FairPoint Communications filed a motion for reconsideration with the Maine Public Utilities Commission Thursday over a Nov. 21 PUC ruling that the telco hadn’t adequately demonstrated its need for its requested $62.8 million subsidy from the state USF for supporting provider of last resort (POLR) service for 29,000 customers in the state. The PUC raised the POLR rate in May to $16.69 per month for residential users and $34.28 for businesses. FairPoint’s requested subsidy is estimated to require an additional $5 rate hike per cellphone bill. FairPoint said Thursday that it “has an unconditional obligation to provide service, but the Order refuses to fund the service because the Commission's preferred forward looking cost and embedded cost analyses failed to produce a result that was acceptable to the Commission.” Without the additional subsidy, the telco said it "is faced with at least another year sustaining tens of millions of dollars of losses to provide the service while the Commission and the Legislature toss this POLR funding ‘hot potato’ back and forth.”

"Don’t risk being the next AT&T," reads a marketing message headlined, "AT&T fined $52 million for dumping their electronics," that was emailed to us Thursday by 4th Bin, a New York-based recycler that collects and processes e-waste from corporate clients. The email references AT&T’s settlement agreement last month with the California attorney general to resolve allegations that AT&T facilities in California unlawfully dumped hazardous e-waste into landfills over a nine-year period. In the agreement, AT&T technically wasn't fined $52 million as the 4th Bin email suggests, but agreed to pay $23.8 million in civil penalties and spend $28 million the next five years to bring the company into "environmental compliance." In its email, 4th Bin, which is e-Stewards-certified by the Basel Action Network, describes itself as "an advocate for responsible, sustainable and smart decisions in all phases of our client’s technology lifecycle." On California’s finding that AT&T "was not properly recycling their e-waste and was fined $52 million for their actions," AT&T was "hardly alone in their practices," 4th Bin says. "On a daily basis, we are approached by companies who seek free or low cost solutions to the disposal of their e-waste. The companies come in all shapes and sizes, are often well-known brands and many have internal sustainability initiatives and goals. Why are these companies willing to risk data security, financial repercussions and, equally important, their reputation is a question we constantly ask ourselves." The message warns prospective clients that "the next time some e-waste company tries to provide you and your company with a free or low-cost solution, think about AT&T." In "AT&T’s defense," 4th Bin said, the company publicly has committed itself "to spend $28 million dollars to right the ship. AT&T will choose a path of ethical recycling and we agree with this decision." AT&T declined to comment on the 4th Bin campaign.

The Kansas Corporation Commission’s staff recommended the KCC approve Chanute’s plan to issue bonds to pay for an expansion of the city's municipal broadband network, which serves government and community buildings, plus some local businesses. Chanute says the expansion would let the city provide broadband service throughout its utility service area and support smart grid advanced metering infrastructure. KCC staff said in a report that it believes Chanute’s plans don’t duplicate existing broadband services in the area and that the expansion is appropriate for the city to undertake. AT&T and Cable One also provide broadband service in the Chanute area, but AT&T’s download speeds average 10-25 Mbps and Cable One’s average 50-100 Mbps, both below the Chanute municipal network’s range of 100 Mbps-1 Gbps, KCC staff said. They cited information from the Kansas Statewide Broadband Map Initiative. “Neither AT&T nor Cable One furnish or are currently able to furnish Gigabit connectivity to all of the City of Chanute and three miles thereof, as proposed by the City of Chanute,” KCC staff said in the report. Chanute’s network expansion plans “would not only benefit the citizens of Chanute but its community anchor institutions and community business partners as well,” KCC staff said. “By improving and expanding upon the fiber optic network currently in place by Chanute,” the city is protecting its existing investment in the network, said the staff. AT&T became an official intervener in the case last week, but hasn’t made any filings in KCC’s docket on Chanute’s expansion plans. The telco said in a statement that it wanted to receive information on Chanute’s plans but hasn’t taken a position on the proceeding. Cable One didn't immediately comment.

The New York Public Service Commission won’t vote on whether to approve Comcast's planned buy of Time Warner Cable as part of the PSC's scheduled Thursday meeting, the commission said Tuesday. Thursday’s meeting is the PSC’s last regularly scheduled meeting before the current Dec. 31 deadline for the commission to consider Comcast/TWC. The PSC is empowered to hold a special meeting to consider the deal or it can extend the review deadline in consultation with Comcast and other parties, as it has already done twice. If the PSC doesn’t extend the deadline or vote on Comcast/TWC before the current deadline, the deal would be considered approved by default. A PSC spokesman didn’t indicate how the commission plans to proceed on the review but noted that the commission is continuing its review “given its importance to New York consumers.” Comcast didn’t immediately comment.

Correction: A National Labor Relations Board judge found Cablevision not guilty of "surface bargaining” in its negotiations with Communications Workers of America in New York, a charge that Cablevision said has helped block an employee vote in Brooklyn on recertifying CWA as its union (see 1412050065).

Cox Communications said it began providing gigabit broadband service at the Park Place Apartment Homes in Irvine, which Cox said was its first gigabit deployment in Southern California. Cox began offering residential gigabit service in Phoenix in October and has said it plans to offer gigabit in all of its markets by the end of 2016. Cox said it doubled its broadband speeds in October, increasing its Internet Preferred tier to 50 Mbps, its Premier tier to 100 Mbps and its Ultimate tier to 150 Mbps, it said Monday in a news release.

National Labor Relations Board Administrative Law Judge Steven Fish found Cablevision and CEO James Dolan guilty Thursday of breaking several labor laws in their ongoing battle with the Communications Workers of America (CWA). The judge ruled in CWA's favor on several claims, including that Cablevision supervisors barred employees from engaging in union activity and that Dolan had increased wages at a non-unionized Bronx location to prevent it from unionizing. Fish found Cablevision not guilty of "surface bargaining," finding that the company negotiated with CWA in good faith. He refused a CWA request to extend its certification to represent Cablevision workers for another year. CWA President Larry Cohen praised the NLRB decision in a statement, saying the NLRB needs to “take immediate action” and the New York state and New York City governments “need to treat Cablevision and all Dolan family controlled entities like the major law breaker that is documented extensively in this decision.” Cablevision said “we call on the NLRB and the CWA to finally cease their efforts to block the vote that Brooklyn employees have twice petitioned for the right to hold.”

New York City’s Franchise and Concession Review Committee plans a hearing Monday on the CityBridge consortium’s plan to install a Wi-Fi hot spot system in place of up to 10,000 obsolete payphone booths across the city. The agreement, announced last month, would end June 24, 2026, and would initially give New York City 50 percent of gross revenue. The city would later receive 55 percent of gross revenue, with a minimum annual guarantee of $20 million per contract year, the review committee said. The hearing begins at 2:30 p.m.

Alaska Communications said it's selling its remaining 33 percent interest in The Alaska Wireless Network and its wireless subscriber base in Alaska to General Communications Inc. (GCI) for $300 million. The sale will reduce Alaska Communications’ debt by $250 million and will allow the telco to focus on “the underlying inherent value of our broadband and managed IT solutions business,” said Alaska Communications CEO Anand Vadapalli in a Thursday news release. The transaction is to close in Q1 2015 and would affect 150-200 Alaska Communications employees, the telco said.

Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission staff urged the UTC Tuesday to fine CenturyLink up to $2.93 million for its role in the April 10 multistate 911 outage. The outage resulted in more than 6,600 911 calls across seven states failing to reach public safety answering points, with Washington hardest hit. The FCC later found the outage occurred because of a failure at an Intrado-managed call routing center in Englewood, Colorado (see 1410170057). CenturyLink holds the contract for managing Washington’s 911 services, but contracts some 911 management functions out to Intrado. The outage was “unprecedented in both its scope and duration,” the Washington UTC staff said in a report. “Every person in Washington was affected because the ability for anyone to access 911 was almost nonexistent.” The UTC staff report estimates that CenturyLink amassed more than 11,700 violations of UTC rules during the 911 outage, most of which stem from CenturyLink’s failure to automatically re-route 911 calls and its failure to maintain and manage the technical 911 system. The staff report also faulted CenturyLink for not notifying PSAPs “promptly” about the outage. The Washington UTC staff recommended the commission require CenturyLink to make improvements to the 911 system and report to the agency annually about the results of its maintenance of the system. A CenturyLink spokeswoman blamed Intrado for the 911 outage, saying Intrado has acknowledged faults in the call routing system at its Englewood facility. CenturyLink hadn’t encountered the issue before and worked with officials to resolve the problem once it became aware of the outage, the spokeswoman said. The telco “is troubled by the punitive nature of the fine recommended by the WUTC staff,” the spokeswoman said. Intrado didn't immediately comment.