AT&T says it will expand its GigaPower fiber network into Houston and Overland Park, Kansas, and offer its U-verse with GigaPower service in both cities. AT&T had identified the Houston and Kansas City, Missouri, metro areas in April as potential areas of expansion for the network, which will eventually transmit at 1 Gbps (CD April 22 p8). The Overland Park City Council approved a memorandum of understanding Monday to allow AT&T to deploy additional fiber infrastructure. AT&T said it will announce specific locations where the service will be available in Overland Park later. The telco said it’s also currently considering deploying the GigaPower network in two other cities near Overland Park -- Leawood and Shawnee (http://soc.att.com/1p8gweX). AT&T said Tuesday it’s also currently deploying additional fiber infrastructure in Houston to support GigaPower, and will announce later additional information on locations where the service will be available (http://soc.att.com/1srQMep). The GigaPower network is currently operational only in Austin, but AT&T is expanding it into the Dallas-Fort Worth area and previously announced plans to expand it to the Nashville and San Antonio metro areas, along with three North Carolina metro areas -- Charlotte, Raleigh-Durham and Winston-Salem.

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn (D) said the state completed work on a $100 million expansion of the Illinois Century Network, a regional broadband network with about 1,800 miles of fiber. The network, anchored at Illinois State University, connects about 400 schools, health facilities and public safety locations. The project, which quadrupled the network’s capacity, was funded through a $62 million American Recovery and Reinvestment Act award and almost $34 million in state and local funds, Quinn’s office said Friday. The network includes more than 1,000 miles of new fiber lines and 750 miles of previously unused “dark” fiber, Quinn’s office said (http://1.usa.gov/1qMWftl).

NTIA scheduled a workshop Sept. 4 in Minneapolis on the “nuts and bolts” of building effective community broadband programs in the Upper Northwest. The workshop will draw on examples from NTIA’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program and State Broadband Initiative, said that agency Monday. The meeting will focus on how to align community, government and private sector interests in a broadband program, picking an effective business model and the funding application process. The workshop will follow up on NTIA’s May workshop on planning for community broadband, NTIA said (http://1.usa.gov/1APhSA5).

Free State Foundation President Randolph May criticized Alabama Monday for requiring Lifeline subscribers in the state to pay the state’s 911 service fee, which he said should be “jettisoned” one way or another. “It just doesn’t make sense to grant certified low-income consumers a $9.25 subsidy on the one hand, and then make those same customers pay a $1.75 fee on the other,” he said in a blog post (http://bit.ly/1o7JkUC), referring to our report that TracFone has filed a lawsuit against the Alabama 911 Board that challenges the board’s authority to extend the 911 fee to Lifeline subscribers. The National Grange and six other groups have also lobbied against the law (CD Aug 4 p7).

The Florida Public Service Commission said the state’s telecom industry is becoming more competitive, noting that CLECs’ market share of residential and business access lines rose from 26 percent to 32 percent last year. LECs in the state reported a 7 percent decrease in wirelines from 2012, while total residential access lines decreased by 18 percent, the agency said Friday. ILECs are now a minority in the state’s wireline business market, the PUC said. AT&T, CenturyLink and Verizon were the three largest ILECs in Florida last year, it said. About 2.8 million Florida residents were VoIP subscribers last year, a 5 percent increase from 2012, the agency said (http://bit.ly/1pwcj3F).

FairPoint Communications has finished installing its IP-based next-generation 911 system in Maine, making it “one of the first states in the nation” to deploy an NG-911 system that meets the National Emergency Number Association’s i3 standards, said the telco in a news release Thursday. FairPoint’s system will serve all of Maine’s 26 public safety answering points and covers 1.3 million people in the state. The system will improve call setup time and increase voice and data arrival times at PSAPs, and could improve emergency response by providing better information to public safety personnel before they arrive at the scene, FairPoint said (http://bit.ly/1uLQt1u).

Colorado Public Utilities Commission Chairman Joshua Epel met Tuesday with Daniel Alvarez, aide to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, to discuss challenges in deploying broadband to unserved areas in the state and his concerns with the “significant” decrease in Connect America Fund II funding set for Colorado compared with current USF funding levels, Epel said in an ex parte filing posted Thursday to docket 10-90. Epel also gave Alvarez a copy of the PUC’s July decision implementing emergency rules governing the Automatic Location Identification Service (http://bit.ly/1pJrROF).

FirstNet met with Maryland officials in Annapolis Tuesday, the first in a series of planned meetings across the U.S. with state officials, FirstNet said in a news release (http://bit.ly/1o596In). Attendees included Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley, Maryland State Police Superintendent Marcus Brown and state Chief Technology Officer Greg Urban, FirstNet said.

Correction: The dockets the FCC Wireline Bureau established for the Chattanooga Electric Power Board and Wilson, North Carolina, petitions for pre-emption of state municipal broadband laws are respectively 14-116 and 14-115 (CD July 30 p18).

AT&T said Monday it plans to bring its U-verse with GigaPower gigabit broadband service to Nashville. The telco said it will specify the service’s pricing and specific location availability later. Nashville Mayor Karl Dean praised AT&T’s announcement, saying that “this kind of technology is important to keep our city vibrant and attractive, and it is further proof of how Nashville is positioned as a city of the future” (http://soc.att.com/1qHbOax). AT&T announced last week that it would be making U-verse with GigaPower available in the Dallas-Fort Worth area later this summer. Cities there that will have access to the service include Arlington, Allen, Euless, Fairview, Fort Worth, Granbury, Highland, Irving, McKinney, North Richland Hills, University Park, Weatherford and Willow Park (http://soc.att.com/1ujy2kn).