AT&T committed to extend broadband to more than 81,000 rural homes and businesses in Tennessee as a part of the FCC Connect America Fund (CAF) over the next six years, a company news release said. The deployment will deliver broadband at speeds of at least 10 Mbps/1 Mbps. AT&T Tennessee said it will receive more than $26 million annually over the next six years to help meet its commitment in the state. Other carriers in Tennessee also have committed to expand rural broadband through the CAF program, for a combined total of more than $29 million annually for each of the next six years, it said.

Garrett County, Maryland, and Declaration Networks Group (DNG) signed a long-term agreement establishing funding for deployment of a broadband network infrastructure to deliver high-speed Internet services to more than 3,000 unserved or underserved homes and businesses, a DNG news release said. The initiative was jointly developed by Garrett County and the Appalachian Regional Commission, which both committed grant funding to the project, the release said. DNG was selected as the private industry partner by the county through a competitive bid process, it said. DNG will begin its network deployment later this year, the release said.

US Ignite received a $6 million grant from the National Science Foundation to build "living lab" test beds in 15 communities throughout the country, it said in a news release Monday. The grant is a part of the Obama administration's initiative unveiled earlier that day to research and develop smart cities (see 1509140054), which includes a total anticipated investment of $160 million. The end result of US Ignite's grant "will be a growing number of communities nationwide participating in a 'smart city app store' for interoperable and interconnected smart gigabit community applications," it said. The group said its new project will span three years and include participation from cities including Cleveland; Kansas City, Missouri; and Madison, Wisconsin. The White House announcement also marked the beginning of the Smart Cities Council's Smart Cities Week Conference and Exhibition in D.C.

If granted priority access to the nationwide public safety broadband network, utilities could bring resources and funding to the initial construction of the network, said a FirstNet blog post about the Ohio Initial Consultation meeting. Utility providers serve a critical public safety function and would make excellent partners and users on the NPSBN, it said. Another case that officials discussed at the meeting was the Ebola incident in Ohio in 2014. To manage the incident, public safety personnel relied heavily on phone calls, text messaging, emails, reverse 911 alerts and activation of the emergency operations center, it said. The chief information officer for Akron envisions leveraging FirstNet to improve response capabilities in similar situations, FirstNet said. He highlighted three potential capabilities: provisioning devices based on geo-fencing and credentialing; a FirstNet file-sharing app with only the most up-to-date and correct information and documents; and a virtual emergency operations center with videoconferencing, conference calling and screen sharing, it said.

CenturyLink is increasing its fiber footprint by expanding its gigabit network to residential and small business customers in parts of six more states -- Arizona, Idaho, Iowa, New Mexico, North Carolina and South Dakota -- the telco said in a news release. CenturyLink now offers gigabit Internet service to residential and small business customers in parts of 17 states and, by the end of 2015, should have more than 700,000 households enabled with fiber-to-the-home technology capable of uploading and downloading information at speeds up to 1 Gbps, it said.

Signing AB-57 will help alleviate delay in approving applications to site new wireless facilities and renew permits for existing facilities, PCIA said in a letter to California Gov. Jerry Brown (D). The bill says a collocation or siting application for a wireless telecom facility is deemed approved if the city or county fails to approve or disapprove the application within the reasonable time periods specified in applicable decisions of the FCC, all required public notices have been provided regarding the application, and the applicant provided a notice to the city or county that the reasonable time period has elapsed, the California State Legislature's website said. By speeding up the approval of the facilities, industry and government can ensure that Californians have access to robust mobile broadband, PCIA wrote Brown.

California Gov. Jerry Brown’s (D) decision to veto a proposed drone law was applauded by CEA and the Small UAV Coalition (see 1509100008). The bill would have “dramatically inhibited UAV industry growth without delivering meaningful consumer privacy protections,” said the coalition in a news release Thursday. Vetoing the bill means drones and other unmanned aircraft can continue to revolutionize a “wide array of consumer and commercial activities, creating new businesses and jobs and providing life-changing solutions,” said CEA CEO Gary Shapiro in a news release Thursday.

Every city needs its own broadband plan, said Blair Levin, of the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program, during the NATOA conference in San Diego Friday. He said the debate between private interests over how unlicensed bands should be regulated is “way too important” not to involve cities. While some see the country’s communications system as a triumph of free-market forces, the telco, cable and wireless networks all required government actions to make the economics viable, providing access to rights of ways and poles, access to the programming created by others, construction permitting, access to spectrum, and much more, he said. Levin also said the most important “new commons” to develop in this era is broadband, with its networks, devices and applications. Making a broadband plan for each city should start from an analysis of where market forces are heading, he said. And in those plans, the communities must assess where they fit in the current market, Levin said. He said every plan he has seen is different but the vision remains the same: “Ubiquitous, affordable, abundant bandwidth, with everyone on and using the platform to improve public services.” To achieve that vision, the cities must drive fiber deeper, use spectrum more efficiently, get everyone on, and create applications and re-imagine government processes to use the platform to improve the delivery of public goods and services, he said. That same vision and those four strategies apply to cities, but the tactics for achieving that vision are diverse, he said. Levin also addressed the digital divide but mentioned one that “no one has noticed,” the digital divide between Starkville, Mississippi, and such cities as New York, Boston, Chicago and Washington, and well-off suburbs like Beverly Hills, California, Scarsdale, New York, and Bethesda, Maryland. Starkville residents have not one but two options to purchase an affordable gigabit, which is two more options than the residents have in those large cities and wealthy suburbs, he said.

Phone systems are back up in Summit Health facilities in Pennsylvania after an outage that began on Thursday, said a news release from the health system Friday. Waynesboro Hospital and 15 other Summit Health buildings were affected by the outage, it said. No cause has been identified, the health system said.

Honolulu Police Department officials will implement Smart911, a free national public safety service that allows residents to provide the information dispatchers need, before an emergency happens, said a news release from Smart911. Honolulu is the first city in the state to use the system, the release said. Smart911 enables citizens to create a free safety profile online that can include any information about their households that they want 911 to have in an emergency, the release said. When a resident makes an emergency call, that person's safety profile is automatically displayed to the 911 call taker, "allowing them to send the right response teams to the right location with the right information," it said. Smart911 is available in 40 states and more than 1,500 municipalities, the release said. Smart911 data is private and secure, and is used only for emergency responses and available in the event of an emergency call, the release said.