FairPoint won support for its request for hearing before the Maine Public Utilities Commission acts on a $500,000 proposed penalty for service quality violations (see 1610040021). In comments Friday in docket 2014-00376, the Telecommunications Association of Maine said it saw no harm in granting FairPoint a hearing. Not holding one could lead to litigation, "adding costs and delays which would appear to serve no one,” it commented. “Rejecting the request in FairPoint’s Motion would seem to promote speed over quality.” The Maine Office of the Public Advocate supported a hearing for reporting periods later than Q3 and Q4 2015 because it said the company had a chance to argue those periods at a technical conference May 18, 2015. For later reporting periods, the telco "should be given an additional opportunity to present evidence and argument concerning its failure to meet the service quality benchmarks,” OPA commented. In a letter Monday, FairPoint asked to respond to OPA’s comments by Thursday.

Washington state suffered no telecom outages in a storm that blew into the Pacific Northwest over the weekend, a Utilities and Transportation Commission spokesman said Monday. Meteorologists had predicted dangerously strong winds, but the storm wasn’t as bad as expected. Multiple surveyed carriers reported no problems from the weather in the area. “The storm turned out to be much weaker than expected,” said a Sprint spokesman. Carriers faced a bigger challenge from Hurricane Matthew, which struck the Southeast coast the previous weekend (see 1610130033 and 1610110038). Verizon used unmanned aerial systems (UAS) to inspect flooded cellsites in the Carolinas, the company said in a news release Friday. Verizon deployed Measure UAS quadcopters that can record and live-stream HD video and high-resolution photographs, it said. “The first flight to a site surrounded by water near Elm City, N.C. and the Tar River Reservoir showed engineers that the base station equipment -- which was elevated on stilts -- was not underwater and had not suffered visible damage,” Verizon said. “After determining the site was safe to access, Verizon’s Network team secured an air boat and refueled the generator, bringing the site back into service within hours.”

Alabama extended its deadline for alternative public safety radio access network (RAN) proposals to 15 business days after FirstNet announces a vendor for the national network, the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency said in a news release Friday. It also will accept anonymous questions about the request for proposal until Oct. 24, it said. Responses to the Alabama request for proposal were due Friday; it extended the deadline after multiple vendors said they would wouldn’t bid until FirstNet’s announcement, which is expected Nov. 1. Rivada made such an announcement last week (see 1610130032). “The state purposely chose to issue the RFP and receive responses prior to the announcement of the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) nationwide partner to ensure the highest level of competition and largest number of responses possible,” the Alabama agency wrote. “Such an approach was intended to enable the best set of possible choices for the first responders and citizens of Alabama.” The state changed its mind after receiving six requests for a deadline extension and 12 requests to “entertain questions” about the RFP, it said. Rivada agreed last month to develop an alternative public safety broadband plan for the New Hampshire Department of Safety for the state to compare with a proposal that FirstNet will develop (see 1609070063). Arizona also has an RFP for alternative RAN plans, with responses due Oct. 31.

The telecom industry and consumer groups rejected each other’s requests for rehearing at the California Public Utilities Commission on a decision in docket R.11-12-001 to charge telcos automatic daily fines of up to $25,000 for failure to meet service quality measures (see 1609300044). The Utility Reform Network, California Office of Ratepayer Advocates and other consumer groups rejected a Cox Communications protest that CPUC adopted the fines without adequate support legally or in the record. “Cox fails to demonstrate legal or factual error in its rehearing application,” they wrote in a joint response posted Friday. “Instead, Cox simply rehashes its policy arguments in opposition to several reporting rules and the penalty mechanism that the Decision added to General Order (G.O.) 133-D.” In a separate response Friday, Cox rejected the consumer groups’ protest that the commission closed the proceeding without imposing service quality reporting regulations on wireless carriers or interconnected VoIP providers. “The Commission cannot adopt service quality regulations that apply to VoIP services, and thereby, interconnected VoIP providers,” Cox responded. “Joint Consumers simply repeat arguments previously submitted and they fail to review or respond to record evidence that expressly refutes those arguments.” AT&T and CTIA in separate responses also urged the CPUC reject the consumer groups’ request.

A state commission urged the FCC to delay processing several companies' applications to be Lifeline broadband providers until the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit resolves states’ appeal of the FCC Lifeline order extending the low-income program to broadband. The Oklahoma Corporation Commission Public Utilities Division (PUD) submitted a request Thursday in docket 09-197 to hold in abeyance the application of Blue Jay Wireless for FCC designation as an eligible telecom carrier under the Lifeline broadband program. The Blue Jay application is one of the first since the FCC pre-empted states for Lifeline ETC designation. The PUD said it’s unresolved whether the FCC has authority to pre-empt states and issue its own designations, a question that is the subject of the D.C. Circuit case. It’s also unresolved what role state regulatory agencies will have in monitoring activities of federally designated broadband ETCs, a question that's the subject of a Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission petition for clarification at the FCC, it said. “PUD is concerned about the potential negative impacts to the Lifeline market if the FCC grants ETC designation where statutory authority does not exist and the loss of what, to date, has been effective oversight by states, such as Oklahoma, of the ETCs participating in the Lifeline market.” OCC asked the FCC to hold off on several more applications in the docket Friday. Earlier last week, NARUC asked the D.C. Circuit to reject an FCC motion to suspend review of the Lifeline order pending agency resolution of petitions to reconsider parts of its recent overhaul of the low-income telecom subsidy program (see 1610120050).

The FCC Wireline Bureau modified procedures for state commissions to access nonpublic Form 477 subscription data. “Each commission wishing to access, or to continue to access, shared data for its state must execute an updated data-sharing letter of agreement,” the FCC said in a public notice Thursday in docket 11-10. The revisions are part of the bureau’s modernization of the secure online repository for the shared data, it said. What states may do with carriers’ Form 477 data has been central to a court dispute between telecom companies and the California Public Utilities California and The Utility Reform Network (see 1609160054). “This notice proves the point that the CPUC and TURN were making before the federal court,” TURN staff attorney Christine Mailloux emailed Thursday. “It was never the FCC’s intent to prohibit state commissions from using Form 477 data in their own proceedings or to disclose this data under specific circumstances and proper protections.” The new form letter clarifies that FCC and bureau rules “are primarily concerned with unlimited ‘public’ disclosure of the data through a FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] or state public records process than the scenario we have in this California case,” she said. But the FCC notice doesn’t address a state’s authority to require regulated entities to provide data to the state commission and then share that data under protection to third parties, she said. Rather, the FCC notice appears to apply only when a state commission requests Form 477 data directly from the FCC, she said.

Until FirstNet announces a network contract, Rivada won’t bid on any more state requests for proposal on alternative radio access networks, a company spokesman said Thursday. Rivada submitted a plan to FirstNet as part of industry coalition Rivada Mercury; a FirstNet decision is expected Nov. 1 (see 1606070037). “Given how close we are to a FirstNet decision … we are holding off on any further state RFP responses until we hear from FirstNet,” the Rivada spokesman emailed. “We remain confident that ours is the best solution for public safety nationwide. In the event we don't win FirstNet, we naturally will evaluate any state opportunities at that time.” Rivada agreed last month to develop an alternative public safety broadband plan for the New Hampshire Department of Safety for the state to compare with a proposal that will be developed by FirstNet (see 1609070063). Rivada hasn’t made any other state deals, the spokesman confirmed: “We are under contract with New Hampshire and we continue to work closely with them in accordance with that contract.”

The New York State administration railed at Verizon Wireless after the company closed call centers in New York City and Rochester. The company also closed five other centers in Maine, Nebraska, Connecticut and California, affecting 3,200 employees, a Verizon spokeswoman said. “This is an egregious example of corporate abuse -- among the worst we have witnessed during the six years of this administration,” said a spokesman for Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D). “Verizon’s negligence is astounding and as a result, hard-working New Yorkers will lose their jobs.” Cuomo directed the state Department of Labor to assist employees, while the governor’s office tries to “reverse the impact of Verizon’s reckless decision,” the spokesman said. Communications Workers of America President Chris Shelton vowed to “keep up the fight” against Verizon. “It’s corporate greed at its worst,” he said. Verizon will ask affected employees to seek other positions within the company, relocate with $10,000 in company assistance to similar positions in other call centers, or accept a severance package, the Verizon spokeswoman emailed. “The key driver behind this decision is to realign our real estate portfolio and Customer Service operations to make the best use of extra capacity in the remaining locations. … This was a very difficult but necessary business decision.” Verizon will give affected employees two paid days off and reimburse travel expenses up to $500 to visit other call center sites, she said.

Mobile data speeds in California are getting faster but less consistent, according to the California Public Utilities Commission mobile field testing program. In a blog post Tuesday, CPUC Senior Analyst Rob Osborn said average download speeds increased in spring 2016 from six months before, but so did the standard deviation from the mean. “For one session, you might get 2 megabits per second, and another session, 24.” Osborn said it’s “hard to say” what that means, “but it appears the likelihood of getting the average speed at a particular location is lower than before.” Verizon average downstream speed increased by about 2 Mbps to 16 Mbps from fall 2015 to spring 2016, AT&T speeds increased the same amount to 14 Mbps, and T-Mobile increased by about 1 Mbps to 13 Mbps, CPUC found. Sprint average download speeds remained flat at slightly more than 8 Mbps. But over the same time period the standard deviation as a percentage of the downstream speed also increased: to 42 percent from 35 percent for Verizon, to 44 percent from 35 percent for AT&T, to 46 percent from 36 percent for T-Mobile, and to 43 percent from 40 percent for Sprint. The numbers show industry upgrades aren't keeping up with Californians' demand, said Tellus Venture President Steve Blum, a broadband consultant for local governments. “Mobile carriers are investing in more and better infrastructure, but judging from the CPUC’s measurements, not quickly enough to keep pace with Californians,” he wrote in a blog post Wednesday.

The National Association of State Chief Information Officers released an updated strategic plan. NASCIO adopted the plan at its annual conference last month in Orlando. “While the plan didn't change significantly, we did emphasize some new objectives that reflect the current needs of state CIOs,” said NASCIO President Mark Raymond in a news release Thursday. “These changes will ensure that NASCIO continues to align the organization's activities to ensure we're providing our members with the support, research and information they've grown to expect.” Also at the conference, NASCIO released reports on cybersecurity and state IT outsourcing (see 1609200026 and 1609190022).