The Electronic Frontier Foundation asked the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to close a loophole in the state’s warrant requirements for cellphones in an amicus brief filed last week, EFF Staff Attorney Andrew Crocker said in a blog post Monday. The court “issued a landmark decision” last year in Commonwealth v. Augustine, by requiring police to obtain a search warrant “before they can track individuals’ past movements using information from their cell phones,” Crocker said. Massachusetts courts have interpreted language in the decision as a loophole to let law enforcement collect cell site location information (CSLI) for a period of six hours or less without a warrant, Crocker said. The Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School and the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts helped the EFF file its brief, which said even small amounts of location data can be revealing and that Americans are entitled to an expectation of privacy.

Skyway Towers filed a lawsuit alleging that the town of Zanesville, Indiana, violated the Communications Act by rejecting the company's proposal to build a new cell tower on behalf of Verizon, said Dan Behuniak, CEO of Skyway Towers. He said the company proposed to build the 180-foot monopole with no lights in the one place it would be able to work, but the town council rejected the plan twice, with no "valid reason." The suit was filed April 20 with the 7th Circuit of the Indiana Northern District Court. The Communications Act requires that nothing be allowed to prohibit the "provision of personal wireless services." The town office didn't comment Monday.

FirstNet's board approved the framework of FirstNet’s proposed acquisition approach to deploy the nationwide public safety broadband network and authorized the release of a special notice requesting feedback on draft request for proposals (RFP) documents, during a special meeting Friday. The board also approved a third public notice seeking further comment on the definition and scope of the term “public safety entity” as used in FirstNet’s enabling legislation. It's important to continue consulting with the public safety community on these items, board members said during the meeting. “Today’s decisions by the FirstNet board continue the significant progress FirstNet is achieving toward our goal of implementing the nationwide public safety broadband network,” said Chairwoman Sue Swenson. FirstNet also decided at the meeting to finalize the special notice with draft RFP documents to reflect the board’s decisions and plans to release them Monday, with responses due within 90 days. The documents will be posted via Federal Business Opportunities. The prepublication version of the third notice will be posted on FirstNet’s website, with a 30-day comment period that begins after the notice is published in the Federal Register.

General Communication Inc. is partnering with Ericsson to bring advanced, high-speed fixed and mobile connections to Alaska’s North Slope, GCI announced. GCI has 20 active towers so far and the only terrestrial fiber connection in Prudhoe Bay, it said. Construction and installation of the new advanced, high-speed wireless data network has begun and will include a total of nine sites stretching more than 3,738 square miles, GCI said. The new network will use LTE technology with data download speeds in excess of 30 Mbps, it said. This high-speed connectivity, it said, will support advancing oil field data requirements and improve overall oil field operations.

The Michigan House adopted a resolution asking the president, Congress and the FCC to rescind the net neutrality order, said a filing posted in FCC docket 14-28 Tuesday. The resolution urges Congress to continue efforts to pass legislation that would provide clear rules on Internet protection and not hinder investment in broadband, in place of the FCC's new rules.

CenturyLink is helping the Utah Education and Telehealth Network create a network capable of carrying more than a full terabit of combined bandwidth to 1,412 schools and educational locations in Utah, CenturyLink said Monday in a news release. Of those facilities, 832 already are equipped with CenturyLink fiber-enabled broadband service, providing speeds to 100 Gbps, the telco said. In addition to connecting about 60 percent of Utah schools to UETN’s network, CenturyLink said it's the largest provider of gigabit services to residential and business customers in the Salt Lake City metropolitan area and the state of Utah.

Backers of the NextRadio FM-in-smartphones app hailed the Indiana State Senate’s adoption Thursday of a resolution urging wireless carriers to activate the FM receiver chips in their handsets, the backers said in a Friday statement. NextRadio’s prime mover, Emmis Communications, is based in Indianapolis. The resolution “focused on the need for Indiana residents to have direct access from their smartphones to the emergency information broadcasts of local radio stations,” NextRadio’s backers said: “Activating the FM receiver in smartphones would provide immediate access to a radio in the device most residents currently carry even in the event that wireless data networks become unavailable or overwhelmed.” Except for Sprint, they said, major U.S. wireless carriers “have not taken steps to activate the FM chip in the smartphones they sell, and as they profit from the consumer data usage of streaming media, do not feel compelled to provide a free alternative.” NextRadio launched an “awareness campaign” in February with NAB support to trumpet that FM chips already are built into most new smartphones and need only to be permitted by the carrier and activated with the handset maker (see 1502200041) .

Cox Communications said it increased download and upload speeds for its High Speed Internet Essential and Internet Starter services in its Connecticut and Rhode Island markets. The High Speed Internet Essential download speed is now 15 Mbps, up from 5 Mbps. The Internet Starter download speed is now 5 Mbps, up from 1 Mbps, Cox said Friday. The company said it also plans to increase its maximum available download speeds, currently set at 150 Mbps, at an undefined time later this year. “Cox has now increased Internet speeds for eleven consecutive years as a result of our investment in our network and commitment to offer access and choice to our customers," regional manager Jay Allbaugh said in a news release.

The New Mexico Public Regulation Commission (PRC) agreed 4-1 Wednesday that CenturyLink now qualifies as a mid-size carrier under New Mexico law. CenturyLink has 347,354 access lines in new Mexico, below the state’s 375,000-line ceiling that defines a mid-size carrier under state law, the PRC said. CenturyLink had 850,000 access lines in New Mexico eight years ago, the PRC said. CenturyLink will be subject as a mid-size carrier to the same level of regulation as Windstream, the PRC said. The commission said it has previously provided more stringent regulation of CenturyLink. The PRC said it expects to launch a rulemaking in the next few weeks to establish rules CenturyLink must abide by on service quality, consumer protection and caps on pricing flexibility. “I want to help reduce costs to consumers and help promote economic development here in New Mexico," said PRC Chairwoman Karen Montoya in a news release. “Relevant information and crucial numbers, such as wholesale and leased lines, were not included in the calculation of this determination,” said PRC Commissioner Valerie Espinoza, who voted against reclassifying CenturyLink. “The Commission should be protecting consumers, not enabling a utility to have the ability to design their own rate, and issue no further penalty credits. We are not only compromising the quality of service, but reliability, as well, and much needed investment in rural areas.”

DevDigital, 365 Data Centers and Peace Communications jointly opened the Nashville Internet Exchange (NashIX) Tuesday, saying they deployed the exchange to improve Internet speeds in the Nashville area and reduce the cost of service. NashIX, which 365 is housing in its Nashville collocation facility, will reroute data that was previously routed via Atlanta, Chicago or Dallas, the companies said. Routing traffic through those cities “significantly” increased costs and resulted in additional latency, they said. Latency within a metropolitan area is typically less than two milliseconds, while latency between Atlanta and Nashville is between six and eight milliseconds, the companies said. A private 10 Gbps line from Nashville to Atlanta costs $5,000-$10,000 per month, while a Nashville area 10 Gbps connection is 30 percent of that cost, the companies said. A NashIX connection is free to entities that join the exchange before Sept. 30, the companies said. “Increasingly, content is moving from the core to the edge,” said NashIX board Chairman Peter Marcum in a news release. “With the NashIX, content will move faster and with less congestion.” The NashIX launch followed Allied Fiber CEO Hunter Newby saying Monday that company is poised to launch its own distributed Internet exchange between Miami and Atlanta, with connections to Chicago, Jacksonville and New York (see 1504060039). The Detroit Internet Exchange launched last week (see 1503310053).