The California Public Utilities Commission received a flurry of rehearing requests last week from telecom companies and consumer groups on two recent decisions. Thursday, Cox Communications and the California Association of Competitive Telecommunications Companies (CalTel) submitted separate applications to rehear 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 1608180060). The agency adopted the automatic penalties “without adequate factual, legal or policy support,” Cox said in its petition. The company also objected to requiring VoIP providers to submit copies of outage reports they provide the FCC. CalTel also requested rehearing Thursday, largely echoing its concerns about fining CLECs from an Aug. 30 petition for modification (see 1609060044), and sent a separate letter asking that CLECs be exempt from fines until the commission addresses either of its requests. Meanwhile, the Office of Ratepayer Advocates, The Utility Reform Network and other consumer groups asked for rehearing because they said the commission created “a loophole for chronic service quality violators to avoid paying a penalty.” Under the alleged loophole, a company can suspend a fine if it “purports to invest twice the amount of that fine,” but that rule isn't supported by the record, they said. Also, the order closed the proceeding without addressing several topics, including service quality standards for wireless and interconnected VoIP providers, an ongoing network study and several matters referred from other proceedings, the consumer groups said. Earlier, the CPUC received rehearing requests from CTIA and a group of small wireline companies on an order in docket R.14-11-001 to enhance public access to public records under the California Public Records Act. Both protested the CPUC delegating to staff the authority to decide whether a utility document is confidential, with the small telco application threatening a court challenge. “The Commission’s new process for public disclosure of confidential documents unlawfully delegates to Staff the authority to make final discretionary determinations and unconstitutionally empowers Staff to act on such determinations without notice to the affected public utility or the opportunity to be heard regarding the determination,” CTIA said in its request.

A state commissioner slammed the FCC as the Montana Public Service Commission voted 5-0 Thursday to recertify 26 eligible telecom carriers to receive rural broadband funding from the federal USF. The PSC said in a news release that it expects the decision to bring in about $100 million to the state. “While federal pre-emption has greatly limited the PSC’s regulatory authority over telecoms, we do retain the responsibility for certifying the eligibility of Montana companies for FCC broadband build-out support,” said GOP Commissioner Roger Koopman. “In my opinion, that certification process carries with it the responsibility for ensuring that these funds are spent wisely and in accordance with the law’s intent. The feds have, up until now, totally dropped the ball on the reporting and tracking of these expenditures, making it all the more important for the PSC to step up and do the job, on behalf of both the taxpayer and the beneficiaries of this program.” The FCC strengthened reporting requirements for the coming year, noted Koopman, calling it “a welcomed development after years of complacency and neglect.” NARUC and some states are challenging the new process for designating national Lifeline broadband providers that allows parties to bypass state eligible telecom carrier reviews (see 1606030053 and 1607010057). The FCC declined comment.

The California Public Utilities Commission extended by another two months the deadline for a rulemaking to revamp the California High Cost Fund-A program, which provides subsidies to 13 small rural LECs for basic phone service. The public utility code requires quasi-legislative cases to be resolved within 18 months but allows the CPUC to extend it up to 60 days. At a meeting Thursday, commissioners voted unanimously to extend the deadline to Dec. 6 from Oct. 7. The CPUC also extended the deadline in July (see 1607180011). “Work has begun on a third revised scoping ruling in this proceeding but has not yet been completed,” CPUC said to justify the ruling. Also Thursday, the CPUC approved by consent a $545,690 Advanced Services Fund grant to Frontier Communications to build last-mile fiber in underserved Shingletown, California. The project is expected to provide speeds of at least 6 Mbps down and 1.5 Mbps up to 1,017 households, CPUC said. The higher bandwidth will help the community during wildfires, winter storms and earthquakes, and increase access to e-health services, CPUC said in the resolution. Also Thursday, AT&T and Webpass made a joint motion in docket A.16-05-015 to dismiss their interconnection dispute (see 1606230046). The companies said they reached a settlement, which they didn't detail.

The California Public Utilities Commission should act on its own authority to work with the California Research Bureau to study state telecom governance, Gov. Jerry Brown (D) said Thursday as he signed a package of bills to increase CPUC transparency. The legislature passed some but not all of the CPUC reform bills Brown negotiated with state legislators; one of the dead bills would have reviewed state telecom regulation (see 1609010058). In a Thursday news release, Brown asked the commission to take immediate action on some measures not passed, including the telecom review, and said he would work with the legislature on other leftovers that require legislative action. The CPUC shares "the commitment of the Governor and Legislature of ensuring that Californians have a focused and accountable regulatory agency overseeing vital utility services," a commission spokeswoman said. "We will continue our efforts to transform into an agency that is dedicated to safety, transparency, and accountability to the people of California."

Uncertified fixed VoIP carriers could voluntarily participate in California LifeLine under a proposed decision released Tuesday. The companies would be able to participate without a certificate of public convenience and necessity, the CPUC said. The proposal would "promote competition by preserving essential consumer protections across technology platforms and by ensuring that minimum communications needs are met regardless of income,” it said. “We also achieve technological neutrality by focusing on the function California LifeLine service is to perform.” The proposed decision may be considered at the earliest at the CPUC’s Oct. 27 meeting, the agency said.

Lifting a Pennsylvania restriction on municipal broadband could spur state smart city initiatives, Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto (D) said Wednesday. A Pennsylvania law forces cities and counties with broadband plans to ask their incumbent ISP to implement broadband before the governments can do so themselves. Changing the law “certainly would give us options that cities like Chattanooga have already been able to seize upon,” he said on a live-streamed Washington Post smart cities event. Google Fiber helped in Kansas City and other cities, he said. Pittsburgh could use better broadband, he said. “The amount of information that will be required and the broadband that will be needed will be possibly more than we can provide right now.” The city has dark fiber owned by the utility company, he said. “That could become really the backbone of a system that would then be able to be launched with wireless technology.” Pittsburgh has “been having conversations with DQE,” a subsidiary of the energy company Duquesne Light, he said. The mayor also spoke about Uber, which recently announced Pittsburgh as a test bed for its autonomous cars (see 1609070018). Peduto joked that fear of “robot cars” may be one of three reasons he isn’t re-elected, in addition to bike lanes and welcoming Syrian refugees into the city. People fear a self-driving car will cause an accident, but the reality is that humans cause many accidents, he said. “There will be accidents, but if the greater goal is to make the streets safer in the long term, we have to begin at some point, and we can’t wait for regulation to catch up to innovation.”

The California Public Utilities Commission is seeking comment on whether Frontier Communications violated CPUC rules when it experienced outages from April to May after acquiring Verizon wireline customers. In a ruling Tuesday, CPUC asked what rules Frontier may have broken and what additional steps the commission should take. It asked if the outages reflected noncompliance by Frontier or Verizon with the commission’s order approving the deal. And it asked what lessons CPUC should learn from the transition troubles to inform consideration of future transaction applications. The agency also sought comment on several other rural call completion issues. Comments are due Oct. 7. A hearing last week in Santa Cruz focused on Frontier transition issues. Earlier this month, the agency asked the telco to file a “root cause analysis” on the transition outages (see 1609120061).

Motorola Solutions agreed to buy Spillman Technologies, a closely held provider of public safety software solutions for computer-aided dispatch (CAD) and records management systems (RMS), the acquirer said in a Monday news release. It “demonstrates our commitment to expand our smart public safety portfolio and provide agencies of all sizes with a full suite of solutions for the command center, from call processing equipment to CAD to RMS to land mobile radio and LTE dispatching,” said Bruce Brda, Motorola Solutions executive vice president-products and services.

AT&T sued Nashville over the one-touch, make-ready ordinance passed last week. The lawsuit (in Pacer), filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Nashville, was expected (see 1609210065). “Tennessee municipalities do not have jurisdiction to regulate pole attachments,” an AT&T spokesman said: After working with the mayor, council members, Nashville Electric Service and others, “we have no other option but to challenge this unlawful ordinance in federal court.” The Nashville Metro Council passed the one-touch policy to speed the rollout of Google Fiber, a competitor to incumbent AT&T. The law is meant to speed network rollouts by new entrants by allowing all pole attachment work to happen in a single visit by a crew approved by the pole owner. Currently, each existing provider on a pole sends a separate crew to move its line to make room for the new one, a process that Google says causes long delays (see 1609020013). AT&T's suit argued that FCC pole attachment regulations pre-empt the Nashville action. The ordinance conflicts with Metro Nashville’s charter under Tennessee law and impairs AT&T’s existing contract with Metro Nashville in violation of the U.S. and Tennessee constitutions, the telco ISP said. Mayor Megan Barry stood by the ordinance. “One Touch Make Ready has been litigated in the court of public opinion, and the public overwhelmingly supports this measure designed to speed up the deployment of high-speed fiber in Nashville,” the Democrat said in a statement. “Now, we hope that this federal litigation is quickly resolved so that we can get on with the business of expanding access to gigabit internet throughout Davidson County.” The city and the council saw the suit coming, "but we hoped common sense maybe could prevail and AT&T would see that Nashville residents overwhelmingly supported One Touch policy," emailed Council Member Anthony Davis, who sponsored the ordinance. "I know our legal department will vigorously defend our rights to regulate pole policy and to decide what occurs in our city right-of-way." AT&T previously sued Louisville, Kentucky, for passing a one-touch policy (see 1602260043). Pole attachment policies are expected to be a continuing challenge for Google as it expands its gigabit network (see 1609070026).

The California Public Utilities Commission is seeking comment on how to modify the state LifeLine program for low-income households in light of the recent FCC Lifeline order, CPUC Commissioner Catherine Sandoval said in a ruling Thursday. The ruling also asks questions on several other issues on the state program. “The key policy areas the Commission may need to address as a result of the FCC’s Order include: the future role of the California LifeLine Program, the services supported by California LifeLine, the defining characteristics of a low-income household, and the entity tasked with the responsibility of enrolling consumers,” CPUC said. “More generally, this Ruling invites parties to suggest ways this Commission may advance its decades-old commitment to California LifeLine in light of the FCC’s 'modernized' federal Lifeline program and California’s statutory commitments to universal and affordable telecommunications service including basic telephone service and its policies to promote access to broadband internet access services.” The comments on the FCC order are due Oct. 7, replies Oct. 17, CPUC said. States have sued the FCC over the Lifeline order, and at a July NARUC meeting Sandoval said California may want to opt out of national Lifeline verification because the state already has a strong third-party verifier (see 1607270020).