FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler disputed criticisms of how the agency handled Dish Network’s use of designated entities and bidding credits in the AWS-3 auction by Dish CEO Charlie Ergen. Ergen said during a financial call Wednesday that Dish did exactly what it understood it was entitled to do based on guidance from the FCC before that auction (see 1508050042). “I liked the part of his earnings call where he talked about the best FCC in 30 years,” Wheeler said during a Thursday news conference. “The rules haven’t changed. The rules were the rules when [Dish] went in and they made their decision based on knowing what the rules were.”
Officials were still trying on Wednesday to figure out what caused a massive cellphone outage that knocked out service to customers in the Southeast on the AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon networks Tuesday. A fiber cable was reported to have been cut in western Kentucky along the Tennessee/Kentucky border, said Buddy Rogers, Kentucky Emergency Management public information officer. He didn't have any other specifics about the circumstances but said emergency services providers and other officials remained in contact through the Department of Military Affairs' radio communications system -- which is a statewide two-way radio system -- satellite radio/phones and other communications systems and devices. No issues were reported to the state emergency operations center in Kentucky while services were being restored, nor were there any requests for state-provided resources, Rogers said. Sprint and Verizon tweeted about the issue as it was happening, updating customers about what was going on. Sprint said the issue was caused by a local exchange provider, and both Verizon and Sprint said they were aware of a connection issue in Alabama, Kentucky and Tennessee that engineers were working to resolve. A Sprint spokesperson said services had been restored Wednesday. An AT&T spokeswoman said wireless and wireline service was restored for all customers in parts of the Southeast affected by a "hardware-related network issue." Neither Verizon nor T-Mobile commented. The Jeffersontown Police Department in Kentucky posted on its Facebook page that the 911 systems were down and gave an alternate number to call for help. A few hours later, it said 911 lines were back in service.
Three Senate Democrats want a three-month delay to address wireless telemetry concerns about proposed rules for Channel 37 following the TV incentive auction, they said in a letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler Wednesday. House Republicans weighed in last week (see 1507310043). The rules on Channel 37 are slated for a vote at Thursday’s meeting as part of the broader order on Part 15 rules. Wireless Medical Telemetry Service Coalition (WMTS) and GE Healthcare and hospitals urged a three-month delay that would give industry time to work out a compromise on unlicensed use of Channel 37 (see 1508030059). Sens. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., signed the letter. Hospitals use WMTS for cardiac and fetal monitoring and any interference “could severely impact patient health and safety,” they said, saying 150 hospitals in 40 states have raised concerns. “The record also includes the results of real-world testing at three different hospitals demonstrating that interference to WTMS systems will be caused by [TV white spaces devices] operating at the initial power-levels and distances proposed by the Commission.”
The Society of Broadcast Engineers objected to a June NPRM proposing to preserve one vacant TV channel in the UHF TV band in each area of the U.S. for shared use by white space devices and wireless mics, in a filing posted Tuesday in FCC docket 15-146. The proposal “signals the latest in a continuing, short-term series of unreasoned reversals and technically unsound retreats of the Commission with respect to reaccommodation of licensed, Part 74 [wireless mics] which were displaced from the 700 MHz band and those which now stand to be displaced from the 600 MHz band by the incentive auction,” SBE said. “Worse, this proceeding, sub silencio, abandons the Commission’s longstanding spectrum allocations policies relative to the priorities of unlicensed Part 15 devices versus licensed stations operating in allocated frequency bands.” Wireless mics “play an important role in enabling broadcasters and other video programming networks and entities to serve consumers, including delivery of breaking news, emergency information and broadcast live sports events,” SBE said. But in a series of orders modifying the UHF band plan, the FCC has “serially, in a very short period of time” reduced the amount of spectrum available for their use, the group said. The National Translator Association also objected. NTA said that those who rely on translator services to watch TV are “disproportionately lower income, elderly and frequently are minority individuals and families.” Translator TV service “has been available at low or no cost to these persons for a period approaching fifty years and, despite several previous takings of its channel space by the Federal Government, has largely survived to continue to provide service to its constituency,” NTA said. But the FCC’s proposal puts these services in jeopardy, the group said. “NTA opposes the FCC reservation of any TV channel for use by any unlicensed device which places priority of the unlicensed device's access to that channel over that of any existing licensee, including [low-power] LPTV and TV translator stations, to that channel.”
A federal court accepted the requests of parties to file amicus briefs supporting petitioners challenging the FCC net neutrality and broadband reclassification order. An order Tuesday of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in USTelecom v. FCC, No. 15-1063, granted the motions of: (A) Richard Bennett, (B) the Business Roundtable, National Association of Manufacturers and U.S. Chamber of Commerce, (C) Center for Boundless Innovation in Technology, (D) Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy, Georgetown University, (E) International Center for Law and Economics and Affiliated Scholars, (F) former FCC employee William Kirsch, (G) Mobile Future, (H) Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council, (I) Phoenix Center, (J) Telecommunications Industry Association and (K) Christopher Yoo, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania. The Competitive Enterprise Institute, ex-FCC Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth and Washington Legal Foundation had filed notices of their intent to file amicus briefs; lawyers for the three said they didn't have to file motions because they received the consent of all the parties to the case. (For more on the arguments the parties plan to make in their briefs, see 1507130064, 1507140035, 1507150012, 1507210054 and 1507270045). The briefs of the amici and intervenors supporting petitioners are due Thursday. Tuesday's order also directed the court's clerk to file Kirsch's brief, which he submitted early to protect petitioner due process rights. Kirsch said the FCC arbitrarily and capriciously failed to address his comments in the net neutrality proceeding on international telecom. "The FCC is entitled to deference for a Title II Court-guided classification, but should be subject to a de novo review for a quasi-judicial standard in place of the rules based approach that should be required of a so-called expert agency," Kirsch's brief said. It addressed intervenors' standing to address harm from "gatekeepers" and petitioners' standing to address harm from the U.S. Trade Representative's decision ceding the country's telecom advantage in the World Trade Organization agreement on basic telecom to trading partners, including China.
Facial recognition has many uses, but the technology is predominantly used in the U.S. to identify characteristics such as age or gender to tailor digital advertising, and federal privacy law should be adapted to reflect new technologies, said a report from the GAO Thursday. Privacy advocacy organizations and government agencies have cited privacy concerns about the commercial use of facial recognition technology, saying if the technology’s use were widespread, companies could identify almost anyone in public and track people’s locations, movements and companions, without an individual’s knowledge or consent, GAO said. How the collected information is used, shared or sold is also a concern, it said. Some stakeholders argue individuals shouldn't expect complete anonymity in public, and privacy losses are offset by benefits the technology offers consumers and businesses, GAO said. No law fully addresses the privacy concerns raised by facial recognition technology, it said. Some laws, like the FTC Act, may apply in certain contexts, but “gaps exist in the consumer privacy framework,” GAO said. Congress should consider strengthening the consumer privacy framework to reflect changes in technology and the marketplace and current privacy framework in commercial settings warrants reconsideration, GAO said. In response to the GAO’s report , Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., who requested the GAO report last year, said in a news release Thursday more action is needed to protect the privacy of American consumers. “Facial recognition tracks you in the real world -- from cameras stationed on street corners and in shopping centers, and through photographs taken by friends and strangers alike,” Franken said. The GAO report “raises serious concerns about how companies are collecting, using, and storing our most sensitive personal information,” he said. “I believe that all Americans have a fundamental right to privacy, which is why it’s important that, at the very least, the tech industry adopts strong, industry-wide standards for facial recognition technology,” Franken said. “But what we really need are federal standards that address facial recognition privacy by enhancing our consumer privacy framework.”
Many FCC proposals to relax rules for unlicensed uses in the TV band “lack sound engineering support,” NAB told an aide to Commissioner Ajit Pai Wednesday, according to an ex parte filing posted online in docket 12-268 Friday. Proposals to allow fixed devices to use channels adjacent to TV channels don't account for the different interference characteristics of portable and fixed devices, NAB said. The FCC's proposal on a search for additional spectrum in which to place wireless microphones doesn't address “the urgent need for some reserved spectrum for licensed wireless microphones in all markets,” NAB said.
New York City opposes repacking broadcasters into the duplex gap, said a letter to the FCC from Maya Wiley, counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, posted online Friday. “I am deeply concerned about the potential impact on New York City, one of the media markets the Auction Task Force has indicated would most likely see a broadcaster placed in the duplex gap post auction,” Wiley said. The duplex gap should be preserved for unlicensed use and for wireless microphones to protect news teams' ability to cover breaking news in the city and the city's ability to host major sporting events like the Super Bowl, Wiley said. An impaired duplex gap could also discourage auction participation, Wiley said. “Having a common channel available for unlicensed users in every market nationwide -- especially in the country's largest market: New York City -- is essential to encourage private investment in the integrated Wi-Fi chips that will bring greatest value to smartphone users in urban areas,” the letter said. The FCC should follow the wishes of the “broad stakeholder consensus” and not repack TV stations into the gap, Wiley said.
FCC Commissioner Michael O'Rielly is right to press for process reform, which would make the FCC more transparent, said Boston College law professor Daniel Lyons in an American Enterprise Institute blog post Thursday. Lyons gave once of the talks following O’Rielly's remarks on process reform at a Free State Foundation lunch Tuesday (see 1507280052). “Most law today occurs not in the legislature, but in agencies like the FCC pursuant to power delegated by Congress,” Lyons wrote. “FCC process reform is needed in order to facilitate public insight and transparency, and to improve the overall quality of its final product. Process reform should promote a better, more robust dialogue among the commissioners, and between the commissioners and the public. The commission ignores such reforms at its peril, as it jeopardizes the legitimacy of the agency’s final product.”
Whether expanding Medicare coverage to include telemedicine services would increase or decrease federal spending depends on the payment rates that would be established for those services and whether those services would substitute other Medicare-covered services or be used in addition to currently covered services, wrote Congressional Budget Office's Health, Retirement and CBO's Long-Term Analysis Division Deputy Assistant Director Philip Ellis analysts Lori Housman and Zoe Williams in a blog post Wednesday. “CBO analyzes proposals to expand Medicare coverage of telemedicine on a case-by-case basis,” and would like to see more evidence from new and well-designed academic studies on how telemedicine coverage affects spending, the post said. Proposals to expand coverage for telemedicine or telehealth services in Medicare would need to define several factors, including: covered services and methods of delivery, types of providers and sites of care that would be paid to offer those services, and the types of patients who would be eligible for those services, the post said. Medicare’s total payments for telemedicine services are higher for equivalent services delivered conventionally because Medicare has to pay the doctor plus a facility fee, it said. “Although offering telemedicine to rural enrollees could improve the quality of care that such enrollees receive and could be more convenient for them, doing so might not reduce Medicare spending on their care,” the post said. But “providing telemedicine might well increase spending on services Medicare covers instead of substituting for services that would have been covered without telemedicine,” it said.