The California Public Utilities Commission corrected its Tuesday order, which denied rehearing disaster rules challenged last year by wireless carriers (see 2110120057), to add Commissioner Genevieve Shiroma’s name. The vote was 5-0.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed broadband bills Friday to extend and enlarge the California Advanced Services Fund. Newsom signed AB-14 and SB-4 that together extend CASF by 10 years and raise the surcharge cap to $150 million yearly from $66 million (see 2109100035). He signed SB-28 to increase California Public Utilities Commission authority to check if state video franchisees are deploying enough broadband. Newsom signed SB-378, requiring localities to let fiber installers use microtrenching unless shown it would hurt health and safety. He signed AB-41 about agency coordination on conduit deployment. Newsom vetoed the cable-backed AB-1560 on distance learning because he said the funding duplicated money from other recent laws. Earlier last week, Newsom vetoed a small-cells bill meant to streamline wireless infrastructure deployment by preempting localities in the right of way (see 2110050043).

The California Public Utilities Commission denied rehearing of 72-hour backup power and other disaster rules challenged last year by wireless carriers (see 2008200038). “These rules are not subject to express, conflict, or field preemption pursuant to Section 332(c)(3)(A)” of the Communications Act, said the order signed by all commissioners except Genevieve Shiroma and released Tuesday in docket R.18-03-011. Section 332 preempts rate regulation and market entry but not other terms and conditions, a bucket that includes health and safety rules, the CPUC said: “Nowhere has Congress expressly stated or clearly manifested any intention to prohibit all state public safety regulations that apply to wireless providers.” The 10th Amendment gives states police powers, and these rules “have nothing to do with regulating radio frequencies and spectrum, which are matters that fall under the FCC’s licensing authority, nor do these Rules impact rates,” it said. The rules aren’t preempted by the FCC not making backup power mandates, said the CPUC. It noted that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit's 2019 Mozilla ruling vacated part of the FCC 2019 net neutrality order preempting state requirements inconsistent with its deregulatory approach. CTIA, AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile challenged the rules. CTIA declined to comment Tuesday and the carriers didn't respond.

California’s public advocate said prison phone providers failed to identify a legal error in the California Public Utilities Commission’s decision to set an interim 7 cents per minute intrastate rate cap for incarcerated persons communications services (IPCS) and eliminate some fees. Securus and NCIC Inmate Communications separately sought reconsideration last month (see 2109230035). Both changes “are well supported by the record,” the CPUC's independent Public Advocates Office said Thursday in docket R.20-10-002. Neither company gave evidence that it will have to offer services at a below-cost price, it said.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) unfurled a state broadband map and launched a broadband lab with state universities and others, the governor’s office said Thursday. The lab posted the interactive map on its website. “The Illinois Broadband Lab will empower communities with the data, mapping, and related resources necessary for them to take full advantage of historic state and federal investment in broadband access and adoption,” Pritzker said.

District of Columbia residents with 202 area-code numbers must dial 10 digits for in-city starting Saturday, the D.C. Public Service Commission reminded Tuesday. Numbers in the new 771 area code will be assigned to new phone lines starting Nov. 9, it said. The PSC announced the dates in April (see 2104050048).

The California Public Utilities Commission revised a plan to enforce conditions in its Frontier Communications bankruptcy reorganization OK. The CPUC plans to weigh draft resolution T-17734 at its Thursday meeting, after twice delaying votes (see 2109220019). Calculating the fine for each of three phone corporations under the Frontier umbrella would be “proportional to the percentage of access lines that each telephone corporation had during the relevant month,” said the revised plan. The maximum penalty for failing to quickly restore outages for the three combined would be $36 million yearly. The telco raised concerns with proposed penalties in earlier versions of the proposal (see 2109210006). The company declined to comment Wednesday.

Some West Virginia customers don't get adequate service and Altice is having trouble hiring technicians, but the cable operator is trying to improve, Executive Vice President-Operations Pragash Pillai told the West Virginia Public Service Commission at a livestreamed hearing Wednesday. The PSC in July ordered Altice’s Suddenlink Communications to show why it shouldn’t face penalties and be required to take remedial steps to improve service (see 2108240030). Commission staff attorney Linda Bouvette asked, “Do you believe that Suddenlink is providing the service that West Virginia subscribers expect and ... what they’re paying for?” Pillai replied, “Not to all the customers.” Altice’s field operations “try to be proactive as we can to get ahead of issues,” he said earlier. Since taking his current position in December, Pillai has sought to improve on-time appointment rates and completing jobs on the first visit, and he now sees progress, he said. Altice has a good process and aims for same-day service, but there can be failures to follow the company’s process, he said. Sometimes, contracted technicians ask customers to call them directly rather than going through Altice’s system, which means the company has no record of the call, he said. The cabler has a “serious staffing issue" trying to fill open positions, he said. Facing a hiring shortage partly due to COVID-19, Altice has sent technicians from New York to West Virginia, Pillai said. It can’t find enough West Virginia contractors who meet its standards, he said. Pillai resisted a PSC staff recommendation to stop using contractors, saying no provider does that. It's "physically impossible to have 100% of the staff to be in-house.” They would quit because there wouldn’t be enough work, he said. Contractors aren’t necessarily worse than in-house technicians, he added: “It’s how you manage the workforce.” Bouvette called “astronomical” the number of outages Altice had over the past two-and-a-half years, which the company submitted confidentially. Pillai replied he couldn’t say if it was excessive without seeing year-over-year trends. Chairman Charlotte Lane asked why Altice wants to keep its outage numbers private. The operator’s counsel, David Hanna, said it’s generally not shared with the public or competitors. Lane replied, “We will rule on this at the proper time, but I might suggest that your number of outages seems to be pretty much public knowledge.”

Government funding toward closing the digital divide needs to be approached carefully because operators that "don't know what they are doing [could inadvertently] break a nice process of incumbents upgrading, competitors upgrading," Allo Communications President Brad Moline said Tuesday during the ACA Connects/National Cable Television Cooperative Independent Show. Chad Lawson, Murray Electric broadband superintendent, said there needs to be net neutrality finality instead of policies ping ponging back and forth, and urged a light regulatory approach.

The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities plans a hearing Nov. 3 at 10 a.m. on a proposal to increase cable TV regulation, the New Jersey Register said Monday. Comments are due Dec. 3, it said. The board voted 5-0 in August to propose additional cable service-quality rules (see 2108180051).