Colorado telecom companies are struggling to form a consensus on the state’s plan to overhaul its telecom rules and high-cost fund, as demonstrated by reply comments with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission made public after our deadline Wednesday. The PUC initiated the new rulemaking in August, heard initial comments Aug. 29, is holding meetings throughout September and will formally address concerns in hearings Oct. 1-4. Colorado’s biggest companies show broad agreement on deregulating VoIP and reducing the state’s high-cost fund but parties are still divided on whether the state commission should help fund broadband. Rural advocates have previously worried about how the reform may hurt rural broadband buildouts (CD Sept 10 p5).

Verizon is completing power audits of all facilities, a review expected to conclude in the Washington region by the end of October and nationwide by March, Senior Vice President Kyle Malady told House lawmakers Wednesday. The telco will have better monitoring equipment in place by 2013, he said. Verizon understands the need to communicate better with public safety answering points and the public during disasters, he said. The Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Response and Communications held the hearing on the challenges and future of resilient communications, which emphasized the problems of Verizon as well as the new technologies emergency responders are facing. Its prime focus was Verizon’s June 29 failure to maintain power in Northern Virginia during the derecho wind storms and subsequent 911 outages.

Through Sept. 11 International Broadcasting Convention, RAI Amsterdam -- http://xrl.us/bnj8h5

Tennessee approved a statewide trial of text-to-911 service as part of a new emergency service Internet Protocol network (ESInet), AT&T said Tuesday. “AT&T will work with the Tennessee Emergency Communications Board to provide a Text to 9-1-1 trial service, allowing for emergency 9-1-1 Short Message Service (SMS) text messages from AT&T wireless subscribers to be received by Tennessee 9-1-1 call centers,” the carrier said (http://xrl.us/bnon6d). “The trial will use the existing ESInet and statewide IP network backbone, key components in the state of Tennessee’s Next-Generation 9-1-1 plan.” National Emergency Number Association CEO Brian Fontes “applauds” the trial and anticipates text-to-911’s availability nationwide, he said in a statement Wednesday (http://xrl.us/bnon5n). The trial “will enable PSAPs [public safety answering points] in Tennessee to begin receiving 9-1-1 SMS texts from AT&T wireless subscribers through the state’s ESInet” and “will allow PSAPs to develop best practices and methods to receive and integrate these types of emergency communications in the future,” AT&T said.

Carriers already have multiple incentives to make their systems robust in the event of emergencies, and the FCC shouldn’t impose additional regulations, CTIA said in reply comments to a public notice asking about communications following the June 29 derecho wind storm. T-Mobile and MetroPCS offered similar comments. Carriers potentially face new backup power requirements in the wake of the 911 problems encountered in the days following the massive storm, which packed high winds and shut off power to millions (CD July 20 p1). The FCC imposed a requirement once before, later dropping the post-Hurricane Katrina mandate (CD Dec 2/08 p1) before it could take effect. Several jurisdictions in the Mid-Atlantic region expressed continuing 911 concerns.

The Association of Public Safety Communications Officials (APCO) recommended testing requirements for backup power in light of 911 problems following the June 29 derecho wind storm that hit parts of the Northeast and Midwest. APCO also raised questions about Verizon’s response after problems emerged, the subject of an FCC investigation (CD July 3 p1). But industry commenters counseled the FCC against imposing backup power requirements or other new regulations on carriers as a result of the problems that followed the storm.

The June 29 “derecho” storm cut off 911 calls to four Mid-Atlantic public safety answering points and did more damage as a whole than Hurricane Irene, said a report by Verizon. It’s set for delivery at a closed-door meeting of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG) Wednesday. With the FCC poised to look again at whether it should impose backup power rules, Verizon went out of its way to clarify that its backup power facilities worked with only two exceptions, even though the carrier lost power at 100 locations. The derecho-related problems are the subject of an ongoing FCC investigation. The council first voted to investigate July 11 and said “the elected leadership of our region expects far better than this” (http://xrl.us/bnkpi8).

The Texas 9-1-1 Alliance, the Texas Commission on State Emergency Communications and the Municipal Emergency Communication Districts Association urged the FCC to adopt location accuracy requirements for multi-line telephone systems (MLTS). “In almost all Internet Protocol MLTS contexts, E-911 solutions are feasible,” the groups said (http://xrl.us/bnjq8i). “The fact that the service may be ‘nomadic’ is not a valid reason for the Commission to delay in proceeding to promulgate nationwide E-911 IP MLTS rules or best practices. Certain wireless IP and campus hot-spots and hybrid situations may present special and unique challenges, but these can be addressed separately via exceptions as the Commission has done in its wireless E911 rules to address mobile satellite services and wireless indoor location issues."

Motorola Solutions upgraded its computer-aided dispatch system at the York-Poquoson-Williamsburg Emergency Communications Center in Virginia, the company said Monday (http://xrl.us/bnjm9y). The new dispatch system is known as PremierOne CAD. It comes with an “intuitive user interface,” flexibility that allows multiple agencies to use it, “geographic information system (GIS)-driven” sensibilities and “integrates with the Next Generation 9-1-1 (NG 9-1-1) phone system, ASTRO 25 radio system and mobile data terminals in the field, the company said. That leverages assets and technologies in use by York and Poquoson Counties and Williamsburg first responders, the company said. The emergency communications center oversees a region of about 90,000 residents, it said.

Ohio will be revisiting the details of its Lifeline service thanks to two recent applications, the Ohio Public Utilities Commission unanimously confirmed in its meeting Wednesday. TracFone Wireless and Virgin Mobile USA had both applied on June 22 for a rehearing of the commission’s May 23 finding and order, which “established certain requirements for the provision of Lifeline service, including those necessitated by the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC’s) Report and Order in In the Matter of Lifeline and Link Up Reform and Modernization, Lifeline and Link Up, Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service, Advancing Broadband Availability Through Digital Literacy Training,” the commission said (http://xrl.us/bnhfj9). It judges that TracFone and Virgin Mobile have “sufficient reason” to question its ruling and now promises “further consideration,” the commission said. In its June 22 objection, Virgin Mobile called the Ohio commission’s Lifeline order “unreasonable and unlawful,” “contrary to the public interest in that it is discriminatory and anti-competitive with respect to prepaid Lifeline service providers,” and in requesting a rehearing, added it hopes the commission “reverse its finding that reimbursement from USAC to prepaid wireless Lifeline providers is includable for purposes of calculating the 9-1-1 assessment” and “reverse its order directing the remittance of 9-1-1 fees that would have been collected retroactively to the date of ETC designation” (http://xrl.us/bnhfma). In its application for a rehearing, TracFone asserts “non-billed, free Lifeline services are not prepaid services and Ohio law imposes no such 911 fee remittance obligations on non-billed free Lifeline services where there is no available mechanism for collecting such fees from qualified low-income consumers of such non-billed free services,” and said one subset of ETCs, wireless resellers, shouldn’t be singled out for a retroactive obligation for fees that couldn’t have been collected.