The FCC adopted a new seal, before its planned move to new headquarters near Union Station in Washington said a public notice Thursday. The seal, depicting an eagle positioned behind a shield decorated with a satellite, microwave and broadcast dishes and a cellular tower facing strung communications wires, was chosen through an agencywide contest that began in November. The winning design, by Umasankar Arumugam, was voted on in December and announced internally in January, an agency spokesperson told us. Arumugam’s LinkedIn profile lists him as a director for IT company NCI Information Systems, which mentions analytic work for the FCC on its website. Arumugam didn’t comment. The seal has four stars as a call-back to FCC predecessor the Federal Radio Commission and 18 stars representing the agency's bureaus and offices, the PN said. Because of the move and need to create new seals for the new building regardless, the overall cost “was minimized as much as can be,” a spokesperson said. The FCC said it will begin officially using the new seal after the move, which is delayed by COVID-19 concerns (see 2004130057). The U.S. Institute of Heraldry, which provides heraldic services to federal agencies and the military, didn’t comment. American College of Heraldry Executive Director David Wooten said the seal leans “toward the logo end of the spectrum.” The "logic behind the FCC’s new seal is certainly clear, though it would not necessarily qualify as heraldry,” Wooten said.
Stakeholders wanting to weigh in on whether the FCC COVID-19 telehealth fund program should be expanded to include for-profit healthcare facilities should file comments, Commissioner Brendan Carr said during a Connected Health Initiative webinar Wednesday. “It's a live issue,” he said of docket 20-89 (see 2004270044). “You should let us know if we've made the right cut.” During a pandemic nonprofits and for-profits treating COVID-19 look more similar than different, said Carr. The program's rules were borrowed from the Rural Health Care program, which limits healthcare provider eligibility. Carr said he's eager to raise visibility for the program to drive more applications. When we asked how soon he expects the program to spend through its $200 million in funding, he said, “the sooner the better.” He's pleased with the pace the Wireline Bureau adopted and the "cadence," about twice a week, with which it's awarding funds. He's not micromanaging the bureau's work, he said, and awards go out quickly because commissioners don't vote. They will vote on participants in the $100 million Connected Care pilot, he added. The FCC announced earlier Wednesday 13 new awardees were granted $4.2 million. They include rural and urban healthcare providers in Colorado, Georgia, New York, Washington, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Michigan and Minnesota.
The FCC is opening Lifeline enrollment to those newly unemployed during the pandemic. Instead of requiring three consecutive months of income documentation, new enrollees can submit an unemployment benefits statement or other official evidence of current income status, it ordered Wednesday. The order extends, also through June 30, previous waiver of recertification, reverification, general de-enrollment and usage requirements. Many advocacy groups and companies wrote Congress backing more spending on broadband for the underserved (see 2004240014) as part of COVID-19 stimulus. Signers include NTCA, the Fiber Broadband Association, Incompas, Mozilla, Twitter, NATOA, Public Knowledge, NAACP and the R Street Institute.
FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks plans an hour-long roundtable Monday, livestreamed via the FCC website at 1 p.m. EST, on ways to ensure broadband access for students from historically black colleges and universities learning remotely during the pandemic, his office told us Tuesday. He commended a letter from 144 members of Congress asking FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to cooperate with other federal agencies in promoting Lifeline (see 2004280058).
The FCC seeks comment on how to curb one-ring scams in Tuesday's Daily Digest. The NPRM asked how the FCC "can work effectively with federal, state, and foreign law enforcement and other government agencies to combat one-ring scams." It wants to know how to help consumers avoid the scams, how to encourage voice service providers to block the calls, how to work with entities that provide call-blocking services, and what obligations international gateway providers should have. The FCC wants commenters to consider suggestions' cost-effectiveness. The item in docket 20-93 was in the notice of inquiry stage when it circulated earlier this month (see 2004100054). "That’s hardly moving with the urgency that a growing scam like this requires," Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said. "So I am pleased that my colleagues agreed to my request to fast track this effort and turn it into" an NPRM. Commissioner Geoffrey Starks also issued a statement of support.
House Commerce Committee ranking member Greg Walden, R-Ore., says he’s not siding with lawmakers who opposed FCC approval of Ligado’s low-power terrestrial L-band network plans. “We need to trust the expert agencies who make spectrum decisions,” he said in a statement we obtained Tuesday. “This application has been tested, reviewed, revised, and tested again. We must accept the science and the fact that the expert engineers at the FCC took into account the positions of the engineers at the other agencies.” Leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services committees and House Infrastructure Committee Chairman Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., are exploring legislative options to intervene (see 2004230001). “Both the private and public sectors have legitimate uses for spectrum,” Walden said. “We must stick to the facts and trust that engineers making spectrum allocation decisions are doing so for our economic and national security, with scientific data at the forefront of the process.”
Federal employees shouldn’t be required to return to their offices until they have widespread access to COVID-19 tests, processes are in place to take employee temperatures before they enter buildings, and state and local stay-at-orders are lifted, said the National Treasury Employees Union Monday. NTEU represents FCC employees. Protections should include allowance of "maximum" telework, adequate sanitizer and disinfectant supplies, and workspaces that allow for physical distancing, the release said. The union created a conditions for “#safereturn” flier for union employees and their agencies. The release references the announcement that 10,000 IRS employees are being recalled to work. “All federal agencies need to take stock now of where they are and what should be done before employees return,” said NTEU President Tony Reardon. NTEU expressed concerns earlier this month about FCC workers returning to work (see 2004140048). The FCC didn’t comment now. Chairman Ajit Pai told reporters Thursday in response to our query that he would prioritize employee safety in considering reopening headquarters (see 2004230046).
Hudson Institute's Robert Spalding said the FCC is right to probe four telecom operators “ultimately subject to the ownership and control of the Chinese government" (see 2004240046). “I doubt these companies are going to reply,” Spalding emailed Saturday: “They would have to explain the requirement for all citizens and companies of China to respond to intelligence requests.” It’s fair game to ask “how these companies can protect U.S. customers against information monitoring given that China's government mandates disclosure of information relevant to China's national security when requested,” said the American Enterprise Institute's Zack Cooper. “U.S. telecommunications firms are not allowed to operate in China, so I would expect China's telecom providers to understand if the United States placed similar restrictions.”
The FCC has made progress addressing security vulnerabilities in the electronic comment filing system related to the disruptions during the 2017 net neutrality comment period (see 1812030034) but needs to do more, GAO reported Friday in the publicly available version of a report released for official use in September. GAO offered 136 recommendations the FCC could implement to improve ECFS security, and by November, the agency had “fully implemented” 85. The auditor said the commission has a plan to tackle all the recommendations by April 2021. “We have been working diligently to address the recommendations in the report and have addressed 94 to date and plan to implement the remaining recommendations on a rolling basis over the next year," emailed an FCC spokesperson Friday. Deficiencies found by GAO involved “identifying risk, protecting systems from threats and vulnerabilities, detecting and responding to cyber security events, and recovering system operations,” the report said. "The FCC is committed to protecting the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of our information systems,” the spokesperson said. “Until the FCC implements all of the remaining recommendations, its systems will remain vulnerable to failure and misuse,” said House Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, D-N.J. He said Chairman Ajit Pai "must act swiftly to fix these vulnerabilities and restore trust back into the ECFS and the FCC’s cybersecurity practices overall.”
FCC commissioners voted this week to approve release of an annual Telecom Act Section 706 report finding advanced telecom is deployed in a reasonable and timely manner, officials told us Thursday. A report could be released as early as Friday, with statements from each office, officials said. Chairman Ajit Pai circulated the report last month (see 2004150020). Commissioner Brendan Carr told reporters Thursday the report doesn't signal "mission accomplished" but is a measure of the pace of broadband deployment, which is reasonable. He was answering our question. Commissioner Mike O'Rielly also voted in favor, his office said. Democratic Commissioners Geoffrey Starks and Jessica Rosenworcel dissented, their offices told us.