Nevada’s definition of personal information in data security law expands July 1. It will include: a username, unique identifier or email address in combination with a password, access code, or security question and answer that would permit access to an online account; medical identification or health insurance identification number; and a driver authorization card number, said a Hunton & Williams blog post Tuesday. Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval signed AB-179 into law in May, his office has said. “Although Nevada’s data security law previously excluded ‘publicly available information ... lawfully made available to the general public’ from the definition of personal information," the law firm said, the bill "narrows the scope of that exclusion, limiting it to information available ‘from federal, state or local governmental records.’”

Residents in Vermont can now get 10 Gbps Internet service to their homes for $400 a month from VTel, said a news release from the company. VTel’s 10 Gbps residential Internet is being funded by an $85 million VTel phone network award from the Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service, it said. The project is expected to be complete by June 30, it said Thursday.

Cogeco Cable subsidiary Atlantic Broadband agreed buy substantially all of the assets of MetroCast Connecticut for $200 million, said a Monday news release from Atlantic Broadband. The tax-adjusted purchase price, which reflects the tax benefit of amortizing intangible assets in an asset purchase, is approximately 7.9 times the 2015 expected adjusted EBITDA of Atlantic, the release said. MetroCast Connecticut’s network passes close to 70,000 homes and businesses in nine communities in eastern Connecticut, the release said. MetroCast Connecticut’s system also has about 23,000 TV, 22,000 Internet and 8,000 phone customers, Atlantic said. “With eastern Connecticut’s strong demographics and MetroCast Connecticut’s well-maintained networks, this acquisition brings sizeable residential and business growth opportunities,” said Atlantic Broadband CEO Richard Shea. Cogeco Cable intends to finance this transaction through non-recourse debt to be issued by Atlantic Broadband, the company said.

Kansas City, Missouri, and Cisco signed an agreement to deploy a Smart+Connected City framework to transform urban municipal services, said a Cisco news release. As part of the framework, Cisco said it's working with a group of business partners to bring together an ecosystem to develop applications including smart lighting, digital kiosks, a development data portal, and smart water innovation development. Sprint will also deploy Cisco hardware to construct and manage an intelligent Wi-Fi network that will serve as the backbone of the connectivity platform, Cisco said.

Allied Fiber connected its open-access fiber networks with the city network of Palm Coast, Florida, said a news release Monday from the company. Allied Fiber is an open-access, integrated, network-neutral co-location and dark fiber superstructure. Palm Coast's FiberNET network now has access through Allied Fiber to the major content distribution centers throughout the state of Florida. Palm Coast recently completed construction of a lateral connection in Bunnell, Florida, that connects the city's FiberNET to the Allied Fiber route, the release said. The FiberNET fiber network covers more than 50-miles of major roadways in Palm Coast, including Palm Coast Parkway, Belle Terre Parkway, along the U.S. 1 corridor and down State Road 100 into Bunnell, Allied Fiber said. FiberNET also provides service to all Palm Coast facilities, Flagler County schools and more than two-dozen businesses, it said.

Access to broadband services at speeds of at least 50 Mbps download/1.5 Mbps upload has increased 54.08 percentage points since October in Iowa, said a news release from Connect Iowa about the Connect Iowa Final Grant Report. The report highlights Connect Iowa's mapping, community planning and research since 2010 as part of the NTIA's State Broadband Initiative grant program. Over the course of its five-year grant period, Connect Iowa engaged 202 broadband providers in Iowa to collect data semi-annually on broadband access in the state, with 99.5 percent of all broadband providers in the state participating, to provide more than 3.5 million data records, the release said. Connect Iowa also independently validated the broadband access data for 93.07 percent of participating providers, and analyzed 7,441 speed tests taken by Iowans since 2010. Connect Iowa acknowledges it still has more work to do, though, because 324,607 households in Iowa are unable to subscribe to broadband at the national benchmark speed of 25 Mbps download/3 Mbps upload, the release said. The state website says there are 1.2 million households in Iowa.

Pennsylvania's Delaware County Council filed a lawsuit against 19 telephone service providers in the state for failing to bill, collect and remit the proper 911 assessment charges that help fund the county’s 911 operations, a news release from the council said Tuesday. This misrepresentation ultimately results in significantly less funding for the county’s 911 system, the release said. The lawsuit seeks to recover six years' worth of alleged underbillings, a total of nearly $41.4 million, the release said. The council obtained the data through Phone Recovery Services, a telecommunications firm specializing in analyzing 911 system remittances, which estimates 811,698 active phone lines in Delaware County, the release said. Service providers remit 911 surcharges on 230,881 lines -- a shortfall of 572,566 lines, leaving a gap of $6.9 million per year, it said. Most of the underbilling affects medium to large business customers, the release said. Delaware County spent $15.5 million to support its 911 system in 2014, with $8.6 million coming from 911 fees assessed by the telephone service providers and local taxpayers contributing $6.9 million from the county’s general fund, said Mario Civera, chairman of the council. “The county and the taxpayers should not have to subsidize this gap,” Civera said. The suit was filed Monday in the Delaware County Court of Common Pleas.

Hawaiian Telcom is launching the state's first 1 Gbps service, double the speed of the fastest Internet now available, on June 8, a news release from the company said. Over the past six years, Hawaiian Telcom has poured almost half a billion dollars into its next-generation fiber network and systems, and will invest close to $100 million this year alone, the release said. Hawaiian Telcom’s Fiber 1 Gig service will be available to consumers with fiber-to-the-premise technology statewide, it said. About 96,000 locations initially will qualify for Fiber 1 Gig with more being added as Hawaiian Telcom’s deployment of fiber technology continues, the release said.

PCIA urged Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti to reject, amend or otherwise closely revisit a new city ordinance imposing “costly and untested requirements” on above-ground communications facilities, said PCIA in a news release on the letter to Garcetti. Left unchanged, L.A.'s new regulation could “jeopardize emergency services and undermine access to mobile wireless broadband data -- and with it, economic growth -- throughout Southern California,” said Jonathan Adelstein, PCIA president. Adelstein is petitioning the mayor to reconsider his approval of Council File 15-0050, an ordinance that would amend the Los Angeles Municipal Code to define communications facilities as “Class III Structures.” Such a move would subject wireless facilities to unwarranted standards that would undercut their construction and possibly prohibit future upgrades, Adelstein said. Imposing Class III construction requirements would also mean projects would take longer and be more costly to complete, Adelstein said.

A U.S. District Court in San Antonio issued a temporary injunction Friday in case number 1:15-cv-00343 against the Texas Medical Board in a lawsuit filed by Teladoc for a ruling made April 10, a news release from Teladoc said. Teladoc is a telehealth provider with 10 million members and is on track to conduct more than 500,000 consults during 2015. The injunction indicated Teladoc is likely to succeed in showing that the revisions to Rule 190.8 adopted in April by the Texas Medical Board "illegally limit competition by requiring a face-to-face visit before physicians are allowed to prescribe medication to patients," Teladoc said in the release. The ruling prohibits the enforcement of the revised medical board rule until after trial to determine whether the new rule violates the law. This decision marks the sixth occasion in the past four years that the courts have sided with Teladoc against the Texas Medical Board’s repeated attempts to limit access to affordable, quality health care in the state, Teladoc said.