Maryland first responders in Prince George’s County rolled out a smartphone app for alerting CPR-trained citizens of cardiac emergencies nearby. The county’s Fire/Emergency Medical Service Department will use the PulsePoint Respond app for iOS and Android, PulsePoint said in a news release Wednesday. The app, which can be used by anyone trained in CPR, also notifies users of the location of the closest automated external defibrillator. The department is the first in the National Capital Region to adopt the app, said Fire Chief Marc Bashoor. “It gives our residents and visitors the ability to know when a cardiac arrest is occurring close by, to respond quickly, and to attempt potentially lifesaving CPR while our paramedics travel to the scene.”

The New York Public Service Commission plans hearings in its Verizon copper probe starting March 2, an administrative law judge ruled Friday. The PSC is investigating the quality of Verizon’s legacy copper services and the telco’s willingness to make upgrades to copper in areas where it hasn’t rolled out fiber (see 1608010047). Staff and intervenor testimony is due Dec. 9, and rebuttal testimony from Verizon Feb. 3, ALJ Sean Mullany ruled in docket 16-C-0122.

North Carolina must overhaul municipal broadband policies or risk leaving rural areas behind, said the Institute for Local Self-Reliance Tuesday. The state should remove barriers to broadband investment by cooperatives, allow communities to decide whether and how to deploy municipal broadband, expand internet access from existing local networks and create a state program offering matching grants or a revolving loan fund, the report said. It criticized the state law that has prohibited Wilson Greenlight from expanding into neighboring communities including Pinetops (see 1609270035). The FCC pre-empted a 2011 state law, but the federal agency was overturned by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The institute also condemned a 1999 North Carolina law limiting electric cooperatives’ access to capital for telecom. “Local leaders are better equipped to solve their problems than micro-managers from Raleigh,” it said. “Some communities will embrace cooperatives, some may find ways of attracting private companies, and some may choose to work with Wilson or duplicate it. This report recommends that North Carolina remove its barriers to local choice and focus on encouraging more sources of investment rather than focusing largely on firms based outside of the state.”

The New Hampshire Department of Safety hopes to brief gubernatorial candidates on FirstNet “in the coming weeks,” but nothing is planned yet, the state’s FirstNet single point of contact (SPOC) told us. It's among at least eight states and territories that will have new governors in 2017 who will need quickly to get up to speed on the national public safety network to inform state decisions next year on whether to opt in (see 1610050026). No direct conversations have taken place, but both candidates are on the state’s Executive Council and heard a FirstNet presentation during a council meeting, New Hampshire SPOC John Stevens emailed Friday. The major candidates in the race are Colin Van Ostern (D) and Chris Sununu (R).

The California Public Utilities Commission plans to vote Nov. 10 on a $2.86 million broadband grant to Cal.net to provide internet and VoIP services to underserved rural communities in Amador, Calaveras and Alpine counties, said a draft order released Tuesday. The money would come from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF). The proposed order OKs a project that covers about 455 square miles with 25/4 Mbps broadband speeds. Cal.net also plans to provide service to five anchor institutions and eight fire stations, and provide an interconnected public safety data communications network. Before CPUC votes on the grant, it plans to vote Oct. 13 on a draft resolution to reduce the surcharge rate of the CASF for end-user intrastate charges to zero from 0.464 percent. The reduction is necessary to avoid exceeding the fund’s cap this month, CPUC said in a revised draft order released Tuesday. “Since the estimated total CASF monthly surcharge collected by carriers is about $4.5 million, maintaining the surcharge rate at 0.464% would exceed the $315 million cap by the amount of $8.5 million on December 1, 2016.”

The enforcement division of California’s telecom regulator protested a calling-card company application to register as an interexchange carrier. ComNet applied Sept. 2 to provide resold interexchange services in California as a prepaid debit calling card company. But in a protest filed Monday, the California Public Utility Commission Consumer Protection and Enforcement Division said ComNet has been operating in the state without CPUC authority and failed to disclose in its application that California and Michigan revoked its telecom licenses. Rather than grant the application, the CPUC should impose penalties for rule violations, it said.

Parties got more time to comment on a District of Columbia Public Service Commission notice of inquiry about issues raised in the FCC Lifeline order. Comments on docket FC988 were due Monday, but in a notice on the due date, the PSC extended the deadline to Nov. 7, and replies to Nov. 21. The PSC also recently extended the comments deadline on a related notice of proposed rulemaking (see 1610030013).

A one-touch, make-ready ordinance in Louisville attracted a second lawsuit from industry. Following AT&T, Charter Communications subsidiary Insight Friday challenged the Metro Government law in U.S. District Court in Louisville (Case No. 3:16-CV-625). The federal court should "disallow Louisville’s action allowing competitors to trespass on, convert, take possession of, and potentially damage, Insight’s property,” said the cable complaint (in Pacer). Only the Public Service Commission may regulate privately owned utility poles in the state, said Insight. It said the Louisville policy allows Google to take actions “without prior notice and puts strict limitations on Insight’s ability to uncover any possible damage caused to its plant by its competitor or even to assure that it is able to recover the costs of necessary cures. The One-Touch procedures also could allow Insight’s competitors (intentionally or unintentionally) to damage or disrupt Insight’s ability to serve its customers, creating an inaccurate perception in the market about Insight’s service quality and harming its goodwill.” Google pushed for one-touch policies meant to speed new pole attachments as it tries to increase deployment of its competitive fiber network. But existing pole riders opposed such policies. In February, AT&T sued Louisville, saying the city was pre-empted by state pole attachment rules; and last month, it sued Nashville, saying the city was pre-empted by the FCC (see 1609230039). Insight’s suit echoed in part AT&T’s challenge of one-touch, but the Charter company also claimed AT&T and Google benefit from less local regulation of their competitive video services. The court should "bring parity in regulation to Louisville by applying the same regulatory burdens on Insight that it applies to AT&T and Google so that all similarly situated speakers are treated equally in their ability to communicate,” Insight said. "Fair competition requires that the government, whatever its motives, treat similarly situated speakers the same and not unfairly weight one side of the regulatory scale.” Mayor Greg Fischer’s (D) office, AT&T and Google declined comment Tuesday. The city must file an answer to the separate AT&T complaint by Thursday, said a Sept. 20 court order (in Pacer).

Facing a $500,000 proposed penalty for service quality violations in Maine, FairPoint Communications asked the Public Utilities Commission to allow it to present evidence in an adjudicatory hearing and to submit argument. “The due process guarantees in the United States and Maine Constitutions entitle FairPoint to a fair hearing when, as here, state government seeks to deprive the Company of its property through the assessment of a monetary penalty related to provider of last resort (“POLR”) service quality,” the company said in a Monday motion. The PUC gave FairPoint no notice it would take action, the telco said. In a Sept. 14 examiner’s report, the PUC said “FairPoint has not placed appropriate emphasis on its statutory obligation to provide acceptable service quality … to its POLR service customers,” as measured by service quality index (SQI) benchmarks: “The Company has demonstrated that it has placed very little emphasis on meeting the SQI benchmarks, in part by apparently prioritizing trouble reports for non-regulated services (such as broadband) ahead of repair actions for POLR customers. While providing high quality broadband service is important to the Company's future, it cannot ignore its service quality obligations to its POLR customers.” Comments on the examiner’s report are due Oct. 21. Maine recently passed a law to remove FairPoint POLR obligations in phases, and Vermont is reviewing FairPoint service quality reporting rules (see 1609130057).

Mulling effects of the FCC Lifeline order, the District of Columbia telecom regulator gave more time for comments on a notice of proposed rulemaking (NOPR) about changes required by the federal order adding broadband support to the low-income fund (see 1609260067). The comments were due Monday, but the D.C. Public Service Commission extended the deadline to Oct. 17, and reply comments to Oct. 31 from Oct. 17. “Due to the requirement that the rule changes required by the Lifeline Modernization Order be in effect by December 1, 2016, there can be no further extensions of time for this NOPR,” the commission said in the Friday notice. Meanwhile, the Kentucky Public Service Commission previewed changes to Lifeline in a news release Monday. "The PSC is currently examining the future of the Kentucky Universal Service Fund (KUSF), which provides the state portion of the Lifeline subsidy," the Kentucky commission said. "The KUSF had been rapidly depleted in recent years, prompting the PSC in March to temporarily increase the surcharge in order to keep the fund solvent while determining its long-term viability." Revenue from contributions to state USFs has declined in multiple jurisdictions, our July canvassing found (see 1607010010).