Adam Bender

Minnesota legislators supported net neutrality, data privacy, social media and broadband labor proposals before they adjourned Monday. Gov. Tim Walz (D) will next consider various omnibuses that include the proposed rules. The House voted 70-58 Friday to pass a commerce omnibus (SF-4097), which included net neutrality and social media disclosure proposals that cleared the Senate earlier last week (see 2405160033). On Saturday, the House voted 72-59 to pass a transportation and labor package (HF-5242) including industry-opposed broadband safety rules (see 2405070043). On Sunday, the House voted 70-11 to pass another commerce package (SF-4942), which included language from a comprehensive privacy bill (see 2405100047). Lawmakers passed the House’s broader version of the labor proposal, which includes a controversial provision allowing the state to prioritize broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) and other internet funding for contractors that pay prevailing wage and meet other standards. Senate Labor Committee Chair Jen McEwen (D), who sponsored the Senate's original bill, expects Walz to sign, her spokesperson said Monday. McEwen said she’s “very pleased” the legislature passed the proposal that “will improve worker safety and reduce interruptions to public utilities.” Minnesota Telecom Alliance CEO Brent Christensen, who opposed the labor proposal, told us a veto is unlikely since the governor’s staff was heavily involved in getting the bill passed. Christensen called the net neutrality measure "a really bad bill that didn’t need to happen." The state Commerce Department, which would investigate complaints, doesn't have the right skills to "determine what is a violation and what is normal traffic management," he said. "Any net neutrality action should come from the feds, not individual states." The privacy bill mostly looks like Washington state’s model, which was adopted in states like Virginia and Connecticut, “but with some significant and unique variations,” Husch Blackwell privacy attorney David Stauss blogged Sunday. Differences include “a novel right to question the result of a profiling decision, privacy policy provisions that increase interoperability with existing state laws, and new privacy program requirements such as a requirement for controllers to maintain a data inventory,” he said.

Frontier Communications performs well on “important” service-quality metrics, the carrier said Friday in responding to an investigation by Connecticut’s Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA). The Frontier probe began earlier this year in response to a Jan. 8 petition by Connecticut's Office of Consumer Counsel (OCC), which flagged Frontier for failing to meet minimum standards for out-of-service repair and maintenance (see 2401310006 and 2401080041). In OCC’s Friday brief, the consumer advocate urged PURA to impose additional and broader service-quality standards and open another proceeding for considering monetary penalties.

Don’t wait to see if Congress finds funding for the affordable connectivity program (ACP), the Center for Accessible Technology (CforAT) urged the California Public Utilities Commission in comments Wednesday. The consumer group supported a petition from The Utility Reform Network (TURN) and the CPUC’s independent Public Advocates Office to modify a 2022 decision that made rules for the California commission’s federal funding account (FFA), which uses broadband funding from the U.S. government (see 2404150062). The petition “accurately highlights that the current FFA rules will become outdated shortly with the anticipated end of the ACP, and it reasonably requests that the Commission modify the FFA rules to support ongoing broadband affordability,” CforAT said in docket R.20-09-001. “The Commission should not delay based on the efforts currently underway to extend the ACP, as the fate of these efforts is uncertain, and the status quo would result in loss of service for program participants.” The CPUC can hit the brakes should ACP get money, it added. But the telecom industry said granting the petition would delay money going out the door to expand broadband. Also, the industry urged the CPUC to avoid using ACP's possible end as an excuse to relitigate settled issues, echoing comments it made days earlier on a separate TURN petition seeking changes to a different grant program (see 2405140037). Thanks to flexible FFA rules, the CPUC "received an unprecedented amount of interest with over 480 applications and at least two applications per county,” commented AT&T. Granting TURN and PAO’s petition will only further delay awards for the applications that already have been pending for eight months, said the carrier: But the CPUC must make awards by Dec. 24 or send the cash back to the U.S. Frontier Communications said the CPUC should “swiftly deny” the petition. "The Commission should not allow the state’s broadband infrastructure deployment objectives to be diverted or delayed by Petitioners’ agenda to revisit rejected policy proposals addressing affordability." AVX Networks and Cal.net piled on. “There is no reasonable basis to delay FFA awards indefinitely while the Commission considers whether to add a completely new requirement on FFA award recipients,” they said. A group of small rural local exchange carriers agreed. “This Petition would compromise the efficacy of this time-sensitive federal grant program, potentially squandering critical federal support for rural infrastructure deployment and impairing the state’s efforts to close the digital divide,” the LECs said.

The California sponsor of a digital equity bill is cautiously optimistic about broadband deployment even with trims to the budget that Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) recommended. The governor last week announced a May budget revision that included taking back promised additional funding for the state’s middle-mile network and eliminating a broadband fund for local governments, totaling a $2 billion reduction from earlier plans (see 2405150035). However, Assemblymember Mia Bonta (D), sponsor of a bill seeking to stop digital discrimination (see 2404230039), recognizes “the tough decisions the administration and legislature must make in order to balance the budget,” she said in a statement Wednesday. “I am reservedly hopeful and appreciative of the administration's active engagement with members of the legislature about the solutions being put forth by the administration to provide for neighborhoods like the ones I represent in the East Bay."

A possible $2 billion clawback "would keep broadband as a key state priority," California Assembly Communications Committee Chair Tasha Boerner (D) said this week. With the state facing a tough fiscal situation, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) Friday announced a May budget revision that included taking back promised additional funding for the state’s middle-mile network and eliminating a broadband fund for local governments. However, some digital equity advocates are sounding the alarm with state legislators.

The Nebraska Universal Service Fund has had “steady and predictable” remittances since adopting a connections-based contribution mechanism, NUSF Director Cullen Robbins said at a Nebraska Public Service Commission hearing Tuesday, so changes aren't needed. The PSC partly moved away from a revenue-based NUSF contribution in 2018 and expanded the policy in 2021(see 2105110045). The NUSF has a $134 million balance, Robbins said. He noted that the commission is considering a change that would use high-cost support more for operating expenses like maintaining networks as opposed to capital expenses for deployments. One possible benefit is that the fund balance wouldn’t build up as much because support could be paid out monthly, the NUSF director said. At another meeting earlier in the day, Nebraska PSC commissioners voted 5-0 to approve an order issuing the 2024 schedule and application materials for the Nebraska Broadband Bridge Program. ISPs may apply for NBBP grants from June 17 through July 8. Under the program, $20 million is available annually for deploying networks capable of at least 100 Mbps symmetrical speeds in unserved and underserved areas. “NBBP has proven to be an effective way to get broadband to unserved and underserved areas of the state, and we are eager to begin the fourth cycle of this program,” Commission Chair Dan Watermeier said in a news release.

The possible end of the federal affordable connectivity program (ACP) isn't an excuse to make sweeping changes to state broadband grant rules, ISPs told the California Public Utilities Commission this week. In Monday comments (docket R.20-08-021), AT&T, Frontier Communications, cable companies and small rural local exchange carriers urged the CPUC to swiftly reject last month’s The Utility Reform Network (TURN) petition to modify rules for the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) broadband infrastructure account (see 2404150062).

A California proposal to allow people without social security numbers (SSNs) to sign up for low-income telecom support was mostly supported in comments Friday at the California Public Utilities Commission. However, consumer advocates sought tweaks to the CPUC staff proposal to ensure maximum inclusion and disagreed with T-Mobile’s Assurance Wireless on whether accepting applications without SSNs should be mandatory. Other companies generally praised the staff plan while seeking more clarity on certain details.

The number of states with privacy laws reached 18 after Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) signed SB-541/HB-567 on Thursday. Vermont and Minnesota could soon join the ranks. While not first, Maryland “sets the new standard” for state privacy laws and “raises the bar” for Congress, said Caitriona Fitzgerald, Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) deputy director, in an interview. Meanwhile, in California, the first state with a privacy law, board members of the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA) slammed the preemptive current draft of a privacy bill from Congress.

AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless will pay about $10.25 million to the 50 states and the District of Columbia under an agreement that settles claims of deceptive and misleading advertising practices, multiple state AGs announced Thursday. The bipartisan AGs signed a pact with AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless to resolve the investigations. The three carriers “baited consumers with deceptive claims about ‘unlimited’ data, ‘free’ phone offers and incentives to switch, only to switch the offer and not deliver on their advertised claims,” Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) said. In addition to the monetary penalties, the carriers agreed to make future ads truthful, accurate and not misleading, Ellison's office said. Going forward, unlimited must mean no numerical limits and such plans should disclose any data speed restrictions and what triggers them, it said. Carriers offering to pay for customers to switch companies must clearly disclose what and how they will pay consumers, it said. Among other requirements, the carriers must present clear terms and conditions for so-called free devices or services, it said. A CTIA spokesperson said the “voluntary agreements reflect no finding of improper conduct and reaffirm the wireless industry’s longstanding commitment to clarity and integrity in advertising so that consumers can make informed decisions about the products and services that best suit them.” T-Mobile said, “After nine years, we are glad to move on from this industry-wide investigation with this settlement and a continued commitment to the transparent and consumer-friendly advertising practices we’ve undertaken for years.” AT&T and Verizon referred us to CTIA’s statement. State AGs slammed the carriers as they applauded the settlement. New York AG Letitia James (D) said it’s a good resolution after carriers “lied to millions of consumers.” Many wireless carriers' deals are “too good to be true,” California AG Rob Bonta (D) said. Ohio AG Dave Yost (R) said “it's unacceptable to make false promises about what consumers might expect from their wireless carriers.”