The East Central Vermont Community Fiber-Optic Network (ECFiber) added fiber-to-the-home routes in September, it said in a news release. The network is available in parts of the towns of Randolph and Norwich, and the projects were partially funded by grants from the Vermont Telecommunications Authority (VTA), together with investments by local residents, it said Tuesday. The Vermont Public Service Department is building open-access fiber cable trunks designed by the VTA through parts of Randolph and other communities. ECFiber is a community network comprised of 24 towns in east-central Vermont that banded together to build a community-owned network.
California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) signed AB-856 Tuesday. The bill, which closes a loophole in existing law by clarifying paparazzi are trespassing when flying a drone over private property, was authored by Democratic Assembly member Ian Calderon. “Paparazzi have used drones for years to invade the privacy and capture pictures of public persons in their most private of activities -- despite existing law,” Calderon said in a news release Tuesday. AB-856 prohibits drones from being used to fly over fences, bypass gates and travel into private sanctuaries to peer into windows, capture goings on and otherwise spy on the private lives of public persons, Calderon said.
NTIA plans a daylong regional broadband workshop in California to help communities expand their broadband capacity and utilization, it said in a notice in Wednesday's Federal Register. The workshop will be Nov. 17 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. PST in the Hahn Auditorium at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, NTIA said.
State commissions should require incumbent carriers to file their VoIP interconnection agreements for review, make them public and make them available for opt-in by competitors, said a white paper released by Gillan Associates and written by economist Joseph Gillan. The paper cites several instances where Verizon failed to disclose VoIP interconnection agreements with state commissions as required under Section 252 of the Telecom Act. Verizon in California revealed it has at least 11 unfiled IP agreements for the exchange of voice traffic with other competitors and wireless carriers, the paper said. The paper raises no new arguments and gets the law wrong, said a Verizon spokesman. The FCC ordered earlier this year that interconnection obligations for VoIP providers are unsettled and the commission has declined to mandate IP VoIP interconnection arrangements, the spokesman said. Gillan said the paper is a synthesis of his work from a variety of state proceedings for his clients.
The Broadband Tech Summit will be Oct. 14 at the Utah Valley Convention Center in Provo, said the event website. The Utah Broadband Outreach Center is hosting the event to outline changes in the telecom industry, it said. Among the speakers will be state Rep. Stephen Handy (R); John Windhausen, Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition-executive director; Brian Gibbons, NTIA-senior communications policy specialist; and Andy Spurgeon, Broadband USA-director of operations.
The Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission is doing a triennial review of the state's USF, an order said. A prehearing and technical conference is scheduled for Oct. 21 to make sure the USF meets requirements, see that the service is affordable and review operation of the fund, the commission said in the order dated Sept. 30.
NENA plans a "Critical Issues Forum" Wednesday and Thursday in Austin to tackle location accuracy problems that 911 can face in the public safety community and with the public, a news release from NENA said. David Simpson, chief of the FCC Public Safety Bureau, will speak on developments in location accuracy during the conference, it said.
California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) vetoed three bills on unmanned aircraft systems, or drones, proposed by state Sen. Ted Gaines (R), citing concerns with criminalizing conduct when the state’s prison and jail populations “have exploded,” in a veto message Saturday. Gaines said SB-168 would “protect forests, property and the lives of citizens, firefighters and emergency personnel from drone interference” by increasing fines for drone use that interferes with firefighting and emergency responders, in a September 2015 news release. “The bill also seeks to grant civil immunity to any emergency responder who damages an unmanned aircraft in the course of firefighting, air ambulance, or search-and-rescue operations,” the release said. Gaines said he proposed the bill amid “alarming reports of private, unauthorized drones causing mission-critical aircraft to be grounded during firefighting and medical response operations, putting pilots, firefighters, civilians and property at unnecessary risk.” SB-170 would have made it a felony to use a drone to deliver contraband into a prison or county jail, Gaines website said. The legislation would have also made it a misdemeanor to fly a drone over a prison as well as to intentionally capture images of a prison using a drone. SB-271 would have prohibited the use of drones to fly over or capture images of school grounds, without written authorization from the school district, Gaines’ website said. Brown encouraged the legislature to “pause and reflect on how our system of criminal justice could be made more human, more just and more cost-effective,” in his veto message, saying the bills increased the complexity and particularization of criminal behavior without a clear benefit.
Frontier Communications signed agreements with the California and Florida chapters of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) ahead of the company's pending buy of Verizon's wireline services in California, Florida and Texas (see 1509030063), the union and telco said in news releases Friday. In its extended collective bargaining agreement with IBEW in California, Frontier agreed to add 25 union jobs in the state and grant 100 shares of its stock to all transferring employees, said the release. IBEW represents about 200 Verizon workers in California, it said. In Florida, Frontier agreed to similar conditions as the IBEW deal in California, but said it will add "at least 100 new union jobs" in the state. IBEW said it represents about 2,700 Verizon workers in Florida. In both states, Frontier agreed to invest in additional employee training and to provide competitive wage increases. There are no IBEW-represented employees in Texas transitioning to Frontier as a part of its pending transaction with Verizon, a Frontier spokesman told us.
The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) is supporting Charter Communications buying Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable. Bringing higher-speed Internet at no additional cost to subscribers "is squarely in the public interest," NCSL said in an FCC filing posted Monday in docket 15-149. Citing Charter's "faster internet speeds, and their commitment to expanding Wi-Fi in public places," NCSL said the cable company "has been recognized ... as being the best provider in the nation. Expanding the Charter umbrella only further expands their capability to offer a superior product and experience to more Americans." It also doesn't "present any significant antitrust concerns," NCSL said. Other groups of many sorts have recently been backing the deal (see 1509250040).