The Texas Statewide Communications Interoperability Coordinator’s office sent a survey to stakeholders Tuesday to collect input on FirstNet in preparation for its first consultation meeting with FirstNet officials, set for Feb. 11-12. “The goal of the initial consultation is to provide FirstNet with a better understanding of the Texas public safety data communications landscape and challenges,” said Deputy Statewide Interoperability Coordinator Karla Jurrens in an email to stakeholders. Stakeholders who fill out the survey will also be able to submit a question for FirstNet officials to answer during the consultation meeting, Jurrens said.

The FCC has “the authority and the duty” to pre-empt state taxes on Lifeline benefits, such as the 19 percent tax imposed in Alabama (see 1408040048) and the 6 percent tax in Indiana, TracFone officials told Chairman Tom Wheeler, aides Daniel Alvarez and Maria Kirby, and Associate Wireline Bureau Chief Trent Harkrader Friday, said an ex parte filing posted Friday in docket 11-42. State officials in Alabama didn't comment. The FCC lacks the authority to pre-empt Indiana’s 911 charge, a spokesman for the Indiana Attorney General’s office told us in a statement. “Contrary to TracFone’s claims, Indiana’s 911 charge does not reduce the benefit received by TracFone customers but instead funds enhanced 911 dispatching services which are essential to public safety,” the spokesman said. A November 2013 FCC notice of apparent liability for $4.6 million should be canceled, company President F.J. Pollak; General Counsel Richard Salzman; Mark Rubin, senior executive-government relations; and Greenberg Traurig’s Mitchell Brecher told the FCC. TracFone said no laws were violated and there was no overpayment to the company. TracFone also endorsed a number of Lifeline reforms, including requiring providers to retain and make available for audit applicants’ eligibility documentation.

The Missouri House’s HB-437 is the latest “attempt to erect barriers to the deployment of broadband networks,” the Coalition for Local Internet Choice said Monday. The bill, introduced Thursday, would bar any municipality from offering broadband or other competitive services unless the municipality already offers the service, a private company isn’t offering the service within the municipality’s boundaries, the service would have an annual fiscal impact of less than $100,000 or a majority of voters approve the service offering. “It is ironic that while the International CES show in Las Vegas spotlighted hundreds of new devices and applications that require big bandwidth, legislation would be introduced in Missouri that would impair the development of networks that enable that bandwidth,” CLIC said in a statement. HB-437 “is about fairness,” Rep. Rocky Miller, the Republican who sponsored the bill, emailed us. “This bill is meant to even the playing field and eliminate socialized/non-commercial services provided by municipalities. I simply want to vote to allow for my city to provide a service if that service is already being provided by another company.” Miller said the bill would prevent “unfair competition” and still lets municipalities offer services if voters approve them. Missouri law restricts all political subdivisions from providing certain telecom services but exempts 911 and “Internet-type” services.

The California Department of Education (DOE) awarded almost $27 million in Broadband Infrastructure Improvement Grant (BIIG) funds Wednesday to 227 of the state’s public schools. The California Legislature approved BIIG funding in June to help recipient schools improve their broadband Internet connections so they would be capable of administering the state-mandated online Smarter Balanced Field Test to students in the third through eighth grades and high school juniors. “These state grants provide the critical last step needed to connect an additional 63,000 students to the state education network that will give them access to technology, which will prepare them for college and careers, and let them take the new computer-based California assessments,” state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson said in a news release. The DOE selected the recipients from a list of more than 300 schools identified as having the most problematic Internet connections. Thirty-two of the recipient schools are in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Other major city school districts receiving funding are Oakland and San Diego, the state DOE said.

South Dakota’s state government gave TeleCommunication Systems (TCS) a $16.4 million contract to provide the state’s Next-Generation 911 (NG911) services over the next five years, TCS said Thursday. TCS will provide end-to-end support for the state’s 29 public safety answering points through the contract under the South Dakota 911 Coordination Board’s supervision. TCS said it will support text-to-911 capability statewide via carriers that interconnect with the company’s Text Control Center. “Our goal is consistent with the goal of the South Dakota 911 Coordination Board: to protect South Dakota residents by equipping PSAPs with the right technology and tools to quickly and efficiently respond to 9-1-1 calls,” Lynne Seitz, TCS senior vice president-Safety & Security Group, said in a news release.

Oceus Networks and Fujitsu Network Communications are partnering with PMC Associates to build the JerseyNet first responder network for New Jersey, Oceus said Wednesday. JerseyNet will give public safety users priority access and a resilient 4G LTE network, Oceus said. PMC Associates will provide integration and support services for the network, while Oceus will supply its Xiphos Responder as the network’s LTE core and the network’s radio access network. Fujitsu will design, build and manage the wireless and wireline backhaul portions of the network, Oceus said. “New Jersey is the first state in the country to implement deployable networks utilizing Cells on Wheels (COWs) and Systems on Wheels (SOWs),” Bryan Casciano, PMC vice president-sales, said in a news release. “The networks will be capable of delivering data to boost existing communications or provide communications where existing nodes have been compromised, in some of the most congested areas in the U.S.”

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday that he is ending the city’s ban on cellphones in its public schools. De Blasio said the city will offer a variety of policy options that individual schools can choose to adopt, which may range from allowing cellphone use in some classes for instructional purposes to requiring students to store cellphones during the school day. The new policies will replace the ban on March 2, de Blasio said during a news conference. De Blasio promised during his 2013 mayoral campaign to end the ban, which he said had been unpopular among parents since previous Mayor Michael Bloomberg implemented it in 2006. “The policy of the previous administration was simply out of touch with modern parenting,” de Blasio said. “We’re now going to make this a policy that works with parents.” De Blasio noted that schools were enforcing the ban unevenly and that some students were forced to pay for cellphone storage, which Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer said in a statement “amounted to a regressive tax.” The New York City Parents Union praised de Blasio’s announcement, saying in a statement that “we will feel more comfortable knowing we can keep in contact with our children while they are commuting to school.” Council of School Supervisors & Administrators President Ernest Logan said in a statement that “our collective priority is educating students in a safe and secure environment. We hope these new policies do not undermine that goal.”

The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service said Friday it will mediate renewed negotiations that were slated to begin Sunday between FairPoint Communications and leaders from the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) to resolve an ongoing strike of more than 1,700 FairPoint workers in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. The strike, which began in October after negotiations for a new contract broke down, has prompted complaints about FairPoint’s service quality in the three states and criticism from the states’ congressional delegations. “This is a positive step and we look forward to resuming negotiations with FairPoint,” IBEW Local 2327 Business Manager Peter McLaughlin, head of the unions’ bargaining committee, said in a statement Friday. “It’s time to reach a fair deal for working families and communities in New England.” FairPoint “remains willing to listen to reasonable union proposals that ensure the company's ability to compete,” a company spokeswoman said.

Colorado Attorney General John Suthers’ office reached a $2 million settlement with Dish Network stemming from the state’s investigation of Dish’s sales practices, it said Friday. Suthers’ office began investigating Dish in 2011 after consumer complaints about price increases. “Customers were upset to see their price raised after Dish sales agents pledged contract rates were 'locked in,' 'frozen,' or 'guaranteed' and in some cases that prices would never change," Suthers, a Republican, said in a news release. Rates that were supposed to be locked in for two years increased by an average of $5 per month during the second year of a contract, Suthers’ office said. Of the $2 million settlement, $1 million will go toward Colorado’s general fund, while the other $1 million will go into the state attorney general’s office’s custodial fund, which the office uses to fund consumer protection work. Dish also agreed to revise its sales disclosures nationwide to say the company reserves the right to raise prices at its discretion, Suthers’ office said. Dish said in a statement that it is pleased to have resolved Colorado’s investigation even though the company disagreed with the state’s claims.

Comcast and Time Warner Cable agreed last week to extend the deadline for the New York Public Service Commission to complete its review of the proposed Comcast/TWC deal. The PSC previously had faced a Dec. 31 deadline for completing its review, but didn’t vote on whether to approve the deal during its last regular 2014 meeting Dec. 11 (see 1412090048). The PSC must now vote on the deal by Jan. 22 and issue a final order by Jan. 27, Comcast said in a filing.