The New York Public Service Commission plans hearings in its Verizon copper probe starting March 2, an administrative law judge ruled Friday. The PSC is investigating the quality of Verizon’s legacy copper services and the telco’s willingness to make upgrades to copper in areas where it hasn’t rolled out fiber (see 1608010047). Staff and intervenor testimony is due Dec. 9, and rebuttal testimony from Verizon Feb. 3, ALJ Sean Mullany ruled in docket 16-C-0122.
The California Public Utilities Commission plans to vote Nov. 10 on a $2.86 million broadband grant to Cal.net to provide internet and VoIP services to underserved rural communities in Amador, Calaveras and Alpine counties, said a draft order released Tuesday. The money would come from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF). The proposed order OKs a project that covers about 455 square miles with 25/4 Mbps broadband speeds. Cal.net also plans to provide service to five anchor institutions and eight fire stations, and provide an interconnected public safety data communications network. Before CPUC votes on the grant, it plans to vote Oct. 13 on a draft resolution to reduce the surcharge rate of the CASF for end-user intrastate charges to zero from 0.464 percent. The reduction is necessary to avoid exceeding the fund’s cap this month, CPUC said in a revised draft order released Tuesday. “Since the estimated total CASF monthly surcharge collected by carriers is about $4.5 million, maintaining the surcharge rate at 0.464% would exceed the $315 million cap by the amount of $8.5 million on December 1, 2016.”
The enforcement division of California’s telecom regulator protested a calling-card company application to register as an interexchange carrier. ComNet applied Sept. 2 to provide resold interexchange services in California as a prepaid debit calling card company. But in a protest filed Monday, the California Public Utility Commission Consumer Protection and Enforcement Division said ComNet has been operating in the state without CPUC authority and failed to disclose in its application that California and Michigan revoked its telecom licenses. Rather than grant the application, the CPUC should impose penalties for rule violations, it said.
Parties got more time to comment on a District of Columbia Public Service Commission notice of inquiry about issues raised in the FCC Lifeline order. Comments on docket FC988 were due Monday, but in a notice on the due date, the PSC extended the deadline to Nov. 7, and replies to Nov. 21. The PSC also recently extended the comments deadline on a related notice of proposed rulemaking (see 1610030013).
A one-touch, make-ready ordinance in Louisville attracted a second lawsuit from industry. Following AT&T, Charter Communications subsidiary Insight Friday challenged the Metro Government law in U.S. District Court in Louisville (Case No. 3:16-CV-625). The federal court should "disallow Louisville’s action allowing competitors to trespass on, convert, take possession of, and potentially damage, Insight’s property,” said the cable complaint (in Pacer). Only the Public Service Commission may regulate privately owned utility poles in the state, said Insight. It said the Louisville policy allows Google to take actions “without prior notice and puts strict limitations on Insight’s ability to uncover any possible damage caused to its plant by its competitor or even to assure that it is able to recover the costs of necessary cures. The One-Touch procedures also could allow Insight’s competitors (intentionally or unintentionally) to damage or disrupt Insight’s ability to serve its customers, creating an inaccurate perception in the market about Insight’s service quality and harming its goodwill.” Google pushed for one-touch policies meant to speed new pole attachments as it tries to increase deployment of its competitive fiber network. But existing pole riders opposed such policies. In February, AT&T sued Louisville, saying the city was pre-empted by state pole attachment rules; and last month, it sued Nashville, saying the city was pre-empted by the FCC (see 1609230039). Insight’s suit echoed in part AT&T’s challenge of one-touch, but the Charter company also claimed AT&T and Google benefit from less local regulation of their competitive video services. The court should "bring parity in regulation to Louisville by applying the same regulatory burdens on Insight that it applies to AT&T and Google so that all similarly situated speakers are treated equally in their ability to communicate,” Insight said. "Fair competition requires that the government, whatever its motives, treat similarly situated speakers the same and not unfairly weight one side of the regulatory scale.” Mayor Greg Fischer’s (D) office, AT&T and Google declined comment Tuesday. The city must file an answer to the separate AT&T complaint by Thursday, said a Sept. 20 court order (in Pacer).
Facing a $500,000 proposed penalty for service quality violations in Maine, FairPoint Communications asked the Public Utilities Commission to allow it to present evidence in an adjudicatory hearing and to submit argument. “The due process guarantees in the United States and Maine Constitutions entitle FairPoint to a fair hearing when, as here, state government seeks to deprive the Company of its property through the assessment of a monetary penalty related to provider of last resort (“POLR”) service quality,” the company said in a Monday motion. The PUC gave FairPoint no notice it would take action, the telco said. In a Sept. 14 examiner’s report, the PUC said “FairPoint has not placed appropriate emphasis on its statutory obligation to provide acceptable service quality … to its POLR service customers,” as measured by service quality index (SQI) benchmarks: “The Company has demonstrated that it has placed very little emphasis on meeting the SQI benchmarks, in part by apparently prioritizing trouble reports for non-regulated services (such as broadband) ahead of repair actions for POLR customers. While providing high quality broadband service is important to the Company's future, it cannot ignore its service quality obligations to its POLR customers.” Comments on the examiner’s report are due Oct. 21. Maine recently passed a law to remove FairPoint POLR obligations in phases, and Vermont is reviewing FairPoint service quality reporting rules (see 1609130057).
Mulling effects of the FCC Lifeline order, the District of Columbia telecom regulator gave more time for comments on a notice of proposed rulemaking (NOPR) about changes required by the federal order adding broadband support to the low-income fund (see 1609260067). The comments were due Monday, but the D.C. Public Service Commission extended the deadline to Oct. 17, and reply comments to Oct. 31 from Oct. 17. “Due to the requirement that the rule changes required by the Lifeline Modernization Order be in effect by December 1, 2016, there can be no further extensions of time for this NOPR,” the commission said in the Friday notice. Meanwhile, the Kentucky Public Service Commission previewed changes to Lifeline in a news release Monday. "The PSC is currently examining the future of the Kentucky Universal Service Fund (KUSF), which provides the state portion of the Lifeline subsidy," the Kentucky commission said. "The KUSF had been rapidly depleted in recent years, prompting the PSC in March to temporarily increase the surcharge in order to keep the fund solvent while determining its long-term viability." Revenue from contributions to state USFs has declined in multiple jurisdictions, our July canvassing found (see 1607010010).
The California Public Utilities Commission received a flurry of rehearing requests last week from telecom companies and consumer groups on two recent decisions. Thursday, Cox Communications and the California Association of Competitive Telecommunications Companies (CalTel) submitted separate applications to rehear a decision in docket R.11-12-001 to charge telcos automatic daily fines of up to $25,000 for failure to meet service quality measures (see 1608180060). The agency adopted the automatic penalties “without adequate factual, legal or policy support,” Cox said in its petition. The company also objected to requiring VoIP providers to submit copies of outage reports they provide the FCC. CalTel also requested rehearing Thursday, largely echoing its concerns about fining CLECs from an Aug. 30 petition for modification (see 1609060044), and sent a separate letter asking that CLECs be exempt from fines until the commission addresses either of its requests. Meanwhile, the Office of Ratepayer Advocates, The Utility Reform Network and other consumer groups asked for rehearing because they said the commission created “a loophole for chronic service quality violators to avoid paying a penalty.” Under the alleged loophole, a company can suspend a fine if it “purports to invest twice the amount of that fine,” but that rule isn't supported by the record, they said. Also, the order closed the proceeding without addressing several topics, including service quality standards for wireless and interconnected VoIP providers, an ongoing network study and several matters referred from other proceedings, the consumer groups said. Earlier, the CPUC received rehearing requests from CTIA and a group of small wireline companies on an order in docket R.14-11-001 to enhance public access to public records under the California Public Records Act. Both protested the CPUC delegating to staff the authority to decide whether a utility document is confidential, with the small telco application threatening a court challenge. “The Commission’s new process for public disclosure of confidential documents unlawfully delegates to Staff the authority to make final discretionary determinations and unconstitutionally empowers Staff to act on such determinations without notice to the affected public utility or the opportunity to be heard regarding the determination,” CTIA said in its request.
The California Public Utilities Commission should act on its own authority to work with the California Research Bureau to study state telecom governance, Gov. Jerry Brown (D) said Thursday as he signed a package of bills to increase CPUC transparency. The legislature passed some but not all of the CPUC reform bills Brown negotiated with state legislators; one of the dead bills would have reviewed state telecom regulation (see 1609010058). In a Thursday news release, Brown asked the commission to take immediate action on some measures not passed, including the telecom review, and said he would work with the legislature on other leftovers that require legislative action. The CPUC shares "the commitment of the Governor and Legislature of ensuring that Californians have a focused and accountable regulatory agency overseeing vital utility services," a commission spokeswoman said. "We will continue our efforts to transform into an agency that is dedicated to safety, transparency, and accountability to the people of California."
The California Public Utilities Commission extended by another two months the deadline for a rulemaking to revamp the California High Cost Fund-A program, which provides subsidies to 13 small rural LECs for basic phone service. The public utility code requires quasi-legislative cases to be resolved within 18 months but allows the CPUC to extend it up to 60 days. At a meeting Thursday, commissioners voted unanimously to extend the deadline to Dec. 6 from Oct. 7. The CPUC also extended the deadline in July (see 1607180011). “Work has begun on a third revised scoping ruling in this proceeding but has not yet been completed,” CPUC said to justify the ruling. Also Thursday, the CPUC approved by consent a $545,690 Advanced Services Fund grant to Frontier Communications to build last-mile fiber in underserved Shingletown, California. The project is expected to provide speeds of at least 6 Mbps down and 1.5 Mbps up to 1,017 households, CPUC said. The higher bandwidth will help the community during wildfires, winter storms and earthquakes, and increase access to e-health services, CPUC said in the resolution. Also Thursday, AT&T and Webpass made a joint motion in docket A.16-05-015 to dismiss their interconnection dispute (see 1606230046). The companies said they reached a settlement, which they didn't detail.