Nine Mississippi electric cooperatives received state clearances to use $9.1 million in grants next year through the FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund. Mississippi Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley (D) said Friday he approved eligible telecom carrier redesignations for Alcorn County Electric, Monroe County Electric, Natchez Trace Electric, North East Mississippi Electric, Prentiss County Electric, Tallahatchie Valley Electric, Tippah Electric, Tombigbee Electric and Tishomingo County Electric. The action is expected to benefit 182,311 homes and businesses in Presley’s northern district, the commissioner’s office said. Only one Mississippi PSC member is needed to sign off on ETC status for areas solely within his or her district.

Frontier Communications sought rehearing Friday of an amended Arizona Corporation Commission order on the carrier’s June 911 outage. The ACC on Tuesday modified a July 27 decision requiring the company to invest in redundancy (see 2208160042). The commission removed a requirement that Frontier disseminate its emergency response plan to public safety agencies and the state 911 office, but left the rest of the order intact. Frontier supported the change but maintains objections to the original order, which was unlawful and issued without affording the company due process, it said in docket T-20680A-21-0198.

The California Public Utilities Commission should fine T-Mobile’s MetroPCS $10 million for insufficiently responding to a Sept. 27, 2021, data request in violation of CPUC rules, the agency’s Consumer Protection and Enforcement Division (CPED) said in a Thursday brief in docket I.22-04-005. The CPUC said in April that Metro faces up to $230 million in possible fines for failing to remit California USF payments for prepaid phone service, but Metro asked in May to dismiss the probe due to the pending court case (see 2207220067). "CPED has an absolute right to investigate MetroPCS’s compliance with the Prepaid Act and receive full, complete, and good faith responses to its data requests,” CPED said Thursday. "The Commission should find that MetroPCS’s failure to respond to the data requests denies the Commission the ability to conduct its investigation and enforcement by intentionally withholding information from CPED staff." The CPUC also should require the company to fully respond, CPED said. The company disagreed it should be penalized, in a separate brief Thursday. "MetroPCS’s reasonable, diligent, and good-faith conduct does not establish a violation of the Public Utilities Code or any Commission rule,” it said. "MetroPCS cannot be subject to a finding of liability (much less penalties) because CPED failed to comply with its obligations to timely advise MetroPCS of its purported concerns about the sufficiency of MetroPCS’s Response, thereby depriving MetroPCS of the opportunity to provide additional documents or to further explain its responses to individual CPED requests (many of which assumed incorrect facts and used vague terminology)." There was no material harm to consumers, property or the regulatory process, Metro added.

Louisiana will spend another $8 million to expand broadband to another 600 households in four parishes, Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) said Thursday. The governor announced the support at a groundbreaking for a $1.5 million project by Cajun Broadband in St. Martin Parish. The projects are funded by the state’s Granting Unserved Municipalities Broadband Opportunities (GUMBO) program. “Companies like Cajun Broadband are paving the way for our state to close the digital divide by 2029,” said Edwards.

The Iowa Utilities Board outlined a possible evolution of its telecom authority in final draft legislation for 2023. "The board shall regulate telecommunications service providers, interconnected voice over internet protocol services providers, or wireless telecommunications service providers to the extent authorized by this chapter and may obtain from a telecommunications service provider all necessary information to enable the board to perform its duties as authorized herein,” said the draft posted Wednesday in docket NOI-2021-0002. The board would have authority to investigate complaints about service quality, outages lasting more than 48 hours, failure to respond to customer complaints within 10 days, unauthorized changes in telecom providers or services and failure to repair or remove damaged, downed or partially installed communication lines within 10 days of being notified. Telecom providers found in violation, including interconnected VoIP or wireless providers, could be subject to civil penalties or have eligible telecom carrier designations or other certificates suspended or revoked, it said. Also, the draft bill would require the board to "adopt rules concerning universal service and duties related to designation and oversight of eligible telecommunications carriers" that are consistent with FCC regulations. Those rules should address application requirements, service area covered by designation, compliance standards, reporting obligations and non-compliance penalties, it said. The draft also covers issues including video relay service, cable franchises and public, education and governmental access channels. The draft bill follows workshops, technical conferences and written comments over the past year, an IUB spokesperson emailed. “The docket goal was to evaluate a bill draft for the 2023 legislative session and prepare a recommendation for the Board in order to meet legislative drafting deadlines.” Industry raised concerns about expanding authority to VoIP and wireless in comments earlier this year (see 2205230029).

The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission should revoke LTD Broadband’s expanded eligible telecom carrier designation, state Rep. Dave Lislegard (D) wrote Thursday to the agency. Balkan Township, which Lislegard represents, has had trouble moving on a fiber project with Bunyan Communications due to LTD’s winning bid in the federal Rural Digital Opportunity fund (RDOF) auction, he said. Showing “an inability to fulfill their promises,” LTD “should get out of the way.” The PUC is mulling whether to pause its proceeding on possibly revoking the company’s ETC status while LTD challenges the FCC’s recent long-form application rejection (see 2209200073).

Lumen’s CenturyLink wants a Sept. 29 vote by the Texas Public Utility Commission on a draft decision that would allow the carrier to deregulate 20 exchanges (see 2207290041), it said in a Tuesday letter to Administrative Law Judge Susan Goodson. “It is now over 35 days past the statutorily required 90 day deadline” to respond to deregulation petitions,” wrote Lumen Assistant General Counsel Brook Villa in docket 53611.

The South Carolina Public Service Commission cleared Palmetto Telephone to expand authority to provide local exchange and exchange access services to customers in TDS Telecom territory in the state. In Tuesday's order in docket 2022-190-C, the PSC also granted flexible regulation of Palmetto’s local exchange services offerings in the new area, like it had in existing areas. Service in the new area by the “established” South Carolina CLEC “will enhance competition … by offering additional service options and high service quality to South Carolina telecommunications users,” the PSC said.

Ohio commissioners unanimously supported seeking comment on proposed “regulatory restriction reductions” for local exchange carriers at their livestreamed Wednesday meeting. The Ohio legislature this year required state agencies to reduce red tape by 30% over three years. Comments are due Oct. 7; replies Oct. 17, said the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio in Wednesday’s order in docket 22-0048-TP-ORD.

Shelve Minnesota’s LTD Broadband review until the FCC reverses its rejection of the company’s long-form application for Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) support, urged the company’s outside counsel Andy Carlson of the Taft firm at a teleconferenced prehearing conference Tuesday. The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission is considering whether to revoke LTD Broadband’s ETC status while the company challenges the FCC rejection (see 2208240037). Minnesota Assistant Attorney General Kristin Berkland disagreed that the state commission should pause. FCC and PUC proceedings are "interrelated, but they are not interdependent,” with the state agency able to decide ETC designation regardless what the FCC is doing, she said. Carlson said LTD’s actual buildout will be proof it's qualified to deploy broadband. "That's great,” said Berkland, “but ideally you want to know in advance whether a company can do those things that it says it can do because it is incredibly difficult to claw back funding from a company that overrepresents its ability.” Minnesota PUC Administrative Law Judge Jim LaFave said he will decide later how to proceed. In South Dakota, the state telecom association urged the Public Utility Commission Sept. 2 to deny LTD’s request to suspend a proceeding to rehear its denied ETC application. The PUC should instead close docket TC21-001, it said. That request remains pending.