States should develop advanced cyber analytics capabilities, the National Association of State Chief Information Officers urged as it released a report Thursday. States also should develop and maintain response systems to keep pace with cyberthreats, NASCIO said. Multi-vector attacks by cybercriminals require states to be able to correlate disparate data sources from different security tools, it said. “Advanced persistent threats will become more and more sophisticated,” said NASCIO Executive Director Doug Robinson. “States must move away from merely waiting for the next attack and respond to a more predictive stance in anticipating attacks so they can put necessary defense in place in advance.” NASCIO released a states’ guide to cyberdisruption response planning earlier this month (see 1604070062).
States tend to fund broadband deployment more than they do adoption, said a state broadband report released Wednesday. The Rural Telecommunications Congress, a nonprofit headed by Drew Clark, commissioned broadband economists at the Strategic Networks Group to write the report. About 52 percent of states have an office dedicated to broadband, and 28 percent have a budget to fund broadband initiatives, the report said. (The study included only 48 states because Rhode Island and New Jersey declined to participate.) While California has $330 million and New York has $500 million for broadband, the average funding for the 11 other funded states was $597,000 annually, the report found. States with broadband funding said they most often support “planning and support” activities (82 percent) and infrastructure (45 percent), the report said. SNG President Michael Curri said “investment activities seem to be heavily weighted towards the ‘supply’ of broadband and include mapping, infrastructure planning, and grants, surpassing economic development activities that impact economic advancement including raising awareness, training, and driving end-user utilization.” The report ranked New Mexico the highest on its broadband efforts, followed by Maine, Ohio, New York and Vermont. The worst-ranked five states were Indiana (44), Louisiana (45), Montana (46), Missouri (47) and Texas (48), it said. The ranking was based on five dimensions, SNG said. On availability, SNG said the top three states were New Mexico, Maine and Hawaii, with Montana in last place. On adoption, the top three states were New Hampshire, Hawaii and Oregon, with Alabama in last place. On how well states drove “meaningful use” of broadband by businesses and households, SNG found Ohio performed the best, Vermont and West Virginia were tied for second, and Tennessee did the worst. On growth investment, New York came in first, with Nevada and North Carolina tied for second, SNG said. SNG also considered regulatory environment, but didn’t rank the states within this specific metric.
The Louisiana Senate unanimously passed a telehealth bill to remove the requirement that physicians be located within the state. The state Senate voted 34-0 Monday to pass SB-328 and send it to the House, one day after the Alaska Legislature passed Medicaid legislation that similarly removed in-state restrictions for telehealth (see 1604180054). Alaska and Louisiana were the last two states to have an in-state requirement. The Louisiana bill “ensures technology-neutral modalities for telemedicine, and it removes the onerous residency restriction,” Teladoc Vice President-Government Affairs Claudia Tucker said in an interview. The bill defines telehealth broadly to not exclude any current or future technologies to deliver telemedicine, she said. SB-328 now moves to the House, which is expected to consider a similar bill, HB-570, Wednesday. The Louisiana Legislature adjourns June 6, but the telehealth legislation could be passed before then, Tucker said. “They are moving at warp speed,” she said. “I’ve never seen a bill move out of committee as quickly as I saw [SB-328] get out of the Senate committee.” One obstacle to passage could be the State Board of Medical Examiners, which objected to removing the in-state requirement. Teladoc is pushing for telehealth legislation to enhance access in other states, Tucker said. The Missouri Legislature has a final floor vote this week on telehealth legislation, and the Michigan Senate has a floor vote this week, she said. Economic concerns are driving movement on state telehealth bills this year, Tucker said. “Healthcare costs are spiraling out of control ... and will continue to do so at an unsustainable rate.” And people want the greater access to care that is provided by telemedicine, she said.
Pennsylvania will open government data to the public in machine-readable format, under an executive order issued this week by Gov. Tom Wolf (D). The executive order directs the Office of Administration to establish a central repository for open data published by state agencies, and help agencies identify, secure and release data sets. It requires agencies to protect sensitive information. “One of our most valuable and underutilized resources in state government is data,” he said in a news release Tuesday. “Our goal is to make data available in order to engage citizens, create economic opportunities for businesses and entrepreneurs, and develop innovative policy solutions that improve program delivery and streamline operations.” The open data portal is expected to launch this summer, the governor’s office said. “Making government data easily accessible benefits the public in many ways,” said Erik Arneson, executive director of the Office of Open Records. “Experience has shown that a good state-level open data portal will lead to cost savings for the government, opportunities for businesses, and more information for citizens.” Philadelphia and a western Pennsylvania group -- including Pittsburgh, Allegheny County and the University of Pittsburgh -- had open data initiatives before the state executive order. At the federal level, Democratic and Republican members of Congress last week unveiled legislation to require the government to share data by default (see 1604140027).
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., joined Communications Workers of America members who rallied in New York City Monday. Schumer is a member of Democratic leadership expected to take over as the top Democrat in the next Congress. Several participants released photos of Schumer speaking at the New York City rally. Schumer joined a rally of CWA workers in January expressing solidarity in their contract negotiations with Verizon (see 1601250057). A New York Public Service Commission spokesman told us Friday the commission hasn't received any consumer complaints about Verizon due to the strike. CWA President Chris Shelton was among members rallying in civil disobedience in Washington Monday outside the Capitol building, CWA said in a news release. Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vt., joined another CWA protest Sunday. The union has endorsed Sanders for the Democratic nomination for president. “You’re standing up for justice, and I applaud what you’re doing!” Sanders said in brief remarks to protestors, according to video of his appearance. Former President Bill Clinton also spoke to CWA picket line workers, according to another photo circulating on social media.
Mobile backhaul company Siklu is in talks with several communities about municipal broadband projects in which it can install millimeter wave radios to wirelessly extend the reach of fiber, Director-Business Development Boris Maysel said in an interview. “There is a huge demand in municipal broadband,” Maysel said. “There is a deep understanding that broadband is the railways or airports of the 21st century, so they need to invest in broadband in order to retain businesses and attract new businesses.” Siklu’s model is to partner with a city and a private ISP responsible for operating the muni network, he said. Earlier this month, the company announced a muni broadband project in Santa Cruz, California, where it will connect radios to existing fiber from independent ISP Cruzio to provide 1 Gbps speeds wirelessly (see 1604050021). Siklu chose Santa Cruz after searching for a city with a service provider where it could “showcase” millimeter wave technology on top of an existing fiber network, Maysel said. Siklu plans to roll out its radios over the next 10 weeks to 17 locations in Santa Cruz, he said. The locations include public housing, community centers and business locations, and the wireless network will cover most of downtown, he said. It's Siklu’s first public-private partnership on muni broadband, and the company plans to unveil projects in additional communities soon, he said. Siklu uses millimeter wave technology to provide multi-gigabit speeds over wireless, which costs less than connecting fiber to each premise in the last mile. Millimeter wave takes advantage of large capacities at super-high frequencies. For example, from 57 to 64 GHz, there is 7 gigahertz of unlicensed spectrum, “which is more than all the unlicensed bands put together in lower frequencies,” Maysel said. The technology is free of interference due to the narrowness of the antennas, he said. The FCC is looking at ways to release more spectrum in the millimeter wave bands (see 1604130062).
News organizations opposed two Louisiana state bills that would restrict newsgathering by drone. State Senate bills 124 and 141 would make it criminal trespass to fly drones over private property without first obtaining the owner’s permission. In a letter to state Sen. Daniel Claitor (R), the news organizations said that "it will be daunting, if not impossible, for journalists to obtain the 'express permission' from a wide range of 'immovable property' owners, as the bill requires, especially during breaking news events.” The letter was signed by The Associated Press, the Radio Television Digital News Association, the Society of Professional Journalists and several other media organizations.
New York state officials urged the FCC to ensure a Connect America Fund auction keeps broadband subsidies allocated to the states where they were declined by price-cap telcos. They said they are concerned the $28.4 million in CAF Phase II funds for New York could be redistributed to other states. "These funds are critical for the deployment of broadband services in the New York communities affected by Verizon's 2015 decision to decline Phase II model-based funding," said Howard Zemsky, CEO of Empire State Development (ESD), and Audrey Zibelman, chairwoman of the state Public Service Commission, in a letter posted Thursday in docket 10-90. The ESD is managing a state broadband program that will include an auction to distribute up to $500 million in funds to provide broadband service of at least 100 Mbps to unserved and underserved communities. The letter asked the FCC to "reconsider a nationwide auction plan and instead directly allocate CAF Phase II funds to those states that are prepared to disburse broadband funding directly." If not, the New York representatives said, the federal commission should at least provide bidding credits to carriers receiving state funds to deploy broadband to unserved and underserved areas, and to set an auction floor for each census block covered by CAF II.
Since the FCC seems to be leaning toward approving Charter Communications' buy of Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable with conditions, public interest groups are pushing for one such condition to be a "most favored state" clause that would guarantee that any conditions Charter agrees to in any given state would automatically be a federal regulatory condition as well. In a filing Thursday in docket 15-149, the groups said such a condition would carry minimal incremental costs to New Charter, since the New York Public Service Commission's approval (see 1601080048) already includes similar most-favored-state language. The New York condition specifically applies to line extensions, broadband speeds and stand-alone broadband pricing, the groups said, but also should apply to such issues as net neutrality, data caps, participation in the modernized Lifeline program, diverse programming, channel placement and nondiscrimination against rival sports programming. Charter didn't comment. The public interest groups in the filing are the Alliance for Community Media, Common Cause, the Consumers Union, the Greenlining Institute, the Media Alliance, the Open Media and Information Companies Initiative, New America's Open Technology Institute, Public Knowledge and the Writers Guild of America, West. A California Public Service Commission administrative law judge issued a proposed decision Tuesday that included a variety of California-centric conditions (see 1604130020).
Time Warner Cable CEO Rob Marcus signed on to a Human Rights Campaign open letter to Missouri House Speaker Todd Richardson in opposition to Senate Joint Resolution 39, which would prohibit the state from penalizing individuals or religious entities that refuse to take part in same-sex marriage ceremonies or provide goods or services for a same-sex marriage celebration, due to religious beliefs. In a blog post Wednesday, Marcus said, "Legislation like Missouri’s SJR39 and North Carolina’s HB2 are clearly bad for business, serving as a barrier to attracting and retaining the best talent and discouraging customers and potential customers from living and doing business in our markets. But equally importantly, this troubling trend of laws runs counter to our core values of diversity and inclusion." Also among those signing the letter were Brocade Communications Systems CEO Lloyd Carney, Bloomberg Chairman Peter Grauer and CTA CEO Gary Shapiro. Many other tech company leaders also signed the letter, and such companies have opposed actions in other states, saying they infringe on the rights of those who aren't heterosexual (see 1603240022).