Adam Bender

The California Public Utilities Commission is readying a state budget for $5 million in planning funds from NTIA for the broadband, equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program, CPUC Communications Division Director Rob Osborn told the California Broadband Council at a Friday virtual meeting. States must submit their planning budgets by Aug. 15. The $5 million is meant to cover costs required to create BEAD five-year action plans. The CPUC submitted its letter of intent to participate in BEAD July 1, Osborn said. All states and territories filed letters by the July 18 deadline (see 2207130047). Osborn believes California is in a “pretty strong position” compared with other states because of all its work on its $6 billion Broadband for All effort, he said. The California Department of Technology submitted its digital equity planning grant application July 11 and expects the state will receive funding in late September or early October, said Scott Adams, CDT deputy director-broadband and digital literacy: The state would then have one year to develop a digital equity plan.

The California Privacy Protection Agency will oppose the American Data Privacy and Protection Act (ADPPA) as drafted, plus any other federal privacy bill that preempts California, CPPA board members decided unanimously Thursday. The board authorized staff at a virtual meeting to weigh in on HR-8152 and other federal privacy bills. Former FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz (D) urged the board to compromise on preemption.

The Michigan Public Service Commission is preparing for telcos to opt out of the state Lifeline program later this year due to a 2020 state law. Providers may give customers 90 days' notice starting Aug. 30. “There’s always worries” about customers who may be using the state discount, but the number of customers receiving the discount is “very small and continuing to diminish pretty drastically,” and getting people enrolled in the FCC’s affordable connectivity program (ACP) could have bigger impact, Commissioner Tremaine Phillips told us last week at the NARUC meeting in San Diego.

LTD Broadband won’t appeal an Iowa court decision that affirmed an Iowa Utilities Board (IUB) decision not to grant the company an expanded eligible telecom carrier (ETC) designation. The designation was needed to get about $23.2 million for the state through the FCC's Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, but Iowa District Court for Polk County ruled June 15 that the IUB’s decision wasn’t arbitrary or capricious. “We are not pursuing an appeal of the Iowa court ruling,” LTD Broadband CEO Corey Hauer emailed Tuesday. Hauer noted LTD already provides rural broadband to a quarter of Iowa’s geography. “By no means are we done fighting to bring fiber broadband to unserved and underserved Iowans.” Since January, the company “has been rapidly building” fiber-to-the-home services along the Iowa and Minnesota border and aims to have service in seven “small towns and surrounding rural areas by the end of August.” The South Dakota Public Utilities Commission decided last week to rehear its earlier denial of ETC status for LTD, while the Minnesota PUC earlier this month agreed unanimously to open a proceeding on whether it should revoke LTD’s previously granted ETC status (see 2207200037 and 2207140047).

The Oregon Public Utility Commission agreed to state USF rules updating rules on calculation and disbursements to eligible telecom carriers. Commissioners voted 3-0 Tuesday to adopt a staff recommendation to proceed with adopting a CostQuest model, despite apprehension by some telecom groups in docket AR 649 (see 2207200017). Chair Megan Decker said the action recognizes “the continued uncertainty and the stress … on stakeholders that depend on the OUSF” but added she is sure the commission can “arrive at something reasonable” and flexible. The PUC can make “surgical tweaks” later if needed, Decker said at the livestreamed meeting. Commissioner Letha Tawney likes the transparency that using a cost model will provide, she said. The model will assist but won’t be the final word in setting OUSF benchmarks, she said. Commissioner Mark Thompson doesn’t think the PUC is on the wrong path even with outstanding questions, he said.

Nebraska USF (NUSF) accountability needs improvement, said Nebraska Public Service Commission member Crystal Rhoades at a livestreamed meeting Tuesday. The PSC’s lone Democrat cast the only vote against an order, adopted 4-1, to release a list of qualified bidders for the commission’s reverse auction (docket NUSF-131). With the auction, the PSC seeks to expand 100 Mbps symmetrical broadband using $13 million of redistributed NUSF support. Rhoades said she generally agreed with the proposed order’s recommendations but couldn’t support it because it wasn’t clear to her how evaluations were made, by whom and if they were consistent across applications. “I have a lot of concerns about this agency continuing to issue funding without having concrete processes that are transparent and that are followed every time without exception,” the commissioner said. "We leave ourselves vulnerable to all kinds of gamesmanship.” Rhoades called for overarching changes. “We've got some real process problems and accountability problems with this NUSF fund -- and we have for a long time -- and I think we need to get serious about correcting it."

A centralized database for pole attachments proposed in Maine could reduce costs and help expand broadband, said Crown Castle and other fiber companies. But to work, the PUC must set access and other rules, they said in Friday comments at the Maine Public Utilities Commission. Some smaller utilities resisted mandatory participation in Alden One, a joint use software system developed by pole owner Central Maine Power (CMP).

California Assemblymember Jim Wood (D) wondered if environmental review hurdles to building the state’s middle-mile network might warrant legislative attention. At a California Middle-Mile Advisory Committee virtual meeting Friday, Wood said he doesn’t understand why placing conduit along a highway would require California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and other reviews. “Highway projects already are massively invasive on the environment and there have to have been cultural studies in these highway projects at some point in the past as well,” he said. “Why do we have to repeat things? How much more of an environmental impact could the trenching or the placement of conduit have than building the original highways?” A presentation by California Department of Transportation Division Chief-Design Janice Benton estimated 30 months for permitting, including a 17-month CEQA review. Wood worries about the state finishing projects before it must return federal funding, he said. “If there’s something we need to do more as a legislature to give you more tools to move this thing along, please tell us.” Assemblymember Sharon Quirk-Silva (D) agreed with the need for urgency. “The frustration … or fear is that we’re going to run out of time.” Earlier at the meeting, Quirk-Silva praised progress made and a California budget signed June 30 that included another $550 million for the middle-mile project over the next two fiscal years. It brings total funding to $3.8 billion, “which will be vital in helping the state address the cost increases for the project,” said Mark Monroe, California Technology Department Broadband Middle-Mile Initiative deputy director. The California Public Utilities Commission will start taking applications Aug. 1 for the state’s new $50 million local and tribal technical assistance fund, CPUC program manager Jonathan Lakritz told the committee. On July 1, the CPUC received 99 project applications seeking about $28.6 million total for broadband adoption and digital equity grants, plus 19 applications seeking about $1.4 million in grants for public housing and low-income community projects, he said.

LTD Broadband got at least a temporary reprieve from the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission on a denied application for eligible telecom carrier designation for Rural Digital Opportunity Fund support (see 2205240041). Commissioners voted 2-1 Tuesday to grant LTD a limited rehearing on newly discovered evidence in docket TC21-001. Vice Chairperson Kristie Fiegen (R) voted no, but the other commissioners voted against her substitute motion to deny rehearing. All three agreed not to grant LTD’s request to immediately reconsider their February decision. "We will have some new information,” said Chairman Chris Nelson (R) at the recorded meeting. “Whether it changes anything, I do not know. But my gut tells me that I owe it to the people of South Dakota to at least find out.” Commissioner Gary Hanson (R) said he struggled with what to do, but it seemed most fair to provide an opportunity to present new evidence. Feigen said LTD could have presented technical evidence in the initial hearing showing it had expertise to deploy fast broadband across the state, but the company didn't. Nelson dismissed concerns that LTD’s continued presence could prevent others from getting NTIA broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) funding because he said that money is unlikely to flow for another year and contains “onerous” requirements. Taking the opposite track in a decision last week, the Minnesota PUC agreed unanimously to open a proceeding on whether it should revoke LTD’s previously granted ETC status for RDOF funding (see 2207140047).

SAN DIEGO -- State utility regulators passed a resolution meant to increase affordable connectivity program (ACP) enrollment. The NARUC board adopted the resolution Wednesday after it cleared the Telecom Committee in a unanimous vote Tuesday at the association’s summer meeting. Intensifying economic factors make programs like ACP critical, said committee Chairman Tremaine Phillips in an interview.