LTD Broadband CEO Corey Hauer condemned the California Public Utilities Commission for allegedly “trying to prevent broadband” and “railroad” it out of the state. On a Broadband.money webinar Friday, Hauer said he was “super disappointed” the CPUC voted 5-0 Thursday to deny LTD the application approval it needed to get about $187.5 million in Rural Digital Opportunities Fund (RDOF) support over 10 years (see 2112160064). Hauer also slammed the agency for granting California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) subsidies Thursday in areas that partially overlap with RDOF awards. Every RDOF winner has experienced an “intentional 18-month delay” to get eligible telecom certification in California, so it’s “ironic” that the CPUC dismissed their opposition to the CASF grants due to the RDOF winners not yet having ETC certificates, said Hauer. The CPUC unanimously granted both the denial and contested CASF grants in one vote clearing its consent agenda, leading Hauer “to believe they didn't read a lot of the things that they voted on.” California is “the only state in the country that … isn’t running a serious attempt to get RDOF funding going,” he said. The commission didn’t comment Friday. Hauer dismissed “chatter around how expensive it is to put in fiber.” Compared to urban areas, rural areas have a “different cost structure” and “cadence of construction” because there are no water, sewer or buried electric lines, he said: “The beauty of the rural areas is our lower cost structure sort of makes up for the lack of density.”
Adam Bender
Adam Bender, Senior Editor, is the state and local telecommunications reporter for Communications Daily, where he also has covered Congress and the Federal Communications Commission. He has won awards for his Warren Communications News reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists, Specialized Information Publishers Association and the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing. Bender studied print journalism at American University and is the author of dystopian science-fiction novels. You can follow Bender at WatchAdam.blog and @WatchAdam on Twitter.
California Public Utilities Commissioners voted 5-0 to deny LTD Broadband the application approval it needed to get about $187.5 million in Rural Digital Opportunities Fund (RDOF) support over 10 years. At a virtual meeting Thursday, commissioners also by unanimous consent cleared multiple California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) grants that LTD and others said partially overlapped areas where they won RDOF support (see 2112140019, 2112090011 and 2112080046). The CPUC got more comments Wednesday on a plan to shift to connections-based state USF contributions.
Judges grilled a Public Utility Commission attorney on why the PUC thought it could stop fully funding Texas USF (TUSF). At a livestreamed hearing Wednesday, the 3rd Texas District Court of Appeals in Austin heard an appeal by the Texas Telephone Association (TTA), Texas Statewide Telephone Cooperative, Inc. (TSTCI), Lumen and Windstream (case 03-21-00294-CV). The rural telcos are challenging the Travis County District Court in Austin dismissing their lawsuit against the PUC for not raising the TUSF surcharge on consumer bills to fully fund USF (see 2107130041). Gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke (D) supported the lawsuit Tuesday.
The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission cleared Apollo to buy Lumen’s northwest Wisconsin ILEC assets Tuesday. The Wisconsin ILEC partly operates in Minnesota. The PUC consent calendar subcommittee issued the decision, which becomes a full commission order unless a party, participant or commissioner objects within ten days. The Georgia Public Service Commission cleared the transaction Nov. 9. Lumen still needs OK from the FCC and six states: Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia, said the carrier’s spokesperson. Illinois Commerce Commission staff recommended Tuesday in docket 21-0710 that the agency decide Apollo/Lumen likely won’t diminish the company’s ability to provide adequate, reliable, efficient, safe and affordable service, won’t hurt competition and won’t increase rates to retail customers.
Companies seeking to attach communications facilities to Connecticut utility poles urged the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority to adopt a fast dispute resolution process. In other comments posted Monday, pole owners asked PURA to protect their due process rights and encourage settlements.
California Public Utilities Commissioners should reject overlap concerns raised by some Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) winners about proposed California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) grants up for vote Thursday (see 2112080046), said staff in revised draft resolutions posted Monday. “Claims by Etheric and GeoLinks that awarding CASF funding in Resolution T-17749 is contrary to the law and public interest that govern the CASF program do not have merit and should not be considered,” said a revised draft about a proposed $18.8 million grant for Frontier Communications. “While some portions … overlap with RDOF-eligible areas, the commenting parties have not received ETC designation in these areas. Therefore, staff will not remove these RDOF-eligible areas from the projects.” Staff wrote similarly about the same companies’ opposition to a $17.5 million proposed grant to Frontier (T-17754) and $18 million and $5.5 million proposed grants to Plumas-Sierra Telecommunications (T-17750, T-17752). Staff similarly rejected Etheric, GeoLinks, Wavelength Internet and LTD Broadband’s opposition to an $18.3 million proposed grant for Race Telecommunications (T-17751). LTD and Wavelength declined comment Tuesday; other grant opponents didn’t comment. Staff revised another draft resolution (T-17756) for Thursday’s meeting related to staff power to rescind CASF grants (see 2111120030). The changes responded to due process concerns raised by the California Cable and Telecommunications Association. CCTA didn’t comment.
The Tax Injunction Act (TIA) doesn’t bar businesses’ challenge of Maryland’s digital ad tax, said the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in a Monday brief at U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland. A “principally punitive” assessment is a penalty, not a tax, said plaintiffs in case 1:21-cv-410-LKG. “Countless individual refund suits spanning many years -- all pending while the Act’s highly burdensome penalty is being exacted -- would not be an ‘efficient’ state-court alternative to a single, pre-enforcement federal-court challenge, within the meaning of the TIA.” Plaintiffs “are waiting for a decision and have no expected timeline,” emailed their attorney Stephen Kranz of McDermott Will. The court hasn’t scheduled oral argument. In state litigation against the same law, Comcast and Verizon last week opposed the Maryland comptroller’s motion to dismiss case C-02-cv-21-000509 at the Maryland Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County. The comptroller argued plaintiffs must first exhaust administrative remedies by waiting to be assessed the tax and challenging it in state tax court or paying the tax and filing a refund claim with the comptroller, but plaintiffs can’t do either until 2023, the telecom companies said. “There is a long history of this State’s courts hearing and deciding constitutional challenges to newly enacted statutes where plaintiffs claim that the statute was beyond the power or authority of the legislature to adopt.”
Iowa Utilities Board Chair Geri Huser pushed back on wireless industry concerns that the state commission is angling to expand its telecom authority through draft statutory changes that the IUB plans to propose to the legislature. At the board’s virtual workshop Monday, Lumen and wireless officials repeated some of their legal and policy concerns from written comments about possibly adding wireless and interconnected VoIP to the state definition of telecom service provider (see 2112010048).
Washington state agencies are reviewing a Seattle-area 911 outage lasting more than an hour Thursday, officials told us Friday. “A detailed root cause analysis has already been initiated by” ESInet provider Comtech “and we will be provided updates during the process," emailed Washington State Enhanced 911 Coordinator Adam Wasserman. Washington Utilities and Transportation staff will open an investigation, a spokesperson said. The 911 call delivery issue affected the western part of the state for about 90 minutes Thursday, said 911 Program Manager Ben Breier in King County, which includes Seattle. Seattle police Thursday tweeted at 3:35 p.m. PST that 911 was down; at 5:31 p.m., it said service was restored. King County had “intermittent outages for mobile and landline users,” though text-to-911 service wasn’t affected, the county tweeted at 4:11 p.m. local time. The county said at 4:54 that 911 was “being restored” and “returning to normal.” Seattle sent a wireless alert. Comtech didn’t comment Friday.
Areas where some Rural Digital Opportunity Fund winners challenge proposed California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) support due to possible overlap with RDOF support “have not been awarded any funds by the FCC, nor approved by the FCC to receive awards,” a California Public Utilities Commission spokesperson emailed Wednesday. Commissioners may vote Dec. 16 on several contested draft resolutions to award CASF support, plus a separate proposal to deny eligible telecom carrier (ETC) status to LTD Broadband, one company challenging proposed grants (see 2112080046). The CPUC can't comment specifically on agenda items, said the spokesperson: “The FCC requires companies to obtain a high-cost [ETC] designation that covers its winning bid areas. In California, the CPUC designates ETCs. The CPUC has been working with the companies to make determinations on each ETC application. The FCC is simultaneously evaluating the same providers, along with scores of others across the country.”