The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission voted 4-1 Thursday to approve the FCC’s December changes to pole attachment replacement rules, which clarified transparency requirements for pole owners and established an intra-agency “rapid broadband assessment team” to review pole attachment disputes and recommend solutions (see 2312130044). The California Public Utilities Commission voted 4-0 later in the day to approve state rules implementing volume 2 of its plan for rolling out the $1.86 billion allocation from NTIA’s broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program (see 2408260027).

The Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials and National Emergency Number Association want Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, GOP nominee ex-President Donald Trump and their running mates to make support for funding next-generation 911 tech upgrades “a central tenet” of their campaign platforms. Talks between lawmakers aimed at reaching a deal on a spectrum legislative package that would fund NG-911 and other telecom projects remain stalled (see 2408150039). “Enactment of NG9-1-1 funding legislation will provide the more than 100,000 9-1-1 professionals across the country with improved situational awareness, resulting in a faster and more efficient response for the members of the public they protect,” NENA CEO Brian Fontes and APCO CEO Mel Maier said in letters to Harris, Trump, GOP vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance of Ohio and Harris' running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D). “NG9-1-1 will begin saving lives the moment it is implemented. Achieving NG9-1-1 is also a national security imperative, as it will lead to enhanced response to natural and man-made disasters, protection against cyberattacks including state-sponsored attacks, and support for homeland defense efforts in the event of a national emergency.”

AT&T suffered a wireless outage Tuesday night that apparently started in the Southeast and spread throughout the U.S., based on social media and other reports. A software issue caused the outage, which was resolved, AT&T said Wednesday. The FCC is investigating, a spokesperson emailed.

The FCC approved an order establishing a multi-round reverse auction to pay out up to $9 billion to bring voice and 5G mobile broadband service to rural areas of the U.S. otherwise unlikely to see 5G. The vote was 4-1, with a dissent by Commissioner Brendan Carr. The commission plans a public notice to announce the start date of the auction. It also released a Further NPRM on related tribal issues.

Xplore hopes to launch its XCube-1 earth imaging satellite on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rideshare mission between October and the end of April, it told the FCC Space Bureau in an application posted Friday. Xplore said it plans a low earth orbit constellation that will offer remote sensing data products and edge computing using multiple payload computers, as well as payload hosting. It said XCube-1 will be its first commercial mission and use X-band downlinks.

The Senate voted 86-1 Thursday to advance two kids’ safety bills, with Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., casting the lone no vote (see 2407240057).

The global outage of Microsoft systems caused by a software update from cybersecurity company Crowdstrike grounded airplanes globally and affected some broadcasters and 911 systems but spared others, reports from multiple companies and state agencies said.

The House Education and Workforce Committee advanced an amended version of the Supporting Accurate Views of Emergency Services (911 Saves) Act (HR-6319), drawing criticism from the National Emergency Number Association and APCO. HR-6319 and the similar Enhancing First Response Act (S-3556) would reclassify public safety call takers and dispatchers as a protective service. A substitute amendment from Rep. Lori Chavez-Deremer, R-Ore., requires the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics “consider establishing a separate code for public safety telecommunicators as a subset of protective service occupations” instead of mandating the reclassification. House Education also approved by voice vote an amendment from ranking member David Scott, D-Va., to extend the timeline for BLS to report back on considering the reclassification from 30 days to 60. NENA and APCO are “disappointed that this version of [HR-6319] strays from the language of previous iterations” by not mandating the proposed reclassification, the groups said in a joint statement. They “commend the comments from [House Education] members expressing support for 9-1-1 professionals' service to our communities. We look forward to working with” lawmakers “to ensure that 9-1-1 professionals are recognized for the highly skilled, specialized, life-saving work they do every day.”

The Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials opposed an ATIS petition for reconsideration or clarification of the agency’s January outage reporting order (see 2406120043). Oppositions were due Monday. The ATIS petition is confusing, APCO said in a filing posted Monday in docket 21-346. ATIS asked the FCC to clarify the application of its waiver of network outage reporting system filings during disaster information reporting system activations. “If ATIS’s request is to excuse service providers from their obligation to provide timely notifications” to 911 call centers “of network outages and disruptions affecting 9-1-1 calls, APCO opposes the request,” the filing said.

Lumen disagreed with a local 911 authority on whether the Colorado Public Utilities Commission should be required to investigate all “apparent” outages of basic emergency services (BES). Separately, the Colorado PUC opened a rulemaking on incarcerated people’s communications services (IPCS). Current state rules on 911 outages say that PUC staff “shall commence an informal investigation regarding each apparent basic emergency service outage meeting criteria established by the 9-1-1 Advisory Task Force.” The PUC should change “shall” to “may,” Lumen commented Wednesday in docket 23R-0577T. Making it optional wouldn’t reduce the commission’s oversight authority, the carrier argued. “It would simply allow the Commission the discretion to initiate an investigation.” Use of the word “apparent” in the current rule “sweeps within its scope occurrences that are not in fact BES outages yet grants the Commission no discretion,” said Lumen: That’s inefficient at best, the company said, stressing it’s not saying the commission shouldn’t investigate BES outages but instead is saying a probe might not always be warranted. “For example, a fiber cut by a third party that results in an interruption of BES services should not always require an investigation.” However, the Boulder Regional Emergency Telephone Service Authority argued that the commission “would be delinquent if it did not require investigation of apparent outages of [BES] to identify means of avoiding future outages and better mitigating or more expeditiously remediating future outages which do occur.” Also, the Boulder authority noted that “apparent outages subject to investigation are only those meeting criteria of the 9-1-1 Advisory Task Force,” which considers factors such as when an outage affects multiple public safety answering points, lasts more than four hours or repeats in the same area over a short period of time. Meanwhile, the Colorado PUC sought comments by May 31 and replies by June 14 on an NPRM to change to change IPCS rules in response to two recent state laws. A 2021 law included requirements for reports and testing, while a 2023 law expanded the definition of covered communications services to include video calls, email and messaging, said the Monday notice.