Many cities are investing in Wi-Fi, said a study released Tuesday. The Wireless Broadband Alliance white paper by its Connected City Advisory Board said more than 75 percent of respondents, spanning 44 cities over 6 continents, plan to invest in Wi-Fi. Cities need to address the lack of expertise in developing and deploying citywide Wi-Fi, how to manage public expectations and user experience and the choice of technology to use, the board said. It was formed in July and is made up of chief information officers from cities such as Barcelona, Calgary, Dublin, Liverpool, Mexico City, New York, Singapore, San Francisco, San Jose and the governments of Delhi and the Philippines.

The Highlands Fiber Network lowered the price of its gigabit Internet service, which it has offered since 2011, from nearly $200 to $70 a month because there's such demand for faster fiber, HFN said in a news release. The Seattle-based fiber Internet company serves the Issaquah Highlands community.

A portion of money from universal service support should be invested in middle-mile infrastructure to be owned and operated by a neutral administrator, Alaska Communications Systems said an ex parte FCC filing posted Monday in docket 10-90. ACS responded to a joint letter filed in the docket by the Alaska Telecommunications Association (ATA) and member company General Communication Inc. (GCI). With populations ranging from a few dozen to a few hundred, it would be "simply impossible" to deliver to some Alaskan communities services that are at an affordable and reasonable rate and that are comparable to the already existing ones in more densely populated areas of the state, ACS said. The proposal from ATA and GCI is, at best, incomplete, ACS said. To close the broadband gap in the Alaskan bush, the FCC needs to take "bolder action" than just preserving the status quo support flows to eligible telecom carriers, ACS said. Whatever approach the FCC takes needs to relieve the shortage of available, affordable middle-mile options that don't exist in the Alaskan bush today, ACS said.

The California Public Utilities Commission mobile testing project measuring broadband coverage and speeds, CalSpeed, was deemed a success by Rob Osborn, a CPUC analyst. The project has had more than 9,000 tests performed since it was launched two years ago, he said. The latest changes include the launch of an iPhone app planned for December, an interactive map that is updated daily and a streaming video scorecard, Osborn said.

The nationwide public safety broadband network (NPSBN) could improve interoperability, capacity and reliability of public safety responses in states like Pennsylvania in cases of blizzards, gas explosions, riots, manhunts and hurricanes, a FirstNet blog post said Monday. Pennsylvania Statewide Interoperability Coordinator Mark Wrightstone earlier this year said the state's land mobile radio system, PA-StarNet -- which is used by more than two dozen agencies in Pennsylvania -- allows both voice and data traffic, uses 800 MHz trunked digital technology and services more than 25,000 subscriber devices, the post said. Wrightstone said that PA-StarNet has “extensive experience” with interoperable public safety communications, making it “ideally suited to coordinate Pennsylvania’s response to the federal FirstNet program and its mission to improve radio communications for first responders.”

The count for Colorado municipalities voting on whether to opt out of the state broadband law (see 1507100053) has increased to 43, said a post from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance's Community Broadband Networks webpage Friday. The running tally has jumped over the past few weeks, but now includes 17 counties, 26 towns and at least three school districts, it said.

The ongoing battle over VoIP authority heated up between Charter Communications and the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission when Charter filed a complaint against the PUC in U.S. District Court in Minnesota. Charter said the PUC overstepped its authority by trying to impose the state regulations for traditional phone services on VoIP services. The case began in March 2013, when Charter transferred overnight 100,000 Minnesota customers to an affiliate, Charter Advanced Services, which provided VoIP phone service that wasn't certified by the PUC (see 1508210040). Minnesota Commissioner John Tuma previously said the biggest concern with the service switch was that Charter transferred customers, without notifying them, to an entity that doesn't have the certificate to run a phone service in the state and that the company is no longer paying Telecommunications Access Minnesota and Telephone Assistance Program fees (see 1509180059). Neither Charter nor the PUC commented Friday.

The New Jersey Division of Rate Counsel filed comments Wednesday asking the New Jersey Superior Court's Appellate Division to reverse the state Board of Public Utilities (BPU) May order that allowed Verizon to reclassify/deregulate basic residential and small business phone service and the eventual elimination of quality-of-service reporting/standards requirements. The BPU order puts a cap on rates for five years and then Verizon is free to raise rates and not follow any quality of service rules, since it would essentially be deregulated. The court should send the case back to BPU for further proceedings because the order is "arbitrary, capricious and violates rate counsel’s due process rights," a rate counsel spokeswoman said. The original agreement with Verizon didn't include the rate counsel, the spokeswoman said. Verizon hasn't increased any rates since the decision, emailed a spokesman. The BPU order -- which was four years in the making -- reclassifies the company's four remaining services as competitive, he said. The BPU didn't deregulate the services, it just chose to recognize that the services are competitive, the spokesman said.

Google added Oklahoma City and Florida's Jacksonville and Tampa to its growing list of cities to explore for Google Fiber, said the company in a blog post Wednesday. The leaders of those cities will now have an option to work with Google on planning and studying the communities to see if Google Fiber is a possibility, it said. The process will look at factors that may affect construction, like local infrastructure and housing density, Google said.

The FCC Public Safety Bureau gave the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) extra time to build facilities it needs to replace its existing T-band (470-512 MHz) communications system. SFMTA sought the waiver in May, complaining that the size and complexity of the replacement system and budget concerns meant it needed more time, the bureau said. Four of the sites were subject to an already passed Oct. 2 construction deadline. There are no indications that SFMTA is “warehousing” the spectrum, the bureau said. “The record reflects that SFMTA’s overall goals are to satisfy SFMTA’s voice, data and capacity needs and replace its T-Band system,” the order said Wednesday. “SFMTA has demonstrated that these objectives are consistent with the public interest. Because denying the requested relief would have serious implications on the proposed SFMTA regional system, we grant SFMTA its requested extension.”