AT&T launched 5G service in Indianapolis and Austin, and expects to be in 20 markets by year's end, executives said on a Q2 earnings call Tuesday. It's testing LTE licensed assisted access -- combining licensed and unlicensed spectrum -- in San Francisco, where users are seeing 750 Mbps peak speeds -- and it will expand testing in San Francisco and into Indianapolis in coming weeks. It said it still expects to close on its Time Warner buy by year's end, and its integration team is close to done with its advertising and bundling plan. For the quarter, AT&T had consolidated revenue of $39.8 billion, and had 2.3 million wireless net adds in the U.S. and 8,000 total broadband net adds. It said it had total video subscription losses of 199,000, with growth at DirecTV Now offsetting some traditional TV subscriber declines. CEO Randall Stephenson said AT&T soon will unveil the names of additional states that agreed to opt in to FirstNet, beyond the five revealed so far. “The timeline has been set and the opt-in process is underway,” he said. States are eager to get started on construction of the network “and so are we,” he said. Stephenson said AT&T will look at all of its options as construction starts.

Securus objected to an inmate calling comment by FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn at a Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC) meeting last week. A Clyburn aide told us Tuesday she misspoke. Securus CEO Richard Smith said he was surprised to see Clyburn reported to have said some families were charged "as much as $25 per minute" for local inmate calling service (ICS) calls. "I hope that your remarks were reported inaccurately, because I am quite sure that no inmate provider has ever charged a per-minute rates anywhere near that level for any kind of call, let alone local. It has to be an error or an extreme outlier," he said in a letter to Clyburn posted in docket 12-375. At the BDAC meeting Thursday, Clyburn criticized exclusive ICS arrangements that she said imposed high costs on inmate families (see 1707200014). The Clyburn spokesman said she "was attempting to highlight the egregious practice of charging almost $25 for a 15-minute call. She inadvertently stated that said call would cost $25 per minute. Nonetheless, this rate and reports of calls being as high as $14 per minute highlight the fact that inmates can and are paying several thousand percent more than a non-incarcerated person.” Meanwhile, Securus, SCRS Acquisition and the Wright Petitioners continued to exchange fire on the ICS provider's planned sale to SCRS, which is under FCC review. Securus and SCRS disputed the inmate family advocates' previous arguments, said a filing Tuesday on a meeting with staffers for Chairman Ajit Pai and the Wireline Bureau. But the Wright Petitioners filed further information they said supports an FCC "pause" to investigate whether certain Securus practices violated the law. The parties have made various filings in recent days in docket 17-126.

Nine rural and agricultural groups wrote FCC Chairman Ajit Pai in opposition to proposals to reserve vacant channels in the TV band for unlicensed use, said a letter by American Agri-Women, the National Farmers Union, National Association of Wheat Growers and others. “This proposal will only serve to deprive our members of critical access to local broadcast television coverage,” said the groups. The vacant channel proposal would make it tough for low-power TV stations and translators to find new homes, which disproportionately will affect rural areas, the letter said. “Losing television translators and LPTVs would have a devastating impact on our members, as these services are often our only means of receiving free, over the air local broadcast television service.” The groups previously filed against the vacant channel proposals in 2013 and 2015, NAB noted in an email to reporters flagging the letter. NAB has opposed the vacant channel proposal (see 1707050048).

The FCC electronic comment filing system (ECFS) posted few filings by late Monday afternoon. We were able to view only a few routine filings, and no substantive comments or filings from outside parties in the main view of all incoming non-express documents. ECFS "is not experiencing problems receiving comments," said a commission spokesman. "Approximately 1.5 million comments were submitted over the weekend, and are being processed today. All comments submitted over the weekend and on Monday will be posted by Tuesday.” The system was slow to post filings last week, which included almost 2.8 million filings in the open internet docket.

Net neutrality "Day of Action" groups formed a "Team Internet" to fight the FCC's plan to "gut" its regulations and to counter congressional threats to an open internet, said a Free Press release Monday. Team Internet will employ a "distributed organizing model" used by the 2016 presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., to help individuals "self-organize and defend Net Neutrality at the local, state and federal levels," it said, citing organizers as Demand Progress, Fight for the Future and Free Press Action Fund. Meanwhile, the Phoenix Center said it found "numerous fatal flaws" in a paper by Internet Association Chief Economist Christopher Hooton on investment effects of the FCC's open internet regime. Hooton's paper uses "fabricated investment data" and investment projections instead of actual data, said a Phoenix release, which cited a paper by its own chief economist George Ford: If anything, Hooton’s analysis "is a further indictment of the FCC’s Net Neutrality policies ostensibly intended to spur increased broadband deployment via the Commission’s 'virtuous circle' theory of investment." The IA didn't comment.

The FCC Connect2Health task force said it will hold virtual listening sessions the weeks of July 31, Aug. 7, Sept. 11, Sept. 18 and Sept. 25. The sessions are expected to last about an hour, with specific dates and times to be chosen to accommodate the most interested parties, said a public notice Friday in docket 16-46. The sessions are intended "to more efficiently facilitate targeted input on broadband health issues (including on the rural/urban gap and other digital divide issues) from non-traditional stakeholders and those outside the Washington, DC area," the PN said, noting the effort is aimed at developing "recommendations on critical regulatory, policy, technical, and infrastructure issues concerning the emerging broadband-enabled health and care ecosystem." It said the comment period for the docket will remain open until Sept. 29, giving parties more time to provide input, including on an updated Mapping Broadband Health in America platform released June 8 (see 1706080032).

An NAB request to withdraw as moot a petition for reconsideration and a petition for clarification against aspects of the incentive auction that already have taken place was granted by the Media and Wireless bureaus, said a public notice released Friday. The recon petition appealed the FCC plan to relocate broadcasters in the duplex gap, while the clarification petition asked the FCC to clarify that stations not participating in the auction wouldn’t be treated differently than participating stations. Both petitions were filed in September 2015, before the auction began. NAB requested the withdrawal at the end of last month, the PN said.

Newsmax and a group of TV networks added support to requests for the FCC to grant more time for comment and also to request more information on Sinclair buying Tribune, joining Dish Network, Public Knowledge, Common Cause and the American Cable Association. The information provided by Sinclair and Tribune is insufficient, said Newsmax and a separate filing from AWE -- A Wealth of Entertainment, Cinémoi, MAVTV Motorsports Network, One America News Network and Ride Television Network. “Applicants had virtually nothing to say about the public interest benefits of the transaction, and what they did say is largely conclusory,” Newsmax said. Sinclair filed in opposition to the joint request from Dish, PK and ACA Thursday, arguing that they don’t follow typical commission procedure (see 1707200048). “Applicants bear the burden of proving their transaction is in the public interest,” the joint filing from the networks said. “The Application, however, does not contain sufficient information to meet this burden.” Sinclair didn’t comment to us Friday.

Free Press said Friday complaints that Verizon Wireless had slowed video connections while it optimized its network show the need for clear net neutrality rules. Complaints about slowed connections were reported by The Verge. “Before Ajit Pai tears down the FCC’s open-internet rules as he’s promised to do, he should take a look at practices that demonstrate the need for these safeguards -- and for a watchdog willing to enforce them,” said Matt Wood, Free Press policy director, in a news release. “It’s not yet clear exactly what Verizon Wireless may be doing to its customers, but it is clear that those customers are having issues with the wireless-broadband connections for which they pay so dearly.” The FCC and Verizon didn’t comment.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order to create the Presidential Advisory Council on Infrastructure within the Department of Commerce. The 15-member group will include members with “relevant experience or subject-matter expertise” in communications and other infrastructure sectors, the White House said Wednesday evening. The group will study the efficacy of existing federal funding and support for infrastructure projects, including broadband deployment. Trump directed the council to provide recommendations on how to prioritize U.S. infrastructure needs, develop funding options for infrastructure investment for the next 10 years and identify ways to increase public-private partnerships on infrastructure development.