Colorado Public Utilities Commission Chairman Joshua Epel met Tuesday with Daniel Alvarez, aide to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, to discuss challenges in deploying broadband to unserved areas in the state and his concerns with the “significant” decrease in Connect America Fund II funding set for Colorado compared with current USF funding levels, Epel said in an ex parte filing posted Thursday to docket 10-90. Epel also gave Alvarez a copy of the PUC’s July decision implementing emergency rules governing the Automatic Location Identification Service (http://bit.ly/1pJrROF).

FairPoint Communications has finished installing its IP-based next-generation 911 system in Maine, making it “one of the first states in the nation” to deploy an NG-911 system that meets the National Emergency Number Association’s i3 standards, said the telco in a news release Thursday. FairPoint’s system will serve all of Maine’s 26 public safety answering points and covers 1.3 million people in the state. The system will improve call setup time and increase voice and data arrival times at PSAPs, and could improve emergency response by providing better information to public safety personnel before they arrive at the scene, FairPoint said (http://bit.ly/1uLQt1u).

FirstNet met with Maryland officials in Annapolis Tuesday, the first in a series of planned meetings across the U.S. with state officials, FirstNet said in a news release (http://bit.ly/1o596In). Attendees included Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley, Maryland State Police Superintendent Marcus Brown and state Chief Technology Officer Greg Urban, FirstNet said.

Correction: The dockets the FCC Wireline Bureau established for the Chattanooga Electric Power Board and Wilson, North Carolina, petitions for pre-emption of state municipal broadband laws are respectively 14-116 and 14-115 (CD July 30 p18).

The FCC Wireline Bureau established separate dockets Monday for the petitions Chattanooga’s Electric Power Board (14-115) and the city government of Wilson, North Carolina (14-116), filed last week asking the FCC to pre-empt portions of state laws in Tennessee and North Carolina restricting municipal broadband (http://bit.ly/1rxa8fV). Both cities claim the restrictions inhibit them from extending their existing broadband services to adjacent areas that are seeking to receive those services (CD July 25 p18). Comments on the petitions are due Aug. 29 and replies are due Sept. 29.

AT&T said Monday it plans to bring its U-verse with GigaPower gigabit broadband service to Nashville. The telco said it will specify the service’s pricing and specific location availability later. Nashville Mayor Karl Dean praised AT&T’s announcement, saying that “this kind of technology is important to keep our city vibrant and attractive, and it is further proof of how Nashville is positioned as a city of the future” (http://soc.att.com/1qHbOax). AT&T announced last week that it would be making U-verse with GigaPower available in the Dallas-Fort Worth area later this summer. Cities there that will have access to the service include Arlington, Allen, Euless, Fairview, Fort Worth, Granbury, Highland, Irving, McKinney, North Richland Hills, University Park, Weatherford and Willow Park (http://soc.att.com/1ujy2kn).

Telebeam Telecommunications executives urged the FCC Thursday not to adopt any rules that would allow New York City to avoid applying wireless siting rules to wireless facilities located in city payphone structures on public sidewalks, Telebeam said in an ex parte filing posted Monday. Telebeam said the city’s Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DoITT) had told the commission in a meeting that it was seeking proposals for a franchise that would replace expiring payphone franchises with ones for new structures that would include Wi-Fi and potentially wireless services. DoITT is arguing that its regulation of communications providers is exempt from Communications Act rules because it is operating in its role as a landowner rather than as a regulator -- something it has previously argued, Telebeam said. The telco, which has applied for the franchise, said it has operated payphones in New York since 1985, and owns and operates about 23 percent of the city’s payphone locations on public sidewalks. New York plans to issue one franchise under its new plan, which means Telebeam “faces the loss of its investment and its business,” the telco said. The city claims the franchise is “non-exclusive” because it could issue additional franchises in the future, but it would be a “de facto monopoly,” Telebeam said (http://bit.ly/1kjF7NO).

Chattanooga’s Electric Power Board (EPB) utility and the city of Wilson, North Carolina, separately petitioned the FCC Thursday to use its authority under Communications Act Section 706 to pre-empt portions of state laws limiting the expansion of municipal broadband services. EPB’s petition seeks FCC pre-emption of a portion of Tennessee law that prohibits existing municipal broadband networks from serving adjacent areas not currently in its 600-square-mile electric service territory (http://bit.ly/1kZ4lM6). EPB has received “regular requests” in recent years to offer its gigabit broadband service in communities adjacent to its electric service territory that are in a “digital desert,” EPB said. The utility said in its petition that it would extend service only to cities and counties that request EPB’s presence. Any extensions of the broadband service would need to be financially feasible and EPB “never will” use revenue from its electric service to “cross-subsidize Internet and video services,” the utility said. EPB had been considering filing the petition last week, just before the House passed the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act (HR-5016), which included an amendment that would stop the FCC from pre-empting state municipal broadband laws (CD July 17 p3 ). There isn’t currently a Senate equivalent of the Blackburn amendment. Wilson’s petition seeks FCC pre-emption of a North Carolina law that imposes multiple legal and procedural requirements on cities seeking to provide communications services. Wilson offers its Greenlight gigabit broadband service only in Wilson County, North Carolina, but said it has received “numerous” requests to expand the service into the other five counties in which it currently provides electric service. State law “has the purpose and effect of prohibiting it from doing so,” Wilson said (http://bit.ly/1kZ54gc). The FCC is reviewing the petitions and looks forward to “a full opportunity for comment by all interested parties, and will carefully review the specific legal, factual, and policy issues before us,” Chairman Tom Wheeler said in a statement.

New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer urged the New York Public Service Commission (PSC) Monday to “take steps” to ensure the proposed Comcast/Time Warner Cable (TWC) merger will expand access to Internet connectivity in New York City’s five boroughs, calling Internet connectivity the “fourth utility of the modern age.” If regulators approve the merger, Comcast would be required to abide by TWC’s franchise agreement with New York City -- but it should have a more detailed plan to address connectivity issues in the city, Stringer said. The PSC should also “engage in appropriate oversight” ensuring Comcast meets its commitments to low-income New York residents, he said. The New York PSC should also “carefully examine” Comcast’s net neutrality commitment as part of its review, Stringer said. New York state law has effectively declared ISPs as common carriers, requiring ISPs to “provide publicly offered conduit services on demand to any similarly situated user on substantially similar terms, subject to the availability of facilities and capacity,” he said. Stringer criticized Comcast for being “willing to sacrifice net neutrality in order to squeeze additional payment out of content providers, such as Netflix” and other content providers. The PSC should examine whether Comcast’s agreement with Netflix is “a sign that the company is eroding this principle in a manner that conflicts with the public interest,” Stringer said (http://bit.ly/1pbXX5p).

NARUC Telecom Committee Chairman Chris Nelson repeated NARUC’s previously stated positions on the FCC’s open docket (12-375) on inmate calling services during a meeting last week with FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and Clyburn aide Rebekah Goodheart while all three were at the NARUC meeting in Dallas, NARUC said in a filing posted Tuesday. NARUC generally opposes “arguments that would expand the FCC’s jurisdiction to intrastate toll rates or unnecessarily supplant existing State Public Service Commission decisions over this service,” NARUC said. The group said the FCC’s original NPRM acknowledges that intrastate ISC rates are “set by the States” (http://bit.ly/1nyuK9o).