Verizon is pitching a free month of YouTube TV, a Stream TV device and an Amazon smart home bundle in a promotion for Verizon 5G Home Internet, targeting customers in areas of Atlanta, Dallas, Denver and San Jose where service launches Nov. 5. Customers in parts of a dozen cities now have access to Verizon's 5G Home Internet. Nineteen cities, six stadiums and six airports have 5G Ultra Wideband, it noted. The Amazon bundle includes an Echo Show 5, Ring Stick Up Cam, Echo Dot and smart plug. The carrier is pitching the offering as “ideal for people working remotely, schooling at home or streaming their favorite shows.” Peak downloads are up to 1 Gbps, with typical download speeds of 300 Mbps. Service is $50 monthly for Verizon customers with a monthly mobile plan of $30 or more, $70 for non-Verizon customers. Customers can set up 5G Home Internet using “innovative new hardware” with augmented reality, Verizon said.
Amid travel restrictions, Savant created a virtual tour of its New York Experience Center for dealers to educate clients and designers about benefits of home control, lighting design and audio/video systems, said Angie Larson, a sales operation executive, on a Wednesday video call. Digital tours let the company handle far more tours, expanding on the “hundreds” it holds per year at the 8,000-square-foot space in the SoHo section of Manhattan. Using the virtual platform, the control company has tripled the number of tours it can accommodate, while attracting “an audience from all over the globe,” Larson told us. Savant’s TrueImage technology, used in its smartphone app, powers real-time changes inside the showroom, remotely, giving dealers a way to demonstrate technology in a showroom setting. “We’re trying to give dealers a resource when many of them can’t open their own showrooms,” Larson said.
The California Public Utilities Commission scheduled a three-part overhaul of the California Advanced Services Fund. The CPUC will first consider “the most time-sensitive issues,” including how to complement CASF with federal Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) support and data submission requirements, said a scoping memo by Commissioner Martha Guzman Aceves posted Monday. The commission plans to propose an RDOF decision Nov. 13 and vote in December, then propose a data decision Jan. 4 and vote in February, it said. A second phase would follow on “near-term program refinements.” CPUC staff plans to issue second-phase proposals in January, then the commission would issue a proposed decision in April and vote in May. Phase 3, starting in the second half of 2021, might include changes to several other CASF programs. The commission expects to propose a third-phase decision by the end of next year and vote in early 2022, the memo said.
Liberty Latin America's proposed buy of AT&T's wireline business in Puerto Rico would cut major fiber network operators on the island from three to two, hurting competition, DOJ said in a Clayton Act complaint Friday in U.S. District Court in Washington (docket 20-cv-03064). In a proposed final judgment, Justice said Liberty and AT&T agreed to a consent decree that would see Liberty selling assets including a fiber-based network it has in the San Juan area and other fiber assets across the rest of the island, plus retail fiber-based enterprise customer accounts and the right to pull fiber through Liberty's conduit. It said the agreement would give WorldNet Telecommunications an option to buy segments of AT&T's aerial fiber-based core network. "The divestiture will place WorldNet in the position to become a strong competitor in the provision of fiber-based connectivity and telecommunications services to enterprise customers throughout Puerto Rico," DOJ said. Liberty didn't comment. Its $1.95 billion deal for AT&T's wireline and wireless operations in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands was announced 12 months ago.
The Pennsylvania General Assembly passed a broadband bill to empower electric cooperatives to provide internet. The Senate voted 49-0 Wednesday for the House-passed HB-2438 to adjust easement rules so electric cooperatives may more easily use existing infrastructure to provide broadband. The House, which unanimously passed the bill in June (see 2006220044), voted 201-0 later Wednesday to concur with Senate amendments. Gov. Tom Wolf (D) didn't comment Thursday. The Louisiana State Legislature passed HB-74 to create a state broadband office (see 2010070023). The House voted 96-0 Wednesday to concur with Senate amendments after senators voted 33-0 earlier in the day. Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) "will review the final version of the bill before he makes a decision on if he will sign it," a spokesperson said Thursday.
Samsung estimates a billion telehealth visits globally by Dec. 31. It's teaming with Medicare and Medicaid services provider Meridian to expand access to telehealth in rural and underserved localities in Michigan, the two companies said Wednesday.
T-Mobile appreciates the proposed decision of the California Public Utilities Commission to partly modify the mid-April order clearing the carrier to buy Sprint, a T-Mobile spokesperson emailed Friday. The carrier is “particularly pleased” it would “correct the three- and six-year benchmark dates for measurement of our speed commitments to 2023 and 2026,” the spokesperson said. Commissioners may vote Nov. 19 on the proposal that would deny the carrier’s other requested changes on job and speed conditions (see 2010160059). T-Mobile declined further comment Monday whether the carrier will continue to challenge those requirements.
The California Public Utilities Commission may mostly deny T-Mobile’s request to modify conditions from the agency’s mid-April order clearing the carrier to buy Sprint (see 2007230050). Under a proposed decision Friday in docket A.18-07-011, the CPUC would grant the carrier’s request for more time to comply with network deployment and performance conditions, but Administrative Law Judge Karl Bemesderfer rejected on procedural grounds the carrier challenging a condition to hire 1,000 more employees. T-Mobile needed to file an application for rehearing but missed the deadline, Bemesderfer said. The CPUC would decline to change another challenged condition that T-Mobile comply with the agency’s CalSpeed program. “While we recognize that there is a possibility of conflict between state and federal performance standards, we find that the benefits of measuring T-Mobile’s compliance with California-specific conditions with the CalSPEED test outweigh the possible inconvenience of having the same activity measured two different ways,” wrote Bemesderfer. Commissioners may vote on the proposal at their Nov. 19 meeting. T-Mobile couldn’t be reached for comment.
The FCC Wireline Bureau provided guidance on new districtwide budgets for category two E-rate services. “Beginning in funding year 2021, we will permit charter schools to demonstrate that they are individually responsible for their finances and administration even when they are legally part of a school district under state law whether for category two budget or discount rate purposes,” said the public notice in Thursday's Daily Digest. Staff clarified that school districts “are to count each full-time student in the district one time when calculating their district-wide budget.” Recognizing that enrollment has been affected by COVID-19, the bureau will “permit applicants to provide their full-time enrollment numbers from their funding year 2020 FCC Form 471 applications” in the 2021 funding year.
Google Fiber is “ready to come back out of the shadows” and expand into more mid-sized cities, Public Policy Head John Burchett said Wednesday. On a Fiber Broadband Association webinar, Burchett acknowledged the once-hyped ISP slowed down in 2016. “We got out ahead of our skis and were building in ways that ended up not being the most profitable,” he said. It paused new construction and spent the past few years “figuring out how to retool our business,” he said. Earlier this year, it began increasing construction in existing markets, while exploring new business models with municipalities in which Google won’t handle everything as it did before, he said. In a project announced in July with West Des Moines, Iowa, the city is building conduit to people’s homes and Google Fiber will be among the provider options, Burchett said. “We’re talking to a bunch of other cities,” with talks furthest along in places that had already been thinking about how to expand broadband, have money for bonding and have municipally owned utilities, he said. Google seeks to “catalyze a movement” of “third network providers,” said Burchett. “What we’d like to do is show it’s financially viable and you can be successful coming in as the competitor.” The strategy isn’t only about getting internet to places that don’t have it “but also having competition so that the existing carriers and the new carriers are always incentivized to increase their speeds.” State limits on municipal broadband remain a barrier, the representative said. “All the restrictions on municipalities and on utilities for providing broadband themselves drives me nuts.” The ISP has talked to several cities that want to collaborate, “but the state laws ... prohibit muni broadband or put ridiculous restrictions on them” that make “a really close-call economic project infeasible.” National focus on funding unserved and underserved areas makes it “really hard for anybody but the incumbents to do meaningful expansions using federal resources," he added.