Briefs in a Connecticut Frontier Communications probe will be due May 17, the state’s Public Utilities Regulatory Authority said Tuesday. PURA granted an Office of Consumer Counsel (OCC) request to extend the deadline from April 4 in docket 24-01-15. The office sought more time “because full discovery has not yet been completed and essential members of OCC staff will be on medical leave until May,” the agency said. OCC asked PURA to investigate Frontier service quality in January (see 2401080041).

The Colorado House passed broadband and anti-junk fees bills Monday. The House, on a 45-18 vote, approved HB-1334, which would prohibit owners of multiunit buildings from denying broadband providers access to install high-speed internet. In addition, it voted 45-18 for HB-1151, which would ban advertising prices that don’t include all mandatory or nondiscretionary fees. Both bills will go to the Senate.

The Kentucky Public Service Commission should make emergency rules within 45 days that streamline pole attachments for broadband providers, state lawmakers said in a resolution passed last week. The House voted 94-0 on Friday, while the Senate supported the measure 33-0 on March 1. The PSC should remove “any utility pole attachment-related impediments to the deployment of broadband service” and set “parameters for expediting and processing pole attachment requests for unserved and underserved areas … in accordance with” NTIA’s broadband equity, access and deployment program, the resolution said. Also, the emergency rules should aim to reduce the backlog of attachment requests.

The Missouri Public Service Commission decreased a relay service fee on phone bills to 6 cents from 10 cents monthly, effective June 1, the PSC said Friday. In the same order, the PSC discontinued analog captioned telephone service, which it said has a “steadily declining” user base. T-Mobile, whose contract as CapTel provider expires Oct. 31, 2025, must give users 30 days’ notice before ending service, the PSC said. “The specific date for discontinuing the service should be mutually agreeable to T-Mobile and” PSC staff. Missouri’s public counsel supported a review of relay services in September in case TO-2024-0033 (see 2309080075). Elsewhere, on Thursday the District of Columbia PSC approved a Verizon application to decrease its D.C. Universal Service Trust Fund surcharge, effective next month. The monthly surcharge will be 3 cents per Centrex line, a decrease of 1 cent, and 22 cents per non-Centrex line, an 8-cent decrease, said the PSC order (case FC988-1410). “Verizon DC represents that the decrease in the surcharge is due to the line loss experienced in 2023.”

Colorado announced some $9.5 million in additional broadband grants though the U.S. Treasury Capital Projects Fund. As a result of a state challenge process, “some of the previously awarded projects were reduced in size, leading to additional availability of funding,” the state broadband office explained in an email newsletter Friday. The additional awards included about $3.37 million to the Southern Colorado Economic Development District and two grants totaling roughly $3.17 million to Vero.

Vermont could be the first state to include a private right of action in a comprehensive privacy bill. The Vermont House voted 139-0 Friday to approve H-121, which would allow individuals to sue in privacy cases and give the state's attorney general an enforcement role. The bill will go next to the Senate. Initially, the House Commerce Committee decided not to advance H-121 in 2023 after members determined it needed work (see 2304060060). But on Thursday, lawmakers amended the bill, teeing up H-121 for a Friday vote. The Commerce Committee considered privacy testimony for four years to draft a “protective but largely technology-and industry-neutral proposal,” Rep. Monique Priestley (D) said. The amended bill would align with privacy laws in Connecticut and many other states, taking some features from each, Priestley added. Some would be “unique to Vermont,” including the private right of action and restrictions on “how businesses may use data to what is consistent with the reasonable expectations of consumers,” she said. For the Computer & Communications Industry Association, the “private right of action is our main point of concern with the bill's current language,” said CCIA State Policy Director Khara Boender: “The bill otherwise is largely harmonized with existing privacy frameworks” like Connecticut’s. Private rights of action in state laws such as the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act “have resulted in plaintiffs advancing frivolous claims with little evidence of actual injury,” Boender said. No other comprehensive privacy bill has a broad private right of action, though the California Consumer Privacy Act has a narrower one, said Husch Blackwell privacy attorney David Stauss. Whether it survives the Vermont Senate is an open question, he said. "I certainly expect that there will be significant pushback."

The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission would approve a proposed Frontier Communications settlement entirely and without modification under an initial decision by Administrative Law Judges Steven Haas and John Coogan. The PUC posted it Thursday in docket C-2023-3037574. Under the pact with Pennsylvania’s consumer advocate, Frontier agreed to spend $100 million on its Pennsylvania network through 2026 and give bill credits to customers with service problems prospectively and retroactively (see 2310260023). Any exceptions to the initial decision are due April 10, with replies due April 20, the PUC said. If no exceptions arrive, the ALJs’ decision “could become final without further Commission action,” it said.

Maine lawmakers passed a telemarketing bill this week that would require telephone solicitors, before calling a consumer, to use the FCC’s reassigned numbers database to verify that the consumer’s number wasn't reassigned. The House passed LD-2234 Tuesday and the Senate did so Wednesday. Gov. Chris Sununu (R) will next consider the measure.

Bills meant to protect kids online advanced in multiple state legislatures this week. On Wednesday, the Vermont Senate unanimously passed a children’s privacy bill (S-289) requiring an age-appropriate design code. It will go to the House. The same day in Illinois, the House Consumer Protection Committee voted 9-0 to advance a kids’ social media bill (HB-5380) that would require large social media platforms to make application programming interfaces (API) available so that third-party software providers can create tools for parents to manage their children’s activity on the platform. And in Alabama, the Senate Judiciary Committee cleared the House-passed HB-164 with a short amendment. The bill would require a reasonable age-verification method to restrict those younger than 18 from accessing pornographic websites. On Tuesday, Alabama’s Senate Fiscal Responsibility Committee cleared a privacy bill (SB-213) that would require data brokers to register with the state. A Pennsylvania House committee that day advanced a social media bill requiring age verification (see 2403190050).

The California Public Utilities Commission scolded Verizon Wireless in an order Thursday for its handling of a case of alleged customer fraud. The CPUC granted relief to a family of complainants through a 4-0 vote on a consent agenda during a Thursday meeting. Verizon could face further sanctions, the agency said. “During the course of this proceeding, Verizon failed to disclose material information concerning the porting and reassignment of at least one of Complainants’ mobile phone numbers,” said the draft decision in docket C.23-12-005. “This proceeding will remain open in order to explore an Order to Show Cause against Verizon for this material omission.” The complainants alleged that, without notice, Verizon terminated service to and locked their five iPhones and associated phone numbers for reasons of fraud. The customers said that, as a result, they had to buy five phones and suffered irreparable injury to their businesses because they couldn’t port their locked numbers to another carrier. Verizon asked to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction because its agreement with customers requires arbitration. However, the CPUC said the arbitration clause doesn’t circumvent the commission’s authority. Also, the carrier argued that it may terminate customers’ phone services without notice under its agreement and in exigent circumstances. Verizon argued that it acted after determining that the customers committed fraud. The CPUC agreed that the carrier could terminate customers’ service, but was “not satisfied with the way Verizon's Fraud Department handled this case and the allegations against the Complainants.” Accordingly, the CPUC required that Verizon confidentially “submit a comprehensive report of the procedures and criteria used … to identify and accuse customers of fraud,” with “specific evidence that supported Verizon's claim that the Complainants in this case engaged in fraudulent activity.” Also, the CPUC said the customer agreement “does not authorize Verizon to lock a phone or lock a number associated with a mobile phone.” So, the agency required Verizon to unlock five iPhones and their associated numbers. In addition, the CPUC required the carrier to refund the customers the costs of three of the five locked phones, plus the five replacement phones they bought after their service was terminated. Verizon declined to comment.