The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission was expected to soon file objections in the U.S. District Court in Minnesota on its dispute with Charter Communications about state authority over interconnected VoIP services. “We anticipate that the Commission will timely file objections to the Magistrate’s Report,” a Minnesota PUC spokesman emailed Thursday. The PUC had to file objections within 14 days of an April 21 magistrate judge recommendation to deny the commission’s motion to dismiss the Charter complaint (see 1604210054). Charter’s complaint alleged the Minnesota PUC overstepped its authority by imposing state regulations for traditional phone services on VoIP services. The case began in March 2013, when Charter transferred overnight 100,000 Minnesota customers to an affiliate, Charter Advanced Services, which provided VoIP phone service that wasn't certified by the PUC (see 1508210040). In its motion to dismiss, the Minnesota PUC asked the court to determine that Charter Advanced’s VoIP service is a telecom service under the Telecom Act and therefore subject to state regulation.
Missouri House and Senate legislators entered conference Thursday on a traffic citations bill that could include restrictions on municipal broadband. On Monday, the Missouri House grafted text of a bill restricting municipal broadband deployment (HB-2078) onto the unrelated Senate bill (SB-765). The Republican sponsor of HB-2078, state Rep. Lyndall Fraker, put forward the muni measure as an amendment to SB-765, which had come up for a vote in the House after passage in the Senate. The House passed the amendment Monday 106-36, but on Tuesday the Senate refused to concur with the amended legislation, forcing the two legislative bodies to move to conference. The amendment would prohibit local governments from providing a communications service that competes with one or more service providers in the jurisdiction. The measure includes exemptions for local governments that already offer muni broadband; areas where competitive service isn’t offered to 50 percent of addresses by “any combination of service providers”; muni plans where the fiscal impact of providing the service is less than $1 million over the first five years; and areas where a business requests 1 Gbps service and no other service providers can supply it. The local government could also offer muni broadband if a majority of voters approve the plan, but the municipality would first have to release a cost-benefit analysis. Fraker expects the legislative conference to wrap up by Monday, he told us in a Facebook message. “I don't think citizens should have to subsidize the expansion of broadband through raising water, sewer or electric rates [especially] if private companies are already providing this service. But if the citizens would have a chance to vote on this then that's OK.” But Christopher Mitchell, Institute for Local Self-Reliance director-community broadband networks, condemned Fraker’s proposed law. “Representative Fraker is using political tricks to push his anti-competition laws through the Missouri legislature,” he said in a statement. “Missouri people and businesses deserve to have a choice in Internet providers.” In an email, Mitchell added, “I continue to find it unfathomable that in 2016, states would discuss how to limit investment in next-generation networks rather than encouraging it. Communities should have the authority to make these decisions themselves without a state effectively granting monopolies to companies like AT&T that cut big checks to the political party in power.” AT&T didn’t comment.
Three state regulators reported an uptick in Verizon customer complaints as the union strike entered its fourth week. Police arrested 15 union strikers outside Verizon’s annual shareholder meeting Thursday in Albuquerque, while inside shareholders voted no on three union-endorsed proposals. The Albuquerque protest was one of more than 400 across the U.S. Thursday, with some happening in Verizon Wireless markets outside of Fios territory, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) said.
The FCC hopes to release a plan addressing noncompliant “twilight” towers soon, but it likely won’t come out in the next few months, an FCC official said Wednesday. “The ball is squarely in our court,” said Associate Bureau chief Chad Breckinridge at a live-streamed Wireless Bureau workshop on environmental and historic preservation issues for wireless infrastructure. Also at the workshop, a site acquisition specialist said there's less opposition from consumers to building towers than in the past, but it remains challenging to find sites that satisfy all jurisdictions’ zoning codes.
Charter Communications agreed to California conditions proposed by an administrative law judge for the California Public Utilities Commission, while opponents fired last shots in comments on the company's acquisitions of Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable. The CPUC said it plans to vote on the transactions at its meeting next week. The ALJ last month issued a proposed decision approving the deal with conditions (see 1604130020). The FCC also has a draft order that would conditionally approve the deals (see 1604250039), and DOJ last week announced a settlement that would allow the deals to proceed with conditions. Charter CEO Tom Rutledge has said he hopes to close the deal "within a few days" of the CPUC vote (see 1604280063).
Union workers and consumer groups claimed Verizon deceived customers under a policy known as “Fiber is the Only Fix.” Verizon engaged in unjust and unreasonable practices related to its copper facilities in violation of Section 201(b) of the Communications Act, and is failing to give sufficient advance notice of copper retirement actions in violation of Section 51.325(a)(4) for FCC rules, said an informal complaint at the agency signed by Communications Workers of America, Common Cause, Public Knowledge and others. Under the alleged Verizon policy, when a customer calls in about a copper-related complaint, the company creates a “ghost” service order to transfer the customer to fiber, without the customer's knowledge, the complainants said. Then, Verizon technicians inform customers with copper-related complaints that the company no longer repairs copper lines and the customer must upgrade to fiber; if the customer refuses to upgrade, Verizon cuts the line, they said. A company spokesman described the process differently. “When a copper customer with chronic service issues calls for a repair, we create two tickets in parallel -- a repair ticket, and the ghost service order. When the technician is dispatched, if he finds there’s a simple fix for the copper, we fix the copper. If not and we determine fiber is the only fix, we already have the parallel service order in place. The technician then explains to the customer why we need to upgrade them to fiber and no work is performed without the customer’s consent.” The Verizon spokesman dismissed the complaint as another bargaining chip in its standoff with union workers in the East Coast strike (see 1605030050). “There is nothing at all deceptive about this practice and the fact that we’ve never heard a peep from the unions about it until now -- in the middle of a work stoppage -- tells you everything you need to know about what their real motivation is with this complaint.” The complaint is the first alleging a violation of FCC copper retirement rules, which took effect on March 24, and covers seven states served by Verizon: Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Virginia. Regulators in New York (see 1604250046) and Pennsylvania (see 1604210047) have investigated Verizon service quality, while CWA has a request for investigation pending in Maryland. "Copper still has plenty to offer, so an orderly transition to new platforms, with adequate notice and respect for the rules is essential,” said ex-FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, special adviser to Common Cause. “We expect the FCC to take prompt action to protect consumer rights and keep all Americans connected.”
LTE over unlicensed spectrum (LTE-U) could act like an “invasive species” that will harm existing Wi-Fi networks unless regulators intervene, said Wi-Fi advocates on a panel at a New America Foundation event Monday that was live streamed from New York City. They agreed with “grave” concerns about the possible impact of LTE-U to the city’s free Wi-Fi network (see 1601060055), as detailed in a Monday letter from the office of Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) to the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) and copied to the FCC, IEEE and Wi-Fi Alliance. After the event, carriers and others said it’s wrong to regulate unlicensed spectrum that was set up to be unregulated. Carriers and LTE-U backers like Qualcomm have been disputing cable and public interest Wi-Fi advocates' claims the newer technology could interfere with the often-free broadband services, and the two sides are eyeing interference tests (see 1604270042).
Picket lines may have little impact on how customers perceive the Verizon brand, but any service problems related to the East Coast strike are bound to get their attention, marketing experts said in interviews. Despite high-profile endorsements by Democratic presidential candidates and others, most customers aren’t likely to leave Verizon unless the strike affects them personally, the marketing experts said. The Communications Workers of America (CWA) continued to say Tuesday that the strike will bring long-term damage to Verizon, but Verizon said replacement workers are keeping service levels high.
Mediation could break through stubborn disagreement between Verizon and striking union workers, but only if the parties are willing to negotiate, labor and mediation experts said. The strike continued into this week after the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers balked at Verizon’s “last, best and final offer” Thursday (see 1604280064). Over the weekend, Verizon cut off benefits for strikers and brought in more replacement workers. The company and unions have differed over whether a federal mediator has even yet become involved in the issue.
Verizon presented its “last, best and final offer” to union workers who are striking on the East Coast, it said in a Thursday news release. The offer attempted to end 10 months of negotiating that led to what is so far a two-week strike. "The ball is now in the unions' court to do what's right for our employees," said Marc Reed, Verizon chief administrative officer. The Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the unions representing the workers, didn’t budge.