The Commerce and Defense departments postponed briefings for the Senate Armed Services and Commerce committees originally expected to happen next week on the Pentagon's report on its study on repurposing the 3.1-3.45 GHz band for commercial 5G use (see 2309280087), lawmakers and communications lobbyists told us. There has been no clear explanation why, but word of the delay circulated in conjunction with chatter that the two federal departments are disagreeing on what the report’s conclusions mean for bids to sell or share parts of the lower 3 GHz band.

The District of Columbia enacted a 911 transparency bill Wednesday without the signature of Mayor Muriel Bowser (D). The D.C. Council voted 13-0 Sept. 19 to pass B25-0375 to temporarily amend the law establishing the Office of Unified Communications. Bowser had until Wednesday to respond. The unsigned act requires the office “to collect and post publicly on the Office's website the number of calls eligible to be diverted to alternative responses, the number of those calls diverted, and data on daily call-taking and dispatching operations.” The D.C. Council Judiciary and Public Safety Committee mulled a permanent OUC transparency bill last week (see 2310050062). Some at the hearing claimed Bowser isn't taking seriously District 911 problems identified in an audit. The mayor didn’t comment by our deadline.

Extended 911 hold times and insufficient staffing continue to plague the District of Columbia’s Office of Unified Communications (OUC), said D.C. Council members at a virtual hearing Thursday. The Judiciary and Public Safety Committee sharply questioned OUC Director Heather McGaffin on recent problems and the agency’s compliance with recent emergency legislation meant to enhance accountability and transparency. The committee also considered a bill to expand upon and make permanent the emergency measure.

National Emergency Number Association representatives said the group’s i3 standard and an ATIS standard for IP multimedia subsystems are “complementary, and not competing, specifications and systems implementing them are expected to be fully interoperable,” in a meeting with an aide to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. NENA said the largest barriers to next-gen 911 deployment are “with business and policy, and not with standards or technology,” said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 21-479. ”A significant barrier to interoperability is the lack of a network connection between systems,” NENA said: “In the i3 standard this is addressed with an expectation that secure, standards-based traffic can take place between far away systems over the internet. It would also be possible that a nationwide backbone connecting all systems could be implemented.”

Dish Wireless will be designated as an eligible telecom carrier (ETC) in Nebraska. The Public Service Commission voted 5-0 Tuesday for the order in docket NUSF-137. Nebraska commissioners voted 3-2 after a closed session to censure Commissioners Christian Mirch (R) and Kevin Stocker (R), the PSC said. The vote followed an independent investigation into alleged misconduct, the agency said. “We shouldn’t need a code of conduct to tell us that as elected officials we are accountable for our actions,” said Chair Dan Watermeier (R). “It is my expectation that by voting to censure, we are sending the message that as Commissioners we hold ourselves to the highest of standards and will not tolerate this kind of behavior.” Mirch and Stocker voted no. The PSC didn’t disclose the alleged misconduct. Mirch and Stocker in a statement denied misconduct allegations and slammed the other three commissioners’ decision: “Instead of waiting to obtain an official opinion on a matter of public concern from the Nebraska Attorney General, the Commission acted beyond its statutory authority, without just cause, and without having the benefit of a complete investigation.” The PSC should instead be investigating lengthy telephone and broadband outages, said the commissioners, calling the censure vote a “diversion.” The commission majority “remains largely silent” on recent statewide 911 outages (see 2309120046), they added.

A Pennsylvania House committee advanced a bipartisan bill on “ghost poles” Tuesday amid a push to increase telecom accountability by six Republicans from rural districts. The bills respond to constituents’ many complaints about Frontier Communications, state legislators said in interviews last week.

APCO Chief Counsel Jeff Cohen urged the FCC to “proceed as soon as possible” on rules requiring location-based routing for wireless calls to 911 (see 2309110042), in a meeting with an aide to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. Cohen also raised related rules on next-generation 911 communications, said a filing posted Monday in docket 21-479. “The Commission must approach rules for NG9-1-1 in a manner that promotes a common understanding of the public safety community’s goals and expectations for NG9-1-1 and does not conflict with the comprehensive vision and definitions outlined in pending federal NG9-1-1 funding legislation,” APCO said: “The single most important step the Commission can take would be to adopt requirements for achieving interoperability between originating service providers and 9-1-1 service providers, and among 9-1-1 service providers.”

A Maine proposal to save the state’s 207 area code from phone number exhaustion by combining Consolidated Communications’ multiple rate centers into one could be a model for the entire U.S., said Maine Public Utilities Commission telecom analyst Michael Johnson at a workshop Friday. "This is definitely a big undertaking and something very unique that we're working with Consolidated to possibly implement."

Lumen restored 911 services Tuesday in northeast Wyoming caused by a fiber cut by a third party, the carrier’s spokesperson said: “Our techs worked nonstop to fix the issue as quickly as possible.” Thousands were left without service Tuesday morning, said a news report. Fiber cuts led to a Lumen outage in Nebraska earlier this month, prompting an investigation by the Nebraska Public Service Commission (see 2309120046 and 2309010021). The Wyoming PSC didn’t comment.

The Nebraska Public Service Commission will investigate why required redundancy failed in Lumen and Windstream’s back-to-back 911 outages (see 2309050015), the PSC said Tuesday. The commission voted 5-0 to launch the probes. “The disruptions in 911 service that occurred in these two separate incidents is unacceptable,” said Nebraska PSC Chair Dan Watermeier. “The Commission expects 911 service providers to maintain diverse and redundant connections between 911 centers and their networks.” The PSC will ask in docket 911-075 why the Lumen fiber cuts led to a statewide outage, said one order Tuesday. In the Windstream probe, the agency will look into why a fire and power loss at one facility resulted in 911 disruptions over a large part of southeast Nebraska, said a separate order in docket 911-076. Windstream stands "ready to engage constructively" with the Nebraska PSC, a spokesperson said. Lumen didn't comment by our deadline.