The nationwide public safety broadband network (NPSBN) could improve interoperability, capacity and reliability of public safety responses in states like Pennsylvania in cases of blizzards, gas explosions, riots, manhunts and hurricanes, a FirstNet blog post said Monday. Pennsylvania Statewide Interoperability Coordinator Mark Wrightstone earlier this year said the state's land mobile radio system, PA-StarNet -- which is used by more than two dozen agencies in Pennsylvania -- allows both voice and data traffic, uses 800 MHz trunked digital technology and services more than 25,000 subscriber devices, the post said. Wrightstone said that PA-StarNet has “extensive experience” with interoperable public safety communications, making it “ideally suited to coordinate Pennsylvania’s response to the federal FirstNet program and its mission to improve radio communications for first responders.”

The ongoing battle over VoIP authority heated up between Charter Communications and the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission when Charter filed a complaint against the PUC in U.S. District Court in Minnesota. Charter said the PUC overstepped its authority by trying to impose the state regulations for traditional phone services on VoIP services. The case began in March 2013, when Charter transferred overnight 100,000 Minnesota customers to an affiliate, Charter Advanced Services, which provided VoIP phone service that wasn't certified by the PUC (see 1508210040). Minnesota Commissioner John Tuma previously said the biggest concern with the service switch was that Charter transferred customers, without notifying them, to an entity that doesn't have the certificate to run a phone service in the state and that the company is no longer paying Telecommunications Access Minnesota and Telephone Assistance Program fees (see 1509180059). Neither Charter nor the PUC commented Friday.

The count for Colorado municipalities voting on whether to opt out of the state broadband law (see 1507100053) has increased to 43, said a post from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance's Community Broadband Networks webpage Friday. The running tally has jumped over the past few weeks, but now includes 17 counties, 26 towns and at least three school districts, it said.

Google added Oklahoma City and Florida's Jacksonville and Tampa to its growing list of cities to explore for Google Fiber, said the company in a blog post Wednesday. The leaders of those cities will now have an option to work with Google on planning and studying the communities to see if Google Fiber is a possibility, it said. The process will look at factors that may affect construction, like local infrastructure and housing density, Google said.

The New Jersey Division of Rate Counsel filed comments Wednesday asking the New Jersey Superior Court's Appellate Division to reverse the state Board of Public Utilities (BPU) May order that allowed Verizon to reclassify/deregulate basic residential and small business phone service and the eventual elimination of quality-of-service reporting/standards requirements. The BPU order puts a cap on rates for five years and then Verizon is free to raise rates and not follow any quality of service rules, since it would essentially be deregulated. The court should send the case back to BPU for further proceedings because the order is "arbitrary, capricious and violates rate counsel’s due process rights," a rate counsel spokeswoman said. The original agreement with Verizon didn't include the rate counsel, the spokeswoman said. Verizon hasn't increased any rates since the decision, emailed a spokesman. The BPU order -- which was four years in the making -- reclassifies the company's four remaining services as competitive, he said. The BPU didn't deregulate the services, it just chose to recognize that the services are competitive, the spokesman said.

The FCC Public Safety Bureau gave the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) extra time to build facilities it needs to replace its existing T-band (470-512 MHz) communications system. SFMTA sought the waiver in May, complaining that the size and complexity of the replacement system and budget concerns meant it needed more time, the bureau said. Four of the sites were subject to an already passed Oct. 2 construction deadline. There are no indications that SFMTA is “warehousing” the spectrum, the bureau said. “The record reflects that SFMTA’s overall goals are to satisfy SFMTA’s voice, data and capacity needs and replace its T-Band system,” the order said Wednesday. “SFMTA has demonstrated that these objectives are consistent with the public interest. Because denying the requested relief would have serious implications on the proposed SFMTA regional system, we grant SFMTA its requested extension.”

Communities looking for ways to connect residents to broadband need to be willing to think outside the box and do some "serious work" to build out a network, said municipal consultant Craig Settles, president of CJ Speaks, in a report sponsored by Corning and SiFi Networks. One of Settles' examples was Columbus, Ohio, which received Department of Transportation funding to replace traffic signals. The city used an almost $8 million grant from DOT to fund the project, contributing about only $750,000, to get a new traffic signal system that was built on the backbone of fiber cable and wireless technologies, the report said. The city can invite an ISP to use the city's fiber and offer broadband service to its residents, Settles said. He said other federal agencies that will fund broadband projects include the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, and Interior.

The Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission adopted pole attachment rules that take effect Jan. 1, said a WUTC order. It said the rules generally follow the ones put forth by the FCC, except WUTC didn't adopt the telecom rate formula, so all attachers will have the same rate formula. In the new rules, WUTC also forbids pole owners from denying access if the attacher is willing to compensate the owner for the costs to replace the existing pole with a taller pole, which is similar to FCC rules. The rules allow attachers to overlash without having a permit, but require an overlasher to provide 15 business days’ notice to the pole owner. A pole owner may refuse to allow the overlashing within 10 business days. The rules apply to wireless attachments to utility poles, as well. PCIA called changes "common sense rules governing attachments." PCIA, along with AT&T, asked that the UTC exempt CMRS companies from the definition of "owner" in the rule change. "For nearly two years, PCIA has been advocating for responsible and consistent pole attachments rules in Washington State," PCIA said in a statement Monday. “Friday’s rule implementation represents a vast improvement over the existing uncertainty surrounding pole attachment rulemaking.”

A couple is suing Apple for $5 million, alleging it misled consumers about extra data usage through Wi-Fi Assist, a new feature that was part of the update to iOS 9, said the complaint, seeking class-action status, filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose Friday. The lawsuit alleges Apple violated California's unfair competition and false advertising laws and accuses the company of negligent misrepresentation. Wi-Fi Assist is a default setting that allows the phone to switch from Wi-Fi to data usage when the wireless connection is weak or unreliable, the suit said. Apple never told consumers that this function was there, leading consumers to go over their data caps and have to pay higher bills, the suit alleges. Apple issued a statement Oct. 2 telling people how Wi-Fi Assist works and how to deactivate the default setting, the suit said. Apple didn't comment.

More than half of respondents to a survey on broadband in Washington County, New York, said they were dissatisfied, said a broadband and telecom report released last week. The survey was mailed to the 29,400 postal addresses in the county and saw replies from 2,856 households and businesses. Of those who responded, 20 percent said they had no option for broadband, the report said. The report was done by the Washington County Planning and Economic Development Department and partially funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Adirondack Gateway Council. The report compares expanding rural Internet to the rural electrification in the 1930s, saying expanding broadband is just as important as getting electricity to all residents. The survey found that 90 percent of the country's residents use Time Warner Cable (26 percent), satellite (22 percent), Verizon Wireless (11.7 percent), Verizon DSL (11.2 percent), Hudson Valley Wireless (5.2 percent) or dial-up (3.5 percent) for broadband.