The Pennsylvania House passed bills to fund 911 and 988 calling services Wednesday. Members voted 121-82 for HB-1304, which would hike the $1.65 surcharge for 911 to $1.97 in 2024, with it going up each year after based on the consumer price index. The House voted 113-90 for HB-1305, which would establish a 988 fund and levy a fee of 6 cents on mobile and IP voice service lines starting in 2024, with the fee going up each year at the same rate as the CPI. The bills passed committees last week (see 2306070027). On Tuesday, the House voted 203-0 for a bill (HB-1138) to exempt mobile telecom from the state’s sales and use tax and gross receipts tax.

The House Commerce Committee-approved Spectrum Auction Reauthorization Act (HR-3565) “misses the mark,” but “I remain committed to enacting legislation that expands commercial access to spectrum and maximizes value for American taxpayers,” Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, told us in a statement Monday. Panel Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and others are citing Cruz as the main impediment right now to congressional leaders reaching a consensus on a spectrum legislative package (see 2306120058). HR-3565 mirrors major parts of the spectrum legislative package House and Senate Commerce leaders proposed in December (see 2212190069), including language to allocate some future auction proceeds to the FCC’s Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program, next-generation 911 technology upgrades and middle-mile projects. Cruz said he's “especially” opposed to “the $20 billion earmarked for a variety of pet projects like unneeded and duplicative broadband subsidies.”

The FCC's proposal to limit mobile supplemental coverage from space (SCS) operations to co-channel licenses held by one party in geographically independent areas (GIA) is getting pushback from some satellite and terrestrial interests, per NPRM reply comments in docket 23-65 Tuesday. There was wireless and satellite disagreement on whether a waiver system suffices or if the agency needs SCS rules. The SCS NPRM was adopted 4-0 in March (see 2303160009) and the wireless industry argued in initial comments SCS rules are premature (see 2305150007).

Washington state regulators slapped Lumen with nearly $1.32 million in penalties for a December 2018 outage that resulted in at least 13,000 dropped or incomplete 911 calls. The Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission issued a final order Friday in docket UT-181051. "CenturyLink committed at least 13,000 violations of” a state rule “by failing to render prompt, expeditious, and efficient service; to keep its facilities, instrumentalities, and equipment in good condition and repair; and to ensure that its appliances, instrumentalities, and services are modern, adequate, sufficient, and efficient,” said the Washington UTC, assessing $100 per violation. Also, the UTC assessed $1,000 for each of 15 violations of a separate state regulation requiring telecom companies to promptly notify the commission and affected public safety answering points. “The service disruption lasting 49 hours and 32 minutes in December 2018 was a serious health and safety threat to Washington state residents,” the UTC said. “CenturyLink failed both in its obligations under statutory provisions and Commission rules to adequately manage and provide 911 service.” The penalty was lower than the $7.2 million penalty sought by Attorney General Bob Ferguson (D) in 2021 (see 2112160048). Lumen cooperated with the state commission’s investigation, a Lumen spokesperson said Monday: “We know that when someone calls 911, seconds count, and we take that responsibility seriously.”

Telecom-focused congressional leaders told us they’re sticking for now with a potential spectrum legislative package that would allocate some future auction proceeds to the FCC’s Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program as the best option for fixing the initiative’s $3.08 billion shortfall. Talks on the package have yielded limited progress since January amid resistance from Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, to major portions of a previous version of the measure lawmakers failed in December to attach to the FY 2023 appropriations omnibus (see 2212190069).

The FCC’s final 42 GHz NPRM, released Friday, got few changes from the draft proposed by Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, as expected (see 2306020048). Commissioners approved the 42 GHz item 4-0 Thursday (see 2306080042). The final version of the next-generation 911 NPRM adds numerous questions to the draft and got the most tweaks among the items approved Thursday. No major changes were made to the final NPRM on robocalls and robotexts, which were also approved unanimously (see 2306080043).

The National Emergency Number Association said it’s receiving reports of recent increases in accidental calls to 911, apparently tied to interface updates to some Android phones. Calls to 911 are up by as much as 30% in some locations, with similar reports from agencies in Europe, NENA said Wednesday. “We have been informed that by mid-June major Android handset vendors will have completed rolling out updates to address this issue,” the group said. NENA said the public can help by not abandoning accidental calls and not hanging up when a phone accidentally dials 911, letting call takers know there's no emergency.

The FCC approved 4-0 NPRMs on expediting the transition to next-generation 911 and giving consumers more choice on the robocalls and robotexts they’ll receive (see 2305180069). Both were approved with limited comments from commissioners.

Pennsylvania House committees passed bills on 911 and 988 funding Wednesday, though some lawmakers voiced concerns about the state's means of funding of the emergency call services.

An Ohio Senate panel supported upgrading to next-generation 911. The Financial Institutions and Technology Committee voted 4-0 Tuesday for SB-50. Ohio’s administrative services department could incur $10.3 million in yearly expenses to develop and maintain the NG-911 network, while counties may have to pay “several hundreds of thousands of dollars” to bring 911 systems into compliance, said a fiscal note: Costs might be fully offset by a NG-911 fee on landline, wireless and other communications services. The bill would replace the current 25-cents monthly wireless 911 fee with a 64-cents charge on communications services including landlines and VoIP. The bill would keep the current charge for prepaid wireless services, which is 0.005 percent of the retail sale price. “Expansion of the NG 9-1-1 fee to include communications services not currently subject to the fee is expected to increase the amount of revenue collected significantly,” the fiscal note said. The current wireless-only 911 charge collected about $25 million yearly on average over the past five years, it said. With the proposed larger and more broadly applied fee, “it is conceivable that revenue … could increase by tens of millions per year.”