California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) vetoed three bills on unmanned aircraft systems, or drones, proposed by state Sen. Ted Gaines (R), citing concerns with criminalizing conduct when the state’s prison and jail populations “have exploded,” in a veto message Saturday. Gaines said SB-168 would “protect forests, property and the lives of citizens, firefighters and emergency personnel from drone interference” by increasing fines for drone use that interferes with firefighting and emergency responders, in a September 2015 news release. “The bill also seeks to grant civil immunity to any emergency responder who damages an unmanned aircraft in the course of firefighting, air ambulance, or search-and-rescue operations,” the release said. Gaines said he proposed the bill amid “alarming reports of private, unauthorized drones causing mission-critical aircraft to be grounded during firefighting and medical response operations, putting pilots, firefighters, civilians and property at unnecessary risk.” SB-170 would have made it a felony to use a drone to deliver contraband into a prison or county jail, Gaines website said. The legislation would have also made it a misdemeanor to fly a drone over a prison as well as to intentionally capture images of a prison using a drone. SB-271 would have prohibited the use of drones to fly over or capture images of school grounds, without written authorization from the school district, Gaines’ website said. Brown encouraged the legislature to “pause and reflect on how our system of criminal justice could be made more human, more just and more cost-effective,” in his veto message, saying the bills increased the complexity and particularization of criminal behavior without a clear benefit.

Frontier Communications signed agreements with the California and Florida chapters of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) ahead of the company's pending buy of Verizon's wireline services in California, Florida and Texas (see 1509030063), the union and telco said in news releases Friday. In its extended collective bargaining agreement with IBEW in California, Frontier agreed to add 25 union jobs in the state and grant 100 shares of its stock to all transferring employees, said the release. IBEW represents about 200 Verizon workers in California, it said. In Florida, Frontier agreed to similar conditions as the IBEW deal in California, but said it will add "at least 100 new union jobs" in the state. IBEW said it represents about 2,700 Verizon workers in Florida. In both states, Frontier agreed to invest in additional employee training and to provide competitive wage increases. There are no IBEW-represented employees in Texas transitioning to Frontier as a part of its pending transaction with Verizon, a Frontier spokesman told us.

The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) is supporting Charter Communications buying Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable. Bringing higher-speed Internet at no additional cost to subscribers "is squarely in the public interest," NCSL said in an FCC filing posted Monday in docket 15-149. Citing Charter's "faster internet speeds, and their commitment to expanding Wi-Fi in public places," NCSL said the cable company "has been recognized ... as being the best provider in the nation. Expanding the Charter umbrella only further expands their capability to offer a superior product and experience to more Americans." It also doesn't "present any significant antitrust concerns," NCSL said. Other groups of many sorts have recently been backing the deal (see 1509250040).

The U.S. contains 10 of the world's top 20 regions in terms of fastest Internet speeds, an Akamai State of the Internet report said. Washington, D.C., is the fastest area in America with an average peak connection speed of 72.7 Mbps, the report said. Maryland is the second-fastest, Akamai said, with an average peak speed of 66.5 Mbps, followed by Washington state, Virginia, Delaware, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New York and California, in descending order. Each of the top 10 fastest states had a peak speed of at least 62 Mbps. Globally, D.C. ranked sixth; Singapore topped the list, followed by Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan. The remaining top nine fastest U.S. states placed anywhere from 10th to 20th on the global chart.

AT&T is preparing for Hurricane Joaquin by readying its disaster response equipment and putting personnel on standby for expected outages in North Carolina, it said in a news release. The carrier tested and topped off fuel for cell site generators, installed and tested high-capacity back up batteries and installed generator plugs, it said. It also staged other emergency response equipment in strategic locations. Its national reliability center is monitoring outages 24/7 for quick action, it said.

If the FCC changes financial reporting rules for price-cap carriers, it will have "unintended consequences," said the Nevada Public Utilities Commission in comments in docket 14-130 filed after the formal pleading cycle closed. Reducing financial reporting requirements could undermine access to accounting information that's useful for setting the rates of cost-based, rate-of-return regulated ILECs at the state level and for calculating disbursements to carriers from the state USF, said the PUC. Because the PUC has adopted the current FCC rules for financial reporting, if the FCC changes requirements, it will become a challenge for the small-scale providers of last resort to comply with both levels, the PUC said.

More work lies ahead "to ensure that no one is left behind in this digital revolution" and "the need for speed" will continue to increase, said NTIA Tuesday after a broadband summit it helped organize the previous day (see 1509280060). "When we started the Recovery Act grants program in 2009, the FCC still defined broadband at a speed less than 1 Mbps. Today the FCC recommends download speeds of 25 Mbps. At that rate, nearly 51 million Americans still do not have access to a wired broadband connection." About 250 broadband experts attended Next Century Cities and NTIA's Digital New England Summit in Maine Monday, the agency said in a blog post Tuesday. The event was the third in a series of regional workshops that NTIA is hosting across the country as part of its BroadbandUSA program, it said. The effort builds on NTIA’s broadband grant programs, which were funded by money from the 2009 Recovery Act, it said. NTIA invested more than $4 billion in about 230 projects across the country that have built critical network infrastructure, opened or upgraded public computer centers, and established broadband adoption and digital inclusion programs. The State Broadband Initiative Program invested $300 million to help states collect broadband data for the National Broadband Map and expand broadband capacity, the agency said. The grantees deployed more than 114,000 miles of network miles, connected nearly 26,000 community anchor institutions such as schools and hospitals, and installed or upgraded more than 47,000 computers in public access centers, the agency said. Grantees also enrolled hundreds of thousands of people in broadband services, it said.

Indiana Fiber Network (IFN) interconnected with Iowa Network Services through Indatel in Chicago, said IFN in a Tuesday news release. Indatel is a group of rural LECs nationwide that helps get people connected in rural areas.

The Oklahoma Corporation Commission Public Utility Department is seeking comment on how to resolve problems with special universal services funding from the state USF, the department said in a notice of inquiry earlier this month. The commission is looking for recommendations on payments from the fund that affect telemedicine and Internet access to public schools and public libraries, the NOI said. Some questions ask commenters to address how the school funding should be based, what the target bandwidth for libraries in the state should be, and whether the state should adopt FCC telemedicine values. The commission also is reviewing how to define "public interest," as it can reject a request if there is a lack of it. A hearing is set for Dec. 1.

The Iowa Utilities Board ordered a formal proceeding against CenturyLink after a handful of complaints were filed with the state's Office of Consumer Advocate. The office received multiple complaints about how long it took CenturyLink to restore landline services after problems were reported to the company. Because of an increasing number of complaints over the past few years, the board said it chose to open a formal proceeding in docket FCU-2015-0008. The Office of Consumer Advocate is required to file prepared testimony by Oct. 19, CenturyLink's testimony is due Nov. 23, and a hearing is scheduled for Jan. 12. CenturyLink didn't comment on the ongoing case except to say that it's willing to work with the Iowa Utilities Board to remedy the situation.