Undaunted by legal issues flagged by Frontier Communications, the California Public Utilities Commission greenlit a proposed program to enforce conditions in its order clearing the telco’s bankruptcy reorganization. Commissioners unanimously adopted the draft resolution T-17734 as part of its consent agenda at a virtual Thursday meeting. In another CPUC proceeding, telcos asked what disaster recovery rules have to do with the agency’s broadband rulemaking.
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.
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.”
Localities got a second veto of a California small-cells bill. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) rejected SB-556 Monday, after his predecessor Jerry Brown (D) rejected a similar bill meant to streamline wireless infrastructure deployment by preempting localities in the right of way. In a win for the wireless industry the same day, Newsom signed AB-537 to codify a deemed-granted wireless remedy.
The Telecommunications Association of Maine challenged criteria and assumptions used by a state agency to support defining broadband as 100 Mbps symmetrical. The ConnectMaine Authority held a Zoom virtual hearing Monday and seeks comment by Oct. 14 on changes to state broadband rules, including also defining unserved as an area lacking 50/10 Mbps. Maine previously used 25/3 Mbps for unserved and for broadband. Zoom requires 4 Mbps symmetrical for a meeting of about 50 people, so if everyone in a five-person family was doing that simultaneously it would require 20/20 Mbps, said TAM Executive Director Ben Sanborn. “How do we get to that 100/100 from that point?” he asked: TAM wants “a little more transparency as to how you got there, as opposed to [you] just kind of picked a number, because that is arbitrary and capricious.” The authority adopted the definition in June, said ConnectMaine Director Peggy Schaffer. Sanborn replied, “Yes, without rationale.”
State legislation to assign broadband jurisdiction to the New York Public Service Commission will return this January, said sponsor Sen. Sean Ryan (D) in an interview. With more authority provided by S-5117 and A-7412, the PSC could take a fresh look at broadband prices after a federal court threw out the state’s law to require $15 monthly internet for low-income customers (see 2106110064), he said.
Oakland legislation to require ISP choice in multiple tenant environments cleared the city council’s Community and Economic Development Committee 4-0. The MTE proposal to restrict landlords from forcing tenants to use a certain ISP is modeled after a 2016 San Francisco law, not including a part on sharing in-use wiring that the FCC preempted under then-Chairman Ajit Pai (see 1907100020). San Francisco’s law has worked well for five years, said sponsor Councilmember Noel Gallo at Tuesday's livestreamed hearing. It will help “to equalize the playing field for people who need access to affordable Wi-Fi,” said Councilmember Carroll Fife. Competitive ISPs can expand into Oakland only “if they can get a toehold in the denser areas of the city that are more economical to service,” said Media Alliance Executive Director Tracy Rosenberg. Landlords are following San Francisco’s law without the city attorney taking enforcement actions, she said. Fife asked if Rosenberg expected Oakland landlords to object. The Media Alliance official said she contacted the local rental association about a week and half ago but hadn’t heard back. Nobody representing landlords testified. The proposal next goes to the Rules Committee for scheduling. The FCC is collecting comments on MTE broadband access (see 2109070047).
Ohio should be firm but fair with businesses on privacy, Republican sponsors of a comprehensive state bill said Tuesday. Ohio House Government Oversight Committee members questioned sponsors but didn’t vote at HB-376’s first hearing. Lt. Gov. Jon Husted (R) unveiled the bill in July that would apply to businesses with at least $25 million revenue in the state (see 2107130049). Consumer Reports (CR) raised concerns the bill won’t adequately protect users. Minnesota also weighed privacy legislation this week.
California Public Utilities Commissioners all rejected a proposed settlement between Frontier Communications and the Consumer Protection and Enforcement Division on possible violations associated with 2016 outage and service interruptions. Because carriers generally are “chronically failing” to meet service-quality standards, the CPUC is considering and Commissioner Cliff Rechtschaffen would “strongly support” opening a rulemaking to review current policy of letting carriers invest in their own networks the amount of such proposed fines, Rechtschaffen told Thursday’s livestreamed meeting. The pact would have let Frontier invest $2.1 million of a proposed $2.5 million penalty, paying the state the remaining $400,000. "We have tried this reinvestment approach" twice before “and we found that Frontier investments have been patently ineffective in improving service quality,” Rechtschaffen said. The proposed decision in docket I.19-12-009, which appeared on the consent agenda, set an Oct. 6 status conference. “Recent assessments of Frontier’s reinvestment projects since 2017 show that despite millions of dollars of infrastructure reinvestment in lieu of penalties, Frontier’s ratepayers continue to experience service quality problems,” it said. The telco declined to comment. Other telecom orders OK’d Thursday by unanimous consent included a LifeLine proposal setting varying amounts of state support to replace federal support for wireline that doesn’t meet broadband minimum service standards (MSS), depending on how much the FCC phases down support (see 2109160028). The CPUC revised an earlier proposal partly to respond to public advocate concerns that customers might lose federal support if the federal Lifeline MSS increases Dec. 1 to 18 GB the same day that California sets slower standards (see 2108270049). The CPUC faced a similar situation last year, noted the revised proposal in docket R.20-02-008. Commissioners supported a CTIA-opposed item to extend a COVID-19 moratorium on phone disconnections through Dec. 31 (see 2109090015). CTIA pointed us to its earlier CPUC filings. CPUC Administrative Law Judge Stephanie Wang separately ruled Thursday in docket R.20-02-008 to extend through Dec. 31 the temporary suspension of state LifeLine renewals and de-enrollments for non-usage and the three-month documentation rule for demonstrating income-based qualification.
Boosting broadband access and digital equity will be local government priorities in the year ahead, especially with federal infrastructure money expected to come to states, NATOA President Brian Roberts and General Counsel Nancy Werner said in an interview during the association’s annual conference. Our survey found general member support for meeting virtually.
Comcast wants to chat with local government associations about why only cable operators pay franchise fees, said Senior Vice President-Government Affairs Klayton Fennell Wednesday at NATOA’s virtual annual conference. Localities haven't had impacts from two recent court decisions on public, educational and government (PEG) channels, NATOA officials said in an interview. FCC staffers updated NATOA on local-federal engagement efforts.