The Utah Public Service Commission officially noted an AT&T restructuring that will merge affiliate AT&T Corp. into the newly formed AT&T Enterprises. “The PSC acknowledges the Restructuring … and amends the [certificate of public convenience and necessity] to reflect the new business name,” said a PSC order Tuesday. AT&T sought South Carolina approval for the restructuring earlier this month (see 2402090041).

An anti-robocalls bill made it through the Missouri House Innovation Committee on an 8-0 vote Tuesday. The approved bill (HB-2603) would add business subscribers to the no-call list and make caller ID spoofing a class E felony offense. Spoofed call recipients could recover $5,000 per call in damages under the bill.

Kansas could save money and address short staffing at 911 centers by passing SB-487, said sponsor Sen. Mike Peterson (R) at a Senate Utilities Committee hearing Tuesday. The bill would allow counties to contract with each other to consolidate public safety answering point services and authorize 911 revenue to be distributed to the combined PSAPs. Also, it would require counties to keep geographic information system data up to date. It would take effect July 1. The bill also received support at the hearing from Sen. Marci Francisco (D) and Ed Klumpp, a lobbyist for Kansas sheriff, police chief and peace officer associations.

The Arizona Senate narrowly passed a bill requiring age verification to protect minors from harmful content online. Senators voted 16-12 Monday to send SB-1125 to Arizona's House. The bill would require websites with pornographic content to verify that users are at least 18, including by comparing IP addresses with a blacklist. Parents could request that their kids be added to the blacklist; ISPs “shall not be under any obligation to confirm” that the requesting internet user “has a minor child,” it said. CTIA in a Jan. 29 letter opposed the bill as technically unworkable. The current bill “misunderstands how IP addresses are used within the internet ecosystem and their infeasibility for identification and age verification,” the wireless association wrote. IP addresses change over time and can be “easily overridden through widely available tools like proxy servers and virtual private networks,” it said. “SB 1125 would impose incredible burdens on ISPs to create an unviable blacklist framework. The regulatory onus should instead be on the content providers that knowingly create and distribute the harmful content to use viable commercial age assurance mechanisms." Also Monday, the Arizona House Appropriations Committee voted 12-0 for a kids' privacy bill (HB-2858) that would prohibit minors younger than 16 from using social media platforms without parental consent. In addition, it would prohibit users older than 18 from sending messages on social media to younger users.

Wireless industry concerns about a Nebraska 911 outage reporting bill irked some state senators during a hearing Tuesday. LB-1256 would add to carriers’ compliance costs, said CTIA Director-State Legislative Affairs Jake Lestock. Also, disclosing confidential wireless outage information to the state could pose privacy and national security risks, he said. The FCC has a good outage reporting system with strong security protection -- and the Nebraska Public Service Commission may access it now, he said. Considering the importance of 911 and several recent Nebraska outages (see 2401230048), Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh (D) finds CTIA’s opposition “flummoxing and unsettling.” Sponsor Sen. Wendy DeBoer (D) said she hadn’t heard prior to the hearing that industry opposed her bill. “I will continue to work on this and make sure we have all the safeguards we need, but this is important,” she said. Nebraska PSC Chair Dan Watermeier (R) supported LB-1256 as an “important accountability and transparency measure.”

The California Public Utilities Commission delayed by four months its deadline to approve applications for California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) infrastructure support. Postponing the deadline to June 30 from Feb. 29 “will provide the time necessary to complete coordination with the Federal Funding Account (FFA) and enable the CPUC to award grants for reliable and affordable networks to communities that need it most,” Executive Director Rachel Peterson wrote in an email to the CASF service list Friday. On June 1, the CPUC received 74 applications seeking about $527 million from the CASF infrastructure account, exceeding the $32.8 million available for FY 2023-24, said Peterson. On Sept. 9, the CPUC received 484 FFA applications, with many projects overlapping those in the CASF infrastructure program. Expect the delay to affect the release of a state broadband map and the deadline for 2024 CASF infrastructure account applications, said Peterson. “After new funds have been authorized for the 2024/2025 fiscal year, the CPUC will provide an update on the timing for the Broadband Map and the 2024 CASF Infrastructure application deadline via an email to the CASF Service and Distribution Lists.”

The Vermont Public Utility Commission announced a March 7 hearing on Consolidated Communications' transfer of indirect ownership and control of its local subsidiaries to Condor Holdings, a subsidiary of private equity firm Searchlight. Consolidated will present the deal at 6:30 p.m. and a public hearing will follow, said a Thursday notice in docket 23-4353-PET. Under a schedule released Feb. 2, non-petitioners must file direct testimony by May 3 and the company must file a rebuttal by June 14. More briefs will be due three weeks after an evidentiary hearing planned for July 10-11. Reply briefs would be due two weeks after briefs are filed.

Verizon said it reached and executed a settlement agreement with consumer advocates Center for Accessible Technology (CforAT) and The Utility Reform Network on migrating Tracfone customers still using non-Verizon networks in California, the carrier said last week. Within seven business days, CforAT will attach the agreement to a motion to withdraw its Oct. 6 petition to modify the CPUC’s 2021 decision approving the Verizon/Tracfone deal, Verizon said in a Thursday email to California Public Utilities Commission Administrative Law Judge Thomas Glegola. The email was shared with the service list for docket A.20-11-001.

The Maine Public Utilities Commission will soon seek more data and schedule additional meetings and workshops as part of a pole-attachments proceeding (docket 2023-00300), the PUC informed Maine lawmakers last week. The commission sent legislators an interim report Thursday, as a 2023 state law required. The PUC is required to study pole-attachment requirements’ effect on broadband expansion. The interim report describes the history of pole attachments in Maine, commission efforts over the past decade to update rules and comments received in the current proceeding. The Maine PUC said it lacks "specific recommendations or suggested legislation at this time.” In comments last month, cable companies urged the PUC to quickly align the state’s Chapter 880 pole-attachment rules with the FCC’s December order (see 2401160035). A final report is due Dec. 1.

The Florida House unanimously supported extending a $1 promotion for broadband attachments through 2028. Members voted 119-0 Thursday to approve HB-1147, which would let ISPs continue to pay $1 a year per wireline attachment per pole to bring broadband to unserved or underserved areas in municipal electric utility service territories (see 2402080006). Florida began offering the rate in 2021; it will expire July 1 unless extended. The Florida Senate plans to vote on the similar SB-1218 on Thursday.