The New Mexico Public Regulation Commission (PRC) agreed 4-1 Wednesday that CenturyLink now qualifies as a mid-size carrier under New Mexico law. CenturyLink has 347,354 access lines in new Mexico, below the state’s 375,000-line ceiling that defines a mid-size carrier under state law, the PRC said. CenturyLink had 850,000 access lines in New Mexico eight years ago, the PRC said. CenturyLink will be subject as a mid-size carrier to the same level of regulation as Windstream, the PRC said. The commission said it has previously provided more stringent regulation of CenturyLink. The PRC said it expects to launch a rulemaking in the next few weeks to establish rules CenturyLink must abide by on service quality, consumer protection and caps on pricing flexibility. “I want to help reduce costs to consumers and help promote economic development here in New Mexico," said PRC Chairwoman Karen Montoya in a news release. “Relevant information and crucial numbers, such as wholesale and leased lines, were not included in the calculation of this determination,” said PRC Commissioner Valerie Espinoza, who voted against reclassifying CenturyLink. “The Commission should be protecting consumers, not enabling a utility to have the ability to design their own rate, and issue no further penalty credits. We are not only compromising the quality of service, but reliability, as well, and much needed investment in rural areas.”

Washington, D.C., 911 and 311 communications were unaffected by a widespread electrical outage Tuesday in D.C. and parts of Maryland, said a spokeswoman for the District's Office of Unified Communications. The OUC handles 911 and 311 phone communications and public safety radio communications. The outage temporarily knocked out power across a major portion of the District, including at the White House and Smithsonian museums, along with areas of central and southern Maryland. The D.C. Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency said the outage was caused by a power surge that originated in an electrical facility Charles County, Maryland, while the Pepco electric utility reported the outage was caused by “an issue with a transmission line.” Maryland public safety answering points didn’t experience any service interruptions as a result of the outage, said a spokesman for the Maryland Department of Public Safety & Correctional Services. Telcos and cable companies that service the D.C. area, including AT&T, Comcast and Verizon, said they weren’t experiencing service interruptions because of the outage.

DevDigital, 365 Data Centers and Peace Communications jointly opened the Nashville Internet Exchange (NashIX) Tuesday, saying they deployed the exchange to improve Internet speeds in the Nashville area and reduce the cost of service. NashIX, which 365 is housing in its Nashville collocation facility, will reroute data that was previously routed via Atlanta, Chicago or Dallas, the companies said. Routing traffic through those cities “significantly” increased costs and resulted in additional latency, they said. Latency within a metropolitan area is typically less than two milliseconds, while latency between Atlanta and Nashville is between six and eight milliseconds, the companies said. A private 10 Gbps line from Nashville to Atlanta costs $5,000-$10,000 per month, while a Nashville area 10 Gbps connection is 30 percent of that cost, the companies said. A NashIX connection is free to entities that join the exchange before Sept. 30, the companies said. “Increasingly, content is moving from the core to the edge,” said NashIX board Chairman Peter Marcum in a news release. “With the NashIX, content will move faster and with less congestion.” The NashIX launch followed Allied Fiber CEO Hunter Newby saying Monday that company is poised to launch its own distributed Internet exchange between Miami and Atlanta, with connections to Chicago, Jacksonville and New York (see 1504060039). The Detroit Internet Exchange launched last week (see 1503310053).

The sponsors of HB-1303 and SB-1134 -- legislation in Tennessee that would partially ease the state’s restrictions on municipal broadband deployments -- confirmed Thursday that they're deferring further action on the bills until the Tennessee General Assembly’s 2016 legislative session. State Sen. Janice Bowling, a Republican, said support for the legislation had grown over the course of the 2015 legislative session but ultimately she and Assistant House Majority Leader Kevin Brooks decided there wasn’t enough support to move forward this year. Brooks previously had told us he believed the FCC’s Feb. 26 vote to pre-empt Tennessee’s municipal broadband law, along with North Carolina’s law, would improve the bill’s prospects (see 1502270048). The FCC’s pre-emption order now faces a legal challenge in the 6th U.S. Court of Appeals from Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery (see 1503240059).

Comcast said it will begin offering 2 Gbps upload and download Gigabit Pro residential broadband service to customers in the Atlanta metropolitan area in May. The company said it already offers up to 10 Gbps broadband service to business customers. Gigabit Pro service will be available to any homes within “close proximity” to Comcast’s fiber network in the Atlanta area, which is within reach of 1.5 million area residents, the cable company said Thursday. The service will also require installation of “professional-grade equipment,” Comcast said. “Our approach is to offer the most comprehensive rollout of multi-gigabit service to the most homes as quickly as possible, not just to certain neighborhoods,” said Comcast Senior Vice President-Big South Region Doug Guthrie in a news release. Comcast didn’t disclose potential pricing for the Gigabit Pro service.

Frontier Communications said it made 2Fast symmetrical upload and download speeds available to its residential FiOS customers in Oregon and Washington. The symmetrical speeds will be available on Frontier’s 30, 50, 75, 100 and 150 Mbps speed tiers. “Customers have been demanding faster upload speeds for access to the cloud, gaming and streaming applications,” said Vicky Oxley, Frontier’s general manager-Washington, in a news release. The 2Fast tiers will allow customers to more efficiently upload pictures and videos, conduct videoconferences, connect to cloud services and play online games, Frontier said.

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood filed an appeal Monday against the U.S. District Court in Jackson, Mississippi’s ruling granting Google a preliminary injunction against Hood (see 1503310023), he said in a statement Tuesday. “The law is clear that Google could have raised all of its defenses under federal law in state court,” but “we anticipated this judge's ruling,” he said. Judge Henry Wingate said in an order last week that Google didn’t have to “expose itself to civil or criminal liability before bringing a declaratory action to establish its rights under federal law.” “State Attorneys General should not have to go to federal court to prove their state law claims before being allowed to investigate or file in state court,” Hood said. “We believe the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals will respect the separate sovereign authority of the states,” he said: “If Attorneys General are unable to enforce state drug and consumer laws simply because a company uses the internet, then this should be a wake-up call to all Americans that our children can simply type in 'buy drugs' and Google will guide them thru its auto-complete feature to the dark web where they can purchase everything from heroin to prescription birth control pills." Google didn’t comment.

A U.S. District Court in Jackson, Mississippi, reaffirmed granting Google a preliminary injunction against Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood and denied his motion to dismiss the case (see 1503020060), said court documents. Google’s submitted evidence purported to show Hood’s “dissatisfaction with Google’s posting of certain content he finds objectionable, namely advertisements and videos originating from third parties” before the case, said Judge Henry Wingate. Hood publicized “inflammatory statements” against Google, he said. “Google claims that it responded to the Attorney General’s concerns by voluntarily making requested changes, on several occasions, but declining to accommodate the Attorney General’s expressed wishes on others, citing its right to free speech under the First Amendment.” Hood’s 79-page subpoena against Google soon followed (see 1412190045), he said. Google’s argument “has a home in federal court,” said Wingate. "Google is not required to expose itself to civil or criminal liability before bringing a declaratory action to establish its rights under federal law, particularly where the exercise of those rights have been threatened or violated.” Hood didn’t comment. He said after the initial ruling earlier this month that Friday’s order doesn’t “indicate how the court will ultimately rule on the merits of the case.” The docket is number 3:14-cv-00981.

Nine Detroit-area companies said they've established the Detroit Internet Exchange Point (DET-IX) to improve broadband speeds and lower costs for service providers in Michigan. Most data from Detroit previously had been routed through Chicago, DET-IX member company 123.net said in a news release. “Major metropolitan areas have been establishing IXP for years,” said 123.net Chief Technology Officer Ryan Dudain in the Tuesday release. “It's now our turn to improve Internet connectivity and stability for Michigan.” Internet collocation provider 123.net is housing DET-IX’s infrastructure in its Southfield, Michigan, headquarters. Only companies that have an autonomous system number (ASN) are eligible to join DET-IX, but the IXP provides 1 Gb and 10 Gb switch ports to its members for free. Several hundred Michigan companies have ASNs, 123.net said. “Detroit now has the infrastructure to consider itself among the best connected locations on the planet,” 123.net CEO Dan Irvin said in the release. “DET-IX offers numerous benefits to Michigan's established business community and will help attract and retain new tech businesses. It's an important milestone in the ongoing development of our state's high-tech economy.”

Ohio’s Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (DRC) said it negotiated its current contract with Global Tel*Link (GTL) to “drastically reduce” its inmate calling service (ICS) rates effective Wednesday to 5 cents per minute plus applicable taxes and federal USF fees for all calls within the U.S. The rate reduction is meant to comply with the FCC’s 2013 ICS rate cap order, which took effect last year, DRC said Tuesday. The FCC capped interstate call rates at 25 cents per minute for collect calls and 21 cents per minute for debit and prepaid calls. A 15-minute collect call cost would be capped at $3.75 under the FCC’s rules, while a 15-minute prepaid call fee would be capped at $3.15 (see report in the Aug. 12, 2013, issue). A 15-minute inmate call in Ohio cost $17.14 before the rate reduction, DRC said. GTL said it plans to replace all of its more than 2,000 phones in Ohio prisons by the end of the year and will install an additional 500 phones.