The Missouri House Utilities Committee cleared a small-cells wireless siting bill at a hearing Wednesday. HB-656 pre-empts local authority on small-cell siting, like many other bills now moving through state legislatures (see 1703080011). Under the bill, local authorities wouldn't be able to require an application “for routine maintenance on previously permitted small wireless facility collocations, or the replacement of small wireless facilities with substantially smaller ones,” a summary said. Thursday, North Carolina lawmakers added another small-cells bill to the map. Under HB-310, small cells would not be subject to zoning review, and applications would be deemed granted if not reviewed after 60 days. Localities could charge up to $100 per facility for the first five listed in an application and $50 for each additional facility. As in Missouri, no application would be needed for routine maintenance or replacing facilities with smaller ones. Debate over small-cells siting for 5G networks also is occurring at the FCC in response to a Mobilitie petition (see 1703090013).

Hearings in the New York Public Service Commission probe of Verizon copper start June 26, said commission Administrative Law Judge Sean Mullany in a Thursday ruling. He confirmed that and previously proposed filing dates (see 1703010048).

The Kentucky legislature stripped Public Service Commission of authority over retail phone service in all exchanges. The Kentucky House voted 79-13 to pass SB-10 Tuesday, after the Senate passed it 35-1 Feb. 24. In all exchanges after Sept. 1, the PSC “shall not impose any requirements or otherwise regulate the terms, conditions, rates, or availability of any retail service of the modifying utility.” The legislature previously deregulated exchanges with 15,000 or more housing units. The PSC maintains jurisdiction over wholesale service and complaints about anti-competitive practices under state and federal law, the bill said. The measure still requires signoff by the governor. The Kentucky PSC didn’t take a position on the bill, a commission spokesman said Wednesday. He said the measure deregulates larger carriers but the commission will retain authority over the basic phone services of rural local exchange carriers including small phone companies and cooperatives. Also, the commission will still be able to act on complaints for all types of carriers related to billing, slamming and cramming, he said.

Rhode Island should stop diverting 911 fees for unrelated purposes, said a Providence Journal editorial Tuesday, to which FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly tweeted he "commend[s] your attention." Rhode Island is one of eight states that the FCC's last report on state 911 fees identified for diverting revenue, and O’Rielly sought punishment for bad states (see 1703020060). “Rhode Island's elected officials should be more honest in budgeting and assigning fees,” the editorial said. “If the 911 money isn't needed for 911 services, it should be raised in another manner and identified as such in the state budget, in a way that reflects the actual use. It's too easy for state officials to tack on fees and surcharges, some of them supposedly temporary, and then continue them indefinitely and mislead people about where the money is going.” A bill (H-5075) before the legislature would repeal all state 911 surcharges levied on wireless telecom services and residential and business phone lines (see 1701170051). It hasn’t advanced since its Jan. 11 introduction.

A Tennessee House panel cleared an amended broadband bill by Gov. Bill Haslam (R) providing $45 million in broadband grants and tax credits and allowing nonprofit electric cooperatives to provide retail broadband service. By unanimous voice vote, the House Business and Utilities Subcommittee Tuesday sent that measure to the full committee, as expected (see 1703030054). It punted on other and similar bills, moving them to the subcommittee’s final calendar. The amendment to the Haslam bill (HB-529), sponsored by Rep. David Hawk (R) and Leader Glen Casada (R), allows cooperatives to provide video services, but limits services to their electric footprint, Hawk said at the live-streamed hearing. The amendment also strengthens a prohibition on cooperatives using electric revenue to subsidize internet services, he said. More than a third of Tennessee residents lack broadband, Hawk said. The amendment “makes a very good bill even better,” he said. “We’re bringing a reasonable solution to a complex situation. Not only do we want to make broadband accessible to our residents, but we also want broadband to be adopted by our citizens.” The amended bill doesn’t remove the state restriction on municipal broadband expansion that was challenged by the FCC and upheld last year by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. One of the broadband bills punted by the subcommittee was HB-1410 allowing such expansion (see 1703030054). Bills that also do that by Sen. Janice Bowling (R), SB-1045 and SB-1058, are currently before the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee. Institute for Local Self-Reliance Community Broadband Networks Director Christopher Mitchell said he's "disappointed in the refusal thus far to consider the single easiest way to expand high quality Internet access in Tennessee -- simply allowing Chattanooga and other municipal networks to serve the neighbors that are begging them to expand."

Caring about the appearance of streets has yet to stifle innovation in California, San Francisco told the California Supreme Court in a filing we obtained Tuesday. The city and county responded Monday to T-Mobile's appeal from the California Court of Appeal for the First District. The lower court upheld a San Francisco ordinance meant to block installation of telecom equipment that would diminish the city's beauty, rejecting a challenge by T-Mobile, Crown Castle and ExteNet (see 1701240012). "The telephone corporations who are Appellants here contend that this Court must choose between progress and parochialism, because allowing cities to control the appearance of their streetscapes by regulating wireless equipment in the public right of way will destroy innovation in Telecommunications," San Francisco said. "Appellants posit a false choice." San Francisco said it has approved more than 98 percent of wireless facility permits sought through the time of bench trial in the case. “While Appellants deploy broad rhetoric that San Francisco’s regulations nullify their statewide franchise right and jeopardize their rollout of 5G wireless service, they never demonstrate that their ability to do business or provide service is impaired in any respect -- nor could they, when they have received nearly all of the permits they have sought under San Francisco’s wireless facility permitting regime.”

The California Public Utilities Commission opened phase two of its rural call completion proceeding, the CPUC said in a Monday scoping memo. It will include review of the data requested of carriers in the CPUC’s December order for phase one (see 1612150062), all of which should be in by June 1, it said. The commission will determine whether to require carriers of last resort or others to report outages to various California state, local and tribal offices, and by June 30 establish a working group to recommend reporting thresholds, requirements and protocols, it said. Also in phase two, the commission will review the phone company data and determine if any other information is required, determine if new requirements on the carriers are required, and develop guidelines to ensure transfer or mergers don’t impair service. Comments are due March 31, replies April 12, the CPUC said. The commission plans to issue a proposed decision in Q4 2017, it said. The new phase begins as ISPs contest CPUC procedure in the first phase (see 1702230014).

Washington state customers complained more about phone companies than any other regulated industry in 2016, the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission said in a news release Monday. Nearly half (576) of the 1,242 complaints last year concerned regulated landline companies, resulting in $34,080 in bill credits or refunds, the UTC said. Energy companies closely followed with 532 complaints, it said. The complaints mostly involved disputed bills, service quality, customer service and disconnections, it said.

State commissions should speedily review the CenturyLink/Level 3 merger while exercising self-restraint, Free State Foundation Senior Fellow Seth Cooper said in a Monday blog post. Some states already OK’d the $34 billion deal (see 1702140017), but others, including New York and Washington state, have set longer review schedules. State commissions should focus on merger-specific competitive effects, while the FCC analyzes public interest issues, he said. States “should avoid issues unrelated to the transaction and not impose needless administrative expenses or lost market opportunity costs through drawn-out proceedings,” Cooper said. He warned that the state review process can become costly, time-consuming and redundant. “Regulators can become preoccupied with non-merger specific issues and use their leverage to impose regulatory conditions on their approval that are unrelated to the transaction or perhaps more fit for industry-wide rulemakings,” Cooper said.

DirecTV field services union employees in four states voted to ratify an agreement between parent AT&T and the Communications Workers of America, AT&T and CWA said Friday. The contract covers about 300 DirecTV technicians, warehouse and administrative workers in Delaware, Maryland, New Mexico and Oregon through April 12, 2018, CWA said. It provides higher wage schedules for all workers, with a 3 percent wage increase effective April 9, and includes a profit sharing plan, premium pay, limits on forced overtime for technicians, notice about schedule changes and expanded health care options, CWA said. AT&T reached a tentative pact with CWA for the DirecTV workers last month (see 1702170020).