Jimm Phillips

The Supreme Court denied certiorari Monday to the Illinois Public Telecommunications Association (IPTA), the Independent Payphone Association of New York (IPANY) and the Payphone Association of Ohio (PAO). They collectively appealed the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit’s June 2014 ruling in IPTA v. FCC. The Supreme Court’s decision lets stand the D.C. Circuit’s ruling that the FCC 2013 decision not to overturn state utility regulators’ decisions nor grant payphone service providers refunds from AT&T and Verizon was reasonable and within FCC discretion. The groups had asked the D.C. Circuit to only mandate that the telcos pay the refunds or force the telcos to send funds received from long-distance carriers to the U.S. Treasury (see 1406160029). U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli and commission attorneys urged the Supreme Court on Feb. 11 to deny certiorari on the case, because the D.C. Circuit “correctly upheld the FCC’s determination that state authorities were better positioned than the federal agency to decide the applicability of the filed-rate doctrine in individual refund disputes” (see 1502190013). The IPANY is “greatly disappointed” that the Supreme Court denied certiorari since the case was fundamentally about FCC refusal to enforce existing Bell system commitments and commission rules for dial-around compensation, said association attorney Keith Roland of the Herzog Law Firm. PAO “knew it was an uphill climb” to get a Supreme Court hearing for the case, but the group wanted to ensure it pursued the case to its conclusion from its beginnings 18 years ago, said attorney Donald Evans of Fletcher Heald, representing that organization. Attorneys for IPTA and the FCC didn’t comment.

Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery sued the FCC over the order pre-empting portions of North Carolina and Tennessee state laws that restrict municipalities’ ability to deploy government-owned broadband networks. The FCC voted 3-2 Feb. 26 to issue the order, which specifically pre-empts the state laws for the Electric Power Board (EPB) of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Wilson, North Carolina (see 1502260030). Slatery, a Republican, had been expected to sue the FCC over the order. North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper, a Democrat, is expected to sue the agency. It hadn’t received any challenge from North Carolina, said an agency spokesman Tuesday. The FCC is “confident that our decision to pre-empt laws in two states that prevented community broadband providers from meeting the needs and demands of local consumers will withstand judicial scrutiny,” he said.

Tennessee’s HB-1303 and SB-1134 -- legislation that would partially ease restrictions in the state’s municipal broadband law -- are set for markups Tuesday in the state House Business and Utilities Subcommittee and the state Senate Commerce Committee. The legislation would ease restrictions by allowing a municipality that operates an electric utility to provide utility services, including broadband, outside its electric service area (see 1502270048). The restriction on operating utility services outside a municipality’s current electric service area was a main focus of the Electric Power Board (EPB) of Chattanooga’s pre-emption petition to the FCC, which the FCC granted Feb. 26 (see 1502260030). Both markups are to begin at 1:30 p.m. CDT.

The communications sector and federal agencies plan to begin developing a pilot program over the next month to further develop and test metrics for the FCC Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council’s report on sector cybersecurity risk management, said industry executives and government officials Thursday. The CSRIC report, adopted Wednesday, was meant to adapt the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Cybersecurity Framework for communications sector use (see 1503180056). The report continued to draw praise Thursday, with industry executives and federal officials saying during a USTelecom event that the report represented a turning point for communications sector cybersecurity.

The FCC Enforcement Bureau said it reached a $3.4 million settlement with Verizon, ending the commission’s investigation into the telco’s role in an April 2014 multi-state 911 outage. Verizon is the 911 service provider in 11 counties in northern California, nine of which were affected by that April outage. The bureau separately issued an order Wednesday fining Oklahoma telco Hinton Telephone $100,000 following an Enforcement Bureau investigation that showed the telco failed to direct 911 calls to local public safety answering points (PSAPs).

The Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council (CSRIC) unanimously voted Wednesday to approve Working Group 4’s report on recommendations on communications sector cybersecurity risk management, which was meant to adapt the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework. Working Group 4 released its report almost a year after CSRIC formed the working group as part of FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s push for the agency to increase its focus on cybersecurity as a public safety issue (see report in the March 21, 2014, issue). Wheeler said Wednesday, at what he called CSRIC IV’s “graduation ceremony,” that Working Group 4’s report would be “crucial to where we as an agency and we as industries and government have got to go” on addressing cybersecurity risk management. Wheeler continued to emphasize what he sees as the importance of the private sector leading on cybersecurity but noted that the FCC will continue to coordinate and play an oversight role. CSRIC also adopted Working Group 3’s report on expanded security best practices for Emergency Alert System stakeholders and Working Group 7’s report on updates to the prioritization of earlier CSRIC best practices.

The Department of Commerce’s Internet Policy Task Force sought public input Friday on possible cybersecurity-related topics that the IPTF could address via a consensus-based multistakeholder process. Topics the IPTF would tackle would largely veer away from securing critical infrastructure, a topic that federal agencies have recently focused on, “in hopes of improving security and user trust in the digital economy while also promoting U.S. innovation,” NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling said in a statement. The IPTF’s cybersecurity work would complement cyber initiatives that focused on critical infrastructure, including the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s development of its Cybersecurity Framework, NTIA said. The topics could include the cyber vulnerability disclosure process, botnet mitigation, the Internet of Things, managed security services and combating malware, the IPTF said in its request for comment (RFC).

Telecom deregulation advocates are following up recent successes in four states that passed statutes deregulating aspects of wireline and VoIP services by renewing their push for passage of similar legislation in the Idaho and Minnesota legislatures. Both states are considering bills that would prohibit VoIP regulation: Idaho’s S-1105 and Minnesota’s HF-776/SF-895. Minnesota is also considering HF-1066/SF-736, legislation that would let ILECs be regulated the same as CLECs. None of those bills advanced as far as statutes that passed or were enacted in Kentucky, North Dakota, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Thirty-two states deregulated wireline service by the end of December, while three others and the District of Columbia significantly limited wireline oversight, said National Regulatory Research Institute Principal Researcher Sherry Lichtenberg.

The FCC released its municipal broadband pre-emption order Thursday, quietly posting it after its earlier rollout of the high-profile but no-less-controversial new net neutrality rules (see 1503120053). The order, as anticipated, targeted the specific portions of the North Carolina and Tennessee state laws that the Electric Power Board of Chattanooga and Wilson, North Carolina, had sought pre-emption from. In the order, the FCC defended its Telecom Act Section 706 authority to pre-empt state barriers to broadband deployment and countered pre-emption opponents’ assertions that pre-emption violates the 10th Amendment and Supreme Court precedent in Nixon v. Missouri Municipal League. The FCC’s release of the pre-emption order is seen as another step toward anticipated legal challenges in federal courts, which industry lawyers have said couldn’t begin in earnest until the order’s language went public (see 1503110060).

Additional cities have “already committed” to become interveners in a lawsuit filed Monday against the FCC’s new wireless tower siting review rules, said Best Best municipal telecom and wireless lawyer Gerry Lederer in an interview Wednesday. The suit, filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit by Los Angeles and additional cities in California, Texas and Washington (see 1503100034), alleges that the rules, contained in the FCC October wireless facilities deployment order, are unconstitutional and misinterpret the 2012 Spectrum Act. Montgomery County, Maryland, filed an identical suit in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Friday. Best Best lawyer Joseph Van Eaton filed both suits, while Lederer is in charge of recruiting additional cities to join as interveners.