FirstNet is in the first year of its five-year buildout plan (see 1808140036).
The FCC Enforcement Bureau sought additional information from Snapchat, licensee of trunked land mobile radio station WQVZ814 in Santa Monica, California, on whether the company was properly monitoring its transmissions on output frequency 464.1975. The bureau said it investigated after a compliant. Snapchat didn’t comment.
The FTC approved Entertainment Software Rating Board-proposed changes to a self-regulatory program on the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Rule (see 1805070041), the agency announced Tuesday. ESRB proposed changing the definition of “personal information and data,” based on new commission guidance on audio recording collection. Commissioners 5-0 incorporated some privacy concerns from the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, Center for Digital Democracy and Electronic Privacy Information Center, which proposed alterations. For example, the first two groups proposed the FTC “include language that would make it a requirement -- instead of a suggestion -- to limit collection of ‘personal information and data,’” the agency said.
The National Association of State 911 Administrators said the FCC should beef up 911 reliability rules. Industry commenters questioned the need for annual certification requirements. Replies in docket 13-75 largely tracked initial comments in which APCO and the National Emergency Numbering Association urged the FCC to impose new 911 reliability rules and industry backed streamlining existing rules (see 1807170034). The Public Safety Bureau sought comment in June on 911 network reliability and whether current rules should be “modified to adapt to advancements in technology or other changes.” NASNA said the current reporting requirement for covered 911 providers is working. “The annual certification process is useful to state 911 administrators,” NASNA said. “It enables them to know what each individual provider has warranted on record. When issues arise, it enables them to work with the covered 911 service provider and the Commission to resolve those issues.” Less frequent certifications wouldn’t work, the group said: “A lot can change in a network in the course of 12 months.” AT&T urged overhauling the rules, "to eliminate wasteful, low-utility reporting practices." Such information "is almost never used by any of the intended beneficiaries,” it noted. Alternatively, the FCC could narrow the scope of the information required and reduce the frequency of reporting to every three years, AT&T said. ATIS would support eliminating the certification requirement: “There is no evidence that this requirement has had any significant impact to network reliability or resiliency.” T-Mobile said the FCC should leave the current rules in place. “The importance of the issue is reflected in the size of the record compiled when the Commission first considered adopting rules to improve the reliability and resiliency of 911 communications networks,” the carrier said.
The administrative law judge proceeding on Sinclair buying Tribune “must go forward” despite the deal’s dissolution, ex-FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler blogged Tuesday. The hearing should continue to allow Sinclair to present evidence on its behalf and demonstrate FCC independence in the face of President Donald Trump’s tweet condemning the hearing designation order, Wheeler said. Tribune announced the collapse of the deal and a related lawsuit against Sinclair last week (see 1808090042). Trump's use of “such pejorative and judgmental terms” means the agency “has a responsibility to uphold the honor and integrity of its processes and not to allow a shadow to hang over its proceedings,” Wheeler said. “President Trump has hung a cloud over the FCC.” Attorneys for Sinclair wrote a letter to the general counsel of the Brookings Institution arguing the company didn’t deceive the FCC in response to a previous blog of Wheeler’s, he said (see 1807250057). Deciding whether to continue with the hearing is a “legacy defining decision,” for current FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, Wheeler said. Pai's choosing “a backroom consent decree deal” over a hearing would leave “serious unanswered questions,” Wheeler said. “How will the Commission treat Sinclair’s future transactions, its petitions to renew existing licenses when they expire, its future retransmission consent negotiations with cable operators that rely on good faith, or the new ATSC 3.0 television standard that it sponsors?” After taking “a victory lap for being tough on oversight,” Pai has to choose between giving “a pardon to the friend of the president” or continuing the hearing, Wheeler said. Sinclair didn’t comment.
The proposed third tranche of 25 percent Trade Act Section 301 tariffs on Chinese imports targets equipment “critical for the build-out” of 5G, IoT and “big data,” says K.C. Swanson, Telecommunications Industry Association director-global policy, in prehearing testimony posted Monday in docket USTR-2018-0026. Swanson is scheduled to testify Aug. 21, day two of four days of Office of U.S. Trade Representative hearings. Requests to testify were due Monday under the deadline USTR Robert Lighthizer extended when announcing Aug. 1 he will “consider,” under President Donald Trump’s direction, raising the third tranche of proposed duties to 25 percent from 10 percent (see 1808010073). The “network-based technologies” in which U.S. companies lead the world “depend on underlying hardware,” said Swanson. “Taxing that hardware,” as tariffs on network servers, gateways and modems would do, will raise costs for consumers, she writes: That "stands to discourage U.S. adoption of advanced technologies in a period of growing global competition.” Duties "will hit so many of the telecom products essential to the operation of the internet,” Swanson says. More than 10 million Americans use the computer networking products Zyxel Communications sources from China under certain tariffs hearings for home internet access and for “network computers in the workplace,” commented the company. Its largest customers include CenturyLink, Cincinnati Bell and Hawaiian Telecom, it said. Zyxel’s router products “are used to proliferate broadband throughout the U.S.,” it said. With 34 million Americans lacking "an affordable and reliable broadband connection,” government levies would run counter to DCC and other broadband initiatives, the company said.
AT&T said the FCC should adopt a shot clock of 60 days for small cells collocated on existing poles and 90 days for small cells placed on new poles. The company said in docket 17-79 deployment is in some cases dictated by local hurdles. In Lincoln, Nebraska, “high fees have delayed its residents the benefits of AT&T’s small cell deployments,” it said, citing similar problems in other cities in the state. “AT&T has for now focused more of its small-cell operational resources in the region on Des Moines and other Iowa communities, where cost-based fees and other predictable benefits of small cell legislation have created a more favorable environment,” it said. The carrier similarly hadn’t deployed any small cell sites in Portland, Oregon, “due to its annual recurring [rights-of-way] access fee of $7,500 per node plus an annual recurring fee to attach to city-owned infrastructure in the ROW in the amount of $5,500 per node downtown/$3,500 per node in other areas,” it said. The cities didn't comment. Siting rates and fees for wireless infrastructure deployments should be “cost-based, transparent, and non-discriminatory,” said CTIA and Wireless Infrastructure Association officials in a meeting last week with Will Adams, aide to Commissioner Brendan Carr. “Updated siting policies at the federal, state, and local levels play a key role in enabling the wireless industry to deploy the thousands of small cells needed to create capacity for today’s 4G LTE networks and build out" 5G, said a filing posted Monday in docket 17-79. “Rates and fees that are based on a locality’s costs to review applications and, where applicable, manage right-of- way use will ensure that localities can recoup expenses resulting from management of wireless siting, while promoting broadband deployment.” Meanwhile, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai defended steps commissioners took on wireless infrastructure rules in March (see 1803220027), in a letter to Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., posted Monday. “Our wireless infrastructure rules have been a poor fit for the 5G networks of the future, and our efforts to unleash spectrum for consumer use will be moot if carriers can't deploy the physical infrastructure needed to bring next-generation services to the American people,” Pai said. “The Commission's recent action on this front is a giant leap forward in updating our wireless infrastructure rules.” Pai stressed that the FCC had done extensive consultation with tribal groups prior to approving the order.
Parties now have until Sept. 14 to respond to requests for Supreme Court review of the prior FCC's 2015 Title II Communications Act net neutrality order. The court Thursday granted for all respondents a request of intervenor-defendants for a 30-day extension to file their briefs in opposition to cert petitions in Daniel Berninger et al. v. FCC, No. 17-498 (Aug. 9 grant notice) and consolidated cases. Kevin Russell, counsel for Free Press, New America's Open Technology Institute and Public Knowledge, on behalf of his clients and other private respondents sought the additional time to address issues raised by the solicitor general (DOJ and FCC) Aug. 2 in asking justices to vacate and remand the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit's affirmation of the 2015 order (see 1808030041). Russell noted most of the intervenors are also petitioners or intervenors challenging the current FCC's order undoing Title II net neutrality regulation, and have related briefs due Aug. 20 to the D.C. Circuit.
Comments are due Sept. 10 on a Further NPRM (see 1807160050) on a reporting system for false emergency alerts, wireless alerts sent to mobile phones, and amendments to state emergency alert system plans, said the Federal Register. Replies are due Oct. 9.
The FCC asked for nominations for membership on a new Disaster Response and Recovery Working Group of the Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC). “This new working group will assist the BDAC in providing advice and recommendations to the Commission on steps that can be taken to improve disaster preparation, response, and recovery for broadband infrastructure,” the FCC said in docket 17-83. Nominations are due Sept. 7. BDAC will take on disaster recovery issues at the direction of FCC Chairman Ajit Pai (see 1807270020), though questions continue about lack of state and local representation on BDAC.