FirstLight Fiber extended its network by adding 36,000 fiber miles in New York's Westchester, Rockland and Orange counties, the company said in a news release. The company constructed the addition in response to market and customer demand to expand its offerings closer to New York City, the release said. The network is designed to be in close proximity to more than 4,000 cell tower and enterprise locations in order to serve businesses along the fiber route, it said. FirstLight Fiber is a facilities-based provider operating in New York and northern New England. The newly constructed network can support dark fiber, ethernet and wavelength services from 10 Mbps to 100 Gbps as well as Internet access, the release said. With this expansion, FirstLight’s fiber network now spans 260,000 fiber miles in New York, New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont and Massachusetts, it said.

Albany, New York, signed an agreement with Millennium Strategies to complete a study of the broadband needs of city residents and businesses, a news release from the city said. The study is being financed by $20,000 in community development funds from the Albany Community Development Agency and additional funding that's being pursued elsewhere, the release said. The review comes out of the work of the Broadband Initiative Working Group, which includes representatives from the Albany Public Library, the Downtown and Central Avenue business improvement districts, the City School District of Albany, Green Tech Charter School, the Albany Housing Authority, the Albany Promise, the Center for Technology in Government at the State University of New York at Albany, and business leaders, the release said. The study is expected to be completed before the summer.

Charter Communications accepted New York Public Service Commission proposed conditions for the company's buys of Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable, a Charter spokeswoman confirmed Tuesday to us in an email. Accepting the conditions (see 1601080048) puts Charter one step closer to closing the deals to acquire BHN and TWC to create New Charter. Charter still awaits approval from California, Hawaii and New Jersey in addition to the FCC and Department of Justice (see 1601040061). As a part of the New York-imposed conditions, Charter must upgrade its broadband system to deliver at least 100 Mbps statewide by the end of 2018, and 300 Mbps by the end of 2019, a PSC order said. The conditions also specify that the company will be required to create a new low-income broadband program with minimum speeds of 30 Mbps at $14.99 available for 700,000 low-income households, it said. Charter will also have to invest $50 million to improve customer service and achieve a 35 percent reduction in the rate of cable customer complaints in five years, the order said. If the company fails to meet that condition, it will trigger up to $5 million in additional investment.

Customers, advocates and telecom workers railed against a proposal to sell Cablevision to Dutch-owned Altice (see 1601250011), at a New York State Public Service Commission hearing in the Bronx Wednesday, said a news release from the Communications Workers of America (CWA). The union cited concerns over what it called Altice’s track record of taking on large amounts of debt, cutting staff and outsourcing jobs, which would have a negative effect on customer service and New York’s economy, the release said. The Altice proposal would have the company take on $8.6 billion in debt to finance the deal -- on top of Cablevision’s existing $5.9 billion debt (see 1512090034), the release said. The level of debt would require deep cost-cutting at Cablevision, which would cause both staffing and network investments to suffer, to the detriment of both consumers and workers, CWA said. The union filed official objections with the FCC on the deal in December (see 1512080013), also pointing to the debt. “The current deal proposed would have a ripple effect on Cablevision’s programing, customer service, and employees,” said Dennis Trainor, CWA vice president-District One, during Wednesday's hearing. “There is a concern that Cablevision employees will lose their jobs and services will be cut for customers. If Altice doesn’t start to make commitments to protect jobs and ensure excellent customer service, the PSC should reject the proposal." Altice had no immediate comment.

The Arizona Corporation Commission released a video reminding residents how to use Arizona 811 or "blue stake," said an ACC release Tuesday. The video explains the state law and tells residents that they need to follow the law because hitting a gas, electric, cable or other utility line underground could cause expensive damage and lead to death.

Most Co-Op City residents want Verizon to offer Fios in their housing development in Bronx, New York, the Communications Workers of America said in an emailed release Friday. The CWA said a poll showed 72 percent of Co-Op City residents "would definitely sign up or consider signing up" for Fios if it were available. Despite the consumer demand for Fios, Verizon refuses to comply with its franchise obligations in many areas of New York City, CWA said. "Verizon needs to stop hiding behind silly excuses and offer the Internet and television service they promised when they got an agreement with the City,” said Dennis Trainor, vice president of CWA District 1. “New Yorkers are clamoring for FiOS, but Verizon would rather focus on its wireless network.” CWA said a "damning" June audit from the city "found that Verizon has failed to meet the terms of its franchise agreement, which required the FiOS network to be available to any household that requests service by June 2014" (see 1506190049). Verizon said Co-Op City has an "exclusive marketing agreement" with the cable incumbent in the Bronx. “Despite our attempts to work with the Co-op City board to install Fios there, they recently granted the incumbent provider a ten-year extension of that exclusive marketing agreement," a Verizon spokesman emailed us. "We remain open to talking with them in the future to work something out. If they really want choice and competition for their residents, why did they extend their exclusive marketing agreement another ten years?” Verizon and CWA are locked in a labor contract dispute.

Verizon will “continue to make extraordinary investments” in the state of New York to provide innovative services, the company said at a committee hearing of the state Assembly Wednesday. It also urged the state to carry out “regulatory reform” to further encourage investment, because "fierce competition is replacing the need for old-time bureaucratic regulations," the company said in a Wednesday news release. “We invest close to two billion dollars annually in our home state of New York to deliver the most advanced communications networks in the region,” said Leecia Eve, vice president-state government affairs, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. “To make such substantial investments at a time when there are more competitive choices than ever demonstrates the commitment we have to our customers and to New York State.” Verizon said it has deployed FiOS fiber networks to over 4 million homes and businesses and employs more than 21,000 people in the state. The company said its service quality is good and continues to improve, with “customer complaint rates at their lowest levels in recent years.” The Communications Workers of America, which is involved in a contract dispute with Verizon, has criticized the company's service quality and network investment amounts (see 1510130033 and 1511200029).

The New York Public Service Commission scheduled a conference Feb. 24-25 to address its telecom industry oversight in promoting core public interests with the market evolving and consumer demand changing, said a notice from the PSC's secretary. "The purpose of the technical conference is to discuss policy issues arising in the Commission’s Telecommunications Study (and related dockets, see e.g., Connect New York Coalition petition filed in Case 14-C-0306) which is designed to help the Commission and the State Legislature identify areas where there may be market failures or opportunities to advance the public interest," said the notice, which included an agenda. The conference is open to the public and will be webcast, it said.

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal (R) said 48 local education authorities will get more than $8.2 million to update broadband access. Word of the grants, from the third round of the Connections for Classrooms program, came in a news release from the governor's office. The Connections for Classrooms program is a funding effort of the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement, the Georgia Department of Education and the OneGeorgia Authority to give classrooms across the state access to high-speed broadband, it said. The funds will allow the local education authorities, which include 47 districts and one state school, to receive $16.8 million in federal E-rate funds, for a total investment of $25 million in school and classroom network infrastructure, it said. Across three grant rounds, the Connections for Classrooms program has provided more than $70 million in grants to 157 local education authorities to meet that goal and has enabled them to be eligible for up to $110 million in federal E-rate funds, it said. Round three capitalizes on the recent $2 billion expansion of the federal E-rate program’s Category 2, which provides grants to local education authorities for school-level network infrastructure that can provide local match funding, it said.

Vermont lawmakers proposed legislation that would allow police officers to search a driver's cellphone during a traffic stop. The bill, H-527, was introduced by Rep. Martin LaLonde (D) and would allow law enforcement officers to see a driver's phone or other electronic device to determine if it was being used. LaLonde’s bill is an amendment to the state's 2014 ban on using hand-held devices while on highways.