Adam Bender

Nontraditional providers are key to expanding broadband and making it affordable, said Commissioner Darcie Houck at a California Public Utilities Commission event Tuesday. At the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) virtual workshop, a municipal broadband panel urged the commission to dismiss industry naysayers.

Wireless carriers balked at a California Public Utilities Commission staff plan to restrict subscribers from combining state low-income support with federal affordable connectivity program (ACP) benefits for mobile plans. The CPUC received comments Thursday in docket R.20-02-008 on interaction among California LifeLine, federal Lifeline and ACP. The plan “is inconsistent with and preempted by applicable federal law, violates California law governing the state’s LifeLine program, and ignores relevant facts regarding subscribers’ wireless data needs,” said the National Lifeline Association.

Two Oklahoma bills meant to empower rural electric cooperatives to provide broadband cleared the Senate Business, Commerce and Tourism Committee at a livestreamed hearing Thursday. The panel voted 11-0 for HB-3835 setting maximum pole-attachment rates when cooperatives and communications companies can’t agree to a negotiated rate. “All parties are giving up something,” sponsor Sen. Brent Howard (R) told the committee. “None of them are real happy about it, but none of them are against it.” The committee later voted 11-0 for HB-1123 prohibiting class-action lawsuits by landowners against companies seeking to expand usage of easements for broadband. On Wednesday in Kentucky, the House voted 73-22 and the Senate voted 20-14 to override a partial veto by Gov. Andy Beshear (D) of HB-315. Beshear objected to an emergency clause in the bill to set up a state broadband office with $300 million from the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act (see 2204120040).

The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission will keep watching Frontier Communications, said members, as they closed an investigation into the company’s “virtual separation” at a partially virtual meeting Thursday. Union officials urged commissioners to keep docket 21-150 open due to their concerns about Frontier investment and workforce levels. Commissioners adopted a decision seeking more information on those subjects in existing Frontier service-quality docket 18-122, where they said oversight will continue.

Ohio justices asked why a city went to court rather than the legislature to collect franchise fees from over-the-top streaming video services. The Ohio Supreme Court held oral argument Wednesday on litigation between Maple Heights, Ohio, and Netflix and Hulu (case 2021-0864). Some justices appeared skeptical that Netflix and Hulu are video service providers that must pay franchise fees under Ohio’s 2007 law.

Regulatory Commission of Alaska members voted 4-0, with one member absent, to seek comments on Alaska USF (AUSF) proposals by RCA staff and the Alaska Remote Carrier Coalition (ARCC). Comments will be due in 30 days, replies 20 days later, commissioners decided at a Wednesday virtual meeting. Chairman Bob Pickett said he will bring commissioners back April 27 to discuss staff questions, including on AUSF’s role and future funding amounts and methods. While not opposing taking extra comment, Pickett said he hopes the proceeding won’t stretch until fall. “This thing needs to be resolved ASAP.” Progress was “limited” at last month’s technical conference on the staff proposal (see 2203180066), RCA Common Carrier Specialist David Parrish told commissioners. It’s time for the "commission to make some tough policy calls,” he said. It appears support is needed, but it’s difficult for RCA members to tell how much support is required in the state that deregulated telecom, said Commissioner Antony Scott. Commissioners agreed the RCA’s limited authority to compel specific relevant data is a challenge. The ARCC filed an alternative proposal Tuesday, the second it filed in docket R-21-001. It proposes a voice connections-based contribution method and distributing most statewide support to remote areas disconnected from roads. It would defer for five years addressing middle-mile transport cost support so the state can assess the impact of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

Consumer groups cheered the California Public Utilities Commission for denying rehearing petitions by prison phone providers of the agency’s August decision to set an interim 7 cents-per-minute intrastate rate cap for incarcerated persons communications services (IPCS) and to eliminate some fees. Securus and NCIC Inmate Communications separately challenged the CPUC decision in September. Securus said the PUC decision in docket R.20-10-002 was legally and factually flawed and undermined the commission’s goal of providing affordable IPCS services (see 2109230035). NCIC the same month said its costs could exceed revenue under the order and argued the cap shouldn’t apply to any facility with fewer than 1,000 average daily population (see 2109210080). Even without using a contract between Global Tel*Link and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation as a benchmark, the interim rate cap “is based on substantial evidence,” said the CPUC’s final decision released Monday. “The evidence in the record shows that a $0.05 per minute rate is feasible to achieve in jails and, overall, there is a downward trend in rates across both California and the US.” Prison Policy Institute thinks “the CPUC made the right decision,” emailed General Counsel Stephen Raher. “The best thing for parties, consumers, and correctional facilities is to move forward with the next phase of this proceeding. There is plenty of work remaining to be done, and we will continue to press for rate justice for all types of correctional telecommunications services.” Securus and NCIC rehearing applications “were a transparent attempt to delay the Commission’s action so that IPCS providers could continue to gouge incarcerated people and their families and support networks,” emailed Paul Goodman, Center for Accessible Technology (CforAT) legal counsel. “The Commission properly found that the providers could not refuse to turn over information about their actual costs of providing service, and then argue that the ample evidence provided by other parties about the costs of providing service were insufficiently reliable.” The Utility Reform Network Managing Director-Telecom Brenda Villanueva emailed that the CPUC’s decision was “supported in the record despite the claims asserted. Parties had repeated and ample opportunities to weigh in and provide data.” NCIC CEO Bill Pope is disappointed that the CPUC "disregarded a decade’s worth of the FCC’s work, including data collected, conducting actual cost analyses" and workshops with incarcerated people's communications providers and organizations managing correctional facilities, he emailed. Securus didn't comment.

Connecticut could adopt one-touch, make-ready (OTMR) rules next month adapted from the FCC framework. The state’s Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) released a proposed decision Tuesday to establish an OTMR process to facilitate “efficient development and deployment of advanced telecommunications and broadband infrastructure” and encourage shared use of poles. New Hampshire regulators are also moving toward adopting OTMR rules based on FCC rules.

Competitors raised concerns with Delaware limiting eligibility for $56 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding to big ISPs with existing cable franchises. Competitive telecom groups said they hoped for open and technology-neutral bidding processes there and in other states. A Delaware official defended the state program’s eligibility restriction, which excluded a Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) winner, as an “edge-out” strategy to extend broadband more quickly.

California legislators urged the Public Utilities Commission to pause before approving rules for a $2 billion last-mile federal funding account (FFA) required by the state’s $6 billion broadband law. At a hearing livestreamed Wednesday, Assembly Communications Committee members grilled CPUC Communications Division Director Rob Osborn on a proposed rule to prevent ISPs from increasing prices for FFA-funded plans for 10 years.