AT&T union workers voted to strike in California and Nevada, a spokeswoman for the workers said Friday. California AT&T workers held protests Friday in San Diego and the San Francisco Bay Area, she said. The workers protested the company shipping jobs overseas, failing to meet regulatory standards and hiking prices for basic services, she said, comparing the issues to those raised earlier this year by striking Verizon workers on the East Coast (see 1606100067). The workers voted to authorize a strike, but haven't set a date, a spokesman for the workers said. The carrier didn’t comment.

The FCC updated its Freedom of Information Act rules, implementing the FOIA Improvement Act the president signed into law June 30. As "changes to rules of agency organization, procedure, or practice," the new regulations didn't require notice and comment, said a commission order unanimously approved on circulation and released Thursday. "These provisions included providing 90 days for requesters to file appeals of FOIA requests, ensuring that requesters are informed of avenues for FOIA dispute resolution, and providing for public posting of materials that are requested multiple times," said the order, saying the changes could generally be grouped into two categories. "First are rule amendments that are required by or flow directly from changes made by the FOIA Improvement Act," including changes "that are informed by" the new law, the order said. "Second are rule amendments designed to conform the rules to existing Commission FOIA practice, streamline FOIA procedures, and provide for clerical corrections. A number of years have passed since the Commission’s FOIA regulations were last updated, and new technology, practices, and procedures have arisen since that time." The 34-page order spelled out the details of the regulatory changes, which will take effect 30 days after Federal Register publication.

FCC staff detailed the effective dates of new broadband privacy rules and offered guidance, after the Federal Register's Dec. 2 publication of a summary of the order the commission adopted in October (see 1612020049 and 1610270036). The rules will take effect Jan. 3, except for new data-security requirements and certain provisions that need Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) approval by the Office of Management and Budget, said a Wireline Bureau public notice in docket 16-106 in Thursday's Daily Digest. The PN noted the FCC's broadband privacy order said the data-security duties will take effect March 2; breach-notification requirements take effect the latter of PRA approval or June 2; and the notice and customer approval provisions take effect the latter of PRA approval or Dec. 4, with small providers having an additional year to comply with those. The bureau said telecom carrier and interconnected VoIP providers subject to existing phone privacy rules must continue to comply with the substance of those rules until the new rules take effect. But the broadband privacy order relieved them of certain compliance recordkeeping and annual certification duties in subsections (c) and (e) of Section 64.2009, so once the new rules take effect Jan. 3, those entities will no longer be required to comply with those subsections, the PN said.

The FCC could make more spectrum available in the 17.8-18.3 GHz band for fixed satellite service (FSS) systems on a secondary basis, said a proposal approved unanimously and earlier set for a vote at Thursday's commissioners' meeting (see 1612140067 and 1612150048) and then OK'ed instead on circulation. In an NPRM adopted Wednesday and released Thursday on proposed updates to Part 2 and Part 25 rules to accommodate the boom in non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) constellation plans (see 1610210055), it said it also is considering more flexibility in the 18.3-18.6 GHz, 18.8-19.4 GHz, 19.6-20.2 GHz and 29.3-29.5 GHz bands, though they would be subject to terrestrial coordination. The NPRM also proposes rationalizing agency rules with international power limits on NGSO FSS operations in parts of the 17.8-20.2 GHz and 27.5-30 GHz bands and amending satellite milestone and geographic coverage rules. And the agency said it wanted comment on different criteria for spectrum sharing among NGSO FSS systems. The agency said the proposed updates to NGSO FSS rules were prompted by the proposed Boeing (see 1607110043) and OneWeb (see 1604290016) constellations highlighting a need for updating rules instituted more than a decade ago. It said allowing secondary FSS use in the 17.8-20.2 GHz band and new FSS operations in the 19.3-19.4 GHz, 19.6-19.7 GHz, and 29.3-29.5 GHz bands would codify existing practices and formally allow OneWeb's proposed spectrum use. The agency said rules allow spectrum sharing by letting NGSO FSS systems operate throughout its authorized band except during in-line events -- when the topocentric angle between the satellites is less than 10 degrees -- but it wanted comment on whether the separation-angle trigger should be increased or decreased. It wants comment on possible adoption of effective isotropic radiated power density limits for NGSO FSS uplink transmissions. And it proposed changing the six-year milestone obligation for NGSO systems so having 75 percent of an authorized constellation launched and in operation would be sufficient to meet the requirement. Comments are due 45 days after Federal Register publication.

State officials raised concerns about FirstNet's delay in choosing a vendor for the national public safety network. FirstNet planned to choose a vendor in November, but now the government can’t award a contract to build the network until the U.S. Court of Federal Claims (see 1612140053) resolves a Rivada Mercury protest. In an International Wireless Communications Expo webinar Thursday, state officials from Alabama, Washington and Illinois said an extended delay would be problematic for funding and other reasons. “I’m concerned about funding,” said Washington state single point of contact Shelley Westall. Washington is looking at contingency planning for an extended delay, she said. The state’s public safety network is funded completely by NTIA's State and Local Government Implementation Grant Program (SLIGP), and plans to use all the money it received, she said. “Delay is going to be very problematic for us. I am concerned about our governor’s opportunity to have staff available to fully brief him on his decision to opt in or opt out when he is presented with the plan.” The funding question also worries Illinois Statewide Interoperability Coordinator Joe Galvin, he said. The Illinois program also is funded by SLIGP, but also has other grants on which to fall back, Galvin said. “If SLIGP 2.0 becomes a reality, certainly that will help.” Alabama Law Enforcement Agency Executive Director Ryan Burchnell said a delay will be negative to public safety. “It worries me that public safety is going to start to turn away from the project itself and that we’re going to lose that great momentum that we’ve had in the last few months,” he said. Galvin agreed: “The stalling of the program would be very problematic because of all the energies we’ve built behind this thing.”

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler confirmed he met with Trump transition team members. Responding to a reporter's question, Wheeler said he had two meetings, one with the FCC transition team of President-elect Donald Trump and a separate one with Jeffrey Eisenach, a member of the team. "They were good meetings," said Wheeler, at his Thursday news conference after his last FCC commissioners' meeting (see 1612150034). "It’s not my role to talk about what happened in those meetings. If they want to talk about that, that's great," he said. The Trump transition and its FCC "landing team" members didn't comment. Wheeler said the commission designated two staffers as transition contacts and set up an office for Trump team members. "I made clear to them that if there were any issues that came up along the way, that I was the guy to call first," he said. Trump team members also met this week with Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, an aide told us. Aides to other commissioners didn't comment.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler wouldn't comment Thursday on a Wireless Bureau preliminary conclusion that AT&T's Data Free TV sponsored data service hurts competition and consumers (see 1612020044). The company was due to file its response Thursday. “We have to wait and see what AT&T’s response is today,” Wheeler said during a news conference after the commissioners' meeting. Wheeler laughed when a reporter asked why the FCC was addressing zero rating this late in the administration. “For the last 10 months, I think, I’ve been standing here and people have been saying to me, ‘Why haven’t you done anything about zero rating?’” he said. “We had an ongoing process. Things percolated, worked their way through and we’re doing our jobs.” AT&T said in the filing it takes “sharp issue” with the Wireless Bureau’s preliminary conclusions. “The Bureau’s most recent letter accepts, as it must, that Data Free TV offers consumers enormous value at low prices,” AT&T said. “More than three million customers have enjoyed the benefits of Data Free TV in the short time since DIRECTV made it available. In the Bureau’s view, the very attractiveness of Data Free TV makes life too hard on DIRECTV’s video rivals when they compete for AT&T mobile customers … even though AT&T’s sponsored data program is available to those rivals at the same low wholesale rate that DIRECTV pays.” The telco-TV provider said the bureau “articulates no cognizable ‘price squeeze’ claim” and shutting down the service “would affirmatively harm consumers.” The company also raised procedural issues, saying the bureau couldn’t act on delegated authority on matters presenting “new or novel questions of law or policy which cannot be resolved under outstanding Commission precedents and guidelines.” Verizon also responded Thursday to a Dec. 1 letter from the bureau on FreeBee Data 360 offering. Verizon said it's “disappointed” by the query. “Verizon first rolled out our FreeBee sponsored data program last January,” Verizon said. “We discussed the program with you then, and have communicated regularly with you and your staff to answer any questions, address any concerns, and to keep you apprised as we gained experience with FreeBee and as the program has evolved. Only now, almost a year after we deployed this innovative offering and during a time of transition to a new Administration, you write to express concern.” FreeBee is “a non-discriminatory program that fully complies with the Commission’s Open Internet rules,” the carrier said. Wheeler was also asked during the news conference if the FCC would extend the net neutrality transparency waiver for small ISPs, which formally expired Thursday (see 1612140065). “We’re trying to take action,” Wheeler said. “There’s an item on the floor that we’re trying to get resolved.”

A hacker stole data from more than 1 billion Yahoo user accounts in August 2013, an incident that's "likely distinct" from one disclosed in September, said Chief Information Security Officer Bob Lord in a Wednesday blog post. In September, the company said 500 million user accounts were compromised in late 2014 (see 1609220046). "For potentially affected accounts, the stolen user account information may have included names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords ... and, in some cases, encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers," wrote Lord. "The investigation indicates that the stolen information did not include passwords in clear text, payment card data, or bank account information." He said Yahoo is notifying potentially affected users about securing their accounts and has invalidated unencrypted security questions and answers.

Broadband network capital expenditures by providers ticked down by $1 billion in 2015 to $76 billion, USTelecom said in a release Wednesday on its annual broadband investment research report. "To optimize the benefits for all American consumers and businesses, policymakers must seek to create an environment that encourages a return to growth in broadband investment," said the group, which has mounted a court challenge with others to the FCC's 2015 net neutrality and broadband reclassification order.

Were the Trump administration to work out a deal with Congress on repatriation tax reform, that wouldn't be “positioned as a tax holiday,” but “a permanent solution, which we would be very happy with,” Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins told his company’s annual shareholder meeting Monday. Major companies have a lot of money parked overseas that they can’t bring back to the U.S. because it would be taxed at a high rate, and “most of the companies with repatriation money are tech companies,” CTA President Gary Shapiro told us just after the election (see 1611090038). For Cisco, freeing up its repatriation money “would certainly give us more flexibility” to pay for mergers and acquisitions, shareholder dividends and stock buybacks, Robbins said in Q&A. The company would welcome more comprehensive corporate tax law overhaul under the new administration, he said. “Lower corporate tax rates really are the levers for investment in an operating environment,” said Robbins. “That’s actually where I think the jobs get created through that model, because we’re able to invest more, we’re able to put more money into innovation.” There’s also the hope of “returning some portion of that to our shareholders as well,” he said. “So we’re optimistic and we’ll see how it plays itself out.” Robbins sidestepped a question on the impact to Cisco if Trump sparks a trade war with China. The equipment maker does manufacturing in “I want to say, 12 different countries around the world,” so it has a very diversified “supply chain,” he said. “We’ve invested in China from a relationship perspective,” and “relative to our business and the partnerships in China, we’ve actually been very pleased with how it’s played out over the last year,” he said. “We’ll continue to do all the things that we can to ensure that our business in China is successful.”