Adam Bender

A Minnesota Senate panel will pause 48 hours to resolve concerns about a broadband safety bill. At a livestreamed hearing Monday, the Energy Committee laid over SF-4742 by Sen. Jennifer McEwan (D) after multiple members expressed misgivings. The committee will resume considering the bill during its next meeting on Wednesday at 12:30 p.m. CDT, said Chair Nick Frentz (D). "I hope this is a hint from the committee that these members here are expecting to see some progress, or it's probably not going to make it out of this committee." McEwan committed to working hard on the bill before the next meeting. SF-4742 would set aside a portion of federal broadband, equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program funding for companies that agree to workforce “best practices” including payment of prevailing wages and annual skills training. It wouldn’t prevent anyone from seeking BEAD funding, stressed McEwan. Pointing to safety problems they’ve seen with broadband construction, the Laborers’ International Union of North America and Minnesota Building and Construction Trades Council supported the bill. But internet providers and telecom construction companies stressed their safety commitment and said the bill could hold back high-speed internet expansion. SF-4742 would put at risk Minnesota’s nearly $652 million BEAD allocation because it doesn’t comply with NTIA’s notice of funding availability or the Minnesota broadband office’s initial plan, said Minnesota Telecom Alliance CEO Brent Christensen.

Prepare for more California privacy activity in coming months, California Privacy Protection Agency Senior Privacy Counsel Lisa Kim said Wednesday. Kim previewed CPPA enforcement, rulemaking and legislative work at a virtual FCBA privacy symposium Wednesday. A growing patchwork of state privacy laws makes it difficult for businesses to create a good consumer experience for making privacy choices, said corporate privacy practitioners during a later panel.

The entire Arizona Corporation Commission refused hiking monthly surcharges on customer bills for the state’s high-cost fund, despite projections that the Arizona Universal Service Fund (AUSF) will soon run out of cash. The ACC's lone Democrat joined four Republican commissioners in voting against increased surcharges during a livestreamed meeting Tuesday. Staff warned last month that the AUSF would be depleted by the end of April, meaning no more payments starting May for funding AUSF administrator Solix or Frontier Communications, the only company in the state receiving this high-cost support (see 2402280038). Frontier supported staff’s proposal to increase the monthly surcharge on customer bills. However, Arizona commissioners said during the livestreamed meeting that they preferred addressing the issue through an upcoming Frontier rate case planned for this fall. Commissioner Kevin Thompson (R) can’t support increasing the AUSF fee, he said. “Let’s look at this in the rate case and have a broader discussion on the merits of the AUSF as we go forward.” Arizona commissioners also declined raising AUSF contribution rates in 2022 and 2023 (see 2312050032).

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) aims to avoid industry litigation that has stymied kids’ social media laws in other states, his aide told a Tennessee House committee during a hearing Tuesday on an administration-sponsored bill requiring parental consent for kids younger than 18 on social networks. But afterward, Computer & Communications Industry Association State Director Kara Boender told us her group “still [has] concerns surrounding the bill's provisions.”

Republican opposition couldn’t stop a Minnesota House bill on local broadband authority from advancing Monday. The Commerce Committee split by political party in a 10-6 vote to send HF-4182 to the House State and Local Government Committee. Also, the committee voted by voice to make an anti-junk fees bill (HF-3438) eligible for a full House vote. HF-4182 would establish local franchise authority for broadband in Minnesota much like what currently exists for cable. Rep. Isaac Schultz (R) slammed the bill, which he said would set up a “slush fund” for local governments by allowing unlimited fees with no directions for how to use the money. Rep. Harry Niska (R) added that it’s not transparent to put fees on monthly internet bills, where he said customers are less likely to expect a local tax. However, local franchising authorities and public, educational and governmental (PEG) stations support the bill, said Jodie Miller, Northern Dakota County Cable Communications Commission executive director. The bill would fill a revenue gap from quickly declining cable franchise fees, she said. "Our residents don't mind paying franchise fees when they know their dollars are being employed locally to provide our franchise office and our local programming.” The bill would extend cable franchise benefits to broadband, said Mayor Dan Roe of Roseville, Minnesota. Through franchising, local governments can ensure all their residents are served with high-speed internet, said local government attorney Michael Bradley. However, telecom and cable industry groups opposed HF-4182. "The bill authorizes every level of local government to impose unlimited, overlapping franchise fees" on broadband that will hurt low-income customers most, said Minnesota Cable Communications Association attorney Tony Mendoza. Minnesota Telecom Alliance members planned to spend $300 million this year to expand broadband, but "this bill puts that figure in doubt,” warned MTA President Brent Christensen, adding that no other state has a similar law. The proposed law may conflict with FCC wireless rules, cautioned CTIA Assistant Vice President-State Legislative Affairs Jeremy Crandall. The FCC requires cost-based fees, but the Minnesota bill would allow charges for raising revenue, he said. CTIA also opposed the junk-fees bill. Mobile companies should be exempted because they are already covered by FCC broadband labeling and truth-in-billing rules, testified lobbyist Sarah Psick for the wireless industry association.

The California Public Utilities Commission received warnings Friday about how the CPUC plans to make a foster-youth pilot a permanent part of the California LifeLine program. IFoster, the pilot’s administrator, said the current draft is “unconscionable” and would create a program “destined to fail.” The CPUC "is about to take a successful Digital Equity program and destroy it while also making ineligible foster youth as they age out of foster care, the very time they need a communications device most to obtain housing, food, and apply for jobs,” the nonprofit iFoster commented in R.20-02-008. Moreover, it said the revised proposal “will result in 12,000 foster youth losing what has been to date a life-saving resource that they describe as a lifeline, a bright spot in their lives, and a necessity for their vital communications.” It's wrong for the CPUC to try to conform the program to the state's “ill-fitting regular LifeLine program,” which “routinely rejects foster youth.” Also, using the traditional LifeLine model would mean removing the mandate for providing a device for foster youth and "no requirements for high speed or unlimited data or hotspot capability,” said iFoster. Neither T-Mobile nor affiliate Assurance Wireless will participate in the proposed permanent program, T-Mobile commented. The revised proposal "still does not address how -- or whether -- current Pilot Program participants will receive service" after the pilot expires July 31, T-Mobile cautioned. Cox supported making the program a permanent part of California LifeLine. But the CPUC shouldn't assign the program its own minimum service standards or specific support amounts, the cable company said. The CPUC had planned to vote Feb. 15 on an earlier proposal but twice postponed the item. The commission now plans voting on the revised proposal at its March 21 meeting (see 2402290056 and 2403050016).

The California Privacy Protection Agency could open formal rulemaking in July on draft regulations related to cybersecurity, risk assessments, automated decision-making and updating privacy rules, CPPA General Counsel Phillip Laird said Friday. The rulemaking would likely conclude in 2025, he said at a partially virtual meeting. Before the rulemaking starts, CPPA plans a “roadshow” across California to engage with and encourage broad public participation, he said. The board discussed revised, pre-rulemaking proposals on the latter three issues, which privacy experts say could affect many industries, including communications and the internet (see 2312060021). It gave staff a green light to move ahead on the cybersecurity rules last December (see 2312080064), but this summer’s rulemaking would take up all four items as a package. Recent CPPA revisions tightened automated decision-making draft rules, McDermott Will privacy lawyers David Saunders and Cathy Lee blogged March 1. For example, the definition of automated decision-making “in the last iteration was so broad so as to include calculators or even spreadsheet formulas,” they said. Board member Alastair Mactaggart raised that concern at a December meeting. The current draft “expressly excludes ordinary technologies … so long as they are not used in a manner that replaces human decision-making. Ambiguity remains, however, as to what happens if one of the excluded technologies is used to facilitate human decision-making.”

The California Public Utilities Commission voted 4-0 at its open meeting Thursday to adopt changes to the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) broadband public housing account and tribal technical assistance program (docket R.20-08-021). CPUC Commissioner Matthew Baker, appointed Feb. 16, recused himself from the vote because he was previously director of the CPUC’s independent Public Advocates Office, which participated in the proceeding. The order, as revised March 4, includes clarifying that public housing broadband grant recipients should provide free service without government subsidies, among other things (see 2401290059). "To meet our goal to close the digital divide and provide equal opportunity to all Californians, we need to make sure that we can allocate funds in an efficient manner that can meet the needs of our diverse communities,” said Commissioner Darcie Houck, who was assigned to lead the docket. "This decision has been in the works for a long time and is a product of extensive engagement with a diverse group of stakeholders and community groups.” It’s important that public housing receives free broadband service, said President Alice Reynolds as she supported the order.

It’s unconstitutional for Washington state to tax federal Lifeline reimbursements, the Washington Supreme Court unanimously decided Thursday. Siding with T-Mobile subsidiary Assurance Wireless, the state’s high court reversed a lower court’s opinion because it found that the Universal Service Administrative Co. (USAC) is the FCC’s instrumentality and thus immune from state taxes.

Maryland could be the next state that makes prison phone calls free, but only if lawmakers accept the proposal’s expected costs, estimated at $7.4 million. The state’s House Judiciary Committee mulled a no-cost prison calls bill (HB-1366) at a Thursday hearing, two days after the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee heard testimony on a companion bill (SB-948).