SDN Communications

ShoreTel has signed a definitive agreement to acquire M5 Networks ("M5"), a recognized leader in hosted Unified Communications.  As a result of this acquisition, ShoreTel will be uniquely positioned to provide customers a choice between on-premise and hosted UC solutions. 

In some ways, the best analogy to describe a South Dakota legislative session is that it is much like a bobsled going down a long winding run. It starts off slow, goes through several twists and turns, picks up speed the further it gets into the run and finally ends up at the finish line. As we finish the fourth weeks of the 2012 session, the legislative bobsled has had a few twists and turns (ie. internal investigations, breakaway caucuses, etc.), but it is now picking up steam as we move to the midpoint of the legislative calendar.

This past week, a couple of bills that have various effects on the communications industry were heard in legislative committees. SB 103, sponsored by Sen. Shantel Krebs (R-Renner), would reduce the advertising standard for unclaimed cooperative capital credits. The current statute has not been updated since 1965 and the language is somewhat convoluted. The bill would clarify that before a cooperative attempts to forfeit any unclaimed capital credits, it must advertise in the weekly newspaper of the last known address of the patron in question. The bill passed the Senate Commerce committee on a vote of 6-0 and the full Senate by a vote of 33-1. It now heads to the House for further hearings and debate.

Week three of the South Dakota Legislature is in the books. This was the first week where there was a significant amount of activity as committee agendas started to fill up and floor calendars started to get longer.

The deadline to file bills passed this week and when the final tally was done, there were 274 House bills and 195 Senate bills introduced for a total of 469 pieces of legislation. This is about equal to what we have seen, in terms of bills, for the past several years. Over the past several years, we have seen a reduction in the number of bills introduced. Some of that is due to tight budgets on the state level (ie. less money tends to equal status quo). Some of it is due to term limits—as you have more legislators who are new to the process, they tend to introduce fewer bills.

Most of the activity in the 2012 session for communications providers will center around SB 174. This bill will bring about some substantive changes to the 911 surcharge and the 911 system as a whole.

This week’s session was condensed to two days in order to allow legislators the opportunity to attend the Capitol memorial service on Tuesday and the funeral in Sioux Falls for former Governor Bill Janklow on Wednesday.

The legislative leadership decided to simply cancel these two days and work from a 33 day legislative calendar. That caused a flurry of activity this week as legislators and lobbyists worked to find sponsors and co-sponsors for bills in order to get them introduced before the filing deadline.

The South Dakota Legislature actually has two bill filing deadlines. The first deadline is for legislators who want to file an unlimited number of bills. That deadline is Monday (actually, it is Friday, January 20, as the bills need to be back to the legislative staff office in order to allow staff time to finalize the bills before they are formally introduced).

A recent study by Boyd Cos, a data security consulting company, showed that cities like Sioux Falls and Omaha are prime locations for future high-security data centers. The lower costs of operation, available and qualified workers, fiber-optic capacity, insulation from natural disasters and other factors puts Sioux Falls as the number 1 candidate for new data centers.

The first week of any legislative session tends to move at a snail’s pace. This generally has to do with various legislative rules and procedures as bills must be officially introduced to the legislature. Then, the presiding officer in each body (the Speaker in the House and the President Pro Tempore in the Senate) assigns the bills to the various committees. Then each committee must post their agendas 48 hours in advance of their next committee hearing. So even under the best of circumstances, the first day a bill can be heard is on the third or fourth legislative day—in this case either Thursday or Friday of the first week. And since some committees may few, if any bills, they may ask various agencies or lobbying groups to make presentations on various subjects (ie. Department of Revenue may brief the Taxation committee; the South Dakota Municipal League may brief the Local Government committee, etc.).

The death of former Gov. Janklow has brought changes to the legislative calendar. The Legislature will cancel their scheduled sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week. Janklow’s body will lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda on Tuesday morning, followed by a prayer service at 12:30 that day. His funeral will take place in Sioux Falls on Wednesday morning.