Cablevision said it signed a collective bargaining agreement with 260 of its Communications Workers of America-affiliated workers in Brooklyn. The agreement follows a National Labor Relations Board administrative law judge’s ruling in December that Cablevision and CEO James Dolan were guilty of violating several labor laws. The judge ruled Cablevision wasn't guilty of surface bargaining, saying the company had negotiated with CWA in good faith (see 1412050065). Cablevision didn’t disclose the terms of the agreement Friday, saying it still required ratification by the CWA-affiliated workers. “With this agreement, our focus in Brooklyn will continue to be providing the best connectivity and service to Cablevision customers,” Cablevision said. CWA Local 1109 President Tony Spina said in a statement that the union “looks forward to opening a new chapter in its relationship with Cablevision.”
The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) sought FCC clarification Thursday of an FCC official’s statement to the media during a Feb. 2 news briefing that Pennsylvania was one of three states that currently have full bans on municipal broadband deployment. The FCC believes states that have full bans -- the FCC official said the others were Montana and Nebraska -- won’t be affected by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s draft order that would grant commission pre-emption of municipal broadband laws in North Carolina and Tennessee in response to petitions from the Electric Power Board of Chattanooga and Wilson, North Carolina. The order would directly approve only the Chattanooga and Wilson petitions, but could set a precedent guiding how the FCC proceeds on future petitions (see 1502020037). “It is incorrect to group Pennsylvania with other states that may have statutorily instituted a ‘complete ban’ on the deployment of municipal broadband networks,” the PUC said in a filing. Pennsylvania’s municipal broadband law gives ILECs the right of first refusal when a municipality seeks to deploy broadband rather than completely banning such deployments, the PUC said. If the ILEC or an affiliate doesn’t agree within two months to provide broadband at speeds requested by a municipality, then the municipality is free to deploy broadband, the PUC said. State law also exempts municipal broadband networks and telcos that were in operation before Jan. 1, 2006, the PUC said in docket 14-116. The question of whether the Pennsylvania law "is or is not a flat ban is one that would be reviewed if there is a pre-emption petition coming out of" Pennsylvania, an FCC spokesman said.
Seventy-five NTIA-funded broadband projects in the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) and State Broadband Initiative (SBI) remained in the process of completion as of June 30, NTIA said in a report released Tuesday. An additional 205 BTOP and SBI projects had finished their project activities by June 30, the agency said. The 75 BTOP/SBI projects “continued to exceed” goals for connecting subscribers and community institutions during the quarter that ended June 30 “and to make progress toward the miles goal,” NTIA said. The 20 active BTOP projects connected more than 400 additional community institutions during the quarter, bringing the total number of connected institutions to 25,300 -- ahead of the 23,000-institution goal set for fiscal year 2014, NTIA said. BTOP grantees also deployed or upgraded more than 400 additional network miles for a total of more than 112,700 miles of new or upgraded lines, the agency said. All four recipients of NTIA public safety project grants that subsequently executed spectrum lease agreements with FirstNet -- the Adams County Communications Center in Colorado, the Los Angeles Regional Interoperable Communications System (LA-RICS) and the states of New Jersey and New Mexico -- have resumed network design and construction activities, NTIA said. The agency had suspended all seven public safety grants it had awarded in 2010, before FirstNet’s creation, to allow FirstNet to evaluate them. Three of the grantees didn’t reach spectrum lease agreements with FirstNet -- the city of Charlotte, North Carolina, the state of Mississippi, and Motorola. The Adams County Communications Center completed 40 percent of its fiber work and completed LTE installation at six sites by the end of the quarter, NTIA said. LA-RICS made progress on planning and design work during the quarter, the agency said. New Jersey finalized statements of work for key components in its deployable network, NTIA said. New Mexico built 24 tower sites and identified seven LTE sites, along with working on a request for proposals for additional LTE buildout issues, NTIA said. Charlotte’s project was active at the end of the quarter but was moving forward with modifications that don’t require access to FirstNet spectrum, NTIA said. Mississippi and Motorola were in the process of closing out their awards, NTIA said.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam said he disagrees with President Barack Obama’s backing of commission pre-emption of state municipal broadband laws. “State governments are in a much better position than Washington to weigh the potential costs and benefits” of municipal broadband,” Haslam, a Republican, said in a letter to the FCC posted Tuesday. The FCC is considering pre-emption petitions from the Electric Power Board of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Wilson, North Carolina, with most industry observers saying they expect the commission to approve both petitions at its Feb. 26 meeting. Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery, a Republican, urged the FCC not to grant the EPB petition, saying in a filing posted Friday that the state’s “interest in its control over municipal governments, including the extent to which those governments are given authority to provide utility services, must be respected.” Slatery and North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper are expected to take the lead in any legal challenge of FCC pre-emption (see 1502020048). Congress hasn’t empowered the FCC to pre-empt state law on municipal broadband, and Telecom Act Section 706 “is not an ‘unmistakably clear’ mandate to preempt state law,” Slatery said. Pre-emption would leave the EPB in “limbo,” as it would still lack state authorization to provide expanded broadband service, Slatery said. “It would still need further legislative authorization to expand its service territory beyond existing geographical boundaries.” South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson also expressed opposition to FCC pre-emption, saying in a filing posted Thursday that it “has no basis, either expressed or implied, in federal statutory law. It is, moreover, most likely unconstitutional as an infringement upon the State's police powers.”
President Barack Obama’s support for federal pre-emption of states’ municipal broadband restrictions, if enacted at the FCC Feb. 26, “would put [U.S.] broadband policy somewhere to the left of Europe,” said Center for Boundless Innovation in Technology Director Fred Campbell in a blog post Monday. The EU ruled last year that government-owned broadband networks harm competition when deployed alongside private networks, Campbell said. The EU subsequently issued a law that requires that broadband network investments “shall be undertaken primarily by the private sector, supported by a competitive and investment-friendly regulatory framework.” Municipal broadband networks like the one in Cedar Falls, Iowa, that Obama praised in January “would be presumptively illegal under EU law -- just as it would be under many of the state laws the President wants to overrule,” Campbell said.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is the latest organization supporting the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act (CalECPA), which would update the state's electronic privacy statutes. Legislation updating the federal statute related to email privacy was introduced last week (see 1502040045). CalECPA, written by Democratic state Sen. Mark Leno and Republican state Sen. Joel Anderson, reportedly goes further to protect individuals' privacy, as the proposal would view technologies not as a convenience, but devices that hold “the privacies of life,” said an EFF statement. If passed, law enforcement would have to obtain a search warrant before searching a mobile device or requiring a service provider to disclose electronic information. The bill would require transparency and oversight to ensure the law is followed and contains exceptions to the warrant requirement to ensure law enforcement can effectively and efficiently protect public safety. Others that support CalECPA include the American Civil Liberties Union of California, Center for Democracy and Technology, Dropbox, Facebook, Google, reddit, TechFreedom, Twitter and the World Privacy Forum.
NARUC will consider two telecom-related resolutions at a meeting in Washington later this month. One resolution would urge the FCC to “reaffirm” its commitment to working with state utility regulators on goals and directives in the commission’s November IP transition NPRM, which also asked about possible rules to ensure backup power reliability for dialing 911 and to ensure improved communication about the retirement of legacy facilities and services (see 1411210037). State regulators share responsibility with the FCC on 911 issues and several states are examining intrastate impacts of battery backup and copper retirement, NARUC said. The proposed resolution would ask the FCC to ensure that any rules adopted based on the IP transition NPRM don't diminish states’ authority on 911 or copper issues, and the federal commission should endorse states’ continued involvement on those issues. The resolution also would ask the FCC to require network providers to educate consumers on backup power requirements and would ask the commission to partner with states on educating consumers on backup power requirements. A second resolution would ask the FCC to “expeditiously approve” a November 2009 petition from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) that sought “direct access” for all states’ regulators to state-specific information in the FCC Network Outage Reporting System (NORS). The FCC hasn’t responded to the CPUC petition despite additional support from other states’ regulators, NARUC said in the proposed resolution. Giving states access to NORS data would be consistent with FCC precedent of sharing confidential data with state regulators and would ensure “rapid and effective coordination” of efforts to restore networks, the resolution said. NARUC’s board is to consider both resolutions Feb. 18 based on the recommendation of the group’s Telecom Committee and Staff Telecom Subcommittee. NARUC’s Consumer Affairs Committee also is expected to consider the resolution on the FCC IP transition NPRM.
The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) granted Uber a two-year license to operate in most of the state and approved the company’s compliance plan, Uber said Monday. Uber is barred from operating in Philadelphia, the PUC said. Conditions included in the compliance plan are meant to “ensure driver integrity, vehicle safety and insurance protections,” the PUC said. Unanimous PUC approval of Uber’s license means the company can continue to provide service through its uberX ride-hailing platform in Pittsburgh and expand into other areas of the state, Uber said. The company noted in a statement that state legislators “need to act this year to make this progress permanent.”
TechAmerica increased its grassroots advocacy partnerships 35 percent with the addition of new business councils, the trade group said in a news release Wednesday. The new partners are the California Technology Council, Howard Technology Council, Metroplex Technology Business Council, Nashville Technology Council, OCTANe and Wisconsin Technology Council, it said. They will join 17 technology councils that “affiliate on public policy advocacy and other activities to educate their member companies on national policy issues affecting their IT businesses,” it said. TechAmerica’s grassroots coalition claims more than 14,000 technology companies in more than 20 states, it said.
Broadband advocate statements praised Google's plan to deploy Google Fiber service to the Atlanta, Charlotte, Nashville and Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, metropolitan areas (see 1501270053). “Fiber is on fire,” said Fiber to the Home Council North America's President Heather Burnett Gold. “Communities must be planning/deploying gigabit infrastructure today in order to be part of the global economy tomorrow.” Google’s “enthusiasm and dedication in doing such demonstrates that communities across the country are willing to work to get high-speed Internet to their residents,” said the Coalition for Local Internet Choice. “We should encourage these efforts, not erect roadblocks to local choice.” Raleigh Chief Information and Community Relations Officer Gail Roper said deployment to Raleigh “is a foundation that will enable future generations to research, collaborate, and develop solutions beyond what we can imagine today.”