Comcast will offer residential multigigabit broadband service for up to 200,000 customers in Chattanooga, Tennessee, beginning in June and expects to expand availability locally over the next several months, it said in a release Thursday. Gigabit Pro is a symmetrical, 2 Gbps service that will be delivered via a fiber-to-the-home solution and will be the fastest residential Internet speed in the country, Comcast said. Earlier this month, it announced Gigabit Pro rollouts in Atlanta, California and Florida, and said it plans to roll out the service to 18 million homes by year end, it said.

Members of the National Association of State Chief Information Officers met with the FirstNet to discuss how states and FirstNet will proceed in planning and deploying a nationwide interoperable public safety broadband network, said NASCIO in a news release Wednesday. It said it wants to look at how state plans will be developed and presented to the states, as well as what the business model FirstNet chooses will mean for the network's sustainability and the potential impact to states as partners and customers.

After 37 years with the NARUC -- 17 as executive director -- Charles Gray said he plans to retire in December, the organization said Thursday. He said he plans to work with President Lisa Edgar and the executive committee to help ease the transition.

The FCC's proposed rule in the effective competition proceeding will hurt consumers and lead to higher prices, said the Alliance for Community Media, American Community Television and the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors in a letter to the FCC posted Tuesday in docket 15-53. It will do so because no basic service tier of any cable provider will be subject to local rate regulation, the letter said. The commission should narrow the scope of this proceeding and ensure that any action taken doesn't impose additional burdens on local governments or subject consumers to higher prices, it said.

Homeowner preregistration in Madison, Mississippi, exceeded the required threshold last week -- helping the municipality qualify its first area for C Spire’s 1 Gbps fiber-to-the-home Internet access and related services, said the company in a news release Tuesday. The city reached the target in 36 days, which C Spire said is faster than any other Mississippi city for the next-generation suite of services, which includes 100 times faster Internet, HDTV and home phone. C Spire said it expects to finish engineering, begin construction and offer the first commercial broadband Internet and related services in Madison later this year.

New Jersey Advocates for Immigrant Detainees, LatinoJustice PRLDEF and New York University School of Law Immigrant Rights Clinic applaud the New Jersey Department of Corrections for awarding a contract to an inmate calling service provider that will lower prison and jail phone rates to 4.4 cents per minute, cutting the rate by more than half, said a news release from NJAID. Currently, state facilities charge a flat rate of 13 cents per minute, and county jails charge as much as $8.50 for a 15-minute call, the release said. The new rates can take effect any time before Aug. 25, meaning once the transition to the new contract is finalized, the cost for a 15-minute phone call will be less than 75 cents, NJAID said.

Skyway Towers filed a lawsuit alleging that the town of Zanesville, Indiana, violated the Communications Act by rejecting the company's proposal to build a new cell tower on behalf of Verizon, said Dan Behuniak, CEO of Skyway Towers. He said the company proposed to build the 180-foot monopole with no lights in the one place it would be able to work, but the town council rejected the plan twice, with no "valid reason." The suit was filed April 20 with the 7th Circuit of the Indiana Northern District Court. The Communications Act requires that nothing be allowed to prohibit the "provision of personal wireless services." The town office didn't comment Monday.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation asked the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to close a loophole in the state’s warrant requirements for cellphones in an amicus brief filed last week, EFF Staff Attorney Andrew Crocker said in a blog post Monday. The court “issued a landmark decision” last year in Commonwealth v. Augustine, by requiring police to obtain a search warrant “before they can track individuals’ past movements using information from their cell phones,” Crocker said. Massachusetts courts have interpreted language in the decision as a loophole to let law enforcement collect cell site location information (CSLI) for a period of six hours or less without a warrant, Crocker said. The Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School and the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts helped the EFF file its brief, which said even small amounts of location data can be revealing and that Americans are entitled to an expectation of privacy.

FirstNet's board approved the framework of FirstNet’s proposed acquisition approach to deploy the nationwide public safety broadband network and authorized the release of a special notice requesting feedback on draft request for proposals (RFP) documents, during a special meeting Friday. The board also approved a third public notice seeking further comment on the definition and scope of the term “public safety entity” as used in FirstNet’s enabling legislation. It's important to continue consulting with the public safety community on these items, board members said during the meeting. “Today’s decisions by the FirstNet board continue the significant progress FirstNet is achieving toward our goal of implementing the nationwide public safety broadband network,” said Chairwoman Sue Swenson. FirstNet also decided at the meeting to finalize the special notice with draft RFP documents to reflect the board’s decisions and plans to release them Monday, with responses due within 90 days. The documents will be posted via Federal Business Opportunities. The prepublication version of the third notice will be posted on FirstNet’s website, with a 30-day comment period that begins after the notice is published in the Federal Register.

The Michigan House adopted a resolution asking the president, Congress and the FCC to rescind the net neutrality order, said a filing posted in FCC docket 14-28 Tuesday. The resolution urges Congress to continue efforts to pass legislation that would provide clear rules on Internet protection and not hinder investment in broadband, in place of the FCC's new rules.