During a panel at NARUC's Winter Policy Summit this week (see 2502250010), Michael Santorelli, director of New York Law School's Advanced Communications Law and Policy Institute, mentioned New York's Affordable Broadband Act, on which the U.S. Supreme Court denied a petition for rehearing Monday. States shouldn't follow New York's lead because the law is "unnecessary and sets a dangerous precedent for legislative overreach," Santorelli said. Instead, he urged that states focus on "updating laws to facilitate broadband buildout."

NARUC's board of directors on Wednesday approved the two resolutions adopted by its telecom committee Monday (see 2502240060).

Broadband officials and experts emphasized the need for greater communication and partnerships between industry and government to complete the transition from copper infrastructure to fiber and other technologies during NARUC's Winter Policy Summit on Tuesday. Some stressed the need for greater oversight of the transition and carrier of last resort (COLR) obligations. Others discussed the potential effects of the challenge to the FCC's Title II broadband reclassification and the U.S. Supreme Court's decision for a second time to deny rehearing a challenge to New York's broadband affordability law.

Telecom and utility companies must engage in early communication and collaboration to ensure efficient and safe broadband deployment, industry leaders said Monday at NARUC's Winter Policy Summit. NARUC Telecom Committee members also voted unanimously to adopt two resolutions on utility demand response communication and on vandalism or theft of communications infrastructure.

FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington promotes Adam Cassady from legal adviser to chief of staff ... NARUC President Tricia Pridemore taps for board Katie Anderson, Arkansas Public Service Commission, succeeding Lillian Mateo-Santos, Puerto Rico Energy Bureau; for subcommittee-education and research, Erik Helland, Iowa Utilities Commission, and Doyle Webb, Arkansas PSC, replacing Pridemore and succeeding John Betkoski, Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority; for Gas-Electric Alignment for Reliability (GEAR) Task Force, Josh Byrnes, Iowa Utilities Commission.

The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners opposed a NumberBarn application for authorization to obtain numbering resources. NARUC’s Telecom Committee last month raised concerns and urged that the FCC take a deeper look at organizations like NumberBarn that receive numbers from phone companies and sell them to customers (see 2411120066). “The Commission should defer any action on NumberBarn’s application until it can complete an audit of NumberBarn’s practices and address the other compliance concerns raised by the comments filed in this proceeding,” NARUC said in reply comments posted Monday in docket 19-99. It cited comments that state regulators from California, Maine, New Hampshire, Washington, West Virginia and the District of Columbia filed last month. There hasn’t been a numbering audit of a telecom carrier or VoIP provider “in at least 15 years and NumberBarn’s business practices provide an obvious target for investigation,” NARUC said. NumberBarn defended its business model. The company “is not ‘hoarding’ or ‘warehousing’ numbers; it provides a search engine for numbers available from wholesale carriers,” it said in the filing. “These numbers are unassigned numbers made available by carriers to their thousands of wholesale customers (of which NumberBarn is one), on a first come, first served basis, and NumberBarn does not have exclusive access to these numbers.” NumberBarn said state PUC concerns that it could “cause or exacerbate number exhaust [are] ... speculative and unsupported by any factual data.” Public interest and consumer groups also raised concerns in reply comments. “The multiple comments filed by state governmental entities responsible for regulating utilities and protecting consumers in their jurisdiction describe numerous problems with NumberBarn’s practices and its application,” the groups said: “All of these state commissions are unanimous in their request that NumberBarn’s application be rejected because it is not in the public interest.” The National Consumer Law Center, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Consumer Action, the National Consumers League and Public Knowledge signed the filing.

A possible shakeup of the federal Universal Service Fund (USF) will be top of mind for state telecom regulators in the year ahead, NARUC Telecom Committee Chair Tim Schram said in an interview earlier this month at the association’s Anaheim meeting. USF is one of several areas of uncertainty in 2025, said three state consumer advocates in a separate interview at the collocated National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates (NASUCA) conference.

Michel Singer Nelson spoke at the NARUC conference Tuesday solely in her capacity as a Telecom Committee member for the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates (see 2411120066).

Stronger state laws are needed to combat a rising trend of copper thieves damaging telecom infrastructure, panelists said Tuesday at NARUC’s conference in Anaheim, California. On Wednesday, the NARUC board passed resolutions on phone number conservation, the Universal Service Fund and utility coordination on broadband deployment. The Telecom Committee cleared those measures Monday (see 2411120014). Copper prices are up and therefore so is theft, said Dan Gonzalez, Charter Communications group vice president-state regulatory affairs. The cable company’s lines don’t contain copper, which is common in traditional phone networks, but thieves don’t know the difference, and they damage Charter infrastructure when seeking copper, he said. Networks are exposed and easily accessible, making theft a low-risk, high-reward activity, he said. In addition, many state laws don’t classify the networks as protected critical infrastructure or impose adequate penalties, said Gonzalez. Charter sees fewer incidents in states with broader definitions of critical infrastructure and stronger penalties, including Florida, Tennessee and the Carolinas, he said. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is receiving more copper theft reports than previously, said Richard Mitchem, CISA supervisory protective security adviser. Mitchem agreed that identifying the networks as critical infrastructure is a good idea because that would mean stronger repercussions for damage. Todd Foreman, Recycled Materials Association law enforcement outreach director, said raising awareness about the issue is important because law enforcement resources are limited and not all police are looking closely for sales of stolen copper. He agreed that increasing penalties would help discourage theft.

Semiconductor provider Spectra7 Microsystems appoints Omar Javaid, ex-Avaya, as CEO ... Scripps promotes Teresa Morgan to vice president-general manager-WFTS-TV Tampa, effective Jan. 1 ... Tegna appoints Dhanusha Sivajee, previously Angi, as chief experience officer ... Archtop Fiber names Keith Taub, ex-Technical Safety Services, as CFO ... Cybersecurity company Menlo Security names Bill Robbins, ex-Sophos, as president.