At least 40 governors talked about broadband’s importance and connection to education and healthcare in state-of-the-state addresses this year, the National Governors Association reported Tuesday: Governors are addressing affordability through direct customer assistance, grants, expanding service options and investing in infrastructure and anchor institutions.

The National Association of State 911 Administrators asked the FCC to begin a rulemaking or notice of inquiry on improving 911 services, in a petition posted Tuesday in docket 94-102. NASNA asked the commission to establish authority "over originating service providers' ... delivery of 911 services through IP-based emergency services networks," advance next-generation 911 implementation, and "require the cost of compliance" to be the responsibility of originating service providers. It asked the agency to consider establishing an "NG911 Readiness Registry."

A New Jersey state court agreed with a federal court that the Cable Act preempts a New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) prorating rule challenged by Altice. The Superior Court of New Jersey Appellate Division reversed the requirement in an unpublished opinion Friday. The division said U.S. District Court Judge for New Jersey Brian Martinotti “reviewed the same facts and issues and determined preemption applied” in a March 23 opinion, which was challenged to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (see 2104230051). “After considering the judge's cogent reasoning and the lack of New Jersey case law compelling an opposite outcome, we adopt the reasoning articulated by Judge Martinotti, finding the Cable Act expressly preempted N.J.A.C. 14:18-3.8(c).” The Cable Act authorizes states to enact only consumer protection laws that aren't specifically preempted, the division said. The New Jersey Division of Rate Counsel is disappointed and will review options for next steps, emailed acting Rate Counsel Director Brian Lipman Monday: “We continue to believe that this is a customer service issue under the BPU’s jurisdiction and that the BPU properly moved to protect the rights of New Jersey cable ratepayers.” The New Jersey attorney general’s office declined to comment. Altice didn’t comment.

Localities want to blow up silos created by the Telecom Act, a NATOA webinar heard Monday. The act didn’t anticipate how critical the internet would be or that companies would provide so many services over so many technologies, said NATOA General Counsel Nancy Werner. “Silos are causing a lot of the issues now.” The persistence of different technology buckets for wireline, cable and wireless “allows for a kind of arbitrage” in which companies try to choose which silo’s rules apply to their services, said Rick Ellrod, Communications Policy and Regulation Division director for Fairfax County, Virginia. “Silos don’t make sense anymore because of convergence,” agreed local government attorney Mike Bradley. He cautioned it could take eight years to change the act after “people get serious about it, and I’m not sure that anybody is serious about it yet.” Werner said policymakers’ desire to address issues like privacy or digital equity could lead to a broader discussion about the silos standing in the way of changes on those fronts. Since the original act included broadcast TV channels, it would make sense for a rewrite to include over-the-top streaming services like Netflix, said Bradley. Local authority protected by the 1996 act has eroded in the courts, panelists said. Section 253 is the “most litigated section” and might be its biggest failure, Bradley said. The section was meant to increase competition, said Ellrod, but now industry uses it as a weapon to prevent it.

The Louisiana Public Service Commission seeks protests or intervention notices by Oct. 30 on Apollo’s buy of Lumen’s ILEC assets, said the PSC’s Friday bulletin. The docket is S-36166. It’s one of several state reviews starting (see 2110120015).

T-Mobile may not submit a reply to Dish Network's filing seeking additional sanctions by the California Public Utilities Commission against the T-Mobile in their dispute over the carrier’s imminent CDMA shutdown (see 2110140029), CPUC Administrative Law Judge Karl Bemesderfer ruled Thursday in docket A.18-07-011. “Both the T-Mobile request to file a reply and the DISH opposition to the request contain legal arguments and factual assertions that are better addressed in briefs than in a procedural motion.” They were due Friday. That day, Bemesderfer granted T-Mobile's request for extension to Oct. 22. Replies will be due Nov. 5, the ALJ emailed the service list. T-Mobile outside attorney Suzanne Toller emailed Bemesderfer seeking the extension. Dish counsel Anita Taff-Rice of iCommLaw opposed the "last-minute" request.

Don’t let internet companies hide behind groups, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) urged Thursday. NetChoice and the Computer and Communications Industry Association lack associational or organizational standing, so their complaint against the Texas social media law should be dismissed, said Paxton’s motion at U.S. District Court in Austin (case 1:21-cv-00840). “Consistent with how they avoid accountability to the public at large, Plaintiffs’ members have attempted to shield themselves from the burdens of challenging a law they do not like by getting their lobbying groups to do it for them,” he said Thursday. “But Plaintiffs cannot meet standing requirements based on bare assertions that their members protect the public from harm, let alone their claims that these behemoths of the tech world should be exempt from all transparency requirements in their intentional practices currently affecting Texas’ citizens’ free access to information.” NetChoice didn’t comment. Friday, Judge Robert Pitman extended until Oct. 22 a deadline for Texas to respond to the industry groups' preliminary injunction motion. The groups urged the court Wednesday not to delay the case by two months (see 2110130056). The judge in the similar Florida case dispensed with the state's standing objection in one sentence, said CCIA President Matt Schruers in a statement: “CCIA and NetChoice unquestionably have legal standing as trade associations whose members are affected by these unconstitutional laws that violate the First Amendment and federal law."

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita (R) sued three VoIP companies for allegedly assisting illegal robocalls from India, the Philippines and Singapore, the AG office said Thursday. Startel in Evansville, Indiana, allegedly helped guide more than 4.8 million robocalls to Indiana residents, plus hundreds of millions to other states, it said. Two California companies -- Piratel and VoIP Essential -- allegedly accepted $100,000 to route Startel’s robocalls, the AG office said. Rokita sought civil penalties, injunction and other relief in U.S. District Court in Evansville (case 3:21-cv-00150-RLY-MPB). The companies violated state and federal laws including the Telemarketing Act and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the complaint said. “We will stay on the offense in our efforts to protect Indiana consumers and bring these people to justice,” said Rokita. The companies didn’t comment.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce disagreed with Maryland's argument last month that the Tax Injunction Act bars federal challenge of the state's digital advertising tax (see 2109140027). “The case is ripe, tax comity does not apply, and plaintiffs have a cause of action to enforce” the Internet Tax Freedom Act, the chamber wrote Wednesday in 1:21-cv-00410-DKC. In Massachusetts, the Joint Revenue Committee will hear testimony on a digital ad tax bill (H-3081) at a virtual hearing Monday at 10 a.m. EDT.

T-Mobile asked to formally reply to Dish Network Wednesday after Dish urged additional sanctions by the California Public Utilities Commission against the carrier in their dispute over T-Mobile’s imminent CDMA shutdown (see 2109210040). The satellite company opposed the carrier’s motion to strike Dish Executive Vice President-External and Legislative Affairs Jeff Blum’s testimony at a Sept. 20 hearing (see 2109210040). “T-Mobile is only digging itself deeper into the hole of its own misconduct,” said Dish’s Tuesday response via the email service list for docket A.18-07-011. The carrier’s motion “is based on crucial factual omissions, outright untruths, and violations of contractual and ethical obligations on the part of T-Mobile” and its outside counsel David Gelfand of Cleary Gottlieb, Dish said: T-Mobile used “a document that it had agreed not to use, and is prohibited by a court order from using, in order to misrepresent its contents.” Blum’s testimony was relevant since it rebutted a statement by T-Mobile Technology President Neville Ray, said Dish. T-Mobile wants to reply to matters “including DISH’s unfounded allegation that T-Mobile improperly used DISH’s confidential business plan and its request for sanctions,” wrote outside counsel Suzanne Toller of Davis Wright in a Wednesday email on the case’s service list. T-Mobile gave Dish's attorney, Anita Taff-Rice of iCommLaw, an exhibit list with the business plan five days beforehand, Toller said. At the hearing, Gelfand “flagged the confidentiality issue” and gave Dish a chance to take a position on it before questioning Blum in a closed setting, and Dish didn't object, she said. The CPUC should deny T-Mobile's request to reply because “the request is based on a number of false assertions and misrepresentations,” and since the carrier can respond in its post-hearing brief, Taff-Rice responded Thursday in the service list. She disagreed with Toller's description of confidential document handling and said Dish had objected to Gelfand's questioning. Post-hearing briefs are due Friday.