The Michigan Public Service Commission certified two more counties as “connected” under Connect Michigan, the agency’s public-private partnership with Connected Nation, the PSC said in a news release Wednesday. Genesee and Mason counties join 16 other communities in the state that developed a broadband plan to increase access, adoption and use, the PSC said.

Texas Public Utility Commission staff said it’s “sympathetic” to Comcast concerns that an ongoing right-of-way proceeding about distributed antenna systems could inadvertently affect telecom companies broadly. The matter concerns a complaint by ExteNet, a DAS provider, against the city of Houston for imposing public right-of-way fees. In a notice Tuesday in case 45280, the PUC said it will address the Comcast concern in a statement of position to be entered Sept. 30: “Staff agrees the scope of this case should be limited to whether Chapter 283 applies to Distributed Antenna Systems, and recognizes that a broader ruling may impact the current right-of-way paradigm.” In an Aug. 26 letter, Comcast said the PUC’s decision “could have far-reaching consequences to the municipal right-of-way regime that has been in place in Texas since 1999.” Most telecom utilities including Comcast pay franchise fees on access lines under Chapter 283 of Local Government Code, it said. "If changes are adopted in this proceeding that direct or suggest carriers must instead separately negotiate franchise agreements for services currently covered under Chapter 283, this could have enormous ramifications statewide. … Comcast is concerned that the outcome of this proceeding may inadvertently foreclose the ability of parties to amicably resolve how right-of-way fees are applied to new technologies if the ultimate decisions could be read to apply beyond the DAS system that is the subject of this proceeding.”

Under fire from state agencies, CenturyLink defended the completeness of a petition for deregulation in each of its 108 exchanges in Minnesota. The ILEC asked the Public Utilities Commission June 30 to be regulated instead as a CLEC because it serves less than 50 percent of households and competitors offer service to at least 60 percent of the households in each exchange. Under a deregulation process established by a recent state law, the PUC has 180 days to address the petition. But in Aug. 15 comments in docket 16-496, the Minnesota Attorney General and the state Department of Commerce separately said CenturyLink didn’t provide enough information to make a decision. They asked for more information showing competition for each local service offered in each exchange, evidence the telco lost customers to competitors over at least the past five years, and a demonstration that competition data it filed is accurate. In a reply Monday, CenturyLink said its petition is complete. "The Agencies’ arguments misread the relevant statute, confuse the distinction between completeness and sufficiency, and should be summarily rejected,” it said. “The statute clearly does not contemplate that all issues … must be unequivocally resolved before a petition is deemed complete. If that were the case, there would be no need for the 180 day review period.” The law allows the PUC to seek more information from the petitioner, but the PUC can’t reject a petition as incomplete for “failure to include information the petitioner was never notified was necessary," the telco said. The state agencies disagreed. “In essence, a carrier filing a petition under this statute must ‘show its work’ in the initial filing in order to have a complete petition for review,” the AG commented Monday. “CenturyLink has not shown its work. As a result, any analysis of the merits of the petition is both premature and impossible, given the lack of detail provided in the petition.” The petition is incomplete, but the PUC should keep the docket open so CenturyLink can file additional information, the department replied. The information sought by the state agencies “is very detailed, and that’s unlike most of the other states that have deregulated,” National Regulatory Research Institute Principal Sherry Lichtenberg emailed us. NRRI is the research arm of NARUC. In most former AT&T states, for example, ILECs could “elect” to have reduced regulation because the laws were predicated on the idea that competition exists, she said. “The Minnesota law seems to be the first that will require such detailed information.”

The California Public Utilities Commission should extend right-of-way rules of commercial mobile radio services (CMRS) to wireless pole attachments by CLECs, the Wireless Infrastructure Association said in a petition Monday. A WIA spokesman said the association planned to filed a motion Tuesday to consolidate the request with a California Cable and Telecommunications Association petition seeking the same thing but for wireless pole attachments by cable companies (see 1607210030). “The same legal and policy arguments supporting the extension of wireless attachment rights apply to cable operators and CLECs alike,” WIA said in an emailed copy of the motion. In a February decision granting nondiscriminatory access to carriers, CPUC recognized “there is no obvious reason why” the revised rules shouldn’t apply to CLECs and cable companies, WIA said in the petition. The wireless pole attachments of CMRS carriers are similar to those proposed to be installed by CLECs, WIA said. Extending the rules will enhance competition and promote broadband deployment, it said.

NARUC said it's postponing Lifeline Awareness Week in September due to new FCC rules that extend the USF low-income subsidies to broadband service and streamline the program's administration, which affects state regulatory oversight (see 1603310056). “It will take time for carriers and states, especially those with matching programs, to adjust to the Lifeline changes instituted by the FCC. To avoid increasing consumer confusion by providing outdated information, we have chosen to postpone the 2016 awareness week,” said NARUC President Travis Kavulla in a release Monday. 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 California Public Utilities Commission will collect public feedback on the California LifeLine program and proposed changes (docket R.11-03-013) in field hearings over the next month, the PUC said in a news release emailed Wednesday. CPUC held its first LifeLine public participation hearing Thursday afternoon in Lucerne, with more hearings planned Sept. 6 in Montebello, Sept. 14 in King City and Sept. 20 in Santa Cruz, it said. The CPUC also recently announced field hearings about intrastate rural call completion issues since Frontier Communications' acquisition of Verizon’s wireline business in the state (see 1608170036).

The FCC should postpone the effective date of new Lifeline federal eligibility criteria and obligation to offer broadband service under the low-income program to Dec. 31, 2017, or 12 months after approval by the Office of Management and Budget, the Michigan Public Service Commission said in a letter Tuesday to the commission in docket 11-42. The PSC supported that aspect of a USTelecom petition for reconsideration (see 1608090023). “The MPSC has similar concerns as those expressed by USTelecom regarding the effective date of the new federal eligibility criteria and its impact on state laws, rules and orders with programs that differ from the new federal eligibility criteria,” the state commission said. “Michigan is one of the states in which the state eligibility criteria for the state discount are now different than the new federal criteria. … Postponing the effective date of the federal eligibility criteria will provide a better opportunity for parties to address the differences between state and federal Lifeline programs, obtain answers to the numerous questions that still remain, and also provide additional time for all parties to work together to ensure a smooth, efficient, and effective transition.” States have sued the FCC over the order, challenging the creation of a federal eligible telecom carrier process and pre-emption of state commission authority to designate ETCs (see 1607270020).

The California Senate amended and passed bills on dig once and Lifeline reimbursement claims and sent them back to the Assembly. The Senate voted 39-0 Tuesday to pass AB-1549, but amended the dig-once bill to relax some of its requirements on the state’s Department of Transportation (Caltrans). The bill still requires Caltrans to notify broadband companies about highway construction projects so they can install broadband conduit as part of each project, but the Senate removed language saying Caltrans would be required to install fiber broadband conduit itself if no broadband company offers to help. Instead, Caltrans would have to consult with stakeholders on or before Jan. 1, 2018, to “develop guidelines to facilitate the installation of broadband conduit on state highway rights-of-way,” the amended bill said. The amendment also removed a requirement that Caltrans maintain an inventory on a centralized database of all broadband conduits housing fiber cables owned by the department, located on state highways and installed on or after Jan. 1, 2017. The database would have been available upon request to broadband companies or organizations. The Senate also voted 39-0 to pass an amended AB-2570, requiring the California Public Utilities Commission to adopt a portability freeze rule for the state Lifeline program by Jan. 15. That requirement replaced language prohibiting the CPUC from reimbursing phone companies for Lifeline claims to new subscribers who enrolled for Lifeline service with another telco within the previous 60 days.

A fiber cut in central New York affecting landline and wireless communications spurred an investigation by the Department of Public Service. Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) asked DPS to find out what led to the disruption in parts of four counties that began mid-afternoon Monday and continued Tuesday morning, said a DPS news release. The disruption affected 1,500 customers of several telecom companies including Verizon, Frontier Communications and Windstream, the department said. A preliminary review found the outage was caused by damage to an underground Verizon fiber cable in Stockbridge, which is used for local phone service and transport services of other providers, DPS said. Repair is taking longer due to the location of the cable along the roadway, it said. There was no impact to 911 centers, it said. “Our investigation will seek to determine the root cause of the outage and other underlying facts in an effort to understand how this occurred and help prevent future outages,” said DPS CEO Audrey Zibelman. The investigation is expected to take several weeks and also will scrutinize Verizon’s response to the incident and company communications with emergency responders, DPS said. Verizon late Monday located a cut to its underground fiber cable outside Oneida, and restored service at 1:34 p.m. Tuesday, a company spokesman said. Windstream customers in Munnsville lost long-distance and 911 services Monday due to the fiber cut; the company rerouted 911 calls to a local fire station Tuesday morning, its spokesman said. A Frontier spokesman said, “Some of our customers in Central New York experienced service issues due to the Verizon fiber cut and we are currently investigating the impact.”

U.S. District Court in Atlanta closed a 911 fee remittance lawsuit against Comcast while the Georgia Court of Appeals hears related cases involving AT&T and EarthLink (see 1608040022). Cobb and Gwinnett counties sued Comcast in the U.S. District Court in Atlanta, alleging the cable company failed to bill, collect, report and remit the appropriate amount of 911 charges from customers. The cable ISP asked the court to hit the brakes to see what happened in the other case. In an order (in Pacer) last week, Judge Amy Totenberg agreed it appeared the state appeals court “will render a decision on significant issues of state law that may have a significant or dispositive impact on the outcome” of the Comcast case. “Because the Georgia Court of Appeals has in fact decided to review a case that is virtually identical to these matters, the Court agrees with Defendants that it is proper to refrain from deciding the motions to dismiss prior to the Court of Appeals’ decision,” she wrote.