Massachusetts lawmakers plan to weigh multiple net neutrality bills at a Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy Joint Committee hearing Tuesday, said an agenda last week. Net neutrality bills include H-2921, H-2927, S-1936 and S-1960. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit recently ruled state net neutrality policies aren't pre-empted by an FCC order (see 1910010018). The hearing also includes bills on double poles, prepaid wireless 911 fees, cable payments, telemarketing, truth in internet ads, RF safety, studying broadband competition and wireless infrastructure along rail lines. It starts at 1 p.m.

The National Emergency Number Association said the FCC should require carriers to be able to locate the vertical location of wireless callers. NENA opposes CTIA’s “phased in” approach (see 1910100030), it told an aide to Commissioner Geoffrey Starks, said a filing in docket 07-114, posted Friday. “Emphasizing public safety’s sensitivity to timeline slip, we noted that the proposed benchmarks have been in place since the Commission’s 2015 Roadmap,” NENA said. But NENA agrees with CTIA that the national emergency address database faces challenges. “We remain concerned that the NEAD could generate dangerously inaccurate location results for public safety, and that its compliance regime creates the potential for vast swaths of unserved 9-1-1 callers,” the group said. Top officials at NextNav met with Public Safety Bureau staff on the proposed requirement. “A major point of discussion during the meeting was the manner in which the Commission should determine compliance with its vertical location requirements in terms of handset penetration,” the company said: “The discussion included the definition of ‘z-axis capable devices’ and whether this could be defined as handsets manufactured after a certain date that include appropriate hardware components, such as a barometric pressure sensor or other capable component necessary to calculate altitude.”

Executive Vice President Brad Gillen and others from CTIA met FCC Chief of Staff Matthew Berry and Aaron Goldberger, an aide to Chairman Ajit Pai, on the agency’s regulatory framework for giving public safety answering points vertical location information for wireless calls to 911. Carriers' June comments supported a 3-meter standard for indoor wireless 911 calls but warned technological challenges remain (see 1906190011). “CTIA reiterated the wireless industry’s on-going commitment to enhancing wireless 9-1-1 location accuracy, particularly indoors, and provided a status update on the nationwide wireless providers’ efforts to meet the Fourth Report and Order’s vertical location requirements,” said a filing posted Thursday in docket 07-114. “CTIA reviewed the nationwide wireless providers’ significant efforts to work across the wireless ecosystem to deliver actionable vertical location information to PSAPs [public safety answering points] during a wireless 9-1-1 call. However, CTIA noted that third-party adoption and scalability issues remain substantial challenges to National Emergency Address Database (NEAD)-based dispatchable location solutions.”

FailSafe Communications wants the FCC to revisit two exemptions it requested from a recent order redefining how small LECs can be classified as access stimulators (see 1909260055), CEO Leo Wrobel posted to docket 18-155 Thursday. The company, which sells emergency services to small carriers at risk of a 911 outage, wants instructions on how to request waiver to differentiate its services from other high-volume call generators that could fall under the category of access stimulators, or post an administrative clarification, or open a new docket to address such concerns. Absent clarification, the company said, "carriers could be disinclined to participate in an emergency system that is clearly in the public interest, for fear of future misunderstandings, disputes, and litigation."

A declaratory ruling prohibiting charging higher 911 fees for VoIP subscribers than for legacy phone services circulated on the 8th floor Wednesday. It would resolve jurisdiction issues over such fees, says the FCC draft Friday on docket 19-44. Also released for the Oct. 25 meeting were a draft cable TV effective competition order for parts of Massachusetts and Hawaii, the 800 MHz rebanding draft order, a draft NPRM for removing broadcast antenna siting rules that don’t appear to have ever been successfully used, a draft order on measuring broadband performance of Connect America Fund recipients and a draft order regarding telecom tariffs (see 1910030061).

Locality pre-emption beefs with the FCC aren't ending soon, with limits on local regulators' 911 VoIP fees and an end to some cable TV rate regulation on October's agenda. Chairman Ajit Pai, previewing the items for the Oct. 25 meeting in his blog Thursday, also said there will be items wrapping up part of the lengthy 800 MHz rebanding process, as expected (see 1910020030). There's also a media modernization NPRM that appears to concern eliminating broadcast antenna site rules that industry lawyers say have been used barely a handful of times in the past 30 years. Pai said there will be an order on testing procedures and performance measures for carriers receiving support from the USF Connect America Fund program for broadband deployment to high-cost areas and an order addressing two tariff regulations.

AT&T's Chris Sambar moves up to executive vice president, AT&T Technology Operations, and Jason Porter to senior vice president, FirstNet program at the company, succeeding Sambar ... Glen Echo Group adds Connor Farry as associate and Jada Harkins Andrews as communications coordinator; they are or were at George Washington University.

Crosscut Strategies hires Charlie Meisch, ex-SKDKnickerbocker and ex-FCC, as senior vice president; Simon Brown, from Small Business Majority, as director; and Caitlin Krutsick, Bipartisan Policy Center, as account specialist; promotes Courtney Lamie to chief operating officer ... In closing buy of Tribune (see 1909200048), Nexstar appoints from there as executive vice presidents Sean Compton, for WGN America and WGN Radio, also director-content acquisition; Dana Zimmer, also chief distribution and strategy officer; and Gary Weitman, chief communications officer.

Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak (D) should disavow diversion of state 911 fees, FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly said in a Thursday letter to the governor. Nevada quadrupled 911 fees to recoup costs for police body cameras, effectively a “clandestine, backdoor tax,” O’Rielly said. “While you were not governor when Nevada authorized this diversion, it is a current and ongoing problem,” the commissioner said. “You have the opportunity and responsibility to rectify the situation.” Sisolak didn’t comment Friday.

The FCC Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee focused on disaster recovery Thursday, hearing an update by a working group preparing reports. The disaster recovery work is the furthest along of any being done by the newly reconfigured BDAC, officials said. “This is not a game,” said Jonathan Adelstein, president of the Wireless Infrastructure Association and vice chair of BDAC’s Disaster Response and Recovery working group. “This is life and death. I think our working group has stepped up to that level of urgency.”