Fifteen Minnesota communities will share $11 million in grants as a part of the state's Department of Employment and Economic Development's Border-to-Border Broadband Development Grant Program, said a Friday news release. The department received 44 applications for funding, totaling more than $29 million in requests, and recipients were selected based on an internal review and scoring process, it said. The grants are expected to improve access to high-speed broadband for 3,222 households, 786 businesses and nearly 90 community institutions, it said. The program’s first round of funding awarded $19.4 million to 17 communities in February, said the department.
Communications Workers of America members and East Coast supporters protested at dozens of Verizon Wireless stores Thursday, demanding fair labor contracts, said a CWA news release. The rallies were a day after the National Labor Relations Board authorized issuance of a complaint against Verizon for violating federal labor laws when it fired a member "in an attempt to silence and terrify Brooklyn Verizon Wireless workers," the union said Thursday. CWA members working for Verizon have been without a new contract since August (see 1508030061). Since then, CWA has released radio and TV ads slamming Verizon (see 1508070029), asked state commissions to review what the union calls the company's lack of action on wireline upkeep (see 1511160039) and held rallies (see 1508130024). A Verizon spokesman Friday called the latest action another "agenda-driven attempt by the CWA" to divert attention from the "real" work that needs to be done at the bargaining table: "If the CWA truly wants to look out for its members, they should work with us on achieving a new contract that’s good for our employees, fair to our customers and puts the company on a path toward success.”
Duke Energy said it "will vigorously challenge" Comcast’s complaint to the FCC (see 1511190006) alleging the utility is denying the cable operator access to its poles in Indiana, hurting broadband deployment. Duke will file a response to the complaint soon, the company emailed us Thursday. "Duke Energy has spent $1.3 million to correct numerous improper line and equipment installations on Duke Energy utility poles by Comcast -- installations that represented serious safety hazards and violations of the National Electrical Safety Code." The utility said the cable operator made more than 20,000 unauthorized line and equipment installations on the utility's poles in Indiana and noted Duke's lawsuit against Comcast over pole-attachment cost recovery is pending.
Since 2013, 20 million more students have been connected to broadband at the FCC's minimum access goal of 100 kbps per student, said EducationSuperHighway in its inaugural State of the States report. That year, only 30 percent of schools met the FCC's goal, but now 77 percent of school districts do, the study said. In 2013, 300,000 teachers had the tools they needed, now 1.7 million teachers have the broadband they need to keep up in the 21st century, the paper said. The report tracks the progress of K-12 connectivity goals as established by the FCC. The information is based on application data from the FCC's Schools and Libraries Program and includes information from 6,781 public school districts, with more than 25 million students in about 49,000 schools in the 50 states, the report said. An analysis of the data found that school districts without fiber are 15 percent less likely to meet the FCC's connectivity goals and for the schools that meet the goal, the report said. EducationSuperHighway estimates it will cost about $1 billion to connect the remaining schools that don't have fiber, which it says is well within the E-rate program's budget.
Since the due date Sept. 30, FirstNet has received information from 54 states and territories -- including more than 11,600 public safety entities -- plus seven federal agencies through its formal data collection process, a blog post from the group said Thursday. The collection process, in coordination with NTIA’s State and Local Implementation Grant program, began in March and aimed to better understand how the public safety community uses mobile data communications, it said. The process was developed around coverage; users and operational areas; capacity planning; and current services and procurement vehicles.
Alaska Wireless Network (AWN) got an extension of the deadline for being capable of sending 911 texts to a public safety answering point, said a Thursday FCC Public Safety Bureau order. AWN has until Dec. 31, when it must submit a final certification that it's capable of sending texts to 911, the order said. The original deadline was Dec. 31, 2014. AWN, formed in a deal with Alaska Communications Systems and General Communication, had said it soon will be ready for texts to 911 (see 1511020050).
There's no digital mapping information about the Oklahoma historical map, which the FCC recently adopted as a way to distinguish between tribal and nontribal lands in the state, said the Oklahoma Corporation Commission in an ex parte filing with the federal agency posted Wednesday in docket 09-197. The Feb. 9 deadline doesn't provide enough time to alert affected customers of a coming change in Lifeline support, said OCC. To remedy the situation, it recommends the FCC extend the effective date to 90 days from the date digital mapping information is made available to those affected parties. The boundary changes will result in a 73 percent reduction in Lifeline support -- from $34.25 per month to $9.25 per month -- for a "considerable number" of program customers, the OCC said.
The Hawaii Public Utilities Commission approved a request by Charter Communications and Time Warner Cable to change the deadline to file rebuttals in the proceeding to approve transfer of control of TWC in docket 2015-0207, said an order from the PUC filed Monday and posted Tuesday. The deadline was originally Nov. 5, but the PUC extended it to Thursday.
About 96 percent of New York City residents own cellphones, and 80 percent own smartphones, said a study from the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs. The study was sponsored by Capital One and the MetLife Foundation and aimed to "analyze the needs, barriers, and opportunities to increase financial inclusion through mobile financial services use." The study also showed that 66.5 percent of city residents who had no income still have smartphones. Mobile phone usage and ownership varied a little by banking status, with about 95 percent of banked respondents reported owning a cellphone, 79 percent of whom owned a smartphone, the study said. The report said, "Someone who is 'underbanked' has a bank or credit union account but also uses alternative financial services such as a check cashing service, money order, payday loan, pawnshop loan, reloadable prepaid debit card, or payroll card from an employer." About 90 percent of unbanked respondents owned a cellphone, with 73 percent reporting having a smartphone, and 98 percent of the underbanked owning a cellphone, 80 percent of whom had a smartphone, it said. Immigrant respondents and those who were between the ages of 18 and 29 were among the highest groups to have a smartphone, at 93 percent and 94 percent respectively.
For FirstNet to succeed in Michigan, it’s important to have teamwork among all public safety entities and it’s imperative that cybersecurity concerns be addressed, stakeholders said at the state’s Initial Consultation Meeting with FirstNet earlier this year, FirstNet said in a blog post. More than 100 stakeholders from local, state and tribal entities in Michigan met in East Lansing. For the purpose of outreach, Michigan maintains ongoing involvement with a number of organizations, including the APCO Broadband Committee, Michigan’s Public Safety Communications Interoperability Board, the National Association of State 911 Administrators, the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council, the Public Safety Communications Research Program and the State 911 Committee, the post said.