Washington, D.C., safety officials and Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority Interim General Manager Jack Requa said their agencies are working to increase testing of public safety radios in the wake of a Jan. 12 incident near WMATA’s L’Enfant Plaza Metrorail station in which first responders found their radios didn’t work properly during the rescue of passengers from a smoke-filled tunnel. D.C. Councilmen Jack Evans and Kenyan McDuffie, both Democrats, said during a D.C. Council hearing Thursday that they're seeking further answers on the incident, in which one passenger died and 84 others went to area hospitals. The incident has also attracted scrutiny from Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., and other D.C. area members of Congress (see 1501230066 and 1502030055). All area public safety agencies have radio infrastructure throughout the Metrorail system independent of WMATA’s infrastructure and are responsible for testing their own equipment, Requa said. WMATA is working with local agencies and the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments to “put in place formal protocols and procedures for regular radio testing with sharing of results and prompt action to correct deficiencies,” he said. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s administration also is taking immediate steps to improve radio communication connectivity, said Acting Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Kevin Donahue. Bowser has directed the city’s Office of Unified Communications, which is responsible for maintaining all of D.C.’s public safety radios, to conduct weekly radio tests in all Metrorail stations within city limits. Tests during the week of Jan. 19 found radios failed in nine Metrorail stations, while testing the following week found a failure in one station, Donahue said. The city’s Fire and Emergency Medical Services (FEMS) Department also issued improved protocols for communication between first responders when radios aren’t working properly, he said. Representatives for unions associated with WMATA and public safety agencies indicated that public safety radio connectivity is often intermittent in the Metrorail system, with D.C. Firefighters Association President Ed Smith saying it “remains to be seen” if FEMS’ recent encryption of its radio channels played a role in the communications failures at L’Enfant Plaza but noting the union has continually opposed encryption. First responders routinely encounter problems with radio connectivity in many large facilities in D.C., including federal buildings, Smith said. D.C. Councilwoman Mary Cheh, a Democrat, said she believes the radio problem in federal buildings “needs to be corrected” quickly.

Four of the 10 most common consumer complaints to the Missouri Attorney General’s office in 2014 involved the communications sector, Attorney General Chris Koster’s office said Wednesday. Koster’s office received 52,514 complaints about violations of “no call” and telemarketing laws -- an 8.5 percent decrease from 2013. Koster’s office said it “aggressively” pursued those complaints, filing 20 lawsuits, successfully banning 28 telemarketers from making calls into Missouri and collecting more than $270,000 in fines. Koster’s office also received 1,208 complaints about mail and phone solicitations, 674 complaints about phone cramming, and 598 complaints about cable and satellite service issues.

Verizon said it’s offering a reward of up to $50,000 for information that leads to the arrest and prosecution of those responsible for copper cable thefts in four southwestern Pennsylvania counties. The 30 thefts since early 2014 in Beaver, Fayette, Lawrence and Washington counties “have put public safety at risk for hundreds of customers and have caused unnecessary telephone service outages,” Verizon said Monday. The thefts have resulted in the loss of 16,000 feet of copper cable and more than $300,000 in damages, the telco said. “These acts are deliberate and brazen with no regard for the safety of our customers, and that is something Verizon will not tolerate,” Margaret Buban, Verizon director-Pennsylvania operations, said in a news release. “They can cause unnecessary telephone service outages for hundreds of customers at a time, put people’s lives in danger and cost thousands of dollars to repair.” The telco is working with state and local law enforcement agencies to investigate the thefts, which violate a recently state enacted law that made copper thefts a third-degree felony.

Alaska Communications said it completed the sale of its wireless assets and 33 percent ownership in the Alaska Wireless Network to majority owner General Communication Inc. (GCI). The $300 million deal, announced in December (see 1412040062), won’t affect service for Alaska Communications’ former wireless customers, because the telco and GCI implemented a plan to allow for a “seamless continuation of service,” the companies said in a Monday news release.

Broadband advocate statements praised Google's plan to deploy Google Fiber service to the Atlanta, Charlotte, Nashville and Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, metropolitan areas (see 1501270053). “Fiber is on fire,” said Fiber to the Home Council North America's President Heather Burnett Gold. “Communities must be planning/deploying gigabit infrastructure today in order to be part of the global economy tomorrow.” Google’s “enthusiasm and dedication in doing such demonstrates that communities across the country are willing to work to get high-speed Internet to their residents,” said the Coalition for Local Internet Choice. “We should encourage these efforts, not erect roadblocks to local choice.” Raleigh Chief Information and Community Relations Officer Gail Roper said deployment to Raleigh “is a foundation that will enable future generations to research, collaborate, and develop solutions beyond what we can imagine today.”

TechAmerica increased its grassroots advocacy partnerships 35 percent with the addition of new business councils, the trade group said in a news release Wednesday. The new partners are the California Technology Council, Howard Technology Council, Metroplex Technology Business Council, Nashville Technology Council, OCTANe and Wisconsin Technology Council, it said. They will join 17 technology councils that “affiliate on public policy advocacy and other activities to educate their member companies on national policy issues affecting their IT businesses,” it said. TechAmerica’s grassroots coalition claims more than 14,000 technology companies in more than 20 states, it said.

The New Hampshire Executive Council approved a $13 million contract Wednesday for FairPoint Communications to provide broadband and wireline service in state facilities through 2020. The council delayed a planned vote on the contract last month after Councilor Colin Van Ostern, a Democrat, raised concerns about the telco’s service quality in the state (see 1412230053). FairPoint agreed to hold public meetings around New Hampshire on its service quality before the contract takes effect in July. Ostern asked FairPoint to hold at least one meeting in each of the state’s five executive council districts. FairPoint has been facing ongoing service quality complaints in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont due to an ongoing strike of about 1,700 of its workers in the states. FairPoint and representatives of two unions -- the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers -- have been in federally mandated negotiations since Jan. 4.

Motorola Solutions said it successfully deployed its Advanced 9-1-1 text-to-911 technology in Kershaw County, South Carolina. It's the state's first jurisdiction to implement text-to-911, something that less than 4 percent of U.S. public safety answering points have done, Motorola Solutions said in a Tuesday news release. The company said it’s continuing to partner with Intrado on next-generation 911 technology in the county and elsewhere.

Google confirmed Tuesday that it will deploy its Google Fiber service in the Atlanta, Charlotte, Nashville and Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, metropolitan areas. Google’s announcement at least partially ended speculation about its deployment plans, which it had delayed announcing in December (see 1412230051). Dennis Kish, vice president-Google Fiber, said Google is still negotiating possible deployments in five other metropolitan areas -- Phoenix; Portland, Oregon; Salt Lake City; San Antonio; and San Jose -- and plans to make decisions on those areas later this year. Google Fiber has already deployed in the Austin, Kansas City and Provo, Utah, metropolitan areas. Google said its planned deployments in Atlanta, Charlotte, Nashville and Raleigh-Durham will reach into 14 neighboring suburbs of those cities and it will begin construction in those areas the next few months.

Washington, D.C.’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency (HSEMA) denied claims that encryption of the city’s Fire and Emergency Medical Services department radios was responsible for radio communications failures that occurred during a fatal Jan. 12 incident in a downtown subway tunnel. The denial came in a report Friday. Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) interim General Manager Jack Requa had said the agency wasn’t aware that FEMS had switched from analog radios to encrypted Motorola Project 25 (P25) standard digital radios until after the Jan. 12 incident at WMATA’s L’Enfant Plaza Metrorail station, when problems with radio connectivity were seen as possibly hampering the rescue (see 1501220067) of passengers trapped in a smoke-filled train. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., urged WMATA and the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments to improve communications about interoperability of emergency radios between area agencies (see 1501230066). Available information indicates FEMS radio encryption “does not appear to have played a role in the communications difficulties” that public safety personnel encountered during the rescue, HSEMA said in its report. HSEMA also said it found the D.C. government’s Office of Unified Communications (OUC) had coordinated with WMATA throughout the two years before it transitioned FEMS to the P25 radios and did 600 tests of the radios in every D.C. Metrorail station. OUC has fixed the radio connectivity issues in the L’Enfant Plaza station and is expediting a systemwide test of the radios, HSEMA said. A WMATA spokesman declined comment but noted the agency is waiting for the findings of the National Transportation and Safety Board, which he called the “only impartial agency conducting a fact-based investigation into this matter.”