ANAHEIM, Calif. -- The NARUC Telecom Committee on Monday cleared draft resolutions on phone number conservation, the Universal Service Fund and utility coordination on broadband deployment. A USF panel that day described how reform could happen with Republicans controlling the FCC and Congress next year. Also, the affordable connectivity program (ACP) could return in 2025 despite Washington’s partisan climate, said Sanford Williams, deputy chief of staff for FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, during a collocated National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates (NASUCA) meeting. State utility regulators are holding their annual meeting here this week.
toarticlessource documents
Search Primer
Term list: Separate terms with spaces, not commas or semicolons.
Multi-word term: Place inside quotes to ensure an exact match (e.g. "China import").
Acronyms: Use all capital letters to ensure the search is not looking for that letter sequence instead.
Required term: If a term must be included in any resulting articles, prefix it with a plus sign (e.g., +CBP).
Excluded term: If a term should be excluded from any articles being found, prefix it with a minus sign (e.g., -ruling).
Singular form: Always use the singular form when doing multi-word terms (e.g. "russian export control" instead of "russian export controls").
Shortest word form: When you have different word forms in a quoted (multi-word) term, you want to only include the shortest version if it is the last part of the expression (e.g., "entity list" instead of "entity listing" or "entity listed").
California Public Utilities Commission members Thursday supported regulating interconnected VoIP. Commissioners at the livestreamed meeting backed the controversial order as part of a unanimous vote on a consent agenda. Also at the meeting, the CPUC waived penalties for Verizon related to migrating Tracfone customers and approved nearly $160 million in last-mile broadband grants from the agency’s federal funding account and $50 million from the broadband loan loss reserve program.
T-Mobile said it set a world record speed of 2.2 Gbps for a wireless uplink, using a combination of 2.5 GHz and millimeter wave spectrum, during a test at SoFi Stadium in Southern California. 5G dual-connectivity technology “enables the Un-carrier to aggregate 2.5 GHz and mmWave spectrum, allowing for an insane boost to uplink throughput and capacity,” T-Mobile said this week: “T-Mobile was able to allocate 60% of the mmWave radio resources for uplink where previous use cases typically allowed up to 20%.”
Communications Daily is tracking the lawsuits below involving appeals of FCC actions.
The outcome of Tuesday's Senate elections could scramble Senate Commerce Committee Republicans’ leadership structure given the competitive contest between ranking member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Rep. Colin Allred, his Democratic challenger. Four other panel members also face tough or competitive reelection fights (see 2411040051). Democratic leaders on the House and Senate Commerce committees indicated they intend to stay in those roles in the upcoming 119th Congress regardless of the election’s outcome.
With more than $1.8 billion in federal cash from the broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program on the line, USTelecom asked the California Public Utilities Commission to reconsider its rules for implementing the state’s BEAD initial plan volume 2. In a rehearing application (docket R.23-02-016) posted Friday at the CPUC, the national ISP association said it “cannot stand by and risk the Commission’s adoption of a collective set of requirements that will severely limit participation in and the overall effectiveness of California’s BEAD Program.” The commission should deny USTelecom's application, a consumer advocate urged.
California startup Logos Space Services is seeking FCC Space Bureau OK for a planned 3,960-satellite constellation aimed at providing connectivity to enterprise customers and in-space data relay among other satellite constellations. In an application posted Thursday, it said the non-geostationary orbit Logos Network would operate in the Ka, Q/V and E bands at altitudes between 860 and 925 km. The company said it plans a phased rollout, with the first phase of 1,092 satellites letting it commence service and then Logos increasing capacity and throughput as it continues deployment.
Telecom companies balked at consumer advocates’ call to apply California carrier of last resort (COLR) obligations to broadband. The California Public Utilities Commission posted reply comments Thursday in a rulemaking about how to update the state’s 30-year-old COLR rules (docket R.24-06-012). In initial comments last month, carriers subject to COLR requirements asked that the CPUC shed those obligations in many parts of the state, while consumer advocates said COLR obligations remain necessary and should be updated to include high-speed internet service, not just voice (see 2410020037). Frontier Communications replied Wednesday that it opposes expanding the proceeding to do “a complex, controversial evaluation of legal and policy matters pertaining to the Commission’s potential regulation of broadband services.” Likewise, Consolidated Communications said the CPUC should "decline the invitation to undertake a substantial review of its regulatory jurisdiction over broadband services.” TDS protested that the consumer groups "seek to greatly expand this OIR beyond its intended purpose” without providing factual or legal reasons. Don’t let public advocates "transform this … into a generic telecommunications industry reexamination docket,” said a coalition of small rural local exchange carriers. Representing cable companies, the California Broadband and Video Association warned that adding broadband to the definition of a basic service or extending COLR obligations to broadband providers would be federally preempted. Meanwhile, the CPUC’s independent Public Advocates Office pushed back on companies that said COLR obligations are outdated and should be eliminated. "In reality, the COLR concept remains essential to the guarantee of universal service, but must be updated to reflect the state’s transformed telecommunications landscape,” PAO said. AT&T disagreed. "Maintaining COLR obligations where they are superfluous would divert resources from vital broadband investments to outdated [time division multiplexed] networks, which are increasingly unwanted by consumers,” the carrier said. “It would not only stifle competition by arbitrarily constraining ILECs alone but also result in unnecessary operational costs and increased environmental harm due to prolonged use of copper networks.”
Connecticut, Texas, New Jersey and California are among the states preparing to advance comprehensive AI legislation in 2025, according to lawmakers and stakeholders.
The California Privacy Protection Agency will conduct an investigative sweep of data broker registration compliance under the state’s Delete Act, the CPPA said Wednesday. The law requires data brokers to register with the CPPA and pay an annual fee. Starting in 2026, data brokers must honor consumer requests to delete all their personal information.