Florida state Sen. Tina Polsky (D) on Wednesday introduced SB-134, which would revise the conditions for awarding attorney fees in civil actions relating to telephone solicitation. The bill also would amend state law definitions of "telephone solicitor" and "telephonic sales call" to make clear that the terms don't include tax-exempt nonprofit organizations.

Alaska's Quintillion said Wednesday that it's making "steady progress" burying the subsea fiber-optic cable that was cut in January, disrupting service for customers in the North Slope and northwest Alaskan communities (see 2501220001). Crews on two submarine cable repair ships, the IT Integrity and the CanPac Valkyrie, have been working along the trench line to reach planned burial depths, the company said. Absent unexpected weather or sea ice conditions, this phase of the project should be done in the coming week, it added.

CTIA is asking the California Public Utilities Commission to clarify post-disaster community engagement requirements for facilities-based telecommunications service providers. In a petition Tuesday, CTIA said the wireless industry and CPUC staff had been on the same page about community engagement requirements applying to situations where a communications provider must rebuild or do major restoration after a disaster. However, the CPUC now apparently expects community meetings for any service outage resulting from a declared disaster, CTIA said. That approach "risks frustrating and confusing communities."

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) this week signed into law AB-1303, which prohibits the state's Public Utilities Commission and Lifeline program from sharing the immigration status of FCC Lifeline applicants or subscribers with other government entities without a valid subpoena or warrant (see 2509170065).

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Monday signed into law SB-576, which mandates that the volume of commercials on streaming services can't be louder than the original programming. Newsom's office said the bill builds on the 2010 Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act passed by Congress, which applied to broadcast TV stations and cable operators.

The deadline for applications to the Advance Colorado Mini Grant Program is Nov. 7, the Colorado Broadband Office said Friday. About $800,000 is available to applicants that have previously been awarded a state or federal broadband deployment grant from the state broadband office, it said.

Social media companies have a Jan. 1 deadline for reporting their content moderation policies to the New York Attorney General's Office, it said Thursday as it announced that the online portal for submitting those reports is open. The Stop Hiding Hate Act, signed into law in December, requires social media companies to submit terms of service reports to the AG's office, and report on the steps taken and on flagged or actioned items of content. “With violence and polarization on the rise, social media companies must ensure that their platforms don’t fuel hateful rhetoric and disinformation,” said AG Letitia James (D).

Contracts between the state and broadband providers regarding access to public rights-of-way are terminable at will by either party, the Georgia Supreme Court said this week. Since the contracts don't have a fixed period or end date, their duration is subject to either party's complete discretion, the court said (docket S25A0635). "The result is that these particular contracts are contracts of indefinite duration, terminable at will by either party."

Quintillion plans to build new branches of its subsea cable system off a new extension stretching from Nome, Alaska, to other locations in the state. In an FCC application Tuesday to modify its existing cable landing license, Quintillion said the new branches would provide fiber-optic infrastructure to communities in its service region, giving them "a diverse, resilient, low latency, competitive pathway to U.S. and global interconnectivity and cloud services."

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) is warning Alphabet and its YouTube subsidiary that his office may take action if YouTube TV, a virtual MVPD, drops Univision from its basic streaming package. In a letter Tuesday to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and YouTube CEO Neal Mohan, Paxton said the possible cancellation, planned for the same day, is "obvious retaliation for Univision's .... viewpoint diversity" and its hosting of a town hall event during President Donald Trump's 2024 campaign. "That was a laudable decision, and to the extent that YouTube TV is now using market power to punish it, such retaliation will not be tolerated," Paxton said. He also criticized YouTube for using Univision to solicit subscribers in its advertising, despite the looming cancellation.