Cox Communications started deploying gigabit Internet service to residential customers in Northern Virginia -- the first gigabit service in the Washington metropolitan area, said a news release from Cox Thursday. The company has already launched its gigabit service in 10 states and will have gigabit speeds in all of its markets by the end of 2016, it said. The service will cost $99.99 per month when combined with Cox's bundles, it said.

FCC efforts to overhaul Lifeline USF mechanisms could run into trouble in Puerto Rico, said a filing by Connected Nation's chief policy counsel on a meeting the chairman of the Telecommunications Regulatory Board of Puerto Rico, two advisers and the counsel had with FCC officials. Lifeline modernization is important for Puerto Rico, which has a broadband adoption rate of 48 percent that is "far lower than any state," the filing said. Only five metropolitan areas in the U.S. have home broadband adoption rates below 50 percent, and three of those are in Puerto Rico, the filing said: "We emphasized strongly that proposed limitations on the eligibility of low-income consumers use to qualify for the program would be devastating for Puerto Rico and create enormous 'qualification gaps,' due to the fact that federal nutrition assistance, school lunch, and other federal assistance programs operate differently in Puerto Rico. The Commission’s effort to modernize Lifeline will not succeed if it does not succeed in Puerto Rico," said the filing, posted Thursday in docket 10-90.

The proposed assignment of the license for KYES-TV Anchorage from Fireweed Communications to Gray Television has the potential for significant negative effects on competition in the Anchorage designated market area, said Alaska Attorney General Craig Richards (R) in a reply comment to the FCC in file No. BALCDT-20151009ADJ. There's no question this assignment would be denied under the FCC's duopoly rule prohibiting common ownership of two TV stations in a single market, Richards said: "Competition is fragile in the Alaska broadcast market. With limited players, a small population and geographic challenges, we strive to keep all the competition available whenever possible."

Hanover, New Hampshire, is looking at how it can create voluntary special assessment districts that could finance open-access fiber networks, said Town Manager Julia Griffin during a Community Broadband Bits podcast, hosted by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. New Hampshire's current law doesn't allow towns and cities in the state to invest in broadband, Griffin said. But the New Hampshire governor recently signed a bill that allows towns and cities to authorize special assessment districts that let residents and local businesses opt into an assessment that would finance construction and allow them to pay it off over many years, she said. The town is looking at building communications infrastructure underground instead of on poles, Griffin said.

The California Public Utilities Commission is expected to vote on the transfer of Verizon's wireline services in the state, said the CPUC agenda for Thursday. It said there's no foreseeable cost to rate payers in this transfer and that buyer Frontier Communications will need to give the "highest priority" to upgrading safety in the most critical areas. It said if approved, the agreement requires the telcos to maximize efforts to prevent fires and prepare for anticipated heavy rains.

Oklahoma public safety stakeholders, including representatives from all 77 counties, met for the state's initial consultation with FirstNet, said a blog post from FirstNet. Oklahoma's single point of contact Ben Gherezgiher explained the Oklahoma Public Safety Broadband Network project objectives and discussed its accomplishments on data gathering, coverage reviews and tribal engagement, the post said. The state’s outreach and education activities also were discussed. Leading up to the initial consultation meeting, Oklahoma had held 26 outreach sessions across the state and hosted a tribal webinar, in addition to attending and presenting at numerous public safety and emergency management-focused conferences, FirstNet said. Through surveys sent out to more than 10,000 public safety entities throughout the state, Oklahoma gathered valuable data on topics such as plan pricing, barriers to adoption and phased build-out, FirstNet said. The next steps are to continue outreach and education, data gathering, tribal engagement and coverage reviews while evolving the state’s governance structure to prepare for FirstNet, the post said.

The New York State Public Service Commission said a new area code -- 332 -- was assigned to Manhattan. The new area code is needed to meet the increasing demand for residential and business phone numbers in the New York City borough, said a Tuesday PSC statement. Phone companies are required to file an implementation plan by mid-January and the area code -- which will be an overlay -- will likely be assigned to new phone customers starting in Q2 2017, it said. The North American numbering plan administrator projected Manhattan would run out of available central office codes in late 2017, the PSC said. Once the new area code is in effect, New York state will have 18 area codes.

Georgia Public Service Commissioner Stan Wise's (R) son, Adam, was recently named executive director of the Georgia Telecommunications Association (GTA), a PSC spokesman verified Wednesday. Because of the potential for a conflict of interest, Stan Wise made it clear in a statement that he plans to recuse himself from any votes on GTA member companies: "Although this commission rarely presides over issues involving independent telephone companies, in order to remove any conflicts of interest real or perceived, I will recuse myself on all matters in which the Georgia Telecommunications Association is a petitioner, an intervening party, or any case involving a member of GTA." The association is made up of 29 independent telephone company members. GTA didn't comment.

USA Fiber partnered with Montgomery County, Maryland, and its ultraMontgomery program to interconnect fiber networks and connect about 570 miles of fiber, said a Tuesday news release from USA Fiber. USA Fiber engineers, builds and operates dark fiber networks and said it agreed to interconnect its new Ashburn, Virginia, to Baltimore core fiber route to the county's communications network, FiberNet, which connects more than 450 buildings in Montgomery County.

Douglas County, Nebraska, updated its dispatch platform, reducing equipment costs by 67 percent, said a news release from Motorola Solutions Monday. The Motorola Solutions virtual dispatch platform lets dispatchers have easy access to all of the county's centrally shared resources, it said. Instead of buying equipment for each of the 32 dispatch positions, the platform lets video cards and data processing applications be stored on one server and shared among multiple users and dispatch centers, it said.