Wisconsin will prefer funding fiber broadband. Democratic Gov. Tony Evers signed the bill (SB-325) Wednesday. The wireless industry raised concerns about the bill (see 2310180032).

California’s largest tribe rejected multiple AT&T recommendations for the state’s participation in the broadband, equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program. The California Public Utilities Commission received reply comments Thursday on volumes one and two of draft BEAD initial proposals (docket R.23-02-016). The Yurok Tribe disagreed with AT&T that project area units should be as geographically small as possible. "AT&T says that requiring minimum geographic units to be equivalent to a contiguous tribal land area could ‘eliminate synergies and increase costs,’ but that’s precisely the logic that has led to a patchwork of service on tribal lands, and the chronic underinvestment of incumbent providers in remote, rural tribal locations,” the tribe said. In addition, Yurok disagreed with AT&T that applicants should have prior experience with technology they plan to deploy. "This suggestion would, quite obviously, completely disqualify a number of new providers seeking to bring quality service to areas long ignored by incumbent providers from eligibility." And the tribe disagreed with the carrier to score more points to larger projects. "Doing so would reward incumbent providers at the cost of new providers, as incumbent providers are better positioned to develop larger projects that serve more locations.” AT&T made the suggestions in its opening comments (see 2311280053). The San Diego Association of Governments urged the CPUC to better prioritize equity. "The current scoring rubric allocates only 10 points out of 100 for projects targeting low-income and disadvantaged communities,” the San Diego group said. While CPUC must comply with NTIA rules, “we contend that this limited point allocation may not serve as a sufficient incentive for ISPs to invest in areas of utmost need.” USTelecom replied, "California should rely on ACP participation and a comparability test to meet BEAD’s affordability requirements and affordability should not be scored on a sliding scale.” If the state adopts low-cost and middle-income affordability plans, “providers should be able to adjust prices to capture inflation, cost of living increases and other costs outside of the providers control such as taxes,” said USTelecom: And don’t prioritize open access. The CPUC’s independent Public Advocates Office urged the CPUC to reject recommendations to modify "affordability requirements in ways that would prioritize private interests over the public interest.”

Frontier Communications must answer a complaint from the state’s E-911 Council, the West Virginia Public Service Commission said Wednesday. The council complained that 10 emergency call centers couldn’t receive 911 calls for nearly 10 hours during a three-day period last month, the PSC said. E-911 Council Executive Director Dean Meadows said Frontier has inadequate backup for times when vandalism or bad weather disables phone lines. The council has seen problems for the last two to three years, he said. “We’re really at our wit’s end about what ought to be done.” Frontier, which didn’t comment Thursday, must respond within 10 days, the PSC ordered Tuesday in docket 23-0921-T-C. On Monday, the PSC reported Altice improvements after the agency fined the company $2.2 million in February 2022 for service quality failures (see 2202090063). Customer complaints against Altice’s Optimum, formerly known as Suddenlink, dropped by more than half to 311 so far this year from 687 in 2022, the West Virginia PSC said. Chairman Charlotte Lane is pleased but will keep monitoring, she said. “Optimum’s attitude seems dramatically different from before.”

The California Public Utilities Commission would provide about $31.9 million in California High Cost Fund-A support next year to 10 small ILECs under a draft resolution (T-17806) released Tuesday. The CPUC may consider the item at its Jan. 11 meeting. The small ILECs requested about $32.6 million but CPUC staff recommended less after considering final net interstate expense adjustment data from the National Exchange Carrier Association, a corrected calculation of an intercarrier compensation reduction and applying the means test, the draft said.

Pennsylvania's USF contribution rate will increase to 2.69% of monthly intrastate revenue from 2.53%, the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission unanimously decided Thursday. The Pennsylvania USF administrator suggests reexamining the state USF mechanism due to the contribution base’s “continuous decline” and a reduction in annual reporter revenue, said the order in docket M-00001337. The PUC approved an advance NPRM in August to amend state USF rules, with a first round of comments due Feb. 9 (see 2308240072). Not all carriers report their intrastate VoIP revenue as they should, said the PUC, directing all carriers to do so for state USF purposes.

The Colorado Public Utilities Commission will seek clarity on its definition of “basic emergency service (BES) outage,” said a notice of proposed rulemaking Tuesday (docket 23R-0577T). The proceeding follows a more extensive 911 rulemaking in docket 22R-0122T, in which the PUC adopted rules for BES outages, the commission said. Since then, staff noticed that the state’s only BES provider, Lumen’s CenturyLink, construes what qualifies as a BES outage “differently than intended,” it said. “On numerous occasions, CenturyLink has argued in outage investigation responses that outages in facilities that service customers other than Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) are originating service provider (OSP) outages, not BES outages, even if those outages also impact a PSAP and prevent the PSAP from being able to receive calls. CenturyLink has also argued … that if the company reroutes 9-1-1 calls to another, alternate PSAP, then no outage has occurred, since the calls are still being answered, even if they are not being answered by the PSAP originally intended to receive the call.” The disagreement affects other rules including on outage reporting and billing credits, the PUC said. The commission hopes that the fresh rulemaking will “remove any potential ambiguity contained in the relevant rules prior to taking any enforcement action,” it said. Comments are due Jan. 10, with replies due Jan. 19. Also, the PUC plans a virtual hearing Jan. 29 at 11:30 a.m. MST.

The Nebraska Public Service Commission on Wednesday scheduled hearings in two 911 outage investigations. A hearing on Windstream’s outage (docket 911-076) will occur Dec. 20 at 9 a.m. CST; another on Lumen’s outage (docket 911-075) will happen Jan. 4 at 9:30 a.m. CST, the PSC said. The hearings will let Nebraska PSC commissioners “ask questions and get answers directly from the carriers involved in these outages,” said Chair Dan Watermeier (R). Decisions will be made later, he said. The commission opened the probes in September in response to the carriers’ back-to-back 911 outages (see 2309120046).

The Wisconsin Public Service Commission ordered staff to submit volume one of its initial proposal for the broadband, equity, access and deployment (BEAD) at NTIA. It’s reasonable for the plan to say that any enhanced alternative connect America cost model location built with DSL or hybrid fiber and copper networks be eligible for BEAD funding, said the PSC order released Tuesday in docket 5-BP-2023. Also, the plan should “establish a limited and nuanced challenge framework for licensed fixed wireless locations that takes into account the age of the equipment, the band of the spectrum, and the power wattage of the signal,” the order said. Nonprofits may be challengers, it said. Some had raised concerns that all locations receiving broadband through fixed wireless would be considered underserved under the Vol. 1 draft, the PSC said.

The California Public Utilities Commission reaffirms that small local exchange carriers file general rate cases (GRC) by application, said a 5-0 decision released Tuesday in docket R.11-11-007. Filing them by advice letter isn’t permitted, it said. The CPUC proposed the decision Oct. 26, citing transparency for maintaining the existing process (see 2310260071).

The West Virginia Public Service Commission updated TRS escrow account procedures through a Monday order in docket GO 187.64. The PSC said procedures established in 1992 “have been modified over time and should be memorialized.”