Jonathan Make

The FCC Enforcement Bureau settled investigations into AT&T, Lumen, Intrado and Verizon 911 outages that happened last year, the agency announced Friday. The companies will pay a combined $6 million-plus in settlement payments. They will also start compliance plans, as part of the consent decrees.

LOUISVILLE -- Just as states are pursuing a few approaches to shore up their own USFs, state regulators have a similar array of ideas about how the federal government can put its funds for broadband and other telecom services on sounder financial footing. In interviews on the sidelines of NARUC's gathering and in phone interviews for those who didn't travel here for the Sunday-Wednesday event, commissioners generally agreed the path the federal USF is on isn't sustainable because the percentage fee on some telecom services that consumers are levied on their monthly bills has gone up in recent years.

LOUISVILLE -- As state commissions make diversity a focus, regulators from both political parties noted during NARUC's gathering this week their ability to set mandates is limited by authority constraints that include less purview over telecom companies than over electric and other utilities. The public utility commissioners said they and their agencies focus on having a diverse staff and on encouraging companies to pay attention to workforce and supplier diversity. In interviews here, the officials also cited the association's continuing focus on broadening the ranks of regulators and their staffers.

LOUISVILLE -- The telco industry and its stakeholders are affected by a workforce crunch and by pole attachment difficulties that make it harder to spread fast broadband around the U.S., a meeting of state regulators was told. So the next time the Telecom Committee gathers at a NARUC meeting, discussion could include pole attachment issues, industry stakeholders and state commissioners requested at the association's ongoing meeting. Speaking Monday about possible future topics for the committee, such as with a panel, industry representatives brought up barriers to telcos using utility poles to attach gear to deliver broadband. Attachments and workforce issues are also getting attention within states, commissioners told us.

The FCC approved, with some requirements, Boeing's application for a license to build, deploy and run a satellite-broadband constellation, the agency announced Wednesday afternoon. The vote was 3-0, with Commissioner Geoffrey Starks not participating.

FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel is proposing a Nov. 18 vote on an order that would require some providers to support by July 16 people texting 988 to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. The order "would adopt a uniform implementation deadline requiring covered text providers to support [such] text messaging" by "the same date the FCC has established 988 as the 3-digit dialing code" for phone calls, the agency announced Wednesday afternoon.

With no comprehensive recent national privacy law, stakeholders must continue discussions about ways to rebuild consumers' trust in technology -- perhaps via standards or other agreed-upon measures, an Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and XR Association conference was told Thursday. Speakers on one panel agreed the U.S. is behind on legislative efforts (see 2110200060). They said Europe is ahead, such as with the EU general data protection regulation. Boosting people's confidence that their information will be appropriately used when it's collected by devices, apps and by content providers is possible but not guaranteed, ITIF and XRA were told.

T-Mobile delayed by three months to March 31 its plan to shut down its 3G CDMA network. The company faced federal and California scrutiny over the move, which was opposed by Dish Network.

Better FCC broadband maps, receiver standards -- perhaps from industry -- and scaled-back telehealth restrictions were among telecom items sought Friday at a Free State Foundation event. Commissioner Brendan Carr hoped to find out when updated maps will be available, and Republican colleague Nathan Simington again raised the issue of receiver standards. Ex-Commissioner Mike O'Rielly suggested considering factors other than where a company is headquartered in assessing trustworthiness of foreign-made telecom gear. And former Cable Bureau Chief Deborah Lathen wants stakeholders to consider the virtues of permanently scaling back telehealth restrictions.

The Computer & Communications Industry Association and NetChoice sued Texas over its social media law, after an industry lawsuit in Florida, the groups announced at around noon EDT Wednesday. Texas HB-20 enacted Sept. 9 prohibits "a targeted list of disfavored 'social media platforms' from exercising editorial discretion over content those platforms disseminate on their own privately owned websites and applications," CCIA and NetChoice said in U.S. District Court in Austin. The groups called it "an unconstitutional law."