President Donald Trump signed the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act (HR-4998) Thursday, as expected (see 2003040056). The law, which the Senate passed in February (see 2002270070), allocates $1 billion to help U.S. communications providers remove from their networks Chinese equipment determined to threaten national security (see 1912160052). The White House tied Trump’s signing of HR-4998 to a broader commitment “to safeguard America’s vital communications networks and securing technology.” Trump “is committed to the development of reliable 5G and ensuring the United States remains the global leader in technology and innovation,” the White House said. The administration “is working with allies and partners” on telecom security principles “that will foster reliable 5G networks” and “is working to ensure America’s private sector has access to spectrum, including critical mid-band spectrum, to fuel the growth of our wireless industry.” Trump is “committed to ensure” that rural Americans “have access to safe and reliable high-speed broadband,” the White House said. Trump told reporters before a meeting with Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar he believes if countries like Ireland use equipment from Chinese telecom equipment maker Huawei, “there's a real problem with intelligence and intelligence security. And we'll see what happens. We'll be discussing that point also.” HR-4998’s enactment drew praise from FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, U.S. lawmakers and communications sector officials. “Securing our networks from malicious foreign interference is critical to America’s wireless future, especially as some communications providers rely on equipment from companies like Huawei that pose an immense threat,” said HR-4998 lead sponsors House Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, D-N.J.; ranking member Greg Walden, R-Ore.; House Communications Subcommittee Vice Chair Doris Matsui, D-Calif.; and Rep. Brett Guthrie, R-Ky. Now “we can take steps to protect our communications networks from bad actors, while helping small and rural providers remove and replace suspect network equipment.” The law “lays the foundation to help U.S. firms strip out vulnerable equipment and replace it,” said Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss. "I hope Congress will build on this success and move forward quickly to appropriate the necessary funding to reimburse carriers for replacing any network equipment or services found to be a national security threat," Pai said. "This funding is essential to successfully transition communications networks—especially those of small and rural carriers—to infrastructure provided by more trusted vendors." Telecommunications Industry Association CEO David Stehlin called HR-4998 “an important step forward in the United States’ efforts to safeguard the integrity of our communications networks by supporting efforts to replace at-risk equipment with equipment from trusted suppliers.” The Rural Wireless Association said that “now we must push ahead in Congress to quickly appropriate the authorized funding." Mavenir considers HR-4998 “an important step,” said CEO Pardeep Kohli. Trump is "providing another policy tool to prevent China and others from interfering in our communications networks," said 5G Action Now Chairman Mike Rogers. He praised "banning the use of federal funds to buy equipment from Huawei, ZTE, and other companies deemed to be national security threats, while providing funds to allow small businesses to remove this equipment."
Many vertical acquisitions are good for competition or at least neutral, but the wrong vertical one "can create and entrench monopolists" and that risk is higher in digital markets where vertically integrated platforms have access to data needed by potential rivals, said DOJ antitrust Chief Makan Delrahim Wednesday at a vertical mergers guidelines workshop, per prepared remarks. He said if important data is available only to a downstream service due to an acquisition, that might increase the ability to raise rivals' downstream costs. He said the AT&T/Time Warner decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit was "a significant development" in making clear that Section 7 of the Clayton Act governs an anti-competitive acquisition. He called that important because Section 7 looks to possible future effects and lets DOJ act before a problem arises.
The U.S. Cyberspace Solarium Commission urged the federal government Wednesday to make major changes to its cybersecurity approach, including creating a Senate-confirmed national cyber director and a Bureau of Cyber Statistics. CSC urged the government to establish a special fund for cyberattack response and recovery efforts and said Congress should create stand-alone House and Senate cybersecurity committees, which has been sought for years (see 1403270046). “For over 20 years, nation-states and non-state actors have used cyberspace to subvert American power,” the commission reported. “Despite numerous criminal indictments, economic sanctions, and the development of robust cyber and non-cyber military capabilities, the attacks against the United States have continued.” CSC didn’t seek a unified federal cybersecurity agency, saying the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the State Department, Election Assistance Commission and other federal agencies with cyber responsibilities should partly restructure. “We want working at CISA to become so appealing to young professionals interested in national service that it competes with the NSA, the FBI, Google, and Facebook for top-level talent (and wins)," the CSC said. It recommended the Commerce Department to establish a National Cybersecurity Certification and Labeling Authority and State to have an assistant secretary focused on cybersecurity issues. CSC Commissioner and House Armed Services Emerging Threats Subcommittee Chairman Jim Langevin, D-R.I., said "our strategy of layered cyber deterrence will provide solid guidance for transformational reforms.” House Homeland Security Committee ranking member Mike Rogers, R-Ala., and Cybersecurity Subcommittee ranking member John Katko, R-N.Y., hailed the report. It represents “thoughtful and actionable ideas,” Rogers said. The "serious, forward-leaning recommendations" can help ensure critical infrastructure can "better defend against advanced cyber threats," said BSA|The Software Alliance Senior Director-Policy Tommy Ross. "Not everyone will like every recommendation the Commission produced, but our hope is that the report will create a sense of urgency for Congress to take meaningful, bipartisan action.”
The Senate approved Tuesday the House-passed version of the Broadband Deployment Accuracy and Technological Availability Act (S-1822) by unanimous consent. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and seven other committee Republicans are meanwhile calling for the FCC to distribute money from its proposed 5G Fund based on accurate broadband coverage data. The FCC has been considering what to ask in its coming NPRM to set up the new $9 billion USF program, which replaces Mobility Fund Phase II (see 2002130020). Senate passage of the House-altered S-1822 sends the measure on to President Donald Trump, who’s expected to sign it. The House last week amended S-1822 to included language from its House-passed companion (HR-4229), which was expanded into a larger broadband mapping legislative package (see 2003030064). S-1822 now also includes language from the House-passed Mapping Accuracy Promotes Services Act (HR-4227), which would bar companies from knowingly giving the FCC inaccurate broadband coverage data. “Flawed broadband maps are a huge problem for rural and underserved communities, including many in Mississippi,” Wicker said. “I expect the FCC and other federal agencies to use these new maps when awarding funding.” Unless "appropriately targeted," the 5G Fund "risks deepening the digital divide,” Wicker and the other senators wrote FCC Chairman Ajit Pai in a letter released Tuesday. The other GOP senators signing were: Communications Subcommittee Chairman John Thune of South Dakota; Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee; Roy Blunt of Missouri; Deb Fischer of Nebraska; Ron Johnson of Wisconsin; Jerry Moran of Kansas; and Todd Young of Indiana. The senators noted they had repeatedly criticized MF-II. Wicker was on the verge of seeking an amendment to FY 2019 federal spending legislation that would force the FCC to revisit its MF-II maps before the FCC decided to investigate if top wireless carriers submitted incorrect coverage maps in violation of program rules (see 1812100056). “Although this program appears to focus on forward looking technologies that preserve and expand service in areas that otherwise may not be economical to serve, our concerns remain with regards to reliable underlying coverage data that is used to determine funding eligibility,” the senators said. The agency didn’t comment.
USTelecom proposed an FCC robocall mitigation framework (see 2002240049) incorporating voice traffic not yet covered by current mitigation strategies, such as enterprise and TDM traffic, and a way to act against voice service providers with deficient robocall mitigation programs. A newer robocall law recognizes that the secure telephone identity revisited standards and signature-based handling of asserted information using tokens "call authentication framework is a set of protocols developed for IP voice traffic," USTelecom said in filing posted Monday on docket 17-59. "Equivalent protocols for non-IP voice traffic do not presently exist. Likewise, the authentication of enterprise calls remains a subject of ongoing development work." Incompas and members Bandwidth, BT, Microsoft and TelNet met Wednesday with staff from the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, asking them to publicly identify what they consider reasonable factors for opt-out call-blocking measures. "Call blocking in a highly complex communications environment carries a high risk of unintended consequences, including the possibility that lawful traffic may be inadvertently intercepted," Incompas filed. It wants more guidance to help prevent false positives. Commissioners will vote at their March 31 meeting on mandating Stir/Shaken (see 2003090050).
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai noted International Association of Firefighters support for vertical location accuracy rules commissioners approved in November (see 1911220034), promising to do more, in remarks to the group Monday. “We know that our z-axis metric should improve as technology evolves,” Pai said. “We’ll look at tightening the z-axis metric over time. Ultimately, we’ll look at requiring wireless carriers to report the caller’s specific floor level. You can be sure that we will never stop aiming to improve the system to make it easier for you to do your job.” Pai told the firefighters he hopes Congress acts soon to repeal a mandate that the FCC auction the T band, which is used in some areas for public safety communications. The regulator has concluded a T-band auction “wouldn’t be feasible,” Pai said. Such a bill gets a markup Tuesday.
FCBA postponed one program and is sticking with all others for now. The coronavirus prompted conferences and other gatherings to go virtual or be put off (see 2003050069). Thursday's FCBA International Telecom Committee brown bag lunch with wireless and international aides to FCC members will be rescheduled for a date to be determined soon, the event webpage said. "Due to the availability and limitations of the FCC staff, we’ve decided it best to reschedule," emailed FCBA Executive Director Kerry Loughney. She told us Friday she hopes the group's "other events will move forward." The commission last week suspended "until further notice any FCC involvement in non-critical large gatherings that involve participants from across the country and/or around the world." See our news bulletin. The agency didn't comment now. Many are watching whether the FCC sends commissioners and staffers to the NAB Show next month (see 2003060047). FCBA lists eight future events through next month that haven't been postponed. The organization livestreamed a Friday program on Congressional Budget Office scoring of FCC spectrum auctions (see 2003060053) for commission staff, in addition to holding it in person as had been planned. Brattle Group principal Coleman Bazelon, who led the presentation, said FCC staff who had registered to attend “were told that they’re not supposed to go to public gatherings anymore.” Bazelon noted he went to the agency’s headquarters Wednesday and was asked both about his travel during the previous two weeks and “if I was planning to” travel to any locations where coronavirus outbreaks have occurred. DOJ and the FTC had scheduled a Wednesday event on their draft vertical mergers and acquisitions guidelines, and another March 18. There has been no word on whether those gatherings would occur, and the agencies didn't comment. We filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the FTC Friday seeking such details.
Corrections: The time when the FCC C-band clearing order pays incumbent satellite operators the majority of their incentive funds is at completion of Phase II clearing (see 2003040042). ... The date of a New America panel on its digital rights ranking is March 17. See our calendar and the event webpage.
AT&T is putting “real money” into backup power systems in California, after last year’s public safety power shutoffs, Assistant Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Fassil Fenikile told California Public Utilities Commissioners at an en banc hearing. Cost is the biggest barrier to carriers adopting longer-life backup power at cellsites, said witnesses. AT&T has “taken a very high note of what happened in October” and will brief commissioners soon on its actions responding to the outages caused by power shutoffs, said Fenikile: “There is a lot of work underway.” The carrier is using portable, diesel-based generators with a focus on high-fire-risk areas, he said. All AT&T towers have battery backup system of up to eight hours, enough time to bring portable generators to sites without fixed generators, he said. There are “some scalability challenges” to deploying renewable backup systems, and space can be a limitation, he said. Without requirements or incentives, telecom operators make decisions about buying fuel cells based on what has the least immediate capital cost, said Darin Painter, Plug Power director-sales. Customers don’t consider long-term costs, he said. “The operators are looking for the initial investment, and they don't want to go beyond that,” agreed Ray Schnell, NantEnergy vice president-global business development. “Realistically, if you want 72 hours of storage like California's starting to think about, you really need a low-cost energy storage.” Adding value to backup power would help the business case, said SolarVision Consulting CEO Andrew Skumanich. "If you're going to be asking the telecom companies to be putting in assets that are essentially insurance for when the power drops, you're asking them to put out a capital outlay for assets that may be used 1% of the time, if that." The challenge is getting enough data and machine learning so a system knows when to switch energy sources, said Skumanich. There is such optimization software, said Schneider Electric Microgrid Competency Center Program Director John Ahrens. Earlier Wednesday, CPUC members heard about broadband adoption (see 2003040048).
A request for en banc review or a Supreme Court petition for writ of certiorari is next after a 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmation of a lower court's dismissal of a complaint against Charter Communications for running fiber cable using a Louisville Gas & Electric electrical line easement (see 1810240014). So said lawyer John Cox of Lynch Cox, representing landowner plaintiff Stephen West, in an email to us Wednesday. The opinion (docket 19-2442), filed Monday by Judges William Bauer, Frank Easterbrook and David Hamilton and written by Easterbrook, said Charter's use of the easement was permissible under Indiana law. Whether other state laws or other easement situations would justify a different reading of "dedicated for compatible uses" is a question for another case, the judges said.