California Assemblymember Jim Patterson (R) will try again next session on a vetoed bill that would have expanded eligibility for federal broadband grants administered by the California Public Utilities Commission, a Patterson spokesperson told us Wednesday. Wireless industry groups lamented Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Sunday veto of AB-1065, though they applauded the Democrat for signing AB-965, a bill meant to streamline the broadband permitting process.
Illinois is interested in funding “blended” broadband projects that bring service to both unserved and underserved areas, said the state’s broadband office director, Matt Schmit, on a Broadband.Money webinar Friday. Illinois is required to connect unserved areas lacking service with at least 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload speeds -- and must mind how far it can stretch federal dollars -- but the state hopes to upgrade many underserved places that have less than 100/20 Mbps, he said. Internet service providing 25 Mbps downloads and 3 Mbps uploads, the speeds used for the federal definition of unserved, is “wildly insufficient” in 2023, Schmit said. States will likely start sending NTIA final proposals for the broadband, equity, access and deployment program in spring 2025, predicted Schmit: Illinois aims to file its final BEAD plan in April that year.
Extended 911 hold times and insufficient staffing continue to plague the District of Columbia’s Office of Unified Communications (OUC), said D.C. Council members at a virtual hearing Thursday. The Judiciary and Public Safety Committee sharply questioned OUC Director Heather McGaffin on recent problems and the agency’s compliance with recent emergency legislation meant to enhance accountability and transparency. The committee also considered a bill to expand upon and make permanent the emergency measure.
A Pennsylvania House committee advanced a bipartisan bill on “ghost poles” Tuesday amid a push to increase telecom accountability by six Republicans from rural districts. The bills respond to constituents’ many complaints about Frontier Communications, state legislators said in interviews last week.
Big telecom companies differed with rural telcos on how much the Nebraska Public Service Commission should rely on new FCC broadband data for Nebraska USF (NUSF) high-cost distributions. The PSC posted comments Monday on short-term issues in a comprehensive USF review opened Aug. 29 (see 2308290044).
The California Public Utilities Commission would reject cable industry calls to limit support from the state’s $750 million broadband loan loss reserve fund (BLLRF) program to unserved areas, under a proposed decision posted Thursday (docket R.23-02-016). Rural counties praised the proposal, which the CPUC said it may vote on at the agency’s Nov. 2 meeting.
State net neutrality laws will remain a critical fail-safe even if the current FCC can restore national rules, Democratic authors of California and Washington state measures told us this week. FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel announced this week the agency will pursue rules, saying a national policy is better than a state patchwork (see 2309270056 and 2309260047). Title II reclassification may give the FCC legal basis to preempt state laws, said some telecom law experts.
The California Public Utilities Commission’s top goal for transitioning its foster youth pilot into a permanent program "should be ensuring that few youth lose service during the program transition,” said iFoster, the nonprofit that led the pilot. In comments Tuesday in docket R.20-02-008, iFoster said it knows “many foster youth lose their service during transitions of service providers and program administrators.” For example, during the migration from Boost to T-Mobile, “only about 25% of the foster youth successfully transitioned,” it said. Major changes proposed by staff could make the transition complex, said iFoster. The plan “contains many fundamental changes,” including a transition of users to California LifeLine at age 18 instead of 26, more service providers and possible changes to eligibility requirements, said the nonprofit. Every transition from the pilot into LifeLine has failed so far, even when LifeLine approves foster youth as eligible, iFoster said. “As an example, a foster youth successfully transitioned to the LifeLine program, and received a new device. Two days later, the youth was notified of termination as the youth was deemed to already have [affordable connectivity program support] in the form of at-home Internet. This was not the case.” The Utility Reform Network supports making the pilot permanent to "reduce foster youth’s barriers to accessing LifeLine services, particularly for minors,” TURN commented. The CPUC sought comments earlier this month on the proposal to make the foster youth pilot permanent (see 2309050080). T-Mobile recently said it found data discrepancies with the pilot (see 2309130016).
Ohio must find a “long-term solution” to fund 988, said state Rep. Gail Pavliga (R) at an Ohio House Finance Committee hearing livestreamed Tuesday. Pavliga’s bipartisan HB-231 proposes a 10 cent fee on VoIP, wireline and wireless monthly bills and each retail sale of a prepaid wireless service in the state. The state has relied on federal funding for the mental health hotline, but that won’t last forever, said Pavliga. In its first year, Ohio's 988 program received 8,671 calls and 3,368 texts and chats per month, she noted. The committee didn’t vote.
A Maine proposal to save the state’s 207 area code from phone number exhaustion by combining Consolidated Communications’ multiple rate centers into one could be a model for the entire U.S., said Maine Public Utilities Commission telecom analyst Michael Johnson at a workshop Friday. "This is definitely a big undertaking and something very unique that we're working with Consolidated to possibly implement."