In the four years in which the California Energy Commission “has spent public resources trying to figure how to regulate computers and displays,” the consumer technology industry “has been busy making real energy efficiency progress,” said Doug Johnson, CTA vice president-technology policy, of a final CEC staff report on energy efficiency standards for computers and monitors that got praise Friday from consumer groups (see 1609090063). CTA research shows that “even as we use more devices in our homes, their share of U.S. household electricity has declined,” Johnson emailed us Monday. “While the CEC undoubtedly has good intentions with this rulemaking, they continue to drive regulation by looking through the rear-view mirror,” Johnson said. “Every day our industry is innovating to create better, lighter and more energy efficient products. In the past few years, CTA has championed new approaches to saving energy and contributing to carbon emissions reduction goals.” Recent voluntary agreements on energy efficiency for pay-TV set-top boxes and small network equipment “are great examples of the private sector delivering energy savings faster than regulation while protecting innovation and competition, and avoiding costs and burdens to consumers and local businesses,” Johnson said. “Unfortunately, this regulatory proposal for computers and displays represents inside-the-box thinking at a time when both government and industry need to be agile and creative in developing less costly and less time-consuming solutions for saving energy,” Johnson said of CEC’s staff report. It said its proposed computer and monitor standards are “technically feasible and cost-effective to consumers and would save a significant amount of energy statewide.”
Frontier Communications must publicly file a “root cause analysis” on outages from its April 1 transition of Verizon customers and a separate 911 outage in Riverside County, the California Public Utilities Commission said in a Sept. 8 ruling on rural call completion issues released Monday. The telco must file by Sept. 20, the same day as a hearing about the Frontier transition in Santa Cruz (see 1608170036), it said. Frontier also is facing FCC scrutiny for the Riverside 911 outage (see 1607080045). The telco responded to CPUC requests for information prior to Thursday, including root cause analysis reports, a company spokesman said Monday. “We will continue to respond to questions from all regulators on a timely basis.” Frontier resolved all transition-related customer service tickets by May 31 and systems are operating normally, he said. The company is working on meeting state conditions on the Verizon deal, including enhancing network performance, upgrading the network and expanding 25 Mbps broadband service to about 400,000 households and delivering 10 Mbps broadband service to about 190,000 households, he said. The ruling directed Frontier and other carriers in Humboldt County -- AT&T, Comcast and Suddenlink -- to meet to investigate and act to resolve a recent 211 outage there. The companies should be ready to discuss the matter at an upcoming workshop Sept. 20 in Felton, California, CPUC said. Frontier is looking into the outage reports and will report to the PUC as requested, the spokesman said. Also, the state commission asked for comment on transcripts and issues raised at summer workshops and public hearings on rural call completion.
Consumer groups praised a final staff report on energy efficiency standards for computers released Friday by the California Energy Commission. Consumers Union, Consumer Action, the Consumer Federation of America and the Consumer Federation of California applauded the standard in a news release Friday. It’s “a technology-neutral, product-neutral standard that will boost competition without undermining product performance,” said CFA Research Director Mark Cooper. The standard will save consumers more than $370 million yearly, said Consumers Union Policy Counsel-Energy and Environment Shannon Baker-Branstetter. “Because of California’s market size, Consumers Union expects the benefits to extend far beyond the Golden State, as more efficient products become available nationwide.” But the consumer groups said numerous concessions were made to industry. “Due to potential exemptions that could impact consumer savings, we call on the industry to regard the new standard as a minimum and to go beyond it, in order to ensure that consumers don’t continue to foot the bill for needlessly inefficient digital devices,” said Baker-Branstetter. CEC officials didn't comment right away. CTA is reviewing the final rule, a spokeswoman said.
The International Association of Fire Chiefs endorsed FirstNet and urged members to participate in the public safety network’s consultation process with all states and territories, the IAFC said in a position statement. The board Thursday unanimously agreed to the statement, IAFC said in a news release. “FirstNet, by providing dedicated, interoperable, mission-critical data communications, will enhance emergency-response operations throughout the fire and emergency service for years to come,” said the statement. “FirstNet will be a vital component for an effective response to a terrorist incident or a natural disaster and for everyday response.” The IAFC represents 11,000 fire, rescue and emergency medical service officials.
A North Carolina telemarketer violated Missouri do-not-call laws when it made thousands of sales calls for home security systems to Missouri residents, said a lawsuit by Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster, who has been active in this area (see 1510200016). The suit named North Carolina telemarketer USA Security Promotions and its manager William Jayson Waller, the AG said in a Wednesday news release. The AG's office said it received more than 70 no-call and telemarketing complaints about the company. The AG sued Waller and former company ISI Alarms for similar violations in 2014, it said. Robert Newkirk, an attorney for Waller, said he couldn't comment because he hadn't seen the lawsuit.
The Communications Workers of America renewed its call for a Maryland probe of Verizon copper practices. In a letter Tuesday to the Public Service Commission, CWA said it supports Verizon investment in fiber, but only with consumer protections including transparency and advance notice during the copper-to-fiber migration. The company failed to maintain copper, then deceived customers who had copper service problems into making the IP transition under a policy known as “Fiber is the Only Fix,” said the union. The telco defended the program, saying it’s neither deceiving customers nor neglecting its copper network (see 1607140027). CWA has a similar complaint against Verizon at the FCC. CWA told the PSC its May request for investigation wasn't a publicity stunt timed to coincide with union workers' East Coast strike this year against Verizon. The union has presented testimony and evidence supporting commission action against Verizon since February 2009, it said. “The Commission will review the filing and make a determination as to the appropriate next steps,” a PSC spokeswoman emailed Thursday. “The Commission has not made a determination whether to open a proceeding in the matter.” Meanwhile in New Jersey, the state Division of Rate Counsel renewed its request that the Board of Public Utilities open a probe of Verizon. "Rate Counsel is concerned that in the four weeks that have passed since the Public Hearings in this matter the Board has yet to issue a procedural schedule as requested by the parties to fully investigate and address the testimony provided by Verizon customers" Aug. 4 (see 1608050043), Division Director Stefanie Brand said in a letter Wednesday. The board's staff continues to review information from hearings and comments filed; when that's done, it will make a recommendation to the board about next steps, a BPU spokeswoman said Thursday.
Consumer Watchdog wants Uber to divulge more details about its plan to test self-driving vehicles in Pittsburgh (see 1608180059), including whether it will agree not to sell collected data and whether it has used adequate cybersecurity. In a Wednesday letter to Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, John Simpson, the consumer group's privacy project director, said the ride-hailing service needs to be "completely transparent" when it tests modified autonomous Volvos, which will have safety drivers behind the wheel to take control if needed, in the next few weeks. The group asked 10 questions, including whether Uber would "agree not to store, market, sell, or transfer the data gathered by the self-driving car robot car, or utilize it for any purpose other than navigating the vehicle?" And whether the company has technology to prevent hackers from taking control of the cars or any of its systems? Several other questions dealt with safety, such as if Uber will publish data from crashes or other "anomalous situations." Simpson said the company should publicly report all crashes involving test vehicles, release technical data and videos of crashes, issue monthly testing reports with miles traveled by the "cars in self-driving robot mode," and release "disengagement reports" detailing when and why human drivers needed to intervene. Uber didn't comment.
Rivada Networks will develop an alternative public safety broadband plan for the New Hampshire Department of Safety, the company said in a news release Wednesday. Rivada will develop a radio access network (RAN) proposal that the state will compare with one developed by FirstNet. “While this is not a decision by New Hampshire to opt-out, by choosing Rivada to develop New Hampshire’s alternative to FirstNet’s state plan, the state has acted in a timely way to keep its options open,” said Rivada Executive Chairman Declan Ganley. FirstNet said it may send state plans to governors in mid-2017. A governor will have 90 days after receiving a proposal from FirstNet to opt out, then 180 days to submit an alternative plan for FCC approval, according to statute. FirstNet has been working to build bridges with states as it develops state plans for the national public safety network. Some states are crafting alternative plans, but few are in position to opt out, said national state associations (see 1608080035). Rivada is part of the Rivada Mercury bid to be the FirstNet vendor; FirstNet said last month it’s on track to announce the contract winner Nov. 1 (see 1608160050).
With fully autonomous vehicles only a “few years” away from mass production, “regulators, business leaders and consumers should embrace this revolution, not fear it,” CTA President Gary Shapiro said in a Monday opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal. For self-driving car technology “to truly gain speed,” carmakers “need to be able to test their cars on all kinds of roads in various conditions,” Shapiro said. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is drafting operational guidelines on self-driving cars (see 1608250049), Shapiro said. “In the absence of federal guidance, state regulatory policies run the gamut. ... Instead of squashing experiments in the states, federal regulators ought to defer, allowing controlled markets like those in California and Michigan to grow. What happens there now will make its way into fully autonomous cars for the rest of us later.” Shapiro emailed us Tuesday to emphasize that "my point" in the opinion piece "was that states need some leeway to experiment and compete in the early stages" of autonomous-car development, not that federal regulators should bow out of any involvement. In fact, Shapiro thinks "there is a huge federal role" to be played in autonomous cars, he said, and even called on President Barack Obama in a December op-ed piece to convene a government-industry advisory committee on driverless cars modeled after an effort in the 1980s during the Reagan administration that helped jump-start the transition to digital TV.
Big telcos clashed with competitors and a state consumer advocate over how to regulate fixed interconnected VoIP services in Iowa, in comments in docket RMU-2015-0002 Thursday at the Iowa Utilities Board, following up on oral argument last month where one IUB member wrestled aloud with the question of jurisdiction (see 1608090021). AT&T and Verizon supported complete deregulation of fixed interconnected VoIP, but T-Mobile and Windstream said the board should maintain regulation at least for wholesale VoIP services. The Office of Consumer Advocate and the Iowa Communications Alliance said the board should continue regulation for all interconnected VoIP services. FCC indecision on VoIP classification shouldn’t be read as an interpretation that fixed VoIP is a telecommunications service, Verizon commented. Regulation of fixed VoIP services, it said, “would undeniably result in discriminatory treatment of the subset of VoIP services offered by companies actually investing in deploying broadband facilities in Iowa … dissuading the sort of growth and investment the Board should instead strive to encourage.” VoIP is already an information service, AT&T said. “Mere deregulation of the service simply preserves the status quo and leaves it improperly classified as a ‘telecommunications service,’ far short of what the Board must do to bring its rules into conformity with federal law.” Windstream urged the IUB to deregulate retail but not wholesale VoIP, expressly retaining jurisdiction over customer complaints and intercarrier disputes including interconnection and switched access issues. Regulation is still needed for wholesale, T-Mobile commented. "ILEC networks remain the only way for competitive carriers to indirectly exchange traffic with many networks within Iowa. As a result, the largest ILECs continue to have market power in the wholesale market that, absent a regulatory backstop, could empower them to dictate unreasonable terms for traffic exchange and interconnection that would harm competition if exchange of IP-enabled traffic between carriers is outside the scope of the Board’s jurisdiction." But the Office of Consumer Advocate said state law requires the board to regulate all “communications services,” and the legislature never excluded VoIP from the definition. "The Board may not use the device of promulgating rules to change or add to the law," the office said. If companies seek deregulation, they should file a petition under Iowa’s statutory process for deregulation, it said. The Iowa Communications Alliance, an association of community-based telcos, said the FCC never preempted state regulation of VoIP. Since most LECs use VoIP to deliver landline, deregulating VoIP could remove board jurisdiction over most voice calls, it said. "The Board must regulate essential communications services based on core public interests, not based on the technology used to deliver the service,” it said. “Suggestions that the Board should single out VoIP services for deregulation -- or that the Board should single out VoIP services for regulation only on the wholesale level -- are inconsistent with Iowa law and ignore the Board’s important public interest functions.”