A fight's brewing in California over whether a state commission can study broadband affordability. Consumer advocates urged the California Public Utilities Commission last week to keep broadband part of a proposed framework for reviewing affordability of essential services. AT&T, cable and small telecom carriers disagreed, saying federal law stops the state commission from scrutinizing broadband.
Attention is turning to the California attorney general’s rulemaking to implement the California Consumer Privacy Act, after lawmakers made minor CCPA tweaks in their session ended this month (see 1909160045). The law takes effect Jan. 1, but enforcement won’t start until the earlier of July or six months after AG Xavier Becerra (D) issues rules. Neither businesses nor consumer privacy groups got everything they wanted, and will be watching the AG rulemaking closely, they said in interviews last week.
The Lifeline national verifier now connects with the national Medicaid database to test eligibility, the FCC said Wednesday: Eligibility of about 60 percent of the population can be confirmed automatically. It’s “a major step in the implementation of the Verifier,” said FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. The NV also connects with the Department of Housing and Urban Development and 12 states, the commission said. State officials, Congress members and Lifeline providers ask why the NV rollout had continued without such access (see 1908280013). Connecting the NV with federal Medicaid is a big step, but verifying up to 60 percent of the Lifeline population isn't enough, emailed John Heitmann, counsel for the National Lifeline Association: It should be at least 85 percent. That's happening in Pennsylvania where there's access to the state Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program databases, he said. Manual processes don't reasonably serve needs of the eligible, and the NV shouldn't hard launch "until it has electronic access to both Medicaid and SNAP databases or before service providers have access" to an application programming interface "that allows them to help consumers navigate the verification and enrollment process, including the ability to transmit documentation via the API," Heitmann said. CTIA Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Matt Gerst applauded that "eligible low-income consumers will be able to get support for [their] mobile wireless services."
California’s review of T-Mobile/Sprint could extend into next year, but there’s no schedule yet, stakeholders said this week. A California Public Utilities Commission administrative law judge reopened the record in dockets A.18-07-011 and A.18-07-012 Aug. 27 in light of the carriers’ settlement with DOJ and other changes to the original deal.
The Vermont Public Utilities Commission is reviewing a Comcast settlement with the state and the Vermont Access Network, “and will act on it as soon as practicable,” a PUC spokesperson emailed Tuesday. The agreement would resolve a case on the legality of the PUC's requiring the company in a cable franchise agreement to build 550 miles of new cable and enhance support for public, educational and government channels (see 1811210035). Comcast’s Vermont PEG channels would be reassigned to a dedicated public access channel neighborhood, so access management organizations have program listings on all guides that Comcast makes available, with the same functionality as other channels, including voice remote location and programmability, said a joint petition dated Sept. 6 in docket 8301. The pact paves the way for a statewide high-definition PEG channel by 2021, alternative means of providing remote origination sites for PEG programming, and additional funding for public access channel reassignments and equipment for the HD channel. Comcast would build a minimum of 350 miles of additional lines of cable, maintain existing PEG remote origination sites and reasonably accommodate requests for new sites. Parties will ask to dismiss with prejudice all claims in the federal court case at U.S. District Court in Rutland.
CTIA and cable agreed with CLECs that the Maine Public Utilities Commission should prescribe new rates for pole attachments effective Jan. 1, based on the FCC cable rate formula. Final comments on Maine PUC’s plan to adopt the FCC method were due Friday in case 2019-00028. Lincolnville Communications, FirstLight Fiber and Otelco proposed a prescriptive, not presumptive, approach at a hearing last month (see 1906190051). Comcast, Charter Communications and other cable companies supported the CLECs' proposed amendment as long as rules don't "mandate an unnecessary and expensive Commission rate approval process." CenturyLink and ExteNet jointly urged the PUC to reject Consolidated Communication's bid to carve out wireless attachments. It's “absurd” to suggest wireless attachments need to placed “on only a single pole or other equipment instead of on a pole that serves an entire pole line,” they said. Consolidated said it stands to lose more than anyone if the PUC replaces Maine’s Chapter 880 rate formula: “Consolidated occupies the unfortunate space of being both one of the largest pole owning utilities in the State and the company engaged in the largest broadband expansion project. Consolidated is in the hapless situation of being a regulated telephone utility in a competitive communications environment.” The telco is wrong that FCC rate fails to adequately compensate pole owners, countered the cable group. “The cost of the entire pole is allocated to the attacher -- but the cost allocation is based on the amount of usable space occupied in proportion to the amount of usable space on the pole,” so “the FCC approach actually reduces a pole owner’s overall costs of pole ownership because the attacher pays a pro-rata share of the fully allocated costs of pole ownership and maintenance, in addition to any upfront, incremental costs that the pole owner incurs in connection with its attachments.”
The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission split 3-2 Thursday to adopt a policy statement clarifying that special access and other jurisdictionally mixed telecom service providers that report zero gross intrastate revenue, or report gross intrastate revenue from other intrastate services but not special access, are subject to an annual fiscal assessment to cover PUC operational costs (see 1905020023). Verizon, cable and other industry say federal law pre-empts the PUC statement in docket M-2018-3004578 (see 1904170059). The PUC adopted two related enforcement matters, with commissioners voting 3-2 for a motion in docket M-2019-3010251 to tentatively cancel certificates of public convenience for telecom utilities reporting zero intrastate operating revenue for multiple years, and 5-0 for an item in docket M-2019-3011090 to cancel certificates for telecom utilities that failed to file annual intrastate revenue reports for multiple years. The policy statement and related actions are meant to “clean up the telecom space,” and “make sure that all carriers are paying their fair share,” said Commissioner Norman Kennard at the livestreamed meeting. Chairman Gladys Brown Dutrieuille and Commissioner Andrew Place dissented from the policy statement and the first decertification item. Place shares the providers’ legal and technical concerns with the policy statement, and thinks the matter should be further studied and handled through a “collaborative process” or legislation, he said. Adopting it “will inevitably lead to a conflict with the FCC’s applicable jurisdictional separations rules,” and litigation, he said. Brown Dutrieuille questioned PUC procedure: “I am concerned that we are not considering other approaches and have not chosen to pursue a rulemaking.” Place said the 3-2 “decertification action against competitive carriers that affirmatively invoke or utilize the FCC’s long-standing ten percent contamination rule and do not report intrastate operating revenue to this Commission is plainly wrong. This action does not afford appropriate due process to the affected carriers, it is unfairly discriminatory because it singles out only competitive carriers that invoke or use” the 10 percent rule, “and violates federal law and regulations.” The action might violate a state court stay on the PUC’s 2017 decision that distributed antenna systems aren't utilities requiring state certification under state law (see 1901040044), said Brown Dutrieuille. That case is pending in Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Commissioners can’t say DAS providers aren’t utilities “and then, in the middle of an appeal on that very issue,” revoke their certificates for failing to report intrastate revenue, she said. “A stay is a stay.”
The New York Public Service Commission voted 3-1 to approve the state’s settlement with Charter Communications. At a livestreamed Thursday meeting, commissioners noted regrets and lessons learned from the sometimes-contentious process between the PSC's threatening in July 2018 to boot Charter out of the state (see 1807270027) and this year’s settlement (see 1904190059).
A California Senate panel cleared a VoIP deregulation bill at a Wednesday hearing after sponsor Assembly Appropriations Committee Chair Lorena Gonzalez (D) accepted several committee amendments to scale back the controversial measure that's opposed by the California Public Utilities Commission. Two senators voted no. Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee members also supported an amended bill responding to Verizon's throttling traffic of Santa Clara County firefighters during the Mendocino Complex Fire last year.
Cable operators will lose rights in Washington, under pole-attachments rules proposed by the District of Columbia Public Service Commission, Comcast commented Monday in docket RM16-2019-01. The commission issued a rulemaking notice June 7 proposing to repeal and replace Chapter 16 of Title 15 of the D.C. Municipal Regulations on pole-attachment disputes between public utilities and cable operators. Comcast opposes removing pole attachments from rule sections for cable operator complaints and including them instead as facilities governed by new application rules, shifting the burden of showing need for access to the attacher from the pole owner. Proposed rules remove all references to PSC responsibility under D.C. law to ensure pole-attachment rates, terms and conditions are just and reasonable, and they would stop cable operators from filing complaints challenging rates, terms or conditions for access, Comcast said. The plan would broaden PSC regulatory authority from cable operators to a larger number of entities seeking to attach equipment, commented the D.C. Office of People’s Counsel. The plan simplifies complaint procedure and “expressly encourages” private talks to resolve disputes, OPC said. The office raised concerns about leaving out the term “pole attachment” from the proposal’s definitions: That's "a term of art with a particularized meaning; as such, its denotation needs to be expressly set forth in order to forestall disagreements/confusion -- some of which, though wholly avoidable, may require Commission intercession.”