A Pennsylvania bill to appropriate $5 million for a broadband grant program in FY 2020-21 headed to the governor’s desk Friday. Gov. Tom Wolf (D) "intends to sign the bill," a spokesperson said Monday. SB-835's offset is repealing a $5 million tax credit for mobile broadband. Senators voted 49-0 Friday to concur with House amendments. The House voted 202-0 Wednesday.

Washington's 911 center made a “horrible and tragic error” in a June 5 incident when a 911 operator apparently entered the wrong address for a 59-year-old woman in cardiac arrest, delaying arrival of emergency responders, said D.C. Council Judiciary and Public Safety Committee Chair Charles Allen (D) in a Sunday statement. Allen responded following our article last week on that and other 911 calls. “It happened earlier this year in June, and at the time, I conducted oversight into the incident,” Allen said. The Office of Unified Communications “disciplined the call taker and retrained the entire team,” he said. The event will be part of D.C. Auditor Kathy Patterson’s broader review of the agency, Allen said. “The Auditor’s role is to advise the Council by reviewing both specific and systemic issues and providing recommendations for improvement.”

Ohio Public Utilities Commission Chairman Sam Randazzo resigned Friday after the FBI searched his home. “The impression left by an FBI raid on our home, the statement included in FirstEnergy Corp.’s filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday and the accompanying publicity will, right or wrong, fuel suspicions about and controversy over decisions I may render in my current capacity,” Randazzo wrote Gov. Mike DeWine (R). FirstEnergy’s SEC filing Thursday said certain senior managers improperly paid $4 million in early 2019 to end a “purported consulting agreement” with “an individual who subsequently was appointed to a full-time role as an Ohio government official directly involved in regulating the Ohio Companies, including with respect to distribution rates.” Vice Chairman Beth Trombold will be acting agency chair, per state law, while a council considers nominations for DeWine, his office said Friday. A commission spokesperson declined to comment, referring us to the governor’s statement.

Minnesota should get what other states got from Frontier Communications in exchange for clearing the telco’s bankruptcy reorganization, state Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) said Friday in a Minnesota Commerce Department filing at the Public Utilities Commission. “Given the special conditions imposed in New York and likely to be imposed” elsewhere, the AG supports the PUC reconsidering the decision and allowing interested parties to recommend specific conditions, said Ellison, citing a "most favored state" provision in Minnesota's OK. “There are clearly some areas in Minnesota that have inadequate service quality and could benefit from investment,” he said. Frontier "will be responding in the docket over the next week," a spokesperson said. Frontier floated some commitments last week in California (see 2011190062). The New York Public Service Commission conditioned its approval on $9 million for service quality improvement (see 2010160044).

Hawaii released a broadband plan to update a 2012 strategy, the Senate majority said Wednesday. It sets goals of reaching all residents, including those on islands other than Oahu that lack broadband up to FCC standards or any connection at all, and to increase digital inclusion and adoption. “Broadband connectivity is the critical infrastructure that builds resilience and ties all of Hawaii’s residents to the global economy,” said Gov. David Ige (D).

The Lifeline National Verifier will fully launch Dec. 18 in California, the last remaining state to get the NV, the FCC Wireline Bureau said in a public notice. California managed verification of the federal program alongside its state LifeLine program for many years and the state doesn’t participate in the national lifeline accountability database, the bureau noted. The NV “will leverage the state’s existing processes so that Lifeline consumers in California can continue to apply using a streamlined state application process for both federal and state benefits,” the bureau said. Consumers who want standalone broadband will be verified by the NV rather than their eligible telecom carriers starting Dec. 18, it said. The NV will also handle reverification of existing broadband subscribers on that date, it said. The NV fully launched Wednesday in Texas and Oregon (see 2010190050).

The California Public Utilities Commission partly modified its T-Mobile/Sprint OK at a virtual meeting Thursday. Commissioners unanimously voted for a consent agenda that included a proposed decision in docket A.18-07-011 to grant the carrier’s request for more time to comply with network deployment and performance conditions in the April order but reject challenges to conditions to hire 1,000 more employees and comply with the agency’s CalSpeed program. T-Mobile earlier praised the part of the proposed decision granting relief (see 2010190014). The carrier didn’t comment Thursday.

The Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau is seeking comment on petitions by IDT Telecom and T-Mobile for reconsideration of parts of the FCC’s 5-0 September order cutting IP captioned telephone service rates (see 2009300057). IDT says, "because the Commission reduced the IP CTS compensation rate for the current 2020-21 TRS Fund Year, the Commission also should have reduced the applicable Fund contribution factor,” per Thursday's public notice: T-Mobile, on behalf of Sprint, “asserts the Commission did not have a reasoned basis for adopting a single cost-based rate rather than a tiered rate structure and did not adequately consider certain costs.” Comment dates are to come in the Federal Register.

Frontier Communications promised to pay more when it fails to quickly resolve outages in California. Its Wednesday brief at the California Public Utilities Commission also promised more fiber, to get clearance of its bankruptcy reorganization in docket A.20-05-010. Frontier pledged a plan to improve its performance restoring outages within 24 hours, and for three years will double how much it pays or invests when it fails to meet the state standard. The CPUC currently requires carriers that miss metrics to pay a fine or promise to invest twice as much as the penalty. If the telco faces a “penalty of $1.2 million, Frontier will pay $2.4 million in a penalty or propose an investment of $4.8M in lieu of the penalty,” the carrier explained. Frontier would also provide a $5 daily customer credit for outages lasting longer than one day, it said. It promised to bring fiber-to-the-premise to at least 150,000 more California locations within four years and to fulfill commitments from a 2016 settlement on buying Verizon assets, including to expand broadband to 840,000 locations by end of 2022. The Communications Workers of America, The Utility Reform Network (TURN) and the CPUC’s Public Advocates Office (PAO) urged conditions. CWA sought conditions requiring Frontier maintain current California workforce, reduce reliance on outside contractors and develop an enforceable service improvement plan that includes expanding broadband. TURN proposed pricing and broadband buildout conditions. The consumer group said the CPUC should require the company to invest in upgrading networks with poor service quality and to increase speed and performance of existing and planned broadband deployments. PAO sought conditions on jobs, broadband deployment and service quality, including to increase workforce numbers to at least meet Frontier's national ratio of customers-to-employees in three years and to require 25/3 Mbps for certain areas. Reorg is necessary to comply with broadband commitments in the telco's 2015 pact with the California Emerging Technology Fund, cautioned CETF.

The Regulatory Commission of Alaska voted 5-0 Wednesday to propose regulations and seek comment in its telecom deregulation rulemaking that responds to 2019 law SB-83 (see 2008260048). Staff will likely release the notice by Friday, said Common Carrier Specialist David Parrish at the RCA’s virtual meeting. It would give parties 30 days to comment, probably making the deadline a few days before Christmas, Parrish said.