Verizon workers will rally Thursday in front of a Nassau County, New York, call center that could be on the chopping block if Verizon management pushes through its contract proposals, a Communications Workers of America news release said. Joining the Verizon employees will be New York Assemblywoman Michaelle Solages (D), Nassau County Legislature Minority Leader Kevan Abrahams (D) and Long Beach Councilman Anthony Eramo (D). The CWA and the company are at odds over contract terms, and the union has been holding protests and other demonstrations against the telco (see 1509090048). A Verizon spokesman said, "Rather than doing the hard work needed to fully engage with the company and negotiate the meaningful contractual changes demanded by our challenging and transforming industry, the unions are using their time to orchestrate meaningless street rallies. This approach, by union leaders, is not conducive to getting an agreement, nor does it serve the interests of our customers or the approximately 37,000 union-represented employees who are still working without a contract. ... These rallies are starting to become old news -- the same, old misguided allegations, week after week."

The Communications Workers of America took a Verizon statement to the FCC in July out of context, said an ex parte filing by Verizon posted Wednesday in docket 13-5 and RM-11358. The resulting public relations campaign has created a false impression of Verizon’s "efforts to provide high quality services to customers that Verizon continues to serve by copper facilities," the filing said. The company has not engaged in widespread “de facto” retirement of copper; rather it has spent more than $200 million since 2008 on its copper network, Verizon said. "CWA has seized on that comment, taken it out of context, and tried to use it to create the false impression that this was all of the money that Verizon has spent to keep copper in service." CWA did not immediately comment Wednesday.

California Gov. Jerry Brown’s (D) decision to not yet sign the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act is evidence that “California is no longer a leader, not when it comes to how our privacy laws are applied in an era of constant technological growth,” wrote Electronic Frontier Foundation Investigative Researcher Dave Maass in an open letter to Brown Wednesday. Maass said he has been “digging into historical documents for any hint about what action” Brown may take on CalECPA. Though Maass says he was “impressed” by Brown’s “early work on computer literacy in the education system,” he said Brown’s signature is needed on the bill by Oct. 11 to provide privacy for individuals in California, as well as protections for “the companies we entrust our data to and the public safety officers who have to navigate the gray areas to protect us.”

Fiber that served Time Warner Cable and Verizon customers was damaged by road construction, causing an outage of services in Raleigh, North Carolina, Monday afternoon, a TWC spokesman said. The services were restored to TWC customers by Tuesday morning, he said. Verizon didn't immediately comment Wednesday.

Leaco Rural Telephone Cooperative joined the Texas Lone Star Network, said a news release from the network Tuesday. TLSN is a consortium of rural telecom carriers in Texas, and it said Leaco built a direct fiber connection into the TLSN backbone network.

Next Century Cities and NTIA will host Digital New England, a regional summit for broadband leaders Sept. 28 in Portland, Maine, an NTIA news release said Tuesday. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, federal officials and industry and nonprofit leaders will speak, it said. Findings of the Broadband Opportunity Council (see 1509210053), convened by the White House to examine how federal policy can better support community broadband, will be discussed, the agenda said.

The Public Utility Commission of Texas established a procedural schedule for processing Verizon’s petition to deregulate 10 markets with populations below 100,000. Intervenor comments must be filed by Friday; staff has until Oct. 2 to request a hearing or issue a recommendation; Verizon has until Oct. 9 to request a hearing, respond to comments and staff recommendations, or file a proposed order. The PUC must decide the case by Nov. 19.

California's Department of Justice and its Public Utilities Commission reached a $33 million settlement with Comcast over allegations Comcast posted online the names, phone numbers and addresses of tens of thousands of customers who had paid for unlisted Voice over Internet Protocol phone service, said a Thursday news release from the California attorney general's office. In the settlement, Comcast must pay $25 million in penalties and investigative costs to the state DOJ and CPUC, it said. The company will also pay about $8 million in additional restitution to customers whose numbers were improperly disclosed, it said. Comcast also agreed to a permanent injunction requiring the company to improve how it handles customer complaints and to strengthen the restrictions it places on its vendors’ use of personal information about customers, the AG's office said. The injunction will require Comcast to provide a simple and easy-to-read disclosure form to all customers that explains the ways in which it uses unlisted phone numbers and other personal information, it said. Comcast is in the process of refunding all fees paid for unlisted service by the roughly 75,000 customers whose information was improperly disclosed over a two-year period, which total more than $2 million. Under the settlement, Comcast will pay each of these customers $100 on top of the refund, totaling an additional $7.5 million, the AG's office said. The settlement also provides for further monetary relief to those with personal safety concerns related to the disclosure of their information, such as law enforcement personnel and victims of domestic violence, it said. The matter was "operationally resolved nearly three years ago," a Comcast spokeswoman said. Despite that, the company is happy to bring it to a close, she said. "It has always been our goal to find a solution that works for all parties and for the customers who were impacted by this error."

The Colorado Public Utilities Commission’s “flawed interpretation” of 2014 telecom legislation resulted in inequitable treatment of new market entrants in wholesale communications services, effectively blocking competitive broadband deployment, said PCIA in comments it publicized Friday. The main issues involve eligibility and validity of certificates of public convenience (CPCN) and necessity and letters of registration (LOR) for recently deregulated services, PCIA said. CPCNs and LORs ensure that communications providers can access poles at fair rates, promoting competitive broadband deployment, it said. Without an outward and obvious indication of authorization, many communications providers find that pole owners are unwilling to negotiate, which creates a barrier to entry and impedes deployment of broadband and its services, PCIA said. It urged the PUC to recognize these providers and remedy any potential market harm. CenturyLink also filed reply comments in the docket, saying the commission should initiate a rulemaking to consider some process so competitors can appropriately document and prove status to other providers and governments. The Colorado Telecommunications Association said the path forward is clear, and the commission should allow, but not require, voluntary registration by new carriers interested in obtaining commission certification before entering the Colorado market to provide deregulated telecom services or products.

It's surprising that Minnesota has never been challenged over its public utilities commission's authority over interconnected VoIP services before the Charter Communications case (see 1508210040), said PUC Commissioner John Tuma at an FCBA lunch Friday. The state Department of Commerce could have brought the issue up previously, but it chose to do so because, among other reasons, it wasn't collecting as much in fees, which made the department stand up and take notice, Tuma said. The commission could have turned the issue into a rulemaking opportunity, but Tuma said it believes the law is clear and there wasn't a need for more rulemaking. The issue is ongoing, but the PUC believes that "if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, has a dial tone like a duck, it's a duck," he said. The commission didn't necessarily push in the direction that the Minnesota Department of Commerce would have liked, Tuma said, but it focused "very carefully" on the preemption issue, he said. He anticipates the decision will be appealed by Charter. The major issues the commission had with Charter's transfer of services to this interconnected VoIP service is that it transferred customers to an entity that doesn't have the certificate to run a phone service in the state with no notice and that the company is no longer paying Telecommunications Access Minnesota (TAM) and Telephone Assistance Program (TAP) fees, the commissioner said. Charter did continue to provide 911 services, he said. There has been no talk of a fine being imposed on Charter, mainly because to do that in Minnesota requires the attorney general to get involved and take it to court, Tuma said. So the commission basically wants to know how Charter planned to pay the state's TAM and TAP fees for the new service, Tuma said.