The House Transportation Committee is the recipient of legislation (HB1658), introduced yesterday by Representative Doyle Heffley which would allow landline telcos to enter into cost sharing agreements with Pa DOT for road and bridge projects which require the telcos to move their infrastructure.

The House Consumer Affairs Committee is poised to consider legislation which provides for an inventory of state-owned assets which can be used for broadband deployment. Sponsored by Senator Kristin Phillips-Hill, Senate Bill 442 requires the Department of General Services to include in its real estate surveys structures and assets that could possibly be utilized for […]

Introduced and referred to the House Consumer Affairs Committee yesterday, Representative Pam Snyder’s HB 1488 addresses broadband on a number of fronts. First, the bill changes the 1.544 Mbps minimum BB speed in Chapter 30 to 25/3 and ultimately track whatever the FCC decides the minimum is. Second, the legislation allows municipalities to offer BB […]

On Monday, the Senate Communications & Technology Committee will meet to consider Senate Bill 696 which, among other things, requires state agencies to notify individuals of a data breach within seven days following discovery of the breach.

The Senate doubled down on last week’s missive to Governor Wolf regarding the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), with this week’s support of Senate Bill 119 by the Environmental Resources and Energy Committee. The bill requires legislative approval for PA to enter any program which deals with carbon emissions and the Wolf Administration offered that […]

Calling the legislation part of a “multi-faceted approach to closing the digital divide” Senate Communications and Technology Chairman Kristin Phillips-Hill teed up Senate Bill 341 for committee consideration on Tuesday. The Senator noted in her comments that many of the regulations currently on the books have not been updated in decades and that the legislation […]

At its public meeting yesterday, the PA PUC unanimously approved the Competitive Access Provider applications of Get Wireless Inc. and Hudson Fiber Network Inc to provide service throughout the state. Claverack Communications also received a unanimous thumbs-up to provide service as a Competitive Local Exchange Carrier in the service territories of Frontier-Commonwealth, Canton and Citizens, […]

Pennsylvania libraries in broadband news this week with the Department of Education announcement of the Libraries Connect Communities and Broadband Resources project. The initiative, designed to “improve access to broadband services in and beyond libraries across the commonwealth’s underserved and unserved communities” is a collaboration with KINBER and will receive a $1.4 million grant from […]

A single point of contact for all things broadband is the theme of legislation introduced this week by Representative Pam Snyder (D-Greene). HB 1075 was referred to the House Consumer Affairs Committee yesterday and establishes the Pennsylvania Broadband Development Authority. The PBDA would, among other things, have the authority to disseminate grants and loans to […]