A bill that would make it easier for Colorado telcos to be excused from carrier-of-last resort (COLR) obligations was among five broadband bills approved by the state House and Senate Monday. Under HB-1331 (http://tinyurl.om/o2fse9x), sponsored by Democratic state Rep. Angela Williams and supported by CenturyLink, the Public Utilities Commission would also no longer have regulatory authority over basic local exchange service in areas deemed competitive, setting the stage for telcos to no longer provide landline service within two years (CD March 19 p12). In areas not deemed competitive, and where the PUC provides support, providers would still be subject to COLR obligations, but could meet the obligation by providing voice service through any technology, not just traditional landlines. Among the other measures passed in Colorado were HB-1329 (http://bit.ly/1kaR4yK), which removes the PUC’s authority over IP services and HB 1328 (http://bit.ly/1rJZz9Q), which shifts the state’s high-cost support mechanism to a new fund for expanding broadband services in underserved areas.

Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad said he was disappointed by the defeat Friday of Iowa House File 2472 (http://bit.ly/1flQXo6), which would have provided incentives to expand broadband in the state’s underserved areas. “Increased access and adoption of broadband would help Iowa businesses grow and bring more jobs to the state, but Iowa House Democrats were more interested in election year politics than they were in passing good public policy,” Branstad said in a statement. The measure could be reconsidered before the legislature adjourns as early as Tuesday. The Connect Every Iowan Act would have exempted broadband equipment and infrastructure installed or constructed in unserved or underserved areas from property taxes until Dec. 31, 2018. It would have also allowed private providers to buy unused Iowa Communications Network bandwidth at wholesale rates in unserved or underserved areas. It would have allowed the private sector to build off of the ICN to serve retail customers, such as homes, businesses and local governments, Branstad’s office said. Democratic leaders were not immediately available for comment.

The sponsor of a California Senate bill that would have required smartphones in the state to come with a theft-deterring “kill switch” said he will try again after SB-962 (http://bit.ly/1puAfHp) failed in a 19-17 floor vote Thursday. The bill could be brought back up for reconsideration by the end of May, said Democratic Sen. Mark Leno in a news release. The measure would have required all smartphones sold in California to come pre-equipped with technology to render the device useless if stolen. It was prompted by concerns about an increase in smartphone thefts. San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón in a joint release with Leno called Thursday’s vote “disheartening given the level of victimization.” The vote was praised by the CTIA, which had opposed the measure. Its news release cited an April 15 announcement (http://bit.ly/1mcQOmq) of the “Smartphone Anti-Theft Voluntary Commitment” (CD April 17 p10), in which several companies said new models of smartphones manufactured after July 2015 will have a preloaded or downloadable tool that would wipe out the authorized user’s personal data if reported lost or stolen. It would also render the smartphone inoperable to unauthorized users and prevent reactivation without the user’s permission. Leno criticized the proposal because customers would have to “opt-in” by activating the feature.

Maine Gov. Paul LePage vetoed Legislative Document-1479 (http://bit.ly/1erkbfp), which would have required that any Public Utilities Commission decision on a $67.6 million-a-year public subsidy sought by FairPoint Communications (CD April 10 p30) be confirmed by the legislature. FairPoint had sought the subsidy from the Maine USF to continue providing landline service in the state. Companies like AT&T, CTIA, Sprint, U.S. Cellular and Virgin Mobile complained about FairPoint drawing from a fund the competitors pay into. The bill also would have delayed any Maine USF payment for at least a year. In his veto message, LePage, a Republican, said he’s not in favor of granting the annual average $51.54 surcharge increase that’s needed to pay for the subsidy. Delaying the increase for a year would not solve the problem, he said Wednesday, urging the legislature to do the “hard work to overhaul public policy. ... This is one of the clearest examples of simply punting a hard issue until after the election.” LePage said the bill abrogates the legislature’s taxing authority by not providing direction to the PUC. He said the state’s provider of last resort law is “antiquated,” and the legislature should either decide how to fund the requirement to provide landline service or get rid of the requirement. A PUC spokesman said a decision on FairPoint’s request is expected in late July.

Verizon New Jersey hailed a New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) decision authorizing a stipulation agreement (http://bit.ly/1nrHT3b) that critics (http://bit.ly/ROz1bh) say eases a requirement on the company to provide high-speed Internet in all areas of the state. The agreement stems from a BPU March 2012 order that Verizon show it had complied with a 1993 agreement, in which the board excused the telco from traditional rate base regulation in return for accelerating its broadband development in the state. Verizon’s 2012 response said it had complied because the 1993 agreement didn’t call for specific targets, and that firm has invested $13 billion over the last 20 years in New Jersey to expand broadband. The stipulation agreement approved Wednesday resolves the case. Verizon agreed to provide broadband to at least 35 residential or business customers per census tract who lack access to either cable broadband or 4G-based wireless services. The company is able to provide the broadband through wireless, instead of fiber. Critics said the state hasn’t enforced the 1993 agreement to implement the Opportunity New Jersey (ONJ) plan to wire the state, and now the communities that never got service will get slower wireless instead. “The state has basically failed to uphold the law for 20 years and now they're erasing it,” said Bruce Kushnick, executive director of the New Networks Institute, which has been critical of the stipulation agreement. The BPU decision “is great news for the state’s consumers and builds upon the success of Opportunity New Jersey,” Verizon New Jersey said in a statement. “It brings certainty to the state’s broadband market, giving Verizon New Jersey customers a request process to bring broadband to unserved communities. ... Verizon’s network investments in New Jersey have made it one of the country’s most wired states in terms of broadband infrastructure, far exceeding what was contemplated by ONJ, and we are eager to move forward and work with communities to deliver the benefits of broadband to them through this process.”

More than 55,500 people, including over 15,500 AT&T customers, signed a petition supporting a shareholder proxy (http://1.usa.gov/1mIUNK5) urging AT&T to disclose contributions to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), said SumOfUs.org. The proxy will be presented at Friday’s AT&T annual shareholder meeting, said SumOfUs.org, a global corporate watchdog organization that began the petition. ALEC has backed efforts around the country to deregulate telecom and to make it more difficult for municipalities to create broadband networks, the group said.

Advocates of 911 funding in Pennsylvania have begun circulating a draft proposal in the Legislature that would, at a minimum, renew for a year a fee on users of cellphones and other phone services which is slated to expire in June, said County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania Executive Director Doug Hill. Proponents are hoping legislators will increase funding, which now pays for only two-thirds of 911 costs, with local governments having to pick up the difference (CD April 16 p4), Hill said.

Alaska Communications said its Anchorage business customers now have access to speeds of up to 1 Gbps because of the telco’s investment in expanding and improving its fiber network over the last 18 months. Customers in other areas will soon have access to speeds of up to 50 Mbps, Alaska Communications said Tuesday in a news release (http://bit.ly/1jGuq29).

AT&T’s plan to expand its U-verse (CD Apr 22 p8) with GigaPower fiber network into 21 additional metropolitan areas including San Antonio was welcomed by that city’s Chief Technology Officer Hugh Miller on Monday. The city is also in discussions to get Google Fiber, putting San Antonio in the position of having two companies laying high-speed broadband and competing for customers. That could lead to lower prices for city residents and businesses, Miller said. He said the city is in the process of gathering the deployment data and topographical information Google wants. Unlike Portland, Ore., which last week signed a franchise agreement (CD Apr 21 p16) to let Google build on public rights of way, in Texas, utilities need only register with the state to be able to be permitted to build, he said. AT&T’s GigaPower expansion may help Comcast’s proposed buy of Time Warner Cable get approval, analyst Paul Gallant of Guggenheim Partners wrote in a research note Monday. Regulators have concerns because Comcast/TWC would have about 42 percent of the U.S. broadband market, he wrote, “but (also) because that number appears poised to go higher as cable operators collectively continue to take share from telcos. But AT&T’s announcement -- on top of Google Fiber’s recent expansion -- may begin to chip away at the idea of Comcast-TWC inevitably taking share from telcos. AT&T’s announcement won’t prevent the FCC and DOJ from applying potentially tough conditions on Comcast-TWC, but we think it could start to allay the instinctive concerns that Democratic regulators harbor with the cable merger.” An increase in cities where telcos can match cable broadband speed will lower the risk of regulators dismissing cable’s urban-based pricing, Gallant wrote. AT&T’s ability to “cherry pick” which neighborhoods to target for GigaPower “ensures AT&T an attractive incremental return since, by definition, the company would only build where it made financial sense, but it also acts as a check on the scope of any build-out,” wrote MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett Tuesday. But Moffett also said GigaPower is “one [offering] that is unlikely to dramatically increase the company’s value.” Time Warner Cable has the most potential exposure to GigaPower, with Los Angeles being the single largest target, Moffett estimated. Comcast also faces exposure in major areas like Chicago, the Bay Area and Houston. However, many cities might not accept AT&T’s terms, reducing the impact, Moffett wrote.

Florida’s Division of Telecommunications (DOT) is encouraged by its dialogue with AT&T over the company’s request for an FCC waiver to permit power spectral density measurements for 800 MHz cellular operations in three Florida markets, DOT said in follow-up FCC comments posted Monday in docket 13-202 (http://bit.ly/1fheSzi). The state had expressed concerns, but DOT said that in a response to the state’s initial comments, AT&T agreed it has the responsibility to eliminate the interference to public safety it causes. AT&T also described a process for dealing with interference, the DOT filing said.