The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission on Friday issued a ruling that phone service provided by a cable company is a telecommunications service subject to state oversight, a release from the commission said. An investigation determined that in March 2013 Charter Fiberlink Companies transferred all of its more than 100,000 Minnesota voice phone customers to an affiliate, Charter Advanced Services Companies, which provided VoIP phone service that was not certified by the state, the commission said. Charter did not notify or seek approval from the PUC, it said. After the transfer, Charter also stopped complying with two state programs designed to support universal phone access for disabled and low-income Minnesotans, the commission said. The commission’s decision does not apply to computer-to-computer communications nor services like Skype or FaceTime that do not travel on the public switched telephone network. “This unanimous ruling is a major victory to protect people,” said Commerce Commissioner Mike Rothman in the release. “Phone companies cannot gain unfair advantage and evade their responsibility to deliver fundamental services, especially for disabled and low-income Minnesotans who depend on it.” Charter claimed in the proceeding that federal law pre-empted state jurisdiction, the release said. However, several commissioners specifically pointed out that neither the courts nor the FCC has established exclusive federal authority over this kind of phone service, it said.

Frontier Communications has invested nearly $100 million in its Pennsylvania operations since 2011, including approximately $20.5 million in 2014, bringing broadband to all its customers in the state, said a Thursday news release. In 2015, Frontier is positioned to receive funding from the FCC, the company said. The program is poised to open in the latter half of the year and will provide funds over a six-year period, Frontier said. The telco would get as much as $1.7 billion over the program under Phase II of the USF Connect America Fund (see 1504290066).

Alaska Communications and Quintillion Holdings acquired a fiber network from ConocoPhillips in the portion of Alaska’s North Slope oil patch where most new development is occurring, said a Thursday news release from Alaska Communications. The release said Alaska Communications established a multiyear service agreement with ConocoPhillips. The network will enable commercially available, high-speed connectivity where only high-cost microwave and satellite communications have been available, it said.

Indiana's governor this week signed telecom tax legislation into law that increases the statewide 911 fee for a standard user from 91 cents to $1 per month and the prepaid wireless charge from 50 cents to $1 per transaction, the Indiana General Assembly's website said. The law also says the statewide 911 board may increase the enhanced prepaid wireless charge and the statewide 911 fee only one time after June 30 this year and before July 1, 2020. It establishes a $1 enhanced prepaid wireless charge, a $1 statewide 911 fee, and payment schedules for providers that are designated as eligible telecom carriers for purposes of receiving reimbursement from the USF. The law authorizes the board to audit wireless service providers on an annual basis to determine compliance with statewide 911 laws. Beginning with FY 2016, it requires the 911 board to ensure a distribution of statewide 911 fees to each county in an amount equal to that distributed to the county in FY 2014.

CenturyLink committed to bringing 1 Gbps speeds to about 100,000 residential customers in the next 12 months in several locations across Utah, the company said in a news release Wednesday. CenturyLink's February 2014 launch of 1 Gbps service to 2,500 Salt Lake City businesses in multitenant buildings has grown to more than 11,500 business locations throughout the state, it said. CenturyLink also recently said (see 1504200031) its gigabit service is helping the Utah Education and Telehealth Network create a network capable of carrying more than a full terabit of combined bandwidth across 1,412 schools and educational locations across the state.

Consumer Watchdog asked proponents of the San Francisco ballot measure regulating home sharing platforms (see 1504230055) to “withdraw the measure’s privacy violating provisions that are ‘antithetical to San Francisco’s core values,’" a news release said Monday. A provision would require firms such as Airbnb to share with city government an individual’s private financial information such as income, the number of nights they rent their home and amount paid for the rental of their property through the site, without a subpoena or search warrant, as required under current law. Consumer Watchdog sees this as a privacy invasion. “Your initiative is an unwarranted intrusion into users’ privacy and inappropriately requires the home sharing platform to do the enforcement work that should rightfully be done by the city,” President Jamie Court and Privacy Project Director John Simpson wrote in a letter to Doug Engmann, Dale Carlson and Calvin Welch, founders of San Franciscans for Neighborhoods, Affordable Housing & Jobs and proponents of the ballot measure. “San Francisco has been a leader in standing up for personal privacy and civil liberties in the face of government intrusion, including passing resolutions against the collection of sensitive financial information under the Patriot Act and even by mass transit agencies,” the letter said. “Your initiative’s pioneering of such privacy intrusions for San Francisco would be like the City of New York opposing immigration reform." The Los Angeles Times and San Francisco Chronicle editorial boards have expressed concern with the measure as well, with the Times calling the anti-privacy provision a “dangerous precedent.” Carlson told us he didn't understand the privacy concerns with the measure. "Businesses report data on their activities routinely to enforcement agencies," he said. "Why should people engaged in short-term residential rentals of tourist accommodations be treated differently?"

Comcast will offer residential multigigabit broadband service for up to 200,000 customers in Chattanooga, Tennessee, beginning in June and expects to expand availability locally over the next several months, it said in a release Thursday. Gigabit Pro is a symmetrical, 2 Gbps service that will be delivered via a fiber-to-the-home solution and will be the fastest residential Internet speed in the country, Comcast said. Earlier this month, it announced Gigabit Pro rollouts in Atlanta, California and Florida, and said it plans to roll out the service to 18 million homes by year end, it said.

Members of the National Association of State Chief Information Officers met with the FirstNet to discuss how states and FirstNet will proceed in planning and deploying a nationwide interoperable public safety broadband network, said NASCIO in a news release Wednesday. It said it wants to look at how state plans will be developed and presented to the states, as well as what the business model FirstNet chooses will mean for the network's sustainability and the potential impact to states as partners and customers.

After 37 years with the NARUC -- 17 as executive director -- Charles Gray said he plans to retire in December, the organization said Thursday. He said he plans to work with President Lisa Edgar and the executive committee to help ease the transition.

The FCC's proposed rule in the effective competition proceeding will hurt consumers and lead to higher prices, said the Alliance for Community Media, American Community Television and the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors in a letter to the FCC posted Tuesday in docket 15-53. It will do so because no basic service tier of any cable provider will be subject to local rate regulation, the letter said. The commission should narrow the scope of this proceeding and ensure that any action taken doesn't impose additional burdens on local governments or subject consumers to higher prices, it said.