The Illinois Public Telecommunications Association will petition the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit for a rehearing and also a rehearing en banc of its June 13 decision (http://1.usa.gov/1ltd6Bf) (docket 13-1059) in Illinois Public Telecommunications Association v. FCC, IPTA attorney Michael Ward told us. The court upheld an FCC decision not to grant payphone service providers refunds from AT&T and Verizon (CD June 16 p9). The D.C. Circuit said it was not unreasonable or arbitrary for the FCC to permit refunds of charges that exceeded the cost-based rates mandated under Telecom Act Section 276, Ward noted in an email Friday. That puts the court at odds with previous 9th and 10th Circuit decisions that said the filed rate doctrine could not bar refunds of charges that exceeded the cost-based 276 Section rates, Ward said. The FCC did not immediately comment.

A California bill that would require smartphones to come equipped with theft-deterring kill switches passed the Assembly Business and Professions Committee on Tuesday. SB-962, approved by the Senate (CD May 9 p21) May 8, now moves to the Assembly Utilities and Commerce Committee, said a news release by the bill’s Senate sponsor, Sen. Mark Leno (D) (http://bit.ly/1njBALK). “Smartphone theft is one of the fastest-growing crimes in many cities across California, but it is also a preventable crime,” said Leno. The bill has been opposed by the wireless industry, which has pledged to voluntarily install kill switches in the phones and argues the bill’s mandate wouldn’t keep pace with rapidly changing technology. The measure is “neither necessary nor workable,” said Jamie Hastings, CTIA vice president-external and state affairs, in testimony to the committee Tuesday made available to us by the wireless association. Leno has said the pledge doesn’t go far enough because unlike his bill, the technology would have to be turned on or downloaded by the owner. “No one wants to steal a phone that won’t work,” said the bill’s Assembly sponsor, Democratic Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, in the release from Leno’s office.

None of the public safety answering points in Washington state’s largest county was notified by CenturyLink or its vendor, Intrado, that there was a problem during the April 9 and 10 911 outage, commented King County’s E-911 Program Office in (http://bit.ly/1nPAgBZ) FCC docket 14-72. Comments were posted there Tuesday. The PSAPs were informed of the outage by the public reporting that 911 calls did not go through or by noticing a reduction in call volume, the county said. The CenturyLink 911 repair center was “quickly overloaded” and the majority of calls from PSAPs went unanswered or were put on hold for extended periods, it said. Neither CenturyLink nor Intrado provided instructions to PSAPs on what could be done to mitigate the outage, leaving PSAPs “on their own to try to figure out how to provide some level of service to the public,” said the county. The outage was due to a “technical problem in third-party vendor equipment” and was “not caused by any failures or malfunctions of CenturyLink’s network,” commented the telco (http://bit.ly/1pIGaYT). “Once the third party vendor identified and corrected this technical problem, 911 service was immediately restored ... CenturyLink is fully committed to providing its customers reliable communications services, particularly 911 service, and understands how vital robust communications services are to the public.” The Telecommunications Industry Association supports FCC efforts to ensure 911 networks are “reliable and resilient,” but the FCC should “refrain from taking regulatory action,” TIA commented (http://bit.ly/1qsz0b3). The FCC should “encourage and allow network operators and vendors to continue their voluntary efforts in improving the reliability of their networks,” TIA said. The FCC Public Safety Bureau began an investigation into the outage May 19 (CD May 20 p18). The six-hour outage also affected large areas of Oregon and portions of California, Florida, Minnesota, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and South Carolina, the bureau said. The Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission has also opened a state investigation. A CenturyLink spokeswoman had no additional comment beyond its filing. An Intrado spokeswoman was not immediately available to comment.

California AB-1876, which would bar counties from charging phone companies large commissions to provide jail phone service, passed the Senate public safety committee on Tuesday and was sent to the appropriations committee, according to legislative records. The measure (http://bit.ly/PYeH5o) passed the Assembly May 23. The commission fees have come under attack from critics nationally, who say they raise intrastate inmate phone rates (CD May 5 p8).

The Illinois Public Telecommunications Association was disappointed by Friday’s U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruling in Illinois Public Telecommunications Association v. FCC (http://1.usa.gov/1ltd6Bf)(docket 13-1059)(CD June 16 p9), IPTA attorney Michael Ward told us. The court upheld a FCC decision not to grant payphone service providers refunds from AT&T and Verizon. “The court didn’t uphold the integrity of the administrative process,” said Ward Friday, arguing the payphone companies had met the FCC order’s obligations but didn’t get the refunds they felt entitled to receive. IPTA hasn’t decided whether to appeal the ruling, he said.

Arkansas Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe called for changing 2011’s Act 1050 (http://bit.ly/1lB3u7v) that prevents K-12 schools from accessing the Arkansas Research Education Optical Network, known as ARE-ON, a news release said (http://1.usa.gov/1nMQZpt). Without access to the statewide broadband network, a recent report (http://bit.ly/1iBpZJy) from the Quality Digital Learning Study Committee found, the current network infrastructure for K-12 schools is “inadequate, inefficient and a poor return on taxpayer investment,” said the governor’s office Friday. “Giving K-12 schools the opportunity to access ARE-ON will provide better online availability for our students and save our taxpayers money,” Beebe said. The bill’s sponsor, Rep. John Vines, a Democrat, was not immediately available for comment.

The FCC is reviewing options on how best to move to pre-empt state laws banning municipal broadband, Chairman Tom Wheeler said in response to our question after the agency’s meeting Friday. An agency spokesman had said it planned to move on municipal broadband in May (CD April 29 p3). “Sometimes things don’t move as quickly as otherwise might be determined or hoped,” Wheeler said Friday. “We obviously have multiple pathways to deal with the question of municipal broadband. We can have a notice of inquiry. We can have an NPRM. We can respond to a petition. And right now, we're kind of reviewing what all of the options are.” Any of those options may be possible, he said. “I have made no secret about my feelings about the issue” of municipal broadband, Wheeler said. “Being pro-competition means being pro-competition.”

West Virgina’s Broadband Deployment Council, charged with expanding high-speed Internet availability in the state, will disband at the end of the year, after failing to get additional funds from the Legislature to do other projects, the council’s chairman Dan O'Hanlon told us in an email. The council was given $5 million when it was established in 2009 by then-Gov. Joe Manchin, a Democrat. The council used the initial funds, mostly for wireless Internet projects in rural areas, as well as to hire a consultant to review grant applications and create a deployment map, O'Hanlon said.

Most states are making progress in planning for FirstNet, though there are “significant” differences in the maturity and preparation of states, said a report by the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (http://bit.ly/1mMuPQQ). NASCIO said “states are taking a range of approaches in everything from outreach to governance. Some states are focused intensely on becoming organized and raising awareness internally, while others are focusing on interstate and regional solutions.” It surveyed 44 states and territories between April and May. More than 70 percent had developed a governance model, and means to support FirstNet planning and outreach activities, and organized activities with other key stakeholders in the state and potentially with other states. Sixteen percent had collected the necessary data on operations, assets and user baselines necessary for their state plans, said the report released Wednesday. The figure is “surprising,” because this is an element of the second round of the State and Local Government Implementation Grant Program (SLIGP), which has not yet been awarded nor outlined, the report said. It’s also surprising that almost a quarter of respondents said their states are not actively conducting FirstNet outreach and education activities, said NASCIO. “Some of those who are not actively engaged in outreach stated that they were waiting on funds, planning, or material from FirstNet before conducting extensive education activities, while others stated that the outreach had ceased for the time being as they waited on additional collaboration with FirstNet,” the report said. “FirstNet is a major intergovernmental undertaking, with the need for states to do budgeting forecasts, infrastructure and technology planning, and education and outreach to potential users. How states approach this problem will have a significant bearing on whether we end up with a successful, sustainable model for this major national endeavor,” said NASCIO Broadband Committee co-chairman and Wisconsin Chief Information Officer David Cagigal, in a news release (http://bit.ly/1lcZjua).

Portland, Oregon, city commissioners approved a franchise agreement with Google Fiber, making it the first of the new group of cities (CD May 9 p8) being considered for the high-speed broadband service to reach such an agreement, a company spokeswoman said. Under the agreement OK'd Wednesday, Google agreed to pay the city the standard 5 percent franchise fee that other utilities pay (http://bit.ly/1poHekk), should it be selected. “We don’t talk about being a ‘world-class city’ all that often, but I really want world-class neighborhoods,” said Portland’s nonpartisan mayor, Charlie Hales, in a statement to us. “Google Fiber to the home would go a long way toward that. And if we can break down the digital divide, and serve low-income neighborhoods and communities equally, we can do great things in the coming years.” Google is evaluating other cities and aspects of building in Portland, and is on track to decide where to build next by the end of the year, said the company spokeswoman.