A well-trained and stable cybersecurity workforce is “critical” to protecting states against mounting cyberthreats, the National Governors Association (NGA) said Monday in a paper. Governors should ensure that their existing workforce has the “requisite skills to protect and defend state networks and critical infrastructure,” which could in the long term require realigning state education and workforce programs to support cybersecurity training, the NGA said. The group also encouraged governors to utilize the National Guard’s cyber resources for training and incident response purposes. Maryland has “worked aggressively to develop our highly skilled cyber workforce -- this will help address both the state’s and the nation’s cybersecurity challenges, and will also foster growth in our innovative and job-creating cybersecurity business sector,” said Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley, co-chairman of the NGA’s Resource Center for State Cybersecurity, in a news release.
Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal awarded $36.7 million in Connections for Classrooms grants Monday to 103 of the state’s school districts to upgrade their broadband access. Top grants included $8.43 million to DeKalb County Public Schools, $1.53 million to Gwinnett County Public Schools, $1.5 million to Laurens County Public Schools and $1.42 million to Atlanta Public Schools, said the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement. Deal, a Republican, announced the grants based on recommendations from the state’s Digital Learning Task Force. “A key portion of its recommendations was to build out the technology infrastructure necessary for effective digital learning, and these funds will go a long way toward helping us achieve that goal and bridge the digital divide” in schools, Deal said in a statement.
Frontier Communications said it completed its buy of AT&T’s Connecticut broadband, video and wireline assets Friday, along with Dish Network’s satellite TV customers in the state (http://bit.ly/1tkx5HE). Connecticut’s Public Utilities Regulatory Authority approved the deal earlier this month (see 1410150070). Frontier separately said Friday that it has made gigabit fiber service available to business and residential customers in six areas of Durham, North Carolina.
Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack announced $190.5 million in Department of Agriculture (USDA) funding Wednesday for broadband deployments and other advanced communications infrastructure improvements in 19 states, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The 25 projects being funded through the USDA grants and loans include a $24 million loan to Arkansas’ Arkwest Communications to provide voice, broadband and Internet TV service to almost 4,000 customers and make other system improvements. Other projects include a $2.5 million grant to Nexus Systems to provide broadband in Powhatan, Louisiana, and a $750,000 grant to public TV broadcasters in the U.S. Virgin Islands to replace analog production and satellite equipment with high-definition equipment, USDA said (http://1.usa.gov/ZOODPu).
The New York Police Department said up to 41,000 mobile devices, including tablets, are being distributed to officers (http://bit.ly/1zmIMks). The devices were paid for using criminal asset forfeiture funds, which funded a $160 million NYPD Mobility Initiative, the department said in a Thursday news release. “We must have 21st century tools to deal with 21st century threats, and this infusion of new resources will arm our officers with the technology and information they need to fight crime and protect the City against terrorism more efficiently and more effectively,” said New York Mayor Bill de Blasio.
FairPoint Communications said Tuesday it's “concerned” that employees affiliated with the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), who are currently on strike, are disrupting services and intimidating employees and customers (http://bit.ly/1ouXtgZ). More than 1,700 CWA- and IBEW-affiliated workers went on strike Friday in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont (see 1410170025). Some of the striking employees “have followed and intimidated contractors and employees, blocked our trucks, surrounded our workers on job sites, trespassed on customer property and engaged in conduct that impedes the work FairPoint is doing to meet customer needs,” FairPoint said in a news release. The unions said in a statement that they will “continue to work hard to ensure that our labor action is safe and respectful to our neighbors and friends throughout northern New England, but we will not let the company use these spurious and unfounded allegations to take the spotlight off of the company's unfair practices.”
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) is considering a draft resolution that would raise the state’s LifeLine program surcharge to 2.4 percent beginning Jan. 1. The current LifeLine surcharge in the state is 1.15 percent, which the CPUC set in 2007. The raised surcharge would be applied to revenue collected from all California end users of intrastate telecom services, including VoIP, the CPUC said in the draft resolution, filed Monday. The commission’s staff have estimated that if the surcharge rate remains unchanged, the California LifeLine Fund won’t be able to meet its budgeted expenses for this fiscal year due to an increase in carriers’ claims. A 2.4 percent surcharge would leave the California LifeLine Fund with an estimated $97 million balance at the end of the current fiscal year and an estimated balance of $89 million at the end of the next fiscal year, the CPUC said. The commission is to vote on the resolution at its Nov. 20 meeting (http://bit.ly/1CQH4Ey).
Comcast and Time Warner Cable officials urged the New York Public Service Commission to exempt information on call center operations at Comcast and TWC from public disclosure laws in connection with PSC review of the first company's plan to buy the second. The PSC remanded the companies’ appeal of a July decision by Administrative Law Judge David Prestemon that the call center operations information shouldn’t be exempted. Prestemon said he would issue a ruling on the remand after parties submitted responses, which were due Monday. Officials for both companies said they view information on their call center operations as a trade secret and its release would “unfairly advantage” competitors. Information about Comcast’s call center operations “identifies the number of employees at each Comcast call center in the Northeast, describes Comcast's call interflow parameters that direct calls to sister call centers, and sets forth also detailed facility-by-facility hours, staffing and operational information,” said Don Laub, Comcast senior director-Northeast Division regulatory affairs (http://bit.ly/1DxiUky). Information about TWC’s call center operations “identifies the number of employees at each Time Warner Cable call center in New York and sets forth also detailed facility-by-facility hours, staffing and operational information, including call interflow parameters,” said Terence Rafferty, TWC Northeast regional vice president-operations. Other information the PSC sought involved TWC’s broadband deployments. TWC said it opposes publication of an un-redacted version of that information, which shows “detailed build-out and deployment plans for individual projects in each affected Time Warner Cable franchise area,” Rafferty said. “The information is particularly granular, showing the plant mileage to be built out, the number of premises to be passed by the buildout, and the expected completion date” (http://bit.ly/1FxVayA). The Public Utility Law Project of New York said the Comcast and TWC interpretation of what constitutes a trade secret is overly expansive, and the PSC should release the information under the narrower definition used under the federal Freedom of Information Act (http://bit.ly/1sLK0Q8).
The South Georgia Regional Information Technology Authority (SGRITA) is proposing a partnership with Albany (Georgia) Water, Gas & Light (WG&L), to operate wireless broadband services in Baker, Calhoun, Early, Miller, Mitchell, Seminole and Terrell counties. If the Albany City Commission approves the plan, Albany WG&L would provide wireless service to more than 21,000 residential customers, almost 2,300 business customers and almost 250 institutional customers in the region. SGRITA said it’s financing the project through $13.3 million in Rural Utilities Service loans and grants.
California Public Utilities Commissioner Catherine Sandoval urged the FCC in an ex parte filing posted Friday to rely on both Title II and Section 706 of the Communications Act as it creates new net neutrality rules. Title II and Section 706 are “complementary” but “only Title II, applied with appropriate forbearance and a light regulatory touch, can protect common carriers, broadcasters and other FCC licensees, and Internet speakers from ISP discrimination and high Internet entry barriers,” Sandoval said. She noted she was speaking on her own behalf and not on the behalf of the full CPUC (http://bit.ly/1riVCGA). The CPUC withdrew from consideration possible comments on the FCC’s NPRM ahead of what had been a planned Thursday vote on the issue, prompting criticism from public interest groups in the state (see 1410160054). Sandoval recommended the FCC refer any new proposed net neutrality rules to the Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience Conference, the Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service and the Federal-State Joint Conference on Advanced Telecommunications Services, for which Sandoval serves as policy chairwoman. Those bodies can evaluate the proposed rules for federal and state implications related to universal service, Internet access, public safety, security and critical infrastructure issues, Sandoval said. She also noted her concerns about the net neutrality NPRM’s paid prioritization language, which she said would be harmful to consumers, public safety agencies, “content creators” and critical infrastructure sectors. Sandoval said she noted similar concerns during an Oct. 7 meeting with Priscilla Delgado, legal adviser to FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, and during a Sept. 24 forum with Rosenworcel and Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif.