As if they weren’t walking on eggshells already, tech giants probably weren’t overly thrilled with President Trump’s comments during this week’s interview on Fox Business suggesting that Google and Facebook should be sued by the federal government. A Washington Post article on the matter also highlighted recent antitrust activity in the nation’s capital in which […]

Representative Pam Snyder’s House Bill 305 was reported from the House Appropriations Committee and ultimately passed unanimously by the full House yesterday. The bill provides for an inventory of state- and county-owned assets for the provision of mobile broadband service.

Pennsylvania was not included, but attorneys general from ten states have filed a federal lawsuit seeking to block the Sprint T-Mobile merger on the grounds that it will stifle competition in the wireless market and consequently cause increased prices and negatively impact service quality. New York and California are leading the charge.

It was all about rural broadband in the state capital this week, starting with Monday’s unveiling of the Center for Rural Pennsylvania study on BB availability throughout the Commonwealth. The report was highly critical of the FCC’s attempts to accurately map where BB has been deployed with study author Sascha Meinrath saying that “there are […]

The House Consumer Affairs Committee will continue its impressive level of activity in the 2019-20 session with next Tuesday’s committee meeting addressing four bills including: House Bill 1511 which establishes a 60-day shot clock on the PUC when considering uncontested telco mergers, and House Resolution 250 which urges Congress to grant the FCC additional authority […]

Mostly good news this week for wanna-be partners T-Mobile and Sprint whose merger application was approved in a 3-2 vote at the PA PUC, but may be facing additional scrutiny at the U.S. Department of Justice. The majority PUC vote was in support of a Motion from Commissioner Andrew Place which noted the “affirmative public […]

With the start of the new fiscal year on the horizon, several budget bills of interest to the regulated telco industry are poised for consideration. House Bill 1374 contains the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission’s FY 2019-20 appropriation of $75,533,000, House Bill 1370 sets funding at $6,025,000 for the Office of Consumer Advocate and House Bill […]

A little deck shuffling this week by Senate Republican leadership has replaced Senator Wayne Langerholc as Chair of the Senate Communications and Technology Committee with freshman Senator Kristin Phillips-Hill. The latter was formerly co-chair of the House Broadband Caucus during her tenure there, and she has formed a bicameral caucus since joining the Senate. The […]

Governor Tom Wolf provided opening remarks at Wednesday’s Pennsylvania Priorities Summit in State College which featured several panels focused on rural broadband deployment in the state. Wolf was touting his Restore PA plan which proposes to monetize a gas severance tax and utilize the proceeds for a variety of infrastructure projects, including broadband. Not all […]