California Public Utilities Commission President Michael Peevey’s plans to leave the CPUC in December are unlikely to affect its telecom regulatory policy priorities, industry participants and observers said in interviews Friday. Peevey, who led the CPUC since 2002, said the day before he won’t seek reappointment to the commission when his term expires in December. Peevey’s critics had called for his ouster last week over what they said were unethical back-channel discussions between his office and Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) (CD Oct 10). The protests stemmed from the contents of emails that PG&E released last week between the utility and members of Peevey’s staff as part of a federal investigation into the relationship between CPUC and PG&E. The rest of the commission declined to comment.
Several Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee subcommittees said during a CSMAC meeting Thursday that they're moving closer to issuing final recommendations to CSMAC, but said further revisions are necessary. CSMAC Co-Chairman Larry Alder said it was important that CSMAC send “clear” recommendations to NTIA, while NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling said the CSMAC recommendations would be important to guiding NTIA’s future spectrum work.
The Seattle Citizens’ Telecommunications and Technology Advisory Board (CTTAB) is moving ahead with its review of the feasibility of municipal broadband in concert with the city government’s moves to figure out the best path forward after its partnership with the University of Washington and the now-defunct Gigabit Squared failed earlier this year. Seattle announced plans in December 2012 to launch a fiber network in 12 neighborhoods (CD Dec 14/12 p10), but Mayor Ed Murray said in January that the partnership was dead due to persistent funding and debt issues with Gigabit Squared (http://bit.ly/1vON5PL).
A recent data breach at AT&T is statistically smaller than other recent incidents, but still highlights security implications for the telecom sector, said industry participants in interviews Tuesday. AT&T has begun to notify about 1,600 customers whose information may have been compromised in August during an internal data breach. A now-former AT&T employee apparently violated the telco’s privacy rules and accessed customer information that could include Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers, along with customer proprietary network information (CPNI), the company said in a form letter posted online by the office of Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell.
One of the parties in Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority’s review of Frontier Communications’ proposed buy of AT&T’s broadband, video and wireline assets in the state whose proposed conditions didn’t make it into PURA’s draft decision approving the deal said it’s unlikely to challenge the decision, while another said it hasn’t decided. The draft decision, issued Tuesday, would approve the deal in conjunction with a public interest settlement between Frontier and the offices of state Attorney General George Jepsen and Consumer Counsel Elin Swanson Katz, along with additional commitments Frontier made after PURA rejected the initial settlement. The decision denied proposed conditions sought by Connecticut Light and Power (CL&P) and the Connecticut Internet Service Providers Association (CTISPA) (CD Oct 1 p13). Written objections to the draft decision are due Tuesday, with oral argument Oct. 14, PURA said.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., is continuing to work with Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., to deal with “political tantrums” over the House-passed Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) and the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA), he said during an event Wednesday. Experts consider CISPA (HR-624) and CISA (S-2588) relatively analogous, though CISA’s proponents say it has better privacy protections than CISPA. Critics of CISA argue those privacy protections are insufficient (CD July 30 p6). “Tantrums” over CISA threaten to result in “holds and other things” in the Senate that could kill the bill’s prospects for the rest of the 113th Congress, Rogers said during a Washington Post event. Rogers said he fears if the Senate isn’t able to pass CISA during the post-election lame-duck session, the legislative process “all starts over.” Rogers and Senate Intelligence Vice Chairman Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., are retiring at the end of the 113th Congress, adding to future problems for cybersecurity information sharing legislation, Rogers said. There aren’t any holds on CISA because the bill “hasn’t been hotlined,” a committee aide told us. Senate Intelligence hopes to address all potential issues before it’s hotlined “to allow it to be passed,” the aide said.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler emphasized the importance of partnership between the commission and local and state telecom regulators, saying in a speech Wednesday to NATOA its members have a shared responsibility to increase broadband competition and robust 911 service. Wheeler invoked folk musician Bob Dylan to say the U.S. needs to collectively improve access to high-speed broadband, and those that don’t would “sink like a stone.” Success in high-speed broadband deployment would mean nationwide access to at least 100 Mbps broadband, Wheeler said.
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) is scheduled to reconsider Thursday whether to submit comments to the FCC supporting the federal body’s net neutrality Title II NPRM, though at our deadline Wednesday it was unclear whether a vote on the issue would proceed. An industry lawyer who has dealings with the CPUC told us Commissioner Carla Peterman was seeking to hold off on a vote on submitting comments until the commission’s Oct. 16 meeting. A CPUC spokesman said the net neutrality comments remained on the agenda for Thursday’s meeting, but an official list of held items wouldn’t be released until later Wednesday. Peterman and other CPUC commissioners didn’t comment.
The Electric Power Board (EPB) of Chattanooga, Tennessee (docket 14-116), and Wilson, North Carolina (docket 14-115), struck back against opponents of their petitions to the FCC to pre-empt their states’ municipal broadband laws. Pre-emption opponents “have not successfully rebutted” the municipalities’ argument that the FCC has authority under Communications Act Section 706 “to remove State barriers to community broadband initiatives,” Chattanooga and Wilson said in separate but similar reply comments. The positions of pre-emption supporters and opponents didn’t appear to shift much based on filings available Tuesday, with state governments and multiple industry groups continuing to oppose the petitions on states’ rights grounds.
New Jersey smartphone kill switch legislation is likely to move forward in October when the state General Assembly could take up the bill, said Deputy Speaker Patrick Diegnan in an interview Friday. A3157 had the unanimous support of the Assembly Consumer Affairs Committee, said Diegnan, the Democratic committee vice chairman and a main sponsor of the bill. Democratic Deputy Majority Leader Thomas Giblin and Republican Assembly BettyLou DeCroce are the bill’s other primary sponsors, while Democratic Assemblymen Joseph Cryan and Benjie Wimberly are co-sponsors. A3157 mirrors California’s Smartphone Theft Prevention Act (SB-962), which passed in late August and takes effect July 1, Diegnan said. A3157 would prohibit retailers in New Jersey from selling smartphones that don’t include kill switch technology effective Jan. 1 and would require the technology to be opt-out, meaning a device’s owner would need to “affirmatively elect” to disable the technology rather than elect to enable it. Diegnan said he believes New Jersey needs to enact its own kill switch requirement even though supporters of SB-962 have said that bill’s enactment means its requirements are effectively a nationwide requirement because of the size of California’s market. “The No. 1 issue that’s going to be facing my kids and grandkids is privacy,” he said. “When we carry around our cellphones, we're really carrying access to data that could really be hurtful and potentially dangerous. To me, it’s technology that’s available and should be mandated.” Nevada and New York are also moving forward with legislation, though both states’ legislatures won’t take up those bills until reconvening early next year. Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat, had been leading development of her state’s kill switch legislation, but it’s now in the hands of the state legislature, a spokeswoman said.