Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear’s office confirmed he hadn’t signed HB-152 by our deadline Friday but said he intends to do so. The bill, which would significantly reduce the Kentucky Public Service Commission’s authority to regulate wireline service and would end its oversight of consumers’ broadband and wireless complaints, passed the state Senate 30-3 March 2. The House approved the bill Feb. 24 on a 71-25 vote (see 1502250022). Beshear, a Democrat, already had indicated he'll sign the bill, which also would allow major telcos to end traditional wireline service in jurisdictions with more than 15,000 households provided the FCC clears the conversion to an all-wireless or VoIP replacement. The PSC would retain full jurisdiction over wholesale issues, carrier-to-carrier issues and anti-competitive telecom practices.
Bright House Networks said it plans to begin offering 300 Mbps download/15 Mbps upload broadband speeds in its Florida service area beginning later this month. BHN’s service area includes the Tampa Bay metropolitan area and the Central Florida region. The 300/15 speed tier will allow the state's Bright House customers to “more easily access and use other applications that require high bandwidth,” the company said Friday. “We continually look for ways to provide the best available choices to our customers,” said Executive Vice President-Cable Operations Kevin Hyman in a news release. “Just a few months ago, we increased our maximum bandwidth offering to 150 Mbps.”
Media Alliance urged opponents of the proposed Comcast/Time Warner Cable (TWC) deal to speak against the merger during the California Public Utilities Commission’s March 12 meeting. The meeting is the last open CPUC session before the commission’s planned March 26 vote on its review of the deal. Media Alliance Executive Director Tracy Rosenberg was one of several public interest advocates who urged the CPUC to reject the deal during an all-party meeting Feb. 25 (see 1502260060). Several community representatives spoke in favor of Comcast/TWC during a public comment period before parties in the review presented their arguments, which Media Alliance said Tuesday was a Comcast-orchestrated demonstration. “We must turn around the parade of Comcast-funded cheerleaders and make sure the Commission hears from real people not on Comcast's payroll,” Media Alliance said.
The Institute for Local Self-Reliance urged people to contact members of Congress to oppose GOP municipal broadband legislation. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and House Commerce Committee Vice Chairwoman Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., introduced the States’ Rights Municipal Broadband Act (S-597/HR-1106) Thursday to stop the FCC from pre-empting state laws restricting municipal broadband networks. It has eight co-sponsors in the House, all Republican, and none in the Senate. The Institute for Local Self-Reliance called Tillis and Blackburn a “Dystopian duo” and slammed their effort. “If Blackburn and Tillis are so convinced the FCC is overstepping, why not let the matter be decided in the courts?” the group said in a Monday blog post. “They know the law is not on their side, that's why.” House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., suspects the bill “may” move through the full Commerce Committee. “There’s even a constitutional Tenth Amendment question as to whether Congress has the authority to do this,” Walden said during an episode of C-SPAN’s The Communicators shown this weekend. “I think that [the FCC municipal broadband] order will get struck down by the courts. … I’d rather leave this up to the states to decide.”
Telecom-related complaints were among the top consumer issues that attorneys general in Illinois and Michigan dealt with in 2014, offices for the AGs said separately Monday. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s office said it received 2,162 telecom-related complaints during 2014, its third-most-frequent issue during the year. Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette’s office said it received almost 1,000 telecom-related complaints during 2014, again making telecom its third-most-frequent issue. Both offices said telecom-related issues included robocalls, telemarketing and cable/satellite services. Madigan, a Democrat, identified data breaches as a rising threat in Illinois, with her office receiving 2,617 complaints about such breaches and other identity theft problems during 2014. Madigan is pushing legislation from state Sen. Daniel Biss and state Rep. Ann Williams, both Democrats, that's designed to strengthen Illinois’ existing Personal Information Protection Act. Schuette, a Republican, said ransomware and mobile payment systems scams are developing into emerging threats in Michigan.
Officials from Wilson, North Carolina, didn’t tell Commissioner Mike O’Rielly they “could live with” their state’s restrictions on municipal broadband, the city’s attorney, Jim Baller of Baller Herbst, said in a letter to the commissioner posted Monday in FCC docket 14-115. O’Rielly related the conversation in his remarks at Thursday’s commission meeting, when the agency pre-empted North Carolina’s and Tennessee’s anti-municipal broadband laws (see 1502260030). Wilson officials said they told O’Rielly that even if the law were removed, the city would still have to comply with a number of requirements that existed before it went into place, and that the city could live with those requirements, the letter said. O’Rielly responded in a letter Monday to the docket. The meeting with Wilson officials included more general discussions that a number of anti-municipal broadband rules seemed reasonable, he said. O’Rielly said a Wilson official said that they could live by such rules as public hearing and voting requirements.
The New York City Department of Education began allowing students Monday to carry cellphones and other mobile devices into city public schools. The move came after a rulemaking by the Department of Education’s Panel for Educational Policy last week that allowed cellphone use in city schools in accordance with rules set by individual schools. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, announced an end to the city’s ban on in-school cellphone use in early January (see 1501070037).
The New York Public Service Commission extended the deadline for its review of the proposed Comcast/Time Warner Cable (TWC) deal, with Comcast saying in a letter to the PSC that the commission is now expected to issue a final order on the deal by March 19. The PSC had been expected to vote by Thursday and had previously planned to issue a final order by March 3 (see 1501210058).
Comcast and other telcos related to the proposed Comcast/Time Warner Cable (TWC) deal urged the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) Wednesday to approve CPUC Administrative Law Judge Karl Bemesderfer’s proposed decision approving the deal, but asked the commission to modify multiple conditions included in the proposed decision to make them less onerous. Most public interest advocates who spoke at an all-party meeting on the deal Wednesday in San Francisco, including the Greenlining Institute, Media Alliance and The Utility Reform Network, urged the commission to vote against the deal entirely (see 1502190054). One notable exception was the California Emerging Technology Fund, represented by former FCC Commissioner and CPUC Commissioner Rachelle Chong, who said the CPUC should approve the deal with changes that strengthen conditions related to Comcast’s Internet Essentials program and broadband deployment. Several public interest advocates raised concerns about the CPUC’s ability to enforce conditions in the proposed decision, while California Association of Competitive Telecommunications Companies Executive Director Sarah DeYoung said the commission should create a separate proceeding post-deal to specifically monitor that Comcast is abiding by conditions included in the CPUC’s decision.
The Kentucky House passed HB-152 71-25 Tuesday to significantly reduce the Public Service Commission’s oversight of wireline service and completely end its jurisdiction over consumer wireless complaints and consumer broadband complaints. AT&T, Cincinnati Bell and Windstream no longer would be required to provide basic wireline phone service in most cities and major suburbs, including state capitol Frankfort and Lexington. The telcos instead could opt to provide basic service in those areas solely through wireless or VoIP, said the bill's text. Customers in rural areas can seek to retain wireline service, the bill said. HB-152, which requires state Senate approval via SB-3, would retain PSC jurisdiction over wholesale issues, carrier-to-carrier issues and anti-competitive telecom practices. State Rep. Rick Rand, a Democrat who sponsored HB-152, said in a speech prior to the vote that AT&T and other telcos are “asking us to allow them to move from old technology to new technology.” Rep. Chris Harris, a Democrat who voted against the bill, said during debate on the bill that he’s worried “that what we're doing here is leaving behind that section of the state … that our regulations were meant to protect -- poor, rural families who do not have lobbyists here to represent their interests.” Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear, a Democrat, endorsed HB-152 in a statement as “an important piece of legislation that strikes a right balance between providing consumer protection and creating economic development opportunities that result from robust broadband accessibility in communities all across the commonwealth.”