The California Public Utilities Commission on Thursday denied AT&T relief from carrier of last resort obligations, while opening a rulemaking to take a fresh look at COLR rules. Also at its meeting, the CPUC approved broadband grants, acted on enforcement items and set annual budgets for the California Advanced Service Fund (CASF) and state video franchise law.

The FCC and Massachusetts will probe a 911 outage reported around the state that lasted at least two hours Tuesday afternoon. Meanwhile, the Maine Department of Public Safety said the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is checking why people in Maine and other states received wireless emergency alerts (WEA) about the Massachusetts incident. The FCC is "looking into what occurred" in Massachusetts and "the reports concerning WEA," a commission spokesperson said. A Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and Security spokesperson said in a statement just before 4 p.m. that the 911 system was restored. The office sent its first alert about the problem at 2:22 p.m. It said that the state 911 department is “aware of a disruption ... and is investigating the cause.” The state advised residents facing an emergency to call local police departments’ direct lines. “We will provide further information as it becomes available.” Multiple local public safety agencies alerted the public via social media about the problems calling 911. “The current 911 system is down statewide,” the Boston Fire Department posted on X at 1:55 p.m. The Brockton Fire Department posted “Major 911 outage in Massachusetts” at 1:41 p.m. on the same platform. People in other states said they received wireless emergency alerts about the Massachusetts outage, including a Comm Daily reporter with a Virginia area code. The same Virginia-based reporter later received another WEA that said Maine's 911 system was fully operational and to disregard the emergency alert from another state. The Massachusetts "alert was sent to other surrounding states in error and is being investigated by FEMA," the Maine Public Safety Department said in a statement. "Maine 911 is up and running." FEMA declined to comment.

The Senate Commerce Committee is again postponing a planned markup of the Spectrum and National Security Act (S-4207), a spokesperson confirmed Monday night. The Tuesday meeting would have been Senate Commerce’s fourth attempt to vote on S-4207, which in a revised form unveiled last week would renew the FCC’s lapsed spectrum auction authority for five years but mandated no sales of specific bands. S-4207’s prospects of getting bipartisan support had appeared doubtful Monday, but the bill’s backers were continuing that afternoon to court a handful of Republican holdouts to back it.

The FCC’s rechartered Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council will meet for the first time June 28, the FCC announced Monday. FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said Billy Bob Brown from the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and Todd Piett of Motorola will serve as co-chairs. It will have three working groups: Harnessing AI/Machine Learning to Ensure the Security, Reliability and Integrity of the Nation’s Communications Networks; Ensuring Consumer Access to 911 on All Available Networks as Technology Evolves; and Preparing for 6G Security and Reliability. The group last met a year ago (see 2306260058).

Nebraska signed a five-year contract with RapidSOS that will provide enhancements for next-generation 911 at the state’s 67 public safety answering points, the Nebraska Public Service Commission said Friday. One feature of the upgrade is that PSAPs will be able to get location information from wireless callers even if the carrier can’t deliver the call, the PSC said. “Many Nebraska PSAPs currently utilize RapidSOS,” said PSC State 911 Director David Sankey. “Elevating all PSAPs to the company’s UNITE modules, will provide even more tools to supplement caller location capabilities should a disruption in wireless service occur.”

AT&T experienced an outage Tuesday that affected some wireless connections with other carriers, the company acknowledged on X. “Sorry for the inconvenience,” AT&T tweeted late Tuesday: “There is a known issue affecting calls between carriers. Industry providers are working as quickly as possible to diagnose and resolve the issue.” The FCC is “aware of reports that consumers in multiple states are unable to make wireless calls and we are currently investigating,” the agency said. 911 calls weren't affected. An interoperability issue between carriers “has been resolved,” an AT&T spokesperson wrote Wednesday in an email. “We collaborated … to find a solution and appreciate our customers' patience during this period.” AT&T customers experienced a nationwide wireless outage Feb. 22 (see 2402220058).

The FCC Public Safety Bureau said Tuesday covered 911 service providers must notify the FCC within 60 days after they completely cease operations, starting July 4. That comes following Federal Register publication of the Office of Management and Budget's review of the requirement, which was imposed as part of an FCC 2022 order (see 2211180070), the bureau said.

Colorado gave final approval for laws on 911 and privacy. On Friday, Gov. Jared Polis (D) signed SB-139, which would create a 911 services enterprise within the Department of Regulatory Agencies that could impose a user fee of up to 50 cents monthly per 911 access connection. Revenue from the new fee, which would be separate and in addition to an existing 911 surcharge imposed by the Colorado Public Utilities Commission, would fund 911 costs and expenses including statewide training, cybersecurity support, geographic information system programs, grants for public safety answering points and governing bodies and matching funds for 911 or emergency notification service grants. Also, Polis signed bills amending the Colorado Privacy Act to enhance protections for biometric identifiers (HB-1130) and children’s data (SB-41). The kids’ privacy bill would cover minors younger than 13. In addition, the bill would ban controllers from selling a minor’s data or using it for targeted advertising or profiling unless they obtain consent from a parent or legal guardian.

Don't expect traditional methods of protecting radio astronomy from spectral interference to work when it comes to supplemental coverage from space (SCS), according to radio astronomy interests. In comments last week (docket 23-65), radio astronomy advocates repeatedly warned that SCS service poses a significant interference risk. Multiple parties said SCS service is too new to justify emergency calling requirements. The FCC's SCS framework order adopted in March (see 2403140050) included a Further NPRM on 911 and radio astronomy issues.

APCO representatives met with aides to the FCC commissioners, except Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, on the public safety group's top issues. Among the topics was the 6 GHz band, said a filing posted Tuesday in 18-295 and other dockets. “APCO remains concerned that the expansion of unlicensed devices in the 6 GHz band presents a substantial threat of interference to public safety,” it said: “Real-world testing has raised doubts over the technical assumptions underlying the Commission’s decision to open the band.” APCO also remains concerned about wireless 911 location accuracy. “Further Commission action is needed to improve the transparency and reliability of testing to evaluate location technologies and to provide stronger requirements for carriers to deploy methods, several of which are feasible today, to derive dispatchable location,” APCO said.