An advocate for the deaf and hard of hearing "very much" supports a draft item up for an FCC vote Thursday that would make permanent a pilot allowing at-home call handling for video relay services (see 2001090025). Claude Stout, executive director for Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, told us the trial went well, and the FCC had the needed safeguards. TDI isn't seeking changes to the item's language: "We think it's fine as written," Stout said. The draft order in dockets 03-123 and 10-51 simplifies safeguards, but Stout said it retains important ones, such as requirements that home workstations have locked doors so children can't interrupt a call. Proposed requirements also include sound proofing to protect callers' confidentiality, and a virtual private network connection to a provider's system. Proposed rules don't require a separate home broadband connection dedicated solely to VRS call handling. Home communications assistants would be subject to unannounced home inspections, the draft said. The pilot began in 2017 (see 1711010015), and participants ZVRS and Purple Communications received extensions (see 1910310034). Stout said he expects additional VRS providers to participate in the at-home calling program. The program benefits all, Stout suggested: The FCC's telecommunication relay services fund should have reduced outlays because interpreters would spend less time at call centers and thus be subject to less reimbursement; VRS providers wouldn't need to expand call center operations as often if more employees worked from home; and part-time workers experienced in American Sign Language wouldn't need to commute to call centers, freeing up time to use their signing skills elsewhere in the community such as at schools or churches. Allowing VRS calling assistants to work from home also offers much-needed network redundancy during power outages or other emergencies at a VRS call center, Stout said. Workers at home could take overflow calls if events caused unexpected demand for VRS calls, he added. The program also allows VRS providers to attract skilled interpreters for whom working at a call center isn't a practical option, Stout said.
The FCC's Office of Inspector General suspects widespread noncompliance regarding the Lifeline service's eligible telecom carriers usage rule, said an advisory Tuesday. Lifeline ETCs "shall only receive universal service support reimbursement for Lifeline service provided to subscribers who have used the service within the last 30 days, or who have cured their non-usage in accordance with the commission's rules," it said. OIG said it's investigating large and small ETCs for significant potential violations. "Neither willful violations nor failed management practices are acceptable," it said. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai announced last year that Sprint "sought tens of millions of dollars in Lifeline subsidies for consumers who should have been de-enrolled from the program for non-usage," OIG said (see 1909240023). FCC posted comments on Lifeline program waste, fraud and abuse proposals through Tuesday in docket 17-287 (see 2001280005).
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted summary judgment to Hilton in Glasser v. Hilton Grand Vacations, case no. 18-14499 (in Pacer), involving the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. A device used to call Melanie Glasser didn't qualify as an autodialer, said Circuit Judge Beverly Martin. But she dissented from the majority's reversal of the grant of summary judgment to Tabitha Evans because Martin said the system used by the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency to make 35 calls to Evans qualified as an automatic telephone dialing system. A year ago, consumer groups said Hilton's use of "human clicking agents" shouldn't protect the company from TCPA prohibitions (see 1901250002).
The FCC certified the first four spectrum access system administrators for full-scale commercial launch of unlicensed use of the citizens broadband radio service band. The four are CommScope, Federated Wireless, Google and Sony. The development was expected as a critical next step for the band (see 1912260040). The four, plus Amdocs, were cleared last year to start initial commercial deployment in the 3.5 GHz spectrum. “The FCC has made it a priority to free up mid-band spectrum for advanced wireless services like 5G” and this is “the latest step to achieve that priority,” said Chairman Ajit Pai. Priority access licensees and general authorized access (GAA) users will share the band, with the administrators managing use of the band. Its first commercial use is in the GAA tier, with the FCC auction of PALs to start June 25. The Wireless Bureau and Office of Engineering and Technology issued the approvals Monday. “With more than 25 customers offering commercial services and another 50 in development, Federated Wireless is extremely pleased with the momentum the market has achieved since[initial launch] in September, and we are eager to continue driving the next wave of services including private 5G,” said Federated Wireless CEO Iyad Tarazi: “2020 will be an extremely active year for all of us who have worked so hard to bring the promise of CBRS to reality, and we are fully committed to working closely with all of the customer segments that stand to benefit from the new business and service models being developed and deployed today.” After years of work, "full commercial deployment of CBRS shared spectrum is a real thing, not a dream,” emailed Louis Peraertz, Wireless ISP Association vice president-policy: “If it works in this complex band, other forms of sharing -- such as in the C-Band, 5.9 GHz and 6 GHz bands -- can and should go forward. We cannot wait to see what it will do for the band and for other spectrum.” Full commercial deployment “is the final stage in the commercialization process that started in 2013 when the FCC began pursuing an innovative shared spectrum model in the 3.5 GHz band,” the CBRS Alliance said: “The success of this initiative is the result of unprecedented public-private partnerships between industry and government organizations.”
NTIA released a report Monday calling for further study but saying federal agencies may be able to share the 3450-3550 MHz band, which is directly below the 3.5 GHz citizens broadband radio service spectrum (see 2001270025). DOD assisted in preparing the report. Federal operations in the band “include shipborne, airborne, and land-based systems -- primarily radars,” blogged Charles Cooper, associate administrator of the NTIA Office of Spectrum Management: “Our report points to a clear possibility for real time spectrum sharing that would protect these critical missions, while providing attractive opportunities for commercial business.” The next step is studying how often each of the federal systems is used, and then developing “mechanisms for reliably informing commercial operations when federal systems are operating nearby,” Cooper said: "This 100 MHz of spectrum should be well suited for realizing 5G’s promise of higher throughput and lower latency operations." The report says the band gets significant federal use, with shipborne radars operating at more than 20 ports along the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf coasts. Some airborne systems operate nationwide; other systems are limited, the report said: “The ground-based radars operate at over one hundred locations, including many near high-population areas. In addition, DOD continues to deploy systems at additional locations and to develop new systems for operation in the band.” Some aspects “of the systems are classified, which reduced the ability for the report to be as transparent regarding the analysis as otherwise possible,” the document says. Frequency- or geographic-based sharing approaches “would result in significant restrictions on commercial services, in terms of emitter power limits and exclusion zones, making sufficient access for viable commercial applications unlikely,” the report found: “A dynamic, time-based sharing mechanism could present a potentially attractive approach to both protecting federal systems and providing viable commercial operations. Commercial operations would be contingent on spectrum availability, which will depend on the frequency, time, and location of federal system operations.” It’s no surprise NTIA found “extensive” military use of the band requiring protection, said Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future Program at New America. “The good news is that the report’s technical findings suggest the spectrum could be shared nationwide by low-power, indoor operations, as well as outdoors away from the coasts,” he told us: “It appears that shared use could be supported by expanding on the database coordination approach that manages sharing with the Navy in the adjacent band under the new CBRS framework that became fully open for effectively unlicensed use today. Adding this band to CBRS looks like it will be the fastest and most efficient way to put it to use for 5G-quality connectivity.”
Flat Wireless sought rehearing Friday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, after the court in December dismissed its challenge of Verizon roaming rates (see 1912100069). The challenge "largely runs counter to Commission rules that deliberately eschew cost-based regulation of roaming rates,” wrote Judge Laurence Silberman for himself and Judges David Tatel and Thomas Griffith. “The Panel’s ruling was not only erroneous but also meets the Court’s more stringent rehearing criteria that: (1) the ruling conflicts with several bedrock rate regulation precedents of this Court; and (2) concerns a matter of exceptional importance,” Flat Wireless said now, in docket 18-1271 (in Pacer). The FCC refuses “to confront the fact that roaming rates -- the pricing agreements which allows millions of subscribers to hundreds of small or regional wireless carriers to make and receive phone calls when they are outside the home territories of their wireless companies -- are excessive,” the company said. The FCC didn't comment.
FCC staff is holding “routine discussions and meetings with NTIA on behalf of other federal agencies and consultation with the Department of Energy and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission” on the 6 GHz band, Chairman Ajit Pai told Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, in a Jan. 16 letter posted Friday. The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology “has been evaluating a variety of issues, such as indoor and outdoor use cases and a variety of device power levels, to discern whether and to what extent unlicensed operations can exist alongside incumbent uses,” Pai said: “The Commission will ultimately be driven by the facts in the record, including the technical analysis that OET compiles.” FERC raised concerns about utilities sharing the 6 GHz band with Wi-Fi (see 1912190082).
The FCC had to take on revised wireless infrastructure rules, despite opposition from local and state governments (see 1909250062), because in some areas the federal government has to step in, said General Counsel Tom Johnson in a podcast released Friday. The question regulators have to ask is “what is the competent authority in a particular area?” Johnson said: “It's got to be the lowest level of government that's competently able to deal with an issue.” In wireless siting, states and localities have a role to play but “can't impose rules that would unnecessarily delay that deployment, that would make it prohibitively expensive, because ultimately these are not local networks,” he said. Telecom is an area that only the federal government can “effectively” address “because a lot of these networks, especially when you get into broadband networks, emerging 5G networks” are national or regional, he said: A state or locality imposing a particular rule on these networks “makes it either impossible or extremely costly for [providers] to comply and deploy across multiple jurisdictions.” When the FCC was preparing to defend its 2017 order (see 1712140039) overturning parts of the 2015 net neutrality rules, Johnson said it got support from small wireless carriers, “particularly in rural or less prosperous parts of the country, that said that the conduct rules that had been imposed on a nationwide level by the prior administration were preventing them from deploying, because they couldn't afford to take on the regulatory or litigation risk.” The companies found it “too costly” to “figure out how to comply,” he said. “In many parts of the country, these were the only option for wireless service for consumers.” Johnson looks to the work of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in understanding federalism. The general counsel’s job lies “at the intersection of law and policy,” he said: “Sometimes … the commission will want to do something and you'll find that if you do X, it's legally risky. Maybe if you do part of X, it's less risky. So you do have these tradeoffs as to what a litigation risk is and how much policy you can get without taking on unnecessary litigation risk.” Evan Swarztrauber, an aide to Chairman Ajit Pai, interviewed Johnson.
Video remains a valuable service, but Comcast is "not chasing this segment of the market" and expects increased video subscriber losses this year due to rate hikes and ongoing cord cutting, Chief Financial Officer Michael Cavanagh said on the company's Q4 call Thursday. The company ended 2019 with 20.29 million residential video customers, down 671,000 year over year. It ended the year with 26.4 million residential broadband customers, up 1.3 million, 9.9 million residential voice customers, down 220,000, and with 2 million wireless lines, up 816,000. Cavanaugh anticipates wireless subscriber growth rates to continue this year. CEO Brian Roberts said it was the best year for broadband net additions in 12 years. He said the company ran out of its Flex set-top boxes for its Flex streaming platform (see 1903210038) in its first month. Comcast said revenue was $28.4 billion, flat on a pro forma basis. Comcast bought Sky in Q4 2018.
Petitioners didn't demonstrate "certain, impending harm" to show standing in Greenlining v. FCC, said a decision (in Pacer) memo by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Thursday. Judges probed standing during oral argument (see 1908270026) and allowed petitioners to make a new attempt at proving independent standing (see 1909060038). The case involved potential consumer harms in the move from plain-old-telephone service to VoIP and addressed an FCC move striking down the functional test standard in service discontinuances (see 1908230003). "We are deeply disappointed with the Court's decision," wrote Harold Feld, senior vice president at Public Knowledge, one of the joint petitioners. "As the California wildfires demonstrated, the deregulation of our telephone network can have devastating consequences. We will confer with our co-petitioners and consider what other avenues to pursue to ensure that all Americans have affordable, reliable access to critical communications infrastructure." Chairman Ajit Pai is "pleased that the Ninth Circuit has rejected this challenge to the FCC’s efforts to expedite the transition from the networks of yesterday to the networks of tomorrow." Co-petitioner The Utility Reform Network is "very disappointed that the court dismissed the case based on standing," said Telecom Director Regina Costa. Telecom deregulation overall has made service less reliable, she added. She expects TURN to discuss with fellow petitioners next steps, including possible actions in states and Congress. NASUCA is "disappointed with the decision," emailed Executive Director David Springe. USTelecom backed the FCC and didn't comment now. Hearing August argument in Seattle were Margaret McKeown, Jay Bybee and Fernando Gaitan. The order wasn't signed by a single judge to indicate who wrote it.