The South Washington County Telecommunications Commission plans a hearing 7 p.m. Jan. 28 in Cottage Grove, Minnesota, as part of the cable-TV franchise process, said a SWCTC notice Monday. The hearing will include representatives from CenturyLink, which applied for a cable franchise in the commission's area. SWCTC is a Minnesota municipal joint powers commission including the cities of Cottage Grove, Grey Cloud Island Township, Newport, St. Paul Park and Woodbury. The commission set the hearing to allow interested persons and organizations to comment on the recommended cable franchise.

NARUC has petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to review the FCC's June decision giving interconnected VoIP providers direct access to phone numbers (see 1506180060). The FCC ignored the plain text and the structure of the Telecom Act by extending the rights and obligations of telecom common carriers to unclassified service providers, the state regulatory group said. "The FCC has fomented a host of potentially unnecessary proceedings and litigation over the scope of NARUC's member State commissions both with respect to numbering conservation and a range of other issues." The FCC did not immediately comment Tuesday.

The new proposed Oklahoma map for Lifeline meets the needs of the Sac and Fox Nation, the Native American tribe said in a letter to the FCC Wireline Bureau and the Office of Native Affairs and Policy posted Thursday in docket 11-42. The concerns the tribal nation expressed during an FCC initial consultation meeting were addressed and included in the latest map, Sac and Fox said. Companies such as Cox Communications asked the FCC to extend the Feb. 9 deadline for implementing the new map so Lifeline providers in the state can implement the rule change correctly (see 1512220043).

A 36-hour fall test of a public safety LTE band 14 demonstration network involved more than 200 people, including state and federal law enforcement officers and special agents from Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW), Colorado State Patrol, Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Office, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Forest Service, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, Wyoming Game and Fish Department, Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism, and Idaho Springs Police Department, said a blog post from FirstNet Monday. Colorado’s Office of Information Technology (OIT) and the CPW installed the temporary network in support of a hunter checkpoint along a chain-up area in the Idaho Springs, Colorado, area, it said. The network provided a convenient method of data entry using touch-screens and barcode scanning through smartphones that had wireless connections to local servers supporting multiple databases with no outside connectivity, said FirstNet. The band 14 demonstration network is an early example of a vehicular network system showing the value of these types of platforms in isolated locations, where a large contingent of public safety personnel require interoperable communication support, said FirstNet.

Jupiter Broadband is launching wireless Internet in rural and suburban Florida and Georgia, and, through a strategic partnership, in similar communities nationwide, a news release from Jupiter said. All told, the coverage area served by the Jupiter Broadband network will be almost 50,000 square miles, the release said. Jupiter Broadband has both residential and dedicated business Internet service. Jupiter Broadband is also in negotiations for the construction of four more fixed wireless towers that would give the company expanded coverage in Georgia and Alabama, the release said.

Chicago's subway system now has 4G coverage across its entire red and blue lines, its two busiest, said a news release from the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA). The 4G wireless project is a $32.5 million agreement brokered by the Chicago Infrastructure Trust, with the four major wireless providers -- AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon -- to finance the buildout, the release said. Over the past four years, several technology improvements implemented for Chicago’s transit system have included expansion of CTA Train Tracker and Bus Tracker functionality, digital displays with service information at bus shelters and rail stations throughout the service region, and an expanded security camera network, the release said. All CTA subways and tunnels now have wireless phone coverage, the release said.

FirstNet representatives met with more than 65 Guam public safety stakeholders as a part of FirstNet's ongoing consultation effort (see 1512220058), and discussed how the island's existing network infrastructure could be augmented with a dedicated nationwide public safety broadband network, FirstNet Director-Consultation Dave Buchanan said in a blog post Monday. During the consultation meeting, Guam public safety officials told of their current departmental communications systems and where there might be room for improvements, Buchanan said. Among the updates to public safety communications systems sought by officials on the island are a switch from a 20-year-old Guam Police Department radio system to an IP-based system, a transition by the GPD to a "mobile computer-aided dispatch system," and a resolution of connectivity issues encountered by the Guam Fire Department, the blog post said. Guam is also interested in using the streaming video capability of its DisasterLAN system -- unused because it's cost- and resource-prohibitive -- which is "something FirstNet could help [it] do," Buchanan said.

More than half of Broadband Technology Opportunity Program (BTOP) recipients the Commerce Department Office of the Inspector General reviewed in a recent audit had excess equipment, totaling $3.5 million, including equipment outside the needs of completing grant projects, said a recent memo to NTIA. NTIA’s processes for identifying and disposing of BTOP-funded excess inventory were inadequate for effective management of these awards, the memo said. The audit also found about $600,000 worth of equipment that may have been improperly disposed. The IG also noted that expired projects weren't closed out in a timely manner. In response to the problems the audit discovered, additional controls have been implemented, including an additional review of a cross section of recipients for “last minute” purchases as part of their award closeout process; updating supplementary guidance for recipients; requiring all recipients to develop a deployment plan for undeployed equipment; and conducting offsite training for its program officers.

The Alaska Plan will give the state a stable telecom investment environment, General Communications (GCI) said in a Tuesday filing in FCC docket No. 10-90. The plan would allow the state to have enforceable deployment commitments and improved targeting of support to unserved and underserved areas, the filing said. The Alaska Plan would leverage the same middle-mile infrastructure to connect remote locations to urban centers and the lower 48 states, the filing said. Alaska Communications also filed an ex parte notice in the same docket, urging the FCC to take action on the pending Connect America Fund Phase II proposal it submitted. The FCC should also allocate support for continuing voice service in extremely high-cost census blocks in Alaska, and look at further universal service overhaul in the state, Alaska Communications said.

The FCC should extend the Feb. 9 deadline for the Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC) to implement a new historical map to 90 days after the digital mapping information is made available, said Cox Communications Monday in a filing in docket No. 11-42. Granting the OCC's request (see 1511190020) will ensure that Lifeline providers in the state can implement the rule change correctly, Cox said.