CPUC May Vote Next Month to Harmonize Lifeline Rules

signed into law in September requiring the CPUC to adopt a 60-day portability freeze rule for the state LifeLine program (see 1609010058). The proposed decision doesn't tackle all issues raised by the federal Lifeline changes, but the state agency plans to address more in the future, it said. “Given that the FCC’s readjustments to federal Lifeline remain in a state of development at this writing, the conclusions we reach in this decision are made in a context of some uncertainty. We expect the adjustments ordered today, along with the changes we anticipate, to take several months, if not years, to fully implement because of the time needed to develop and test new process technologies.” While she wrote the proposed decision, Commissioner Catherine Sandoval won’t return to the CPUC next year. Sandoval’s term expires at the end of this year, and she said at Thursday’s commissioners' meeting she plans to return to full-time work as a law professor at Santa Clara University in January. Commissioner Mike Florio also is leaving (see 1612150062). With Florio and Sandoval departing, the California body lost its “most consistently activist” commissioners, said Tellus Venture Associates President Steve Blum in a blog post Friday. Blum is a consultant for local governments. “Florio and Sandoval advocated for greater competition in California’s telecoms market and supported efforts to extend broadband connectivity into rural and low income communities," he wrote. "They’ve been more willing than most to buck pressure from AT&T, Verizon and cable lobbyists and, among other things, push for investigations into service and infrastructure issues that the incumbents would prefer to sweep under the carpet, and resist Comcast’s attempts to turn California into its own walled garden.”