New York Slams Altice Storm Response; CTIA Fights California’s Generator Mandate

The New York Public Service Commission will hold Altice to a “higher standard” on disaster resiliency, after problems in the cable company’s response to Tropical Storm Isaias, Chairman John Rhodes said Thursday at a Senate-Assembly joint hearing on utility and communications failures. In California, where wildfires are blazing, the wireless industry sought rehearing Wednesday of a California Public Utilities Commission order requiring 72-hour backup power in certain high-threat fire areas (see 2007160065).

Altice faces a notice of apparent liability about two weeks into a New York Department of Public Service probe into utility and telecom response to Isaias (see 2008050038), Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) said Wednesday. The New York PSC will exercise the agency’s rights under storm resilience conditions it imposed on Altice’s 2016 takeover of Cablevision (see 1606150056), said Rhodes at a livestreamed virtual hearing that included chairs of many legislative committees. DPS continues to investigate Verizon and others that haven't received NALs, said New York DPS Executive Deputy Tom Congdon.

Altice’s apparent failures included not following its emergency plan on generator deployment and communications protocols, said the New York DPS NAL in docket 20-01633. By the evening of Aug. 5, Altice “had over 400,000 customers without service, with many thousands still without service ... twelve days after the storm first hit New York,” it said. The company didn’t plan enough for the storm and “may not have had sufficient human and equipment resources to perform post-storm restoration in a timely and efficient manner.” Customer service and communications were inadequate; Altice “failed to conduct sufficient accurate outreach to [emergency management] or local government officials in a timely fashion in response to this emergency,” it said.

Legislators criticized utility response and PSC oversight. “This is unacceptable,” said Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D). “We knew the storm was coming, and yet we seemed to be ill-prepared.” New York needs reliable service from telecom and utility companies but got slow response and bad communications to customers, said Assembly Corporations Committee Chair Amy Paulin (D). Sen. Anna Kaplan (D) said her office effectively became a complaint center for Altice, Verizon and the local power company. Assemblymember Steven Otis (D) urged the PSC to increase enforcement on telecom, which he said is “as much of an essential service as electricity.”

Altice takes “very seriously the need to be prepared for any circumstance and to respond quickly in the face of challenges,” Chief Operating Officer Hakim Boubazine said in written testimony. “Unlike previous severe weather events, the recovery efforts for this storm had to occur with the residual impacts of the pandemic on workforce morale and readiness.” The COO blamed two IT system issues for problems customers had reaching the company. “We apologize for the inconvenience.” The company will provide bill credits, he said. Boubazine and several Verizon officials planned to testify later in the all-day hearing that was continuing at our deadline.

California Wildfires

In California, wireless carriers challenged the state commission requiring generators that last days rather than batteries that last hours at cellsites in certain areas, which was a response to outages during last year’s public safety power shutoffs. That and other state resiliency requirements conflict with federal law, said CTIA, AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon in a joint rehearing application in docket R.18-03-011.

Case law including 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals precedent says “any such state regulation -- which attempts to regulate the adequacy of wireless carriers’ network facilities and the level or quality of their services -- constitutes impermissible regulation of market ‘entry’ and is therefore barred by Section 332(c)(3)(A),” they said. It also conflicts with the FCC’s policy decision “to adopt a voluntary and cooperative framework offered by the wireless industry and to reject prescriptive regulations for wireless network resiliency and backup power,” said the wireless carriers, noting states can’t regulate text or data information services. Under Communications Act Title III field preemption, the FCC has “broad and exclusive authority” to regulate wireless networks, they said.

“Wireless carriers will continue to focus on network resiliency ... as they have done for decades without regulatory directives,” said the industry applicants, saying carriers don’t object to making “purely informational filings” about resiliency plans.

Wildfires blazed throughout the state Thursday, a California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection map showed. That morning, the LNU Lightning Complex fire was 131,000 acres and 0% contained in Napa, Sonoma, Lake, Yolo and Solano counties, while the SCU Lightning Complex fire was 137,475 acres and 5% contained in Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties, CAL Fire reported. Google Maps now shows wildfires, the California Office of Emergency Services blogged Thursday.

AT&T has had no impact from the ongoing fires, with its network “operating business as usual in California,” a spokesperson said. T-Mobile is "keeping a close eye on a number of wildfires in California that may have the potential to affect some parts of our network through direct fire threat or associated power outages," but the network is "faring well," a spokesperson said. "Our local teams are working hard to prepare and optimize our network in order to minimize customer interruptions." Verizon didn’t comment. The FCC hadn’t activated the disaster information reporting system, a spokesperson said Thursday. “We monitor for network outages on an ongoing basis through our Network Outage Reporting System.”

Wireless services seemed to be up in rural Sonoma County even with power outages, said Calvin Sandeen, broadband department analyst at the county’s Economic Development Board. He said his family had to evacuate, but they haven’t “faced too many issues” with Verizon or AT&T.