecom services (see 1910250063). The 911 districts argued Congress’ 911 fee parity rule allowed them to charge VoIP and non-VoIP providers using a different unit of measure for each if they applied the same base fee for each unit. “We independently arrive at the same conclusion as the FCC,” wrote Judge Robin Rosenbaum (in Pacer). “We base our determination on congressional intent as expressed in the statutory text, structure, and purpose of the NET 911 Act.” Congress’ 911 fee parity rule “precludes any unit of measurement that results in higher total fees for VoIP subscribers than for non-VoIP subscribers with the same outbound concurrent call capacity,” said Rosenbaum: The point “is to ensure that VoIP and non-VoIP subscribers financially support 911 facilities to the same extent that they burden the hotline service.” The Alabama group’s reading “would create a financial disincentive to potential VoIP providers and subscribers alike to invest in VoIP services,” contrary to Congress’ desire to encourage a rapid VoIP transition, she said. Judges Robert Luck and Lanier Anderson joined the opinion. The Alabama districts, FCC and intervenors USTelecom, NCTA and AT&T didn’t comment by our deadline.
Ohio should pass a bill to fund and construct a next-generation 911 network by extending a wireless-only 911 fee to other voice services, said Republican and Democratic state representatives at a livestreamed Tuesday hearing. The bill would ensure "reliable, accurate, equitable, and state-of-the-art access to emergency services regardless of location,” HB-445 sponsor Rep. Rick Carfagna (R) told the Transportation and Public Safety Committee. Committee members who asked questions mostly supported the effort, though some asked about costs.
Virginia could bet on low-orbit satellites for rural broadband if Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin wins in election. Also on Nov. 2, more Colorado residents are to vote on supporting localities’ right to pursue public broadband. In local mayor races, Boston Councilor Michelle Wu (D) is making a digital equity plan a key part of her campaign.
Massachusetts legislators who want to promote rural broadband should crack down on “exorbitant” make-ready rates charged by pole owners in unserved areas, said state Rep. John Barrett (D) at a Joint Telecommunications Committee virtual hearing Friday. Barrett proposed H-3256 to exempt municipalities from paying make-ready fees to use poles for providing broadband to unserved areas. He sees a “lack of oversight” on poles and thinks locally owned broadband could bring “effective competition” to areas that now have one cable company selling high-speed service at high prices, Barrett said: Maine enacted a law like H-3256 and hasn’t been sued yet.
T-Mobile will delay shutting down CDMA by three months until March 31, the carrier said Friday. To build out the carrier's 5G network, "we need to sunset outdated CDMA technologies as soon as possible so every consumer, no matter their circumstances, will have access to the best connectivity and best experience," it said. "This is why we have aggressively executed on plans to take care of transitioning our impacted Sprint CDMA customers by the end of this year and provided our partners plenty of time and resources to take care of their customers as well. Recently it’s become increasingly clear that some of those partners haven’t followed through on their responsibility to help their customers through this shift. So, we’re stepping up on their behalf.” The postponement won’t have “material financial impact” to T-Mobile’s business, it said. T-Mobile and Dish Network are feuding over the 3G sunset in California and at the FCC (see 2110150012 and 2105060024). DOJ raised red flags in August (see 2105060024). DOJ declined to comment now. Dish, which got Boost prepaid wireless customers as part of a divestiture when T-Mobile bought Sprint, didn't comment by our deadline. Neither did the FCC or California Public Utilities Commission.
All California Public Utilities Commissioners OK'd post-disaster community engagement and reporting requirements for investor-owned utilities (IOUs) and facilities-based telecom providers. Commissioners supported a consent agenda including a somewhat revised proposal and a separate item adding pole attachment data fields at Thursday's virtual meeting. One edit to the disaster item in the broadband-for-all docket (R.20-09-011) clarified that a first informational advice letter would be due in 15 business -- not calendar -- days, a change sought by CTIA. The CPUC added the phrase “at this time” to a sentence saying it's not requiring IOUs to install fiber during service restoration. The order means “more timely restoral and better restoral” after outages, said Commissioner Martha Guzman Aceves. It responds to locality complaints about insufficient communication, she said. Telcos ask what disaster recovery rules have to do with the broadband-for-all proceeding (see 2110070046).
Telcos’ Texas USF lawsuit against the Public Utility Commission “is precisely the type of suit that sovereign immunity is designed to prevent,” said the PUC and the Texas attorney general office in a Thursday brief at the Texas Appeals Court for the 3rd Judicial District in Austin. Appellants seek to control how the PUC exercises discretionary authority from the legislature, effectively asking the court “to compel the PUC to nearly double the assessment rate imposed on Texans to fund the TUSF,” they said in a brief provided by plaintiff Texas Statewide Telephone Cooperative. The state appellees asked the court to affirm a lower court’s ruling to dismiss the rural LECs' complaint about the PUC not fully funding state USF (see 2106210048). TSTCI is reviewing the brief, CEO Weldon Gray said Thursday.