Adam Bender

State net neutrality laws will remain a critical fail-safe even if the current FCC can restore national rules, Democratic authors of California and Washington state measures told us this week. FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel announced this week the agency will pursue rules, saying a national policy is better than a state patchwork (see 2309270056 and 2309260047). Title II reclassification may give the FCC legal basis to preempt state laws, said some telecom law experts.

The California Public Utilities Commission’s top goal for transitioning its foster youth pilot into a permanent program "should be ensuring that few youth lose service during the program transition,” said iFoster, the nonprofit that led the pilot. In comments Tuesday in docket R.20-02-008, iFoster said it knows “many foster youth lose their service during transitions of service providers and program administrators.” For example, during the migration from Boost to T-Mobile, “only about 25% of the foster youth successfully transitioned,” it said. Major changes proposed by staff could make the transition complex, said iFoster. The plan “contains many fundamental changes,” including a transition of users to California LifeLine at age 18 instead of 26, more service providers and possible changes to eligibility requirements, said the nonprofit. Every transition from the pilot into LifeLine has failed so far, even when LifeLine approves foster youth as eligible, iFoster said. “As an example, a foster youth successfully transitioned to the LifeLine program, and received a new device. Two days later, the youth was notified of termination as the youth was deemed to already have [affordable connectivity program support] in the form of at-home Internet. This was not the case.” The Utility Reform Network supports making the pilot permanent to "reduce foster youth’s barriers to accessing LifeLine services, particularly for minors,” TURN commented. The CPUC sought comments earlier this month on the proposal to make the foster youth pilot permanent (see 2309050080). T-Mobile recently said it found data discrepancies with the pilot (see 2309130016).

Ohio must find a “long-term solution” to fund 988, said state Rep. Gail Pavliga (R) at an Ohio House Finance Committee hearing livestreamed Tuesday. Pavliga’s bipartisan HB-231 proposes a 10 cent fee on VoIP, wireline and wireless monthly bills and each retail sale of a prepaid wireless service in the state. The state has relied on federal funding for the mental health hotline, but that won’t last forever, said Pavliga. In its first year, Ohio's 988 program received 8,671 calls and 3,368 texts and chats per month, she noted. The committee didn’t vote.

A Maine proposal to save the state’s 207 area code from phone number exhaustion by combining Consolidated Communications’ multiple rate centers into one could be a model for the entire U.S., said Maine Public Utilities Commission telecom analyst Michael Johnson at a workshop Friday. "This is definitely a big undertaking and something very unique that we're working with Consolidated to possibly implement."

The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission granted multiple petitions to discontinue and abandon telecom services in the state at a livestreamed meeting Thursday. Commissioners voted 5-0 for petitions by Mitel Cloud Services, RCLEC and Mosaic Networx. Also, the PUC unanimously supported applications filed by Plenary Broadband Infrastructure and PBI PA AssetCo to provide telecom service as a competitive access provider. And the PUC voted 5-0 to approve an Entouch Wireless petition to partly relinquish its eligible telecom carrier designation in the area previously served by underlying carrier Verizon Wireless, and to remove AT&T as the company’s underlying carrier. Thursday was Commissioner Stephen DeFrank’s first meeting as PUC chairman, but he participated virtually because he said he had COVID-19. It was also Kimberly Barrow’s first meeting as commissioner. Commissioners elected her vice chair before the meeting. The Pennsylvania Senate confirmed Barrow last month (see 2308300037).

The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission properly decided that FirstEnergy charged unlawfully high pole-attachment rates to Verizon, a Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court majority decided Thursday. The PUC also appropriately determined the length of retroactive relief, despite Verizon’s arguments that refunds should go further back.

The narrow targeting of Maryland’s so-called tax on digital ad revenue may suggest it’s primarily a punishment that federal courts are permitted to review under the U.S. Tax Injunction Act (TIA), 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Julius Richardson said at oral argument Wednesday. The 4th Circuit is reviewing an appeal by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce of the March 2022 decision by the U.S. District Court in Baltimore to dismiss the Chamber’s challenge of the tax, plus the district court’s December dismissal of the Chamber’s challenge to the tax’s pass-through ban (case 22-2275). The 4th Circuit should remand all counts back to district court, argued the Chamber’s attorney Michael Kimberly of McDermott Will.

The Nebraska Public Service Commission is taking too long to help farmers needing precision agriculture capabilities, Commissioners Kevin Stocker and Christian Mirch said Tuesday. The Republicans said no in a 3-2 vote for an order seeking more feedback in a grantmaking case in which there has been confusion over funding. Later Tuesday, the PSC considered guidelines for leasing dark fiber owned by the state and political subdivisions.

A Pennsylvania Senate panel unanimously supported a kids’ social media bill while removing the original proposal’s private right of action. At a livestreamed hearing Tuesday, the Communications Committee voted by voice on a bipartisan basis for SB-22, which would amend the state’s mental health statute to add rules for minors on social platforms, with penalties for violations. It would require parental consent for anyone under 16 to open a social media account and prohibit data mining for any user under 18. Legislators crafted an amendment after months of negotiations with tech companies, said Vice Chair Kristin Phillips-Hill (R), the bill’s co-sponsor. It replaces a private right of action with exclusive enforcement by the state attorney general, revises the definition of a social media platform, elaborates on social media companies duties for age verification and tweaks the bill’s data mining section, she said. The bill doesn’t apply to e-commerce companies, said the vice chair, responding to a question by Sen. Frank Farry (R). “The data shows that far too many minors are struggling with mental health and that social media is a contributing factor,” said Phillips-Hill. The Computer and Communications Industry Association opposed the bill before the amendment, including because of the private right of action. CCIA declined to say Tuesday if the amendment addressed its concerns.

California legislators voted to require wireless eligibility for state broadband funds on the last day of their session Thursday. Wireless is a “reliable substitute … when it’s impossible to use fiber,” said Assembly Communications Committee Vice Chair Jim Patterson (R) in an interview Friday. The Utility Reform Network (TURN) prefers fiber and remains opposed.