The Arizona Corporation Commission directed staff to create a memo and proposed remedy order on Frontier Communications’ June 11 outage. At the West Virginia Public Service Commission, Frontier agreed to a settlement with 911 officials over outages in that state. Arizona commissioners grilled the company at a livestreamed meeting Tuesday about its response to the gunshot-caused outage, and earlier problems (see 2206280065). After discussing legal options in closed executive session, including a possible order to show cause (OSC), commissioners decided they will vote at their July 12-13 meeting on a proposed remedy order. Chairwoman Lea Marquez Peterson (R) said it would require Frontier to (1) quickly interconnect with the state's Comtech 911 system, (2) provide an emergency response plan, (3) actively pursue state and federal funds for network redundancy and diversity, (4) give a biweekly status update on Frontier’s progress getting funds, (5) identify areas that lack redundancy and diversity and provide a hierarchy of priorities for vulnerable areas and (6) have high-level, senior executives attend emergency town hall meetings in St. Johns, which experienced the June 11 problems. ACC Utilities Director Elijah Abinah said staff is considering July 14 for a St. Johns town hall. Peterson added, “We would like this to include enforcement provisions.” Saint Johns Police Chief Lance Spivey and Assistant Fire Chief Jason Kirk said they would have preferred the commission consider stronger enforcement action in the form of an OSC. The West Virginia PSC posted a Frontier 911 pact Tuesday in four dockets including 22-0274-T-C. Frontier agreed to “review and update its change management policy to assure regular, preventative maintenance routines,” improve network card tracking and inventory management, standardize a process for individualized route diversity education for county 911 officials, give PSC staff the West Virginia part of its FCC 911 reliability certification report and give county 911 directors documents on using Frontier’s rerouting tool, upon request. Before it can take effect, West Virginia commissioners “would have to approve, reject or modify the settlement,” a PSC spokesperson emailed Wednesday.

The House Appropriations Committee voted 31-24 Tuesday to advance the Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Subcommittee’s FY 2023 bill, which includes funding increases for NTIA, other Commerce Department agencies and the DOJ Antitrust Division (see 2206270061). The committee is to vote Thursday on the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Subcommittee’s FY23 bill, which proposes increasing CPB’s annual funding to $565 million beginning in FY 2025 (see 2206240074). The markup session begins at 9 a.m. in 1100 Longworth.

Arizona Corporation Commission members raised questions Tuesday about Frontier Communications’ urgency in responding to a June 11 fiber cut and other network outages. Frontier officials at the livestreamed ACC meeting defended the company’s speed responding to the June 11 outage, which the company blamed on gunshots by a possible saboteur (see 2206270029). Commissioners and local officials want more network redundancy to prevent future problems.

Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., is continuing to oppose advancing Extending America’s Spectrum Auction Leadership Act (HR-7783) over the measure’s proposed 18-month extension of the FCC’s sales authority, complicating efforts to pass a spectrum legislative package this year. Senate Commerce ranking member Roger Wicker, R-Miss., meanwhile, is backing language in the Senate Armed Services Committee’s FY 2023 National Defense Authorization Act version that proposes “an assessment of the implications of” provisions in the NTIA Organization Act “on DOD's access to the electromagnetic spectrum and resources" (see 2206160077).

Gunshots damaged Frontier Communications fiber and caused an Arizona outage June 11, the company told the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) in a Friday letter in docket T-02115A-21-0198. “The incident that impacted Frontier's Internet and Verizon's wireless service in Navajo and Apache Counties on June 11 was the direct result of an intentional criminal attack on Frontier's fiber optic facilities executed in a manner to cause an extended disruption to services," the carrier said. “The perpetrator or perpetrators must be brought to justice.” Frontier disagreed with the Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police, which filed a June 20 letter that referred to the outage as a network failure. “Gunshot blasts damaged Frontier's fiber cable on a route between Holbrook and Snowflake, Arizona, in multiple locations, over a three-mile area. The pattern of damage indicates that this was neither a network ‘failure’ nor a foolish incident of vandalism.” Frontier urged the commission to consider increasing the state 911 surcharge or repurpose state USF for increasing network redundancy in rural areas. The ACC plans to consider the Frontier outage docket and possible state USF changes at its Tuesday meeting, said an agenda.

OMB approved for three years information collection for the FCC's June 2021 911 fee diversion order, says a notice for Wednesday's Federal Register (see 2108170066). The notice takes effect Wednesday.

The Illinois chapters of the National Emergency Number Association and APCO asked the FCC to issue a formal opinion on whether the use of 911 fees to build and support 988 constitutes fee diversion, said a letter posted Tuesday in docket 20-291. The groups said the state was authorized July 1 to transfer $5 million in 911 fees to 988 but was told transferring the fees to a 988 trust fund "would constitute a diversion of fees" and could disqualify the state from future federal grants. "As funding continues to be an issue for 911 systems nationally, the diversion of 911 fees to support another program directly impacts the ability to build a sustainable National Next Generation 911 network," the groups said, saying it's "likely that a systemic diversion of 911 fees will be used to build and support 988 operations nationally" without clarification.

The Wireless Infrastructure Association tapped Patrick Halley, USTelecom general counsel, as its new president and CEO, replacing Jonathan Adelstein. Halley takes over Aug. 1. He's a veteran of the National Emergency Number Association, the FCC and Wilkinson Barker and is the former executive director of the Next Generation 911 Institute. “Patrick’s broad regulatory, legal and trade association experience in telecommunications makes him the ideal person to lead WIA into the future,” said WIA Chairman Jeffrey Stoops, CEO of SBA Communications, Thursday: “He has deep knowledge of, and experience in, advocacy, which is the primary mission of WIA, and is a proven manager and motivator of his team members.” WIA said Halley was picked following a national search by search firm Odgers Berndtson. Adelstein, a former FCC commissioner, left WIA in June after 10 years at the helm.

The FCC Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council met for less than an hour Wednesday, getting brief updates from each of its working groups.. The council's next action will come in September when it's expected to vote on the first of a series of reports. The FCC headquarters has reopened for visitors, but groups like CSRIC continue to meet online. Suzon Cameron, FCC designated federal officer, said the next meeting is also expected to be virtual. “Our specific objectives are to identify the challenges facing ORAN for security and interoperability and so on and how do we deploy and secure the open RAN,” said Mike Barnes, Mavenir chief product security officer and co-chair of the Promoting Security, Reliability and Interoperability on Open Radio Access Network Equipment WG. The Managing Software & Cloud Services Supply Chain Security WG is on target to submit a report on best practices in September, said T-Mobile’s Todd Gibson, interim co-chair. “The goal here for us is to really present something novel,” he said: “We don’t want to regurgitate what’s already been produced from the various sources, but try to layer in and contribute to the community providing some novel recommendations.” Some are already using Wi-Fi to make an emergency call, said Mark Reddish, APCO government relations manager and co-chair of the 911 Service Over Wi-Fi WG. “Our group’s focus is really on how to expand current capabilities,” he said: “For example, there could be enhancements in the number of situations in which a 911 call could be completed over Wi-Fi, enhancements to the location information that’s used for routing the call and describing the location of the caller, call prioritization, security issues.”

House Communications Subcommittee leaders said Wednesday they’re eyeing combining the Extending America’s Spectrum Auction Leadership Act (HR-7783) and revised versions of the Simplifying Management, Reallocation and Transfer of Spectrum Act (HR-5486) and Spectrum Innovation Act (HR-7624) before a full Commerce Committee vote. The subpanel unanimously advanced HR-5486, HR-7624, HR-7783 and four other telecom bills Wednesday, as expected (see 2206140077).