NTIA hosted the first of two workshops last week to get input from states and territories about the start of FirstNet’s network. Representatives from Eastern states met with FirstNet officials at an Atlanta workshop about state consultation and planning for the network, said an NTIA news release Friday (http://1.usa.gov/1n2EYLA). A second workshop is scheduled for March 11-12 in Phoenix for Western states. The workshops also let states discuss how planning is going, learn from each other about stakeholder outreach and governance structures, and develop regional connections and collaboration, said NTIA.

Texas Lifeline participants deemed eligible through another household member are being contacted to get their Social Security number and date of birth, said the state’s Public Utility Commission in an FCC ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/1kORc9b). The PUC and its contractor, Solix, discovered the data were not being completed during a review of the state’s Lifeline process, PUC Lifeline Program Administrator Jay Stone told an FCC official Feb. 21. The program will begin asking self-enrolled Lifeline participants to renew their enrollment status every seven months, he said, according to the filing posted Friday in docket 11-42. It said certification forms are now only filled out when self-enrollees are initially approved for Lifeline.

A Minnesota state senator will propose a measure that would create a $100 million competitive grant fund designed to extend broadband into underserved areas of the state. Sen. Matt Schmit, Democrat/Farm Labor Party, who plans to formally introduce the bill in coming days, said in an interview Thursday that the matching program could generate an additional $200 billion in broadband investments. Executive Director Dan Dorman of the Greater Minnesota Partnership, a coalition of businesses, nonprofits and cities that advocate for economic development policies, said the state had set the ambitious goal of being among the top five states nationally in broadband access by 2015. However, a Jan. 27 Minnesota Broadband Task Force report (http://bit.ly/1fujYwJ) found the state is falling short of meeting the target and faces a wide gulf in broadband access between urban and rural areas. Dorman, whose organization is supporting the fund, noted the state is expected to have a $1 billion budget surplus in the coming two-year budget cycle.

FairPoint Communications met its goal to increase broadband access to 95 percent of its access lines in New Hampshire, said the telco in a Thursday news release. It sai, the company has invested over $700 million since April 2008 in its communications infrastructure and technology to reach new customers, upgrade its network and expand broadband in northern New England (http://tinyurl.com/k7hbwc9. The goal had been to meet the 95 percent threshold by year’s end.

Greensboro and Guilford County, N.C., are working with Motorola Solutions to design a comprehensive management program to help the municipalities’ public safety technology planning. Motorola’s Migration Assurance Program (http://bit.ly/1dzQsjx) is intended to help the communities manage and control spending on the technology, while maintaining performance and interoperability, and adapt to changing technologies, said a company news release Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1dzQsjx).

Any attempt by the FCC to preempt state laws that make it harder for municipalities to create broadband networks (CD Feb 24 p1) “would undermine local government accountability to state governments and to taxpayers” and be illegal, said the Free State Foundation Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1dzYdG4). FSF Scholar Seth Cooper said stripping states’ control over their cities and counties would violate constitutional federalism principles. Nearly 20 states laws limit municipal-backed broadband networks, and “prevent local government conflicts of interest with the private sector marketplace competitors who invest tens of millions of dollars in localities to build out their broadband networks,” wrote Cooper. “They also protect local taxpayers from potentially devastating financial losses from poorly-run municipal broadband projects."

AT&T Michigan and Sprint filed with the Michigan Public Service Commission Tuesday a proposed agreement partially resolving their IP interconnection dispute. It still leaves in question the answer to the central argument between the companies: Sprint’s ability to get IP interconnection with AT&T. Under the agreement, all traffic Sprint exchanges with AT&T will be delivered in TDM format. The sides agreed they may, on or around July 15, amend the agreement to include IP interconnection. Spokesmen for both companies declined comment. The agreement comes after the MPSC ruled (http://bit.ly/1k7xkBc) in Sprint’s favor (CD Dec 10 p12) and ordered AT&T to reach an IP interconnection agreement with the company. The MPSC has 30 days to act on the agreement. It’s scheduled to meet again March 6. The companies faced a deadline Tuesday to submit the agreement.

Broadband services should be required to begin contributing to the USF, a NARUC official told the FCC. Vermont Commissioner and past NARUC Telecom Committee Chairman John Burke told aides to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel that a NARUC resolution (http://bit.ly/1hTQPNr) passed at its winter meetings calls for expanding the USF contribution base (CD Feb 12 p9). The expansion would include “all communications services, including services such as broadband that are required to be offered in order to receive federal support,” wrote Burke in an ex parte filing posted Tuesday to docket 09-191 (http://bit.ly/1lm0U6j). NARUC didn’t take a position on whether the size of the fund should be increased.

The FCC should set a firm date for second-tier carriers to provide text-to-911 services, the Vermont Enhanced 911 Board told the FCC in a letter (http://bit.ly/1ewSDUz) Tuesday. Board Executive David Tucker wrote that the office has had discussions with some of those carriers, “and in at least one case, we were informed that the carrier has no plans to implement text to 911 services until it becomes a requirement set by the Commission.” Second-tier carriers are a small part of the state’s wireless market but, Tucker wrote, “we need them all to provide the service in order to reach the goal of ubiquitous Text to 911 services in Vermont."

The FCC should ensure no barriers exist in states’ ability to acquire data to investigate rural call completion issues, and there should be no obstacles to the ability of states to coordinate investigations with other states, the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates (NASUCA) said in a reply (http://bit.ly/MYEx8C) to a Nov. 8 FCC Further NPRM (http://bit.ly/1k7cjXc) on rural call completion. NASUCA echoed comments by NARUC (http://bit.ly/1jxcecz) that the FCC should codify prohibitions on blocking, choking or restricting traffic, even as appeals of the USF reform order are pending at the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. NASUCA also said intermediate providers should register and certify they will follow industry standards, as well as state and FCC rules, and that no additional safe harbors reducing obligations to collect and retain data should be created. NASUCA objected to Verizon’s reply (http://bit.ly/1mF9j68), which backed adjusting safe-harbor reporting requirements to exempt minimal volumes of traffic for overflow purposes, and to increase the number of intermediate carriers allowed to be used under the safe-harbor provision from one to two. “Verizon’s complaints about ’the already high burdens of complying with the Order’ overlook the tremendous burdens placed on consumers by call completion failures,” NASUCA said. “Requirements that ease consumers’ burdens by preventing call completion failures are reasonable solutions to this industry-created problem.” The FCC November order applied recording, retention, and reporting requirements to large long-distance voice providers, defined as those that make the initial long-distance call path choice for more than 100,000 domestic retail subscriber lines.