Vermont launched a fiber optic apprenticeship program with the Wireless Infrastructure Association (WIA), the Vermont Community Broadband Board said Tuesday. Sertex Broadband Solutions is the first Vermont employer to join, the board said. The state’s apprenticeship program is part of the U.S. Labor Department’s Telecommunications Industry Registered Apprenticeship Program, which WIA sponsors.

All Illinois counties now have 911 services, the state police said Monday. “Stark County has finally reached the 21st Century with our 911,” said the county’s Sheriff Steven Sloan. ​Previously, Stark County residents had to call a specific, 10-digit number for emergency services. Those who called 911 would be routed through other counties’ systems. That will no longer be the case because Stark County entered into an agreement with Peoria County to create a joint emergency telephone system board, Illinois police said. “With the intergovernmental agreement between Stark and Peoria counties, each county in Illinois now has a comprehensive and coordinated 911 system,” said Illinois Statewide 911 Administrator Cindy Barbera-Brelle. Meanwhile, the state continues upgrading systems to next-generation 911, “which will provide increased services and better responses in an emergency,” she said. In Illinois, 158 of 179 public safety answering points have NG-911. A few rural areas across the U.S. still lack 911, a National Emergency Number Association spokesperson said Tuesday.

“We’re not waiting for federal leadership in privacy,” said Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser (D) during a Silicon Flatirons event Wednesday. Amid congressional inaction, Colorado was the third state to enact a comprehensive privacy bill, after California and Virginia. The AG office has sought to be transparent as it’s worked on rules for implementing the Colorado Privacy Act, said Weiser, quipping that the FCC is a “poster child [for] how not to do rulemaking.” Colorado plans to watch how state government manages data at the same time as it oversees the private sector, he said. The AG office will take the same approach with AI, he added. Also, as the AG office moves toward enforcement, it is focused on educating businesses. Weiser's “memo” for businesses: “Stop collecting so much data … Stop storing it for so long. Stop giving so many people access to it.” The AG said the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision on Chevron deference doesn’t formally affect states. “Informally, it’s possible that some state supreme courts will look at it.” However, Weiser finds the decision “entirely unpersuasive,” he said. “I am confident that [Colorado’s] supreme court will continue to provide agency deference.” The Colorado AG office recently set a Nov. 7 hearing on the latest proposed amendments to the Colorado Privacy Act (see 2409160036).

An expected influx of broadband work is a key reason that lawmakers should reauthorize the state’s call-before-you-dig law, Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission Chairman Stephen DeFrank said at a Pennsylvania House Consumer Protection Committee hearing streamed Tuesday. Set to expire this year, the Pennsylvania One Call law requires excavators to call 811 before digging to avoid striking underground infrastructure, including telecom lines. Passing HB-2189 would reauthorize the law until 2031, with some changes. The committee’s goal is to bring the bill “up for a vote sooner rather than later,” possibly in a couple of weeks, said Chairman Robert Matzie (D). Reauthorization "is especially critical at this time since federal funding has been awarded to plan and construct utility infrastructure projects,” DeFrank told the committee. “From broadband deployment to replacing aging pipelines and building out our electric transmission lines, One Call tickets are likely to increase in the coming years." The PUC chair praised proposed changes, including adding late fees for untimely payments and eliminating an exemption for reporting on damage that costs less than $2,500 to repair. DeFrank suggested expanding the definition of excavation to include work using hand tools and “soft excavation technology" like vacuums, high-pressure air or water. The Pennsylvania PUC has enforced the state law for seven years. The 811 system handles 1 million calls yearly -- and the number is rising, said Pennsylvania One Call System CEO William Kiger: The calls result in about 7 million locate requests a year. The state Senate has a similar bill (SB-1237).

North Carolina started prequalifying ISPs seeking to participate in NTIA’s broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program, the state IT department said Monday. NTIA allocated about $1.5 billion to North Carolina. While not required, prequalification is meant “to streamline the application process and ensure applicants meet the program’s minimum and mandatory requirements,” said the department: Potential applicants must prequalify by Nov. 2.

Alabama awarded $42 million to last-mile broadband projects with cash from the U.S. Treasury’s Capital Projects Fund, Gov. Kay Ivey (R) said Monday. The awarded projects are expected to connect about 15,000 households, businesses and anchor institutions, the governor’s office said. Big grant winners included Charter Communications ($19.4 million), Bama Fiber ($5 million) and C-Spire ($5 million). Ivey previously announced $148.3 million in CPF broadband awards in February (see 2402280035).

The Colorado attorney general's office set a Nov. 7 hearing on proposed amendments to the Colorado Privacy Act. And the office seeks written comments from Sept. 25 to Nov. 7, the AG office said in a Friday NPRM. The rulemaking aims to craft rules related to privacy of children and biometric data, as well as procedural rules for issuing opinion letters, it said. Colorado passed laws requiring kids and biometric privacy rules earlier this year (see 2406030010).

Interconnected VoIP providers are telephone corporations subject to the same laws and rules as other wireline and wireless telcos, the California Public Utilities Commission said in a proposed decision Friday. The CPUC may vote as soon as Oct. 17 on the item that aims to set a regulatory framework for VoIP providers (docket R.22-08-008). Consumer groups dismissed industry concerns that VoIP regulation is federally preempted (see 2307030036). "California’s Constitution specifically extends the Commission’s jurisdiction to companies engaged in ‘the transmission of telephone and telegraph messages,’” said the draft. “This includes services delivered over any technology, including but not limited to, traditional copper lines, coaxial cable, fiber optic cable, and mobile or fixed wireless radios.” Under the proposal, the CPUC would create two utility type designations. Digital voice nomadic (DVN) providers, covering those with only nomadic interconnected VoIP services, would be subject to a registration process similar to the CPUC's existing wireless identification registration, it said. Digital voice fixed (DVF) providers that sell fixed interconnected VoIP would "continue to be subject to operating authority requirements similar to traditional wireline service providers,” the draft said. DVN and DVF providers would be required to post performance bonds, pay the CPUC user fee and file annual operating and affiliate transaction reports, it said. The state commission would require facilities-based interconnected VoIP providers to obtain certificates of public convenience and necessity to operate in California. Non-facilities-based fixed interconnected VoIP service providers would use the Public Utilities Code Section 1013 registration process to get operating authority. The CPUC proposed an automatic migration process for interconnected VoIP providers already registered under the previous informal process under Section 285. Also, the CPUC would remove some existing requirements for wireline telcos to align with the interconnected VoIP rules, the draft said. The agency said improvements to application processes for operating authority would include "standardized fees and performance bond amounts," an expedited 21-day California Environmental Quality Act review process and "presumptive confidential treatment of certain financial and business information."

The Wisconsin Public Service Commission awarded more than $27.8 million for broadband adoption and digital navigators using American Rescue Plan Act money from the U.S. Treasury’s Capital Projects Fund, Gov. Tony Evers (D) said Friday. The 11 funded projects will provide loaned devices to 52,409 households and free Wi-Fi to 33,682 households, the governor’s office said. The largest of the Wisconsin awards was $16.5 million for United Way to distribute 33,000 devices to low-income households.

ISPs and consumer advocates recommended tweaks as the California Public Utilities Commission began finalizing state rules for NTIA’s broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program. The CPUC plans voting Sept. 26 on a proposed decision approving rules implementing volume two of the CPUC’s proposed rules, which it submitted to NTIA in December. Determining the extremely high cost per location threshold (EHCPLT) on a project area unit (PAU) basis as proposed "will lead to inconsistent results,” said AT&T in comments Thursday, recommending a statewide approach instead. “Such piecemeal and fluctuating EHCPLT determinations make project predictability difficult as applicants formulate their submissions and will likely increase the number of PAUs that would be too costly for fiber deployments.” Also, several proposals would "result in rate regulation in violation of the Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act," including a proposed middle-class affordable option with a $74 monthly rate cap, AT&T said. The California Broadband & Video Association advised that CPUC maximize BEAD funding’s reach “by prioritizing private matching funds over speculative awards from other grant programs and by ensuring that applicants have the financial capability and sustainability for their proposed projects.” Avoid discouraging participation with "restrictive price caps" or "skewed scoring criteria related to affordability, labor, and network resilience,” the cable association said. But Tarana Wireless asked the CPUC to reconsider scoring criteria that favor big companies. For example, one category "will only award a full 20 points to providers capable of providing at least a 65% private sector match or more of requested funding amount," a requirement that's "unusually high and favors larger and wealthier service providers.” The CPUC’s independent Public Advocates Office urged setting "a hire bar" for allowing a subgrantee to increase the price of a required $30 low-cost option. Center for Accessible Technology, another consumer group, asked why companies may request increasing low-cost plan prices to account for inflation or increased costs, but there’s no way to reduce prices “when a provider’s financial viability can be sustained at the lower level.” The Utility Reform Network said the CPUC should plan for the possibility that the low-cost option and affordability issues may need to be revisited, including due to the end of the affordable connectivity program.