The FCC's proposed rule in the effective competition proceeding will hurt consumers and lead to higher prices, said the Alliance for Community Media, American Community Television and the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors in a letter to the FCC posted Tuesday in docket 15-53. It will do so because no basic service tier of any cable provider will be subject to local rate regulation, the letter said. The commission should narrow the scope of this proceeding and ensure that any action taken doesn't impose additional burdens on local governments or subject consumers to higher prices, it said.

New Jersey Advocates for Immigrant Detainees, LatinoJustice PRLDEF and New York University School of Law Immigrant Rights Clinic applaud the New Jersey Department of Corrections for awarding a contract to an inmate calling service provider that will lower prison and jail phone rates to 4.4 cents per minute, cutting the rate by more than half, said a news release from NJAID. Currently, state facilities charge a flat rate of 13 cents per minute, and county jails charge as much as $8.50 for a 15-minute call, the release said. The new rates can take effect any time before Aug. 25, meaning once the transition to the new contract is finalized, the cost for a 15-minute phone call will be less than 75 cents, NJAID said.

Skyway Towers filed a lawsuit alleging that the town of Zanesville, Indiana, violated the Communications Act by rejecting the company's proposal to build a new cell tower on behalf of Verizon, said Dan Behuniak, CEO of Skyway Towers. He said the company proposed to build the 180-foot monopole with no lights in the one place it would be able to work, but the town council rejected the plan twice, with no "valid reason." The suit was filed April 20 with the 7th Circuit of the Indiana Northern District Court. The Communications Act requires that nothing be allowed to prohibit the "provision of personal wireless services." The town office didn't comment Monday.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation asked the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to close a loophole in the state’s warrant requirements for cellphones in an amicus brief filed last week, EFF Staff Attorney Andrew Crocker said in a blog post Monday. The court “issued a landmark decision” last year in Commonwealth v. Augustine, by requiring police to obtain a search warrant “before they can track individuals’ past movements using information from their cell phones,” Crocker said. Massachusetts courts have interpreted language in the decision as a loophole to let law enforcement collect cell site location information (CSLI) for a period of six hours or less without a warrant, Crocker said. The Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School and the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts helped the EFF file its brief, which said even small amounts of location data can be revealing and that Americans are entitled to an expectation of privacy.

FirstNet's board approved the framework of FirstNet’s proposed acquisition approach to deploy the nationwide public safety broadband network and authorized the release of a special notice requesting feedback on draft request for proposals (RFP) documents, during a special meeting Friday. The board also approved a third public notice seeking further comment on the definition and scope of the term “public safety entity” as used in FirstNet’s enabling legislation. It's important to continue consulting with the public safety community on these items, board members said during the meeting. “Today’s decisions by the FirstNet board continue the significant progress FirstNet is achieving toward our goal of implementing the nationwide public safety broadband network,” said Chairwoman Sue Swenson. FirstNet also decided at the meeting to finalize the special notice with draft RFP documents to reflect the board’s decisions and plans to release them Monday, with responses due within 90 days. The documents will be posted via Federal Business Opportunities. The prepublication version of the third notice will be posted on FirstNet’s website, with a 30-day comment period that begins after the notice is published in the Federal Register.

The Michigan House adopted a resolution asking the president, Congress and the FCC to rescind the net neutrality order, said a filing posted in FCC docket 14-28 Tuesday. The resolution urges Congress to continue efforts to pass legislation that would provide clear rules on Internet protection and not hinder investment in broadband, in place of the FCC's new rules.

General Communication Inc. is partnering with Ericsson to bring advanced, high-speed fixed and mobile connections to Alaska’s North Slope, GCI announced. GCI has 20 active towers so far and the only terrestrial fiber connection in Prudhoe Bay, it said. Construction and installation of the new advanced, high-speed wireless data network has begun and will include a total of nine sites stretching more than 3,738 square miles, GCI said. The new network will use LTE technology with data download speeds in excess of 30 Mbps, it said. This high-speed connectivity, it said, will support advancing oil field data requirements and improve overall oil field operations.

CenturyLink is helping the Utah Education and Telehealth Network create a network capable of carrying more than a full terabit of combined bandwidth to 1,412 schools and educational locations in Utah, CenturyLink said Monday in a news release. Of those facilities, 832 already are equipped with CenturyLink fiber-enabled broadband service, providing speeds to 100 Gbps, the telco said. In addition to connecting about 60 percent of Utah schools to UETN’s network, CenturyLink said it's the largest provider of gigabit services to residential and business customers in the Salt Lake City metropolitan area and the state of Utah.

Backers of the NextRadio FM-in-smartphones app hailed the Indiana State Senate’s adoption Thursday of a resolution urging wireless carriers to activate the FM receiver chips in their handsets, the backers said in a Friday statement. NextRadio’s prime mover, Emmis Communications, is based in Indianapolis. The resolution “focused on the need for Indiana residents to have direct access from their smartphones to the emergency information broadcasts of local radio stations,” NextRadio’s backers said: “Activating the FM receiver in smartphones would provide immediate access to a radio in the device most residents currently carry even in the event that wireless data networks become unavailable or overwhelmed.” Except for Sprint, they said, major U.S. wireless carriers “have not taken steps to activate the FM chip in the smartphones they sell, and as they profit from the consumer data usage of streaming media, do not feel compelled to provide a free alternative.” NextRadio launched an “awareness campaign” in February with NAB support to trumpet that FM chips already are built into most new smartphones and need only to be permitted by the carrier and activated with the handset maker (see 1502200041) .

Cox Communications said it increased download and upload speeds for its High Speed Internet Essential and Internet Starter services in its Connecticut and Rhode Island markets. The High Speed Internet Essential download speed is now 15 Mbps, up from 5 Mbps. The Internet Starter download speed is now 5 Mbps, up from 1 Mbps, Cox said Friday. The company said it also plans to increase its maximum available download speeds, currently set at 150 Mbps, at an undefined time later this year. “Cox has now increased Internet speeds for eleven consecutive years as a result of our investment in our network and commitment to offer access and choice to our customers," regional manager Jay Allbaugh said in a news release.