Briefs in a Connecticut Frontier Communications probe will be due May 17, the state’s Public Utilities Regulatory Authority said Tuesday. PURA granted an Office of Consumer Counsel (OCC) request to extend the deadline from April 4 in docket 24-01-15. The office sought more time “because full discovery has not yet been completed and essential members of OCC staff will be on medical leave until May,” the agency said. OCC asked PURA to investigate Frontier service quality in January (see 2401080041).
The Missouri Senate Commerce Committee supported extending the sunset date for the state’s 2018 small-cells law to Dec. 31, 2029, from Jan. 1, 2025. The committee voted 9-0 for SB-1411 at a livestreamed hearing Tuesday. The 2018 law preempted local governments on right of way in an effort to streamline 5G infrastructure deployment. The House has a similar bill, HB-1995. The Senate panel also heard testimony on HB-2057, which would explicitly exempt streaming content providers from paying video franchise fees. The House passed the bill Feb. 29 (see 2402290065). The Senate committee last month OK’d the Senate version, SB-947. Dish Network, DirecTV and Netflix lobbyists supported HB-2057, while the Missouri Municipal League and others representing cities opposed the measure. No regular constituents have ever testified for the bill, said Korein Tillery attorney Steve Berezney, who said he represented cities involved in litigation to collect fees from streamers. "This is something that is being pushed by the industry." Also at the Commerce Committee meeting, AT&T, Missouri Cable Telecommunications Association and other ISPs supported SB-1018, which would require the state or municipalities to reimburse internet and video service providers whenever they require them to relocate their infrastructure. Sponsor Sen. Justin Brown (R) proposed an amendment to match the bill’s language with the House’s HB-2056. At a meeting Monday, the House Fiscal Review Committee voted 7-0 to clear HB-2142, which would provide a tax deduction for broadband grant funds for 2022 and later tax years.
The Nebraska Public Service Commission will award $21 million for broadband from this year’s state universal service fund reverse auction, the PSC said in a Tuesday order. Great Plains Communications, the Hamilton Consortium, Midstates Communications and Pinpoint Communications won awards. The commission redistributed Nebraska USF support that was unused by or withheld from Frontier Communications and Windstream, using the cash to bring broadband-capable voice to rural areas where the two carriers had historically provided only traditional voice service. “This process is proving to be a valuable method in ensuring distributed NUSF funds are being used for broadband buildout to Nebraska’s unserved areas,” said PSC Chair Dan Watermeier (R).
The Kentucky Public Service Commission should make emergency rules within 45 days that streamline pole attachments for broadband providers, state lawmakers said in a resolution passed last week. The House voted 94-0 on Friday, while the Senate supported the measure 33-0 on March 1. The PSC should remove “any utility pole attachment-related impediments to the deployment of broadband service” and set “parameters for expediting and processing pole attachment requests for unserved and underserved areas … in accordance with” NTIA’s broadband equity, access and deployment program, the resolution said. Also, the emergency rules should aim to reduce the backlog of attachment requests.
Colorado announced some $9.5 million in additional broadband grants though the U.S. Treasury Capital Projects Fund. As a result of a state challenge process, “some of the previously awarded projects were reduced in size, leading to additional availability of funding,” the state broadband office explained in an email newsletter Friday. The additional awards included about $3.37 million to the Southern Colorado Economic Development District and two grants totaling roughly $3.17 million to Vero.
Vermont could be the first state to include a private right of action in a comprehensive privacy bill. The Vermont House voted 139-0 Friday to approve H-121, which would allow individuals to sue in privacy cases and give the state's attorney general an enforcement role. The bill will go next to the Senate. Initially, the House Commerce Committee decided not to advance H-121 in 2023 after members determined it needed work (see 2304060060). But on Thursday, lawmakers amended the bill, teeing up H-121 for a Friday vote. The Commerce Committee considered privacy testimony for four years to draft a “protective but largely technology-and industry-neutral proposal,” Rep. Monique Priestley (D) said. The amended bill would align with privacy laws in Connecticut and many other states, taking some features from each, Priestley added. Some would be “unique to Vermont,” including the private right of action and restrictions on “how businesses may use data to what is consistent with the reasonable expectations of consumers,” she said. For the Computer & Communications Industry Association, the “private right of action is our main point of concern with the bill's current language,” said CCIA State Policy Director Khara Boender: “The bill otherwise is largely harmonized with existing privacy frameworks” like Connecticut’s. Private rights of action in state laws such as the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act “have resulted in plaintiffs advancing frivolous claims with little evidence of actual injury,” Boender said. No other comprehensive privacy bill has a broad private right of action, though the California Consumer Privacy Act has a narrower one, said Husch Blackwell privacy attorney David Stauss. Whether it survives the Vermont Senate is an open question, he said. "I certainly expect that there will be significant pushback."
The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission would approve a proposed Frontier Communications settlement entirely and without modification under an initial decision by Administrative Law Judges Steven Haas and John Coogan. The PUC posted it Thursday in docket C-2023-3037574. Under the pact with Pennsylvania’s consumer advocate, Frontier agreed to spend $100 million on its Pennsylvania network through 2026 and give bill credits to customers with service problems prospectively and retroactively (see 2310260023). Any exceptions to the initial decision are due April 10, with replies due April 20, the PUC said. If no exceptions arrive, the ALJs’ decision “could become final without further Commission action,” it said.
The Missouri Public Service Commission decreased a relay service fee on phone bills to 6 cents from 10 cents monthly, effective June 1, the PSC said Friday. In the same order, the PSC discontinued analog captioned telephone service, which it said has a “steadily declining” user base. T-Mobile, whose contract as CapTel provider expires Oct. 31, 2025, must give users 30 days’ notice before ending service, the PSC said. “The specific date for discontinuing the service should be mutually agreeable to T-Mobile and” PSC staff. Missouri’s public counsel supported a review of relay services in September in case TO-2024-0033 (see 2309080075). Elsewhere, on Thursday the District of Columbia PSC approved a Verizon application to decrease its D.C. Universal Service Trust Fund surcharge, effective next month. The monthly surcharge will be 3 cents per Centrex line, a decrease of 1 cent, and 22 cents per non-Centrex line, an 8-cent decrease, said the PSC order (case FC988-1410). “Verizon DC represents that the decrease in the surcharge is due to the line loss experienced in 2023.”
The Kansas House approved a broadband infrastructure bill Wednesday aimed at streamlining providers’ access to public right of way. HB-2806 would require that counties apply ROW access and permit processes “in a nondiscriminatory and competitively neutral manner to all similarly situated providers." Similar rules already apply to the state's cities. Internet providers supported the bill at a Feb. 29 hearing (see 2402290044). The bill still needs Senate and gubernatorial approval.
New Jersey regulators renewed Altice’s cable TV franchise for seven years in an order released Thursday. Board of Public Utilities commissioners voted 4-0 to approve the statewide franchise renewal during a Wednesday meeting. Altice’s Cablevision “has complied or is ready to comply with all applicable rules and regulations imposed by or pursuant to State and federal law as preconditions for engaging in the proposed cable television operations,” said the order in docket CE23120919. The company “has sufficient financial and technical capacity, meets the legal, character and other qualifications necessary to construct, maintain and operate the necessary installations, lines and equipment, and is capable of providing the proposed service in a safe, adequate and proper manner,” the board said.