Oklahoma lawmakers will take up a bill next year that would ban handheld use of cellphones and other electronic devices while driving. Texting while driving already is illegal in the state. Sen. Ron Sharp (R) filed legislation last week that would toughen state law aimed at preventing distracted driving. “Drivers are still getting distracted by their phones and other electronic devices and there’s no reason to be using them while driving except in emergencies,” Sharp said in a news release.

Pointing to numerous affidavits signed by Missouri residents attesting they were on the National Do Not Call Registry and yet received violative telemarketing calls from Charter Communications or one of its telemarketers, the state filed a motion (in Pacer) for summary judgment Wednesday in U.S. District Court in St. Louis. Charter on Wednesday filed a separate motion (in Pacer) asking the judge to strike requests for damages and penalties in the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) lawsuit, arguing the state isn't entitled to penalties under federal law and wouldn't disclose any calculation of compensatory damages. In the summary judgment motion, Missouri said on a finding of Charter's liability, it "will seek a substantial penalty appropriate to the severity of Charter's misconduct," saying the court should "set an example to others in the industry that compliance is the profitable path." It also said the state Attorney General's Office received more than 370 complaints, but it submitted to the court 15 affidavits establishing 315 TSR violations "for purposes of clarity and simplicity and to establish liability only." The state called it indisputable the company is liable for telemarketing calls placed by vendors on its behalf. Charter in its motion to strike said TSR doesn't permit state attorneys general to recover civil penalties and limits recovery to compensatory damages. It also said Missouri resisted Charter efforts to conduct discovery on compensatory damages issues, and therefore it should be precluded from introducing any evidence of damages at trial. Neither Charter nor Missouri commented Thursday.

Richard Beverly was sworn-in as a D.C. public service commissioner Wednesday, the regulator said. The D.C. Council unanimously confirmed his appointment the previous day, for a four-year term ending June 30, 2020. He had been the agency's general counsel (see 1612200037).

Being taken over by Amalgamated Telecom will give American Samoa telco/underwater cable company Bluesky and its affiliates more financial and managerial resources, and would have no anticompetitive effects because ATH provides no telecom services in American Samoa now, Fiji-based telco ATH said in an FCC International Bureau filing Tuesday on the public interest benefits of the proposed deal. ATH said the transaction would require transfer of Communications Act Section 214 authorizations, commercial mobile radio service licenses, and common carrier and non-common carrier Bluesky earth station licenses, plus transfer of control of the cable landing license associated with Bluesky affiliate American Samoa-Hawaii Cable.

Michigan residents can dial 211 across the state after the telecom regulator Tuesday OK’d a request to include St. Clair County, the Michigan Public Service Commission said. Dialing the number connects people to free information and resources. The commission “is particularly interested in 2-1-1 because we know more people call it for information related to utility services than for any other reason,” Chairwoman Sally Talberg said in a news release.

The District of Columbia Council voted unanimously to confirm Richard Beverly to the Public Service Commission. Beverly currently is general counsel for the commission and has worked there since 1997. He will replace Commissioner Joanne Doddy Fort, whose term expired June 30. Beverly “possesses both the public service and the experience to properly serve on the commission,” Councilmember Charles Allen (D) said at the Tuesday confirmation.

The Minnesota Office of Broadband Development sought proposals to collect and map broadband deployment data by technology and speed from about 120 providers in the state. Bids are due Jan. 9 under the request for proposal announced in an email Monday. “It is the goal of this project that Minnesota policy makers will be able to document progress towards achieving the state’s broadband goals in Minn. Stat. 237.012 and that Minnesota residents and businesses will have the ability to determine their options by provider, technology and speed, for subscribing to broadband services at their location,” the RFP said.

Still waiting for FirstNet to choose a vendor, Arizona delayed by three months the deadline for a request for proposals seeking alternate plans for the national public safety network if the governor opts out of the federal proposal. The state extended the deadline to March 30 from Dec. 29, said a Friday update to the Arizona procurement website. FirstNet delays in choosing a vendor have now forced Arizona to postpone its RFP deadline three times; the original due date was Oct. 31. Some state officials raised concerns last week that the FirstNet delay may negatively affect funding and momentum (see 1612150057).

The California Public Utilities Commission revised its conditional OK of Charter Communications' $90 billion buys of Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable. Commissioners unanimously gave the deal the green light last May (see 1605120040), but afterward received applications for rehearing from the Office of Ratepayer Advocates (ORA) and Center for Accessible Technology (CAT), plus Entertainment Studios Networks and the National Association of African American Owned Media. In a Monday order, the commission approved part of the ORA/CAT petition asking CPUC to add conditions that Charter agreed to in a reply brief but that didn’t appear in the May order. The conditions involved service quality, semiannual reports to ORA, a customer service survey and communications with customers with disabilities, it said. But CPUC refused to add another requested condition, which was adopted in the FCC approval, banning Charter from imposing data caps or charging usage-based pricing for residential broadband service for seven years. California wasn't required to adopt the same conditions as the FCC on data caps and usage-based billing, and in any case, the issue is moot because Charter must comply with the federal conditions, the state commission said Monday. It disagreed with the Entertainment Studios application’s claim the company’s due process rights were violated because the CPUC OK didn’t mention its opening comments. "That the Commission did not adopt Entertainment Studios' proposals, which were never presented until they filed comments on the [proposed decision], does not demonstrate that they were denied due process,” the CPUC said. But the agency added a statement acknowledging Entertainment Studios filed opening comments and that Media Alliance and Stop the Cap filed replies, it said.

The California Public Utilities Commission urged a federal court to dismiss as moot a complaint by ISPs about disclosing FCC Form 477 and other confidential subscriber information to third parties. The CPUC earlier this month closed the proceeding about which the ISPs complained, while ordering staff to probe telecom market competition, so the U.S. District Court in San Francisco case shouldn’t continue, the commission argued in a response (in Pacer) dated Thursday. After the proceeding closed, AT&T, Comcast, CTIA, Verizon and other industry plaintiffs said the court could still provide relief to the companies because the CPUC refused to agree that ISPs should receive advance notice before public disclosure of the Form 477 data (see 1612090027). The agency disagreed. "This case is not, and never has been, about a release of confidential information in response to a California Public Record Act request,” it said. “Yet, now the Plaintiffs are trying to set this Court up to micromanage future CPUC proceedings, and are inviting the Court to promulgate general standards and make advisory rulings that would directly implicate a separate ongoing regulatory proceeding before the Commission.” The regulator said it never "even contemplated releasing this data publicly.” The commission has an open rulemaking to update processes for submitting and disclosing potentially confidential information, it said. “The Commission has expressed a desire not to address this issue on a piecemeal basis, which is exactly what the Plaintiffs are trying to accomplish here.” The Utilities Reform Network (TURN) supported the commission, in a response (in Pacer). "Here, the challenged government activity has indeed evaporated as the case is now closed,” said TURN, an intervenor in the case. “None of the companies’ data at issue here was disclosed to any of the intervenors to the case and, except for what must amount to a significant bill for legal fees, there is no ongoing ‘substantial adverse effect’ to the Plaintiffs from the CPUC’s actions.”