Carriers reporting telecom service outages would have to identify the most specific location of the outage that the provider has available, in its initial report to the District of Columbia Public Service Commission, and the actual location of the outage in its final report, under a notice of proposed rulemaking released Friday by the PSC (docket RM27-2017-01). The reports should include street names and block numbers where affected customers are located, the commission said. Comments are due 30 days and replies 45 days after publication of the notice in the D.C. Register, the PSC said.

The Defense Department withdrew a motion to intervene at the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission on a CenturyLink petition to be regulated as a CLEC rather than an ILEC. DOD and other federal executive agencies withdrew from the proceeding without explanation in a Thursday filing in docket 16-496. The government had raised concerns that the deregulation could have a significant impact on DOD and other government customers in Minnesota (see 1701060033). DOD and CenturyLink didn’t comment.

Don’t compare Consolidated Communications' buy of FairPoint to FairPoint’s buy of Verizon’s northeastern wireline business, a Consolidated attorney told the Vermont Public Service Board as state reviews of the $1.5 billion deal get underway. The FairPoint/Verizon deal faced a tough integration period after getting the OK. “The operating entities will remain the same and this isn’t the same type of merger that was before the board in the FairPoint/Verizon matter,” said Sheehey Furlong attorney Debra Bouffard, representing Consolidated at a prehearing conference Thursday. “There’s no cutover here.” Consolidated seeks an expedited schedule in which the board would issue an order in May, said Bouffard. The transaction agreement was to close by the end of June, she said. “We understand that there needs to be a thorough review,” she said, “but we think this should be a fairly streamlined review in the sense that this is an upstream change in control.” Tuesday, the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission scheduled a Feb. 1 prehearing conference for its own review of the deal (docket 16-872). Earlier this month, the Maine PUC set a scheduling conference for Jan. 23 (docket 2016-00307). Consolidated and FairPoint also filed a petition at the New York Public Service Commission (docket 17-00087). The FCC next month will take comments on the deal, which got antitrust clearance last week (see 1701130013).

New members of the California Public Utilities Commission raised concerns about federal changes to Lifeline eligibility as they signed off Thursday on an order to begin to align the state and federal low-income programs. The CPUC voted 5-0 to approve the item, which aligned several aspects of the programs but left the proceeding open to act later on others. The order continues discounts and reimbursements for service connection and activation charges for California wireless services, capped at $39 for two years; adds a 60-day portability freeze to reduce churn among California LifeLine providers and implements the federal 60-day port freeze for voice services, CPUC President Michael Picker said. The agency later will address remaining matters including eligibility criteria and implementing a 12-month port freeze for broadband internet access service. The FCC granted California a waiver of its Dec. 2 federal Lifeline deadline until June 1 on port freeze requirements and Oct. 31 on eligibility rules. While agreeing it’s important to harmonize the programs, the two new commissioners -- Clifford Rechtschaffen and Martha Guzman Aceves -- said they worried about the 80,000 California households that staff found could lose eligibility under the new rules. They won’t lose eligibility right away and other programs may render them eligible or otherwise fill in the gap, but Rechtschaffen plans to monitor the impact of the rule changes, he said. Aceves said she’s “particularly bothered” about eliminating eligibility criteria but hopes to work on the issue with other commissioners as the proceeding continues. Consumer groups earlier warned commissioners not to lose focus on consumers while aligning the low-income programs (see 1701110032). The new commissioners have energy backgrounds and aren’t expected to focus much on telecom matters (see 1701030043). Ex-Commissioner Catherine Sandoval, who previously led the Lifeline proceeding, attended Thursday’s meeting and gave a thumbs-up after the Lifeline vote, CPUC Picker revealed from the dais.

Mediacom launched 1 Gbps Internet service across its entire Iowa footprint of close to nearly a million households in more than 300 communities, it said in a news release Wednesday. Iowa is its first gigabit state, Mediacom said, saying it plans to use the DOCSIS 3.1 Gigasphere platform to bring similar broadband services to almost all of the 3 million homes and businesses it serves in its 22-state footprint. The cable ISP said it expects to announce additional 1 Gbps Internet launches on a market-by-market basis through the rest of the year.

Ohio Public Utilities Commissioners agreed by unanimous voice vote Wednesday to seek comments on the commission’s five-year review of LEC-to-carrier rules under Ohio Adm. Code Chapter 4901:1-7. Comments are due Feb. 10, replies Feb. 24 in docket 16-2066.

It may not be cost effective for Maryland to adopt the National Joint Utilities Notification System if the utilities owning most of the poles receive a waiver, Verizon said. The Public Service Commission has a rulemaking (docket RM-59) to require NJUNS adoption statewide for facilitating transfer of pole attachments, while permitting pole owners to seek waiver if they have an effective alternative system (see 1606280045). In a letter Tuesday, Verizon proposed that the commission schedule the statewide adoption for 90 days after the agency decides the waiver petitions so the PSC can know in advance how many poles will be exempted. If the commission decides to exempt more than half, it shouldn't require automatic statewide adoption for the remaining owners, the telco said. Instead, staff should work with pole owners to ensure they use an efficient communications system for notification and coordination of pole attachments and transfer, the company said.

CenturyLink got a 10-year agreement to provide cloud and managed services to state and local governments, it said in a Wednesday news release. CenturyLink signed the contract with the National Association of State Procurement Officers ValuePoint Cooperative Purchasing Organization. The multistate cooperative procurement led by Utah gives participating state agencies and their authorized political subdivisions including school districts, counties and cities access to cloud services, CenturyLink said.

Idaho Gov. Butch Otter (R) will hire a director of information security to lead state efforts to combat hacks on state computer networks, as part of an executive order signed Monday. Otter's executive order also enacts other recommendations of the governor’s Cybersecurity Task Force, including adopting the National Institute of Standards and Technology Cybersecurity Framework and providing employee training and public outreach about cybersecurity best practices. “We learned this past year, firsthand, just how real the threat of cyberattacks is when the Department of Fish and Game’s licensing vendor was hacked,” Otter said in a news release. “Having a comprehensive plan to protect the personal information of our citizens must be a top priority.”

Charter defended its lawsuit against Louisville, Kentucky, over the city’s one-touch, make-ready ordinance and what it considers stricter treatment of Charter than of AT&T and Google. In response (in Pacer) Friday to the city’s motion to dismiss (see 1611230020), Charter subsidiary Insight called the ordinance unconstitutional and pre-empted by state law. Kentucky is one state that opted out of FCC jurisdiction over pole attachments, assigning that authority to the Public Service Commission. "If the ordinance were not preempted, it would work an unconstitutional taking of Insight’s network facilities by allowing a third party to take possession of and even damage Insight’s property without just compensation,” Insight said. The company continued to argue for technology-neutral regulation of ISPs: "By forcing Insight alone to bear onerous regulations and obligations from which they have relieved its competitors, Defendants’ actions distort consumer choice, impair Insight’s competitive position in the marketplace, and unconstitutionally infringe its free speech and equal protection rights.”