AT&T’s plan to expand its U-verse (CD Apr 22 p8) with GigaPower fiber network into 21 additional metropolitan areas including San Antonio was welcomed by that city’s Chief Technology Officer Hugh Miller on Monday. The city is also in discussions to get Google Fiber, putting San Antonio in the position of having two companies laying high-speed broadband and competing for customers. That could lead to lower prices for city residents and businesses, Miller said. He said the city is in the process of gathering the deployment data and topographical information Google wants. Unlike Portland, Ore., which last week signed a franchise agreement (CD Apr 21 p16) to let Google build on public rights of way, in Texas, utilities need only register with the state to be able to be permitted to build, he said. AT&T’s GigaPower expansion may help Comcast’s proposed buy of Time Warner Cable get approval, analyst Paul Gallant of Guggenheim Partners wrote in a research note Monday. Regulators have concerns because Comcast/TWC would have about 42 percent of the U.S. broadband market, he wrote, “but (also) because that number appears poised to go higher as cable operators collectively continue to take share from telcos. But AT&T’s announcement -- on top of Google Fiber’s recent expansion -- may begin to chip away at the idea of Comcast-TWC inevitably taking share from telcos. AT&T’s announcement won’t prevent the FCC and DOJ from applying potentially tough conditions on Comcast-TWC, but we think it could start to allay the instinctive concerns that Democratic regulators harbor with the cable merger.” An increase in cities where telcos can match cable broadband speed will lower the risk of regulators dismissing cable’s urban-based pricing, Gallant wrote. AT&T’s ability to “cherry pick” which neighborhoods to target for GigaPower “ensures AT&T an attractive incremental return since, by definition, the company would only build where it made financial sense, but it also acts as a check on the scope of any build-out,” wrote MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett Tuesday. But Moffett also said GigaPower is “one [offering] that is unlikely to dramatically increase the company’s value.” Time Warner Cable has the most potential exposure to GigaPower, with Los Angeles being the single largest target, Moffett estimated. Comcast also faces exposure in major areas like Chicago, the Bay Area and Houston. However, many cities might not accept AT&T’s terms, reducing the impact, Moffett wrote.

Advocates of 911 funding in Pennsylvania have begun circulating a draft proposal in the Legislature that would, at a minimum, renew for a year a fee on users of cellphones and other phone services which is slated to expire in June, said County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania Executive Director Doug Hill. Proponents are hoping legislators will increase funding, which now pays for only two-thirds of 911 costs, with local governments having to pick up the difference (CD April 16 p4), Hill said.

Florida’s Division of Telecommunications (DOT) is encouraged by its dialogue with AT&T over the company’s request for an FCC waiver to permit power spectral density measurements for 800 MHz cellular operations in three Florida markets, DOT said in follow-up FCC comments posted Monday in docket 13-202 (http://bit.ly/1fheSzi). The state had expressed concerns, but DOT said that in a response to the state’s initial comments, AT&T agreed it has the responsibility to eliminate the interference to public safety it causes. AT&T also described a process for dealing with interference, the DOT filing said.

State regulatory commissioners reiterated concerns about quantile regression analysis -- currently used to calculate high-cost USF funding but expected to be phased out over time -- with FCC Wireline Bureau officials during a conference call last week, according to a NARUC ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/1jQYTfw). “Several commissioners did express strong support for elimination of the QRA, as well as specifically endorsing the release of the data underlying the average urban rate calculation, and not allowing the new benchmark calculation to go into effect this year,” the ex parte filing said. The conference call included Wireline Bureau Deputy Chief Carol Mattey along with NARUC Telecom Committee Chair Chris Nelson, committee co-vice chairs Paul Kjellander and Catherine Sandoval, ex-NARUC President Philip Jones, Universal Service Joint Board State Chair Jim Cawley, Joint Board on Separations State Chair John Burke and other state commissioners. “There was also a brief discussion of closer collaboration on pending ETC [eligible telecom carrier] designations involving carriers seeking State designations that are under investigation by the FCC for non-compliance with the FCC’s rules,” the filing said.

Portland, Ore., reached a franchise agreement with Google Fiber, in which the company will have use of the city’s public right of way, a Google spokeswoman said. Under the agreement, Google agreed to pay the city the standard 5 percent franchise fee that other utilities pay (http://bit.ly/1jOurTw). The City Commission must approve the measure. “This franchise agreement is an important step along the path to Fiber. It gives us permission to build here, and it also outlines the ways that we'll partner with the city to invest in local infrastructure and give back to the community. There’s still a lot of work to do beyond this one agreement, but we hope to provide an update about whether we can bring Fiber here later this year,” Google said in a statement.

Iowa broadband adoption rose from 66 percent in 2010 to 76 percent of households in 2103, and now surpasses the national average, according to figures released by Connect Iowa Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1hO3GyZ). The non-profit was commissioned by the state to work with broadband providers to create detailed maps of coverage and develop a statewide plan for broadband deployment and adoption. Mobile broadband usage among Iowa adults has also grown from 22 percent in 2010 to 53 percent in 2013, a Connect Iowa press release said. But the survey found more than 113,000 school-age children in Iowa still don’t have broadband access at home. Nearly 650,000 working-age adults in Iowa would need assistance with tasks that are often required by employers, such as creating a spreadsheet, going online from a mobile device, using a word processor, or sending an e-mail. Two out of three non-adopters in Iowa said it would be easier for them to shop, seek out healthcare information or interact with government offices if they had Internet access at home. “A ten percentage point increase in adoption since 2010 shows that the efforts of Connect Iowa and our partners to bridge the digital divide are paying dividends,” said Connect Iowa Program Manager Amy Kuhlers. “Still, much work remains to be done to connect people to the empowering technology of broadband."

A three hour-long E911 outage in Washington state April 10 will be investigated by the state Utilities and Transportation Commission, the UTC said. “We recognize this outage could have had serious implications for people and emergency responders across the state,” said David Danner, UTC chairman, in a news release (http://1.usa.gov/1tfu755). “Our investigation will look into the cause of the outage, (CenturyLink’s) emergency preparedness and response, restoration efforts, and communication with the public.” Enhanced 911 services began experiencing interruptions in Washington around 1 a.m. Thursday, April 10. CenturyLink said that E911 service was been fully restored statewide later that morning, the ETC said. CenturyLink said in a statement that about 4,500 911 calls failed during the outage between 12:36 a.m and 6:26 a.m. “The outage was due to a technical error in a third-party vendor’s call router, which prevented the system from properly processing calls,” the carrier said. “CenturyLink and its vendor partner have taken steps to implement an enhanced monitoring process and have addressed the router issue.” The outage occurred across 127 public safety answering points. “CenturyLink’s top priority is customer safety and reliable communications,” said Brian Stading, Northwest Region president. “We are working closely with our vendor partner to fully to understand this outage. At this time, we are confident that the 9-1-1 system is fully operational and stable."

South Dakota’s PUC lowered the tax rate on in-state gross receipts of utilities and telecommunications companies (http://1.usa.gov/1md1p0L) Tuesday. The levy for fiscal year 2015, beginning July 1, will be 0.14 percent, down from the 0.15 percent maximum allowed by state law. “I'm pretty excited we can decrease a tax rate,” said Commissioner Chris Nelson, at the PUC meeting. Nelson noted the rate had been at 0.15 for a number of years. The rate is capped at what’s needed to fund PUC operations for two years. The rates were able to be lowered because the PUC has managed costs, and there have been an increase in requests to raise electric rates, Nelson said in an interview, noting that the cost of considering the rate cases are charged to the requesting utilities.

The proposed interconnection agreement between Michigan Bell and Sprint Spectrum was approved Tuesday by the Michigan Public Service Commission (http://1.usa.gov/1m7BVUP). The agreement filed with the PSC on April 1 (CD April 3 p18) called for AT&T to allow IP-to-IP interconnection between the companies. But while making the agreement, AT&T Michigan said in the filing it “continues to object to the contract provisions proposed by Sprint (http://bit.ly/PjAmEY). .... The provisions are contrary to the requirements of Section 251 [of the Telecommunications Act] and therefore must be rejected.” Tuesday’s ruling ends a long back and forth, in which the PSC ruled Dec. 6 (http://bit.ly/1k7xkBc) (CD Dec 10 p12) that AT&T has to reach an IP interconnection agreement with Sprint. Under a proposed agreement filed Feb. 25 (CD Feb 27 p16), the sides agreed all traffic Sprint exchanges with AT&T would be delivered in TDM format. They left the IP dispute in the air, saying if they can’t resolve the issue, they may amend the agreement in July to include IP interconnection. The PSC rejected the Feb. 25 agreement on March 18 (http://tinyurl.com/nmuglcw) (CD March 19 p19), saying the sides have to file any contingency agreement they might have with the commission. AT&T’s April 1 filing said it was only submitting the agreement because the PSC was requiring one be filed.

FirstNet recognizes the support of the public safety community is needed to make the network work, said FirstNet Director-Government Affairs Edward Parkinson in a FirstNet blog post (http://bit.ly/1tbeUlH) Tuesday. Parkinson said he told the Minnesota Public Safety Interoperable Communications Conference that “planning and partnering will be especially critical for Minnesota, which has a number of coverage factors to consider given the state’s geography is a mix of rural, urban, and wilderness terrain. Minnesota also shares a border with Canada, which is another important consideration for emergency communications planning purposes."