Amateur radio operators were the most prolific commenters to an FCC Public Safety Bureau request for comment on the effects of the May 7-11 geomagnetic storm. Responses were due Monday in docket 24-161 (see 2405240046). Amateurs submitted most of the 17 comments. “Developing an ability to better predict storms such as the … 2024 geomagnetic storm is essential to prevent serious disruptions to our nation’s communications services as well as to the electric grids that power them,” the American Radio Relay League said. The storm “affected amateur radio communications as expected, with radio black outs between many areas of the world and signals with substantially reduced strength between other areas of the world, depending upon frequency and time,” ARRL said. NOAA said the storm touched some of its systems. “With the growing interdependence on spectrum across critical infrastructure systems, there is increased potential vulnerability to space weather,” NOAA said. The agency said “several specific examples can be seen of systems operating erratically due to the geomagnetic storms,” including farm equipment running in circles “due to loss of navigational signals.” SpaceX satellites “measured two-to-three times more drag than normal in orbits at 300 km and as much as five times more drag in orbits at 550 km,” it said. SpaceX was “fortunately able to maintain service throughout the May solar storm,” and on the day the storm peaked, “the average Starlink user saw less than one minute of disruption.” Iridium’s second-generation constellation “experienced an instantaneous, but short lived, increase in the atmospheric drag up to 10 times greater than normal” during the storm, the company reported. Iridium said it continuously monitors its system and was able to address the storm's issues: “The monitoring for this storm was not new, although more engineers were required to be engaged because each of the six planes in the constellation has a different angle from the sun, and experienced different impacts from the storm.”

Communications outages from wildfires in New Mexico’s Lincoln and Otero counties have declined, a disaster information reporting system update Monday said. Just seven of the area’s 113 cellsites were reported down, as compared with 22 on Friday. Cable and wireline customers have had their service restored with aerial cables and generators, the report said. Two TV stations and two radio stations remain off the air, it added.

The FCC’s motion that would transfer the consolidated challenges of the commission’s net neutrality order to the U.S. Appeals Court for the D.C. Circuit (see 2406100044) is part of a trend of federal agencies that attempt to use venue-transfer motions “to steer major regulatory challenges out of the regional circuits,” the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said in a 6th Circuit amicus brief Friday in opposition (dockets 24-7000, 24-3449, 24-3450, 24-3497, 24-3504, 24-3507, 24-3508, 24-3510, 24-3511, 24-3517, 24-3519, 24-3538). This trend harms litigants and courts as it saddles them with “burdensome threshold litigation” in cases that often already involve “fast-paced litigation over stays and other interim relief,” the chamber said. In addition, the trend harms the regulated public, “impairing its right to hold agencies accountable for unlawful conduct in the jurisdictions where that conduct harms the public.” The FCC’s transfer motion is “especially inappropriate” because it would “undermine” the judicial lottery system, “reintroducing through the back door of transfer motions the forum shopping that Congress sought to eliminate when it established the current system of random selection in 1988,” it said. But the FCC stands firm in its support of the transfer, its reply said Friday. This latest round of “follow-on litigation” involves essentially the same parties, legal landscape, and issues that the D.C. Circuit “has been grappling with” through each successive net neutrality case and order, the FCC said. Should the litigation proceed in the 6th Circuit instead of the D.C. Circuit, the 6th Circuit and the parties “would need to expend considerable resources to walk the same ground already traveled during the previous years of litigation in the D.C. Circuit,” it said.

The number of cable, wireline and cellular customers without service due to the wildfires in New Mexico’s Lincoln and Otero counties is largely unchanged from Thursday, said a disaster information reporting system update Friday. The report shows nine more cable and wireline customers without service in addition to the 2,877 reported Thursday, and 22 downed cellular sites. There were 29 previously, the report said. In addition, the report shows that all public safety answering points in the counties are operational, but two TV stations and two FM transmitters are off the air. AT&T Mobility, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless have deployed 14 mobile assets to the affected area, the report said. The agency has also released public notices on 24/7 contact information for the agency during the fires, the availability of priority communication services and a reminder to repair crews to avoid damaging communications infrastructure.

SpaceX will provide satellite-delivered connectivity to Comcast's enterprise customers under a partnership Comcast announced Friday. It said the arrangement is focused on enterprises operating in multiple, disparate locations that can be beyond the reach of traditional networks.

Twenty-nine out of 113 cellsites are down and some police departments have rerouted 911 calls owing to wildfires affecting two counties in New Mexico, a disaster information report system update said Thursday. The fires are mainly affecting Lincoln and Otero counties, so the FCC has activated “DIRS-Lite,” which involves the Public Safety Bureau “obtaining more granular situation-specific information through ongoing direct communications with communications providers,” the report said. The agency is using DIRS-Lite “due to the geographically concentrated impact of the New Mexico wildfires, and the need to gain information that is more precise than county-level.” The report also shows 2,877 wireline customers out of service due to a damaged switch, and that a head-end in Lincoln County serving 172 VoIP customers was damaged. Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility deployed nine mobile assets to the area, the report said. The Public Safety Bureau also issued a public notice Thursday detailing contact numbers and emergency communications procedures for the disaster.

The Media Institute released an adaptation of remarks previously given by FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez at a February luncheon (see 2402200066) as a paper on misinformation in media, a news release said Thursday. The paper, part of the institute’s Madison Project series, is called "Misinformation and the Threat to Our Democracy." In the speech and paper, Gomez said, “Concern about dis- or misinformation is one of the top media issues raised to me in my role as commissioner.” She added, “And it is one where, frankly, regulatory options are limited, as they should be.”

Tribal officials asked about outreach, funding and data privacy connected with the FCC’s proposed missing and endangered persons (MEP) alert code during a virtual tribal consultation and listening session Monday (see 2405240043). The agency's Office of Native Affairs and Policy conducted the event. Speakers were broadly supportive of the MEP code but expressed concern about some of the proposal's details. Funding should go from the FCC directly to native groups so they can implement the new code, Sally Fineday of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe said. Reycita Billie, the Navajo Nation Police Department's missing and murdered indigenous people liaison, said the agency should focus on communicating with the public about the new code. “Public education is very important to our community members,” she said. Many members of the public aren’t clear about their options when a loved one is missing, she said. The FCC should consider privacy and data sovereignty issues when any information is collected or shared in connection with the MEP code, a speaker from Washington state said. “How are we ensuring that tribes maintain control of it, that they have access to it, have the ability to edit, delete or share as tribes see fit?” he asked. Michelle Beaudin, a council member for the Lac Courte Oreilles Tribe in Wisconsin, said the FCC should also create MEP wireless emergency alerts. “I believe there's so many more people that have their phones versus the TV or radio,” she said.

Presentations to the FCC's World Radio Conference Advisory Committee, including its subcommittees and working groups, as well as at WAC-sponsored roundtables and presentations between WAC members and FCC staff or commissioners, are exempt for ex parte purposes, the commission's Office of International Affairs said in a notice Monday. The notice also said if pending FCC proceedings and WAC issues overlap, the FCC "will not rely ... on any information submitted to the WAC ... or information WAC members conveyed to FCC staff or Commissioners unless that information is first placed in the record of the relevant proceeding."

The U.S. Supreme Court granted Bell Wisconsin’s April 15 cert petition challenging the 7th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court ruling that E-rate reimbursement requests to the Universal Service Administrative Co. are actionable under the False Claims Act (FCA) (see 2405220039), said SCOTUS' order list Monday (docket 23-1127). In holding that the FCA’s treble damages and civil penalties apply to submissions made to USAC -- a private corporation paying private funds -- the 7th Circuit “explicitly acknowledged” that it was taking a “contrary view” from the 5th Circuit “about the identical program,” the petitioner said. The circuit split “directly affects billions of dollars distributed each year under the E-rate and three other universal service programs," it added.