Don’t require carriers to provide bounce-back messages until six months after any order mandating it, the Competitive Carriers Association told the FCC in text-to-911 replies posted Monday. “The Commission should not require carriers to send error notifications in all instances, but at this time should only require bounce-back messages when a carrier has not yet deployed text-to-911 capability on its home network in the area where the subscriber is attempting to text 911,” the CCA said (http://bit.ly/VbKsrm). Education will need to start local, and the FCC’s move to text-to-911 will need to be aware of “limitations faced by rural and regional carriers in implementing this regime (including error notifications) and do not require more of carriers than what is technically feasible,” it said. Yet speed is vital, said the Boulder Regional Emergency Telephone Service Authority. The FCC “should not brook the delays and game-playing by service providers that marked the transition to Wireless E9-1-1,” it said (http://bit.ly/VPRx3j). “The Commission must require that service providers implement text-to-9-1-1 without exception.” The authority supports a standard bounce-back message: “Providing a standard message when text messaging-to-9-1-1 is not available or a text message to 9-1-1 is not received will limit consumer confusion.”

Preparation for Superstorm Sandy’s landfall was key to New York-area broadcasters’ efforts to disseminate news and information to the public, said executives from Clear Channel Media and WABC during the FCC’s second hearing Tuesday on the storm’s communications impact. Others testified how Google and Twitter helped to fill the void left by outages in the area’s wireless and wireline communications networks.

NARUC will tackle spectrum sharing, emergency communications coordination and the FCC’s “repeated abuses of informal rulemaking,” according to draft resolutions released this week (http://xrl.us/bob6pm). State regulators will consider the resolutions at their winter meeting in Washington in February. The proposed resolutions delve into past controversial territory, such as addressing FCC referral to the Federal-State Joint Boards on Separations and Universal Service. USTelecom objected to joint board referral provisions at the past two NARUC meetings, in Baltimore in November (CD Nov 14 p5) and Portland, Ore., last July (CD July 25 p8), although both of the resolutions passed.

Atlantic Broadband and Western Pacific Broadcast continued trying to resolve the broadcaster’s must-carry complaint against the operator, and believe they can do it without FCC “intervention,” Atlantic said. It sought another one-week delay to reply to Western Pacific, which has filed several complaints seeking pay-TV carriage on systems in the Philadelphia area for WACP Atlantic City, N.J. The broadcaster didn’t object to the extra time, which would come after the agency had given the operator a one-week extension (CD Jan 9 p15), Atlantic Broadband said in a filing posted Monday to docket 12-1 (http://xrl.us/boasyo).

A broadcaster that has made several FCC must-carry complaints clarified one to ask that the Media Bureau recognize an additional pay-TV provider to face a complaint. Western Pacific Broadcast asked that its complaint, which seeks guaranteed carriage for WACP Atlantic City, N.J., on Service Electric Cablevision, add Service Electric Cable Television. Those cable operators are “related yet separate legal entities,” Western Pacific said in a clarification posted Thursday in docket 12-1 (http://xrl.us/bn985o). The broadcaster has been seeking carriage for WACP on Philadelphia-area systems (CD Jan 9 p15).

The FCC Public Safety Bureau report on June’s derecho wind storm, which knocked out phone service for 3.6 million people in the mid-Atlantic and beyond -- many unable to reach 911 for several hours -- made demands of telcos among its recommendations. The Public Safety Bureau released the 56-page document Thursday after starting an investigation in July (CD July 20 p5). Four 911 centers in northern Virginia lost 911 access completely, prompting a close look at Verizon’s role and backup power generator failures there. FCC recommendations include provisions on backup power and audits and preface a rulemaking notice intended to strengthen emergency communications.

Colorado has adopted “a pretty arbitrary method” of determining high-cost support for telcos, said Pete Kirchhof, executive vice president of the Colorado Telecommunications Association (CTA), which represents 25 small companies. The Colorado Public Utilities Commission adopted a new set of telecom rules last Monday after months of deliberation (CD Dec 18 p9). They've already provoked concern from CenturyLink, smaller telcos and a 911 authority. The order, effective this Monday, will kill retail regulation in regions deemed effectively competitive, cap the state’s high-cost USF and assert that Internet Protocol-enabled service falls outside the PUC’s jurisdiction except in emergency communications. The order is “what we feared, to be honest,” Kirchhof told us, citing telcos’ worries about lower levels of support and burdensome processes of appealing effective competition rulings.

The FCC made the right decision Wednesday in approving a text-to-911 further rulemaking notice (CD Dec 13 p12), said groups representing the deaf and hearing impaired, in a letter to the commission released Thursday. “We stand ready to work with the FCC, industry, and public safety trade associations to meet the timelines in deployment, outreach and education, research and development, and regulatory enforcement toward achieving the promise and potential of text-to-911 emergency calling capabilities for all Americans,” the letter said. “We fully expect this process to be contributing significantly toward activation of fully accessible emergency communications capability via text, video, and/or voice as part of the Next Generation 9-1-1 initiative within the next ten years.” The groups that signed include Telecommunications for the Deaf & Hard of Hearing, National Association of the Deaf and Association of Late-Deafened Adults.

The Maine Public Utilities Commission praised the FCC’s recent push on text-to-911 (CD Dec 13 p12) as a key interim measure as Maine prepares to launch an NG-911 network in 2013. It’s important for “wireless subscribers who currently use text messaging as their primary means of everyday communications, such as those with a hearing or speech disability,” said Chairman Tom Welch in a statement Thursday (http://xrl.us/bn6bxn). “Increasingly this population is abandoning the use of TTYs for newer technologies such as text messaging that allow them more flexibility to communicate with most others except 9-1-1.” It’s also “valuable in situations where a 9-1-1 call may endanger a caller or when voice networks are congested,” he said.

Maine gave FairPoint its $32 million E911 contract, the telco said Thursday (http://xrl.us/bn46zi). FairPoint will supply and maintain the system for the state’s 26 911 centers, making Maine “one of the first states in the nation to deploy a Next Generation 9-1-1 (NG 9-1-1) system compliant with the National Emergency Number Association standards,” said FairPoint. The system will “link voice, data and video elements to E9-1-1 call facilities,” “transfer data seamlessly” and “provide the capability to read text messages and view video when the industry standards are developed,” said Vice President Karen Romano in a statement.