The Senate Commerce Committee plans a vote Wednesday on FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly’s renomination to a new term and a July 23 hearing on the FCC and NTIA roles in spectrum policymaking (see 2007150070). President Donald Trump nominated O’Rielly in March to a new term ending in 2024 (see 2003180070). A Senate Commerce vote on O’Rielly had been expected before the end of July (see 2007130054). O’Rielly’s confirmation hearing was last month (see 2006160062). Commerce will also vote on confirming Commerce Department acting General Counsel Michael Walsh, the Fundamentally Understanding the Usability and Realistic Evolution of Artificial Intelligence (Future of AI) Act (S-3771) and Advancing AI Research Act (S-3891). S-3771, first filed in 2017 (see 1712120051), would direct the Commerce Department to establish a Federal Advisory Committee on the Development and Implementation of Artificial Intelligence to “provide advice” on AI. S-3891 would establish a National Institute of Standards and Technology AI research program and other research institutes focused on AI. The executive session begins at 10 a.m. in G50 Dirksen, the committee said. New America’s Open Technology Institute Wireless Future Project Director Michael Calabrese and CTIA General Counsel Tom Power are among those to testify at the Communications Subcommittee’s July 23 spectrum hearing, the committee said. Also to appear are CommScope Director-Business Development Mark Gibson and Aalborg University Visiting Researcher Roslyn Layton, an American Enterprise Institute visiting scholar. That hearing will begin at 10 a.m. in 253 Russell.
The agency will act on an order changing the allocation of the 5.9 GHz band “certainly by the end of the year,” Chairman Ajit Pai answered our query in speaking with the media. Commissioner Mike O’Rielly said he’s not sure why an order isn’t on the Aug. 6 agenda. “I don’t think we’re that far away,” he said in response to our question: “A month or two here or there doesn’t cause me that much concern.” The FCC is expected to reallocate the band in coming months, with 45 MHz set aside for unlicensed use (see 2004300032). “I’m very excited about the potential for the 5.9 GHz band,” though he hasn’t reached a decision yet, Commissioner Brendan Carr said. “We kind of let 5.9 sit out there for a long time,” he said: “I’m glad that it’s on the table and that we’re working on it.”
The 988 suicide hotline draft order to be voted on at Thursday's commissioners' meeting doesn't change the two-year implementation deadline or make notable changes to the waiver process for wireline operators that struggle to meet it, an FCC official told us. The FCC didn't comment. Telecom interests argued two years isn't possible (see 2006230022). Verizon said the draft order's expected approval "will enhance mental health care in our country by helping people easily access potentially life-saving resources."
The FCC plans to renew its Disability Advisory Committee and sought applications for membership by Aug. 13, said a Tuesday notice.
Broadcast entities and white space devices proponents accused one another of attempting to seize control of spectrum they don’t own, in replies posted in docket 20-74 Tuesday in the FCC ATSC 3.0 distributed transmission system proceeding (see 2006150060). Microsoft’s opposition to relaxing interference rules to allow DTS systems is “a back door spectrum grab,” said One Media. The proposed changes “will only benefit a subgroup of broadcasters pursuing their vision of Broadcast Internet by allowing them to extend their respective coverage footprint,” Microsoft said. Though a broadcaster, PMCM also argued that DTS supporters’ motives aren’t pure. “The proposal is essentially a grab for new territory at the cost of decades of Commission adherence to community values,” PMCM said. "The only opposition to this proposal comes from parties with secondary or non-existent spectrum rights that ask the Commission to provide them with unprecedented and unwarranted protections,” said NAB and America’s Public Television Stations. Rule changes are premature because broadcasters have “yet to deploy ATSC 3.0 services in any widespread manner” and they aren’t aimed at improving TV broadcasting, said the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute and Public Knowledge. Assertions that broadcasters aren’t seeking those changes to improve over-the-air TV and would heavily invest in single-frequency networks only to compete in a datacasting market that doesn’t yet exist are naive, BitPath said. Revenue and public service benefits from datacasting won’t justify those sorts of investments on their own “for the foreseeable future,” said the company. “While the Commission does not propose granting the DTS spillover area any protection or rights today, based on the history of ATSC 3.0, we know such a request will be forthcoming,” Microsoft said. “It is only a matter of when.”
The campaign of former Vice President Joe Biden, Democrats’ presumptive 2020 presidential nominee, backed universal broadband and 5G access for all Americans in a Tuesday proposal. “Millions of households without access to broadband are locked out of an economy that is increasingly reliant on virtual collaboration,” the campaign said. “As the COVID-19 crisis has revealed, Americans everywhere need universal, reliable, affordable, and high-speed internet.” The digital divide “needs to be closed everywhere. ... Just like rural electrification several generations ago, universal broadband is long overdue and critical to broadly shared economic success.” Biden’s “unity” task force with former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., cited universal broadband access among several telecom policy recommendations earlier this month (see 2007080068). A spokesperson for President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign called the broader proposal “more like a socialist manifesto” that shows Biden “is beholden to the radical socialist ideology” of Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.
Policy fixes for tackling the 20 million or more "digitally invisible" Americans who lack digital access include universal broadband service, continuing to lift the regulatory restrictions and providing telehealth services, said Nicol Turner Lee, Brookings Institution director-Center for Technology Innovation, Monday on a panel. FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks, organizer of the event about communications technology ways of addressing Black mental health needs, said "internet inequality ... has exacerbated other long-standing social gaps in every aspect of American life." Telehealth service provision surged during the pandemic, but Black communities disproportionately lack access to telecom services that allow access to telehealth, he said, according to prepared remarks.
The Transportation and the Commerce Departments -- which held a series of meetings in June with other FCC officials about Ligado concerns (see 2006300069) -- now have held similar such meetings with Commissioner Brendan Carr, per a docket 11-109 posting Monday. DOD and Commerce officials also met with Carr and Wireless Bureau and Office of Engineering and Technology representatives about classified material involving Ligado, the agencies said.
The telecom industry has put forward "a reasonable transition path" for rolling out the 988 suicide hotline given the 10-digit dialing transition and translations work needed to make it universal, and a phased-in approach is the only route that works, CenturyLink representatives told aides to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, per a docket 18-336 posting Friday. The draft order and its two-year deadline "grossly underestimates" the complexity of numerous simultaneous 10-digit dialing transitions, it said. CenturyLink -- which services all but one of the 87 numbering plan areas (NPA) that will have to transition to 10-digit dialing -- said more than 1,100 of its rate centers will need 10-digit dialing conversions, each taking up to 80 hours of work. It said the draft order is wrong to suggest the ongoing IP transition will speed up or coincide with 988 implementation. "Nothing in the record suggests a two-year timeline is possible, and to the contrary, much in the record plainly states a two-year timeline is not possible," it said. If commissioners go ahead with a two-year timeline at Thursday's meeting, that clock should start ticking only once the North American numbering plan administrator has developed a transition schedule for the 87 NPAs, or require the administrator develop an implementation schedule with the two-year deadline starting after a final FCC order explaining the criteria for wireline providers to get waivers, CenturyLink said. In calls with aides to Pai and Commissioner Mike O'Rielly, USTelecom said waivers might be necessary. The National Institute of Mental Health backs the FCC efforts, NIMH Director Joshua Gordon tweeted Friday. "A 9-8-8 three-digit number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline will help callers quickly and simply access help in times of crisis."
The FCC is considering expanded exemptions to ex parte rules to cover some discussions with tribal nations and with the toll-free numbering and reassigned numbers database administrators, said a draft NPRM in Friday's Daily Digest. It also seeks comment on a proposed requirement that all written ex parte presentations be submitted before the sunshine period begins and that replies to them be filed by the first day of the sunshine period. The commission said it still encourages tribal nations to file comments and replies into the record, but it understands their interest in consulting on a government-to-government basis without concern about documenting such consultations on the rulemaking record in every case. The proposed exemption would be limited to consultations with tribal leaders or their representatives, and not individual tribal members or tribally owned businesses. The agency asked for input on whether any information a tribal government presents during an exempt consultation would need to be disclosed on the record for the FCC to rely on it when making a decision. The proposed program administrators exemption would extend to them the same exemption covering consultations between FCC staff and the interstate telecom services fund administrator, Universal Service Administrative Co. and administrators for the North American numbering plan, local number portability, telephone relay services numbering and pooling involving their administrative functions. The role between the FCC and the toll-free numbering administrator or reassigned numbers database administrator "is substantially the same" as it is between the agency and those other administrators, thus the exemption extension would harmonize the rules, it said. The FCC said the current sunshine period rules have meant staff difficulty at times evaluating all relevant filings in the limited time before an agency meeting. Free Press Vice President-Policy Matt Wood tweeted he's "not too alarmed" by the proposal because the intergovernmental and administrative privileges the FCC has are expanding but also harmonizing. "Sure, I'd like to know what USAC says to the FCC [but] I worry more about what this FCC says to USAC, not the other way round," he said. He said speeding up filings for meetings on the day before sunshine starts is "pro transparency." Smaller filers and nongovernmental organizations might find it harder to comply than big companies, but the latter meet more often with the FCC and the staff review time rational "is pretty compelling," he said.