More than a quarter of states and territories are allocating BEAD money toward broadband workforce development, NTIA Senior Policy Adviser Will Arbuckle blogged Wednesday. That spending -- in excess of $300 million -- includes $30 million by Louisiana toward its community technical college system for scaling up broadband workforce training programs and $50 million by Ohio toward such efforts as establishing workforce training programs at local colleges, he said. States should engage today with workforce partners such as employers, training academies and two- and four-year schools, he added. In addition, they should assess state and local broadband workforce needs by talking not just with ISPs but also with pole owners and broadband construction firms.

The California Public Utilities Commission voted 4-0 Thursday, approving an order updating the state LifeLine program to adopt an enrollment path for individuals without Social Security numbers. The PUC delayed the item in September (see 2409250016). Commissioner Matthew Baker abstained from the vote.

Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr (R) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the FCC concerning the use of cellphone jamming technology, Carr said Thursday. The move comes after the agency denied Georgia's June request for information on cellphone jamming in certain federal prisons, the AG said (see [Ref:2406040043). "Law enforcement is struggling to combat contraband cellphones due to an outdated policy that the federal government refuses to address or reconsider in any way," Carr said. The FOIA request included all documentation related to the FCC's response denying the state's initial information request. The FCC didn't comment.

Frontier's proposed sale to Verizon "will further the public interest in several material respects," the companies said as they defended the deal before the California Public Utilities Commission (see 2411250045). In a joint filing posted Tuesday in docket 24-10-006, they said the "protesting parties advance unsupported procedural arguments and urge the commission to endorse inapplicable legal standards and requirements." The carriers urged that the PUC "establish an efficient schedule for this proceeding," resolving the proceeding "no later than the third quarter of 2025."

Kansas will open a second application window Dec. 12 for funding through the state's advancing digital opportunities to promote technology (ADOPT) program, Gov. Laura Kelly (D) said. The additional $10.7 million will help organizations expand access to public Wi-Fi and devices. The state Office of Broadband Division will also host a webinar on Dec. 11 at 11 a.m. to "discuss funding priorities and application guidelines."

The California Public Utilities Commission will consider a proposed decision Thursday to temporarily freeze the state LifeLine specific support amount (SSA) for wireline and wireless providers. AT&T and others didn't persuade the CPUC to set the freeze at a higher amount if it ultimately adopted the freeze. The SSA for wireline and wireless providers would be frozen at $19 per month for two years beginning Jan. 1 or until a new methodology is adopted (see 2411220031).

Information Technology and Innovation Foundation arguments against publicly owned broadband networks (see 2412020039) reach a "laughable conclusion" that such systems don't address market failures, American Association for Public Broadband Executive Director Gigi Sohn said Monday. "Tell that to the tens of millions of U.S. households that cannot access, afford, or use a broadband connection," Sohn said. "Community broadband networks have arisen because big cable and telecom companies refuse to serve some communities with affordable and robust broadband." Sohn said ITIF's report is "full of weasel words and meaningless phrases" and ignores the huge public spending and in-kind contributions that have benefited those companies.

Local governments should reject calls to establish government-owned broadband networks (GON), said a new Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) report released Monday. The group evaluated the "finances, regulatory status, and economic sustainability" of 20 GONs and found that favoring these networks "wastes societal resources, creates unfair competition, and is frequently unsustainable in the long run." Local governments "are not well equipped to build and operate broadband networks and are likely to waste the resources they employ," ITIF said. Although acknowledging GONs have a role in broadband deployment, the group urged that officials refrain from "selective deployment or cherry-picking" GONs over private ISPs to prevent overbuilding.

An all-time high of 11.6 million notices of data breaches were sent to citizens of Washington state from July 24, 2023, to July 23, 2024, beating the previous record of 6.5 million in 2021, according to an annual report from Attorney General Bob Ferguson (D) Tuesday. Businesses reported 112 of the year’s 279 breaches in the state, with communications firms sending the most notices to consumers: 3.4 million. A mega breach of Comcast was responsible for 3.1 million of them. This is the first time that the number of individual notices of breaches has exceeded the state’s population and is the highest number of citizen breaches affected. “The more people know about data breaches, the more they can protect themselves,” Ferguson said in a news release. Retail had the most data breach incidents, at 20, sending 88,000 consumers notices. A cyberattack was the most common way data breaches occurred, with 217 instances, said the report. Ten were the result of either theft or a mistake, and 52 happened when an unauthorized person accessed secure data through something like an unsecured network or left sensitive documents out on a desk. Ransom was behind 113 of the cyberattacks; malware, 31; phishing, nine; skimming -- using a malicious card reader on a payment terminal, two. “These statistics further underscore our state’s critical need for comprehensive data privacy regulation,” Ferguson said in the report. “Data breaches are symptomatic of gaps in data privacy policies and the standards and practices of every entity that collects or controls this information.”

The West Virginia Public Service Commission extended until July 29 the due date for its administrative law judges to make a decision about the state E-911 Council's complaint against Frontier Communications (see 2401170009). The PSC said in an order Tuesday in docket 23-0921-T-C that staff sought additional time to investigate the issue.