United Methodist Communications urged the FCC to require mobile phone manufacturers and operators to provide access to FM radio through mobile devices. It’s a matter of public safety “in addition to convenience for individual users of these devices,” UMC General Secretary Larry Hollon said in a letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. When residential power is out, cell service and the Internet are also out, he said. The only battery device may be a smartphone, “but it is useless without cell service,” he said. With an activated radio chip, a smartphone will function similar to a transistor radio, “providing people with information essential for survival,” he said. CEA and CTIA are among those that have long opposed FCC mandates for requiring FM chips in smartphones [Ref:1208070001]. CEA representatives didn't immediately comment on the UMC letter. CTIA continues "to believe consumer preference, not government mandates, should drive decisions about mobile device functionalities," said Jot Carpenter, vice president-government affairs, by email. "Some consumers value radio capabilities and there are devices available to meet their needs. At the same time, other consumers have no interest in those radio capabilities. The current marketplace serves both segments well.”

Free Press plans a rally outside an Oct. 21 forum on net neutrality at Texas A&M University in College Station, to be chaired by FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai 1410010004. Free Press has pushed the FCC to hold hearings outside Washington (http://bit.ly/1p9FUgZ). “Pai, who opposes Net Neutrality protections, is at least willing to hear from the public,” the group said. “Free Press is working with local allies to ensure that area residents have the opportunity to speak out before and during the forum.”

A recent FCC NPRM on wireless microphones (http://bit.ly/ZymDj0) “takes a long-term view” of associated issues, while recognizing the importance of the devices, Mitchell Lazarus, a lawyer with Fletcher Heald, said Friday in a blog post. The FCC “asks for extensive and detailed information on how wireless microphones work and what spectrum they use today,” Lazarus wrote (http://bit.ly/1yWtQJH). “The NPRM goes through a catalog of possible alternative frequencies to the TV bands, asking about the suitability of each for wireless microphones and whether rule changes would help to improve that suitability while still protecting other users. Many of these alternative bands would require the development of technologies not currently used by wireless microphones.” Production microphones and performers’ ear monitors have “particularly demanding requirements: extremely high audio fidelity with very low latency,” he noted. These requirements are incompatible with significant data compression, requiring “relatively high radio bandwidth,” he said. “Many of the alternative bands suggested by the FCC are too narrow for these critical applications, but may be suitable for other production needs."

The FCC sought nominations and expressions of interest for membership on the Task Force on Optimal Public Safety Answering Point Architecture. Both are due at the agency Nov. 7. The agency directed the Public Safety Bureau to establish the task force, the Friday notice said (http://bit.ly/1rlE4cB). It’s to examine “whether additional consolidation of PSAP infrastructure and architecture improvements would promote greater efficiency of operations, safety of life, and cost containment, while retaining needed integration with local first responder dispatch and support.” Work is expected to get underway in November and wrap up two years later, the agency said.

Net neutrality advocates lauded President Barack Obama for his remarks Thursday during an innovation town hall meeting in Los Angeles. “I was opposed to it when I ran,” Obama said of paid prioritization deals. “I continue to be opposed to it now.” FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler “knows my position” but Obama “can’t just call him up and tell him exactly what to do,” Obama said, noting that the FCC’s an independent agency. “But what I've been clear about, what the White House has been clear about is, is that we expect whatever final rules to emerge to make sure that we're not creating two or three or four tiers of Internet.” Obama said he’s “unequivocally committed” to net neutrality and “we don’t want to lose that or clog up the pipes” of the Internet. Free Press President Craig Aaron issued a statement arguing that Wheeler has “lost political support” from Obama for his net neutrality proposal, which Free Press and some others believe would not ban the prioritization deals Obama mentions opposing. Aaron called for Title II reclassification of broadband. Demand Progress Executive Director David Segal said “anything short” of reclassification is now “a betrayal of Internet users, of free speech and democracy, and a violation of the President’s expressed wishes.” Internet Association President Michael Beckerman lauded Obama for his support for “enforceable net neutrality rules” that keep consumers free from Internet slow lanes. That group’s members include AOL, Facebook, Google, Netflix and Yahoo.

Two House Democrats pressed the FCC on net neutrality. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., sent FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler a letter Wednesday, as expected (CD Sept 12 p9), calling for a mix of Communications Act Section 706 and Title II authority in crafting strong net neutrality rules. “Of the proposals put forward, there is only one that currently meets the criteria of clear, unambiguous authority, strong rules, and measured restraint that has been demanded by the public,” Lofgren said in the letter, released Thursday (http://1.usa.gov/1si1buR). The FCC should “reclassify broadband Internet access as a title II service, and use a combination of its rulemaking and forbearance authority under section 706 to implement its Open Internet rules,” she said. Lofgren recognized a concern that Title II forbearance could be considered arbitrary and capricious and thus the forbearance could be nixed, urging use of the affirmative authority of Section 706 to back the rules. She told the FCC to look at “a new title II service independent from the telecommunications infrastructure used for its transmission,” saying such a split has precedence. Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chairman, also pushed for Title II reclassification. “Classifying broadband Internet as a common carrier would preserve net neutrality and ensure that the Internet remains a place where all Americans can bring their ideas and be heard,” Ellison said in a Wednesday op-ed for The Huffington Post (http://huff.to/1neo5C2), saying reclassification “would promote social justice and economic equality.” Ellison framed the benefits of net neutrality in terms of people of color, invoking recent racial unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, and the role the Internet played. “Communities of color -- long underrepresented in public dialogue -- would be among those hardest hit by such censorship,” Ellison said of the concept of Internet fast and slow lanes.

Correction: Commissioners Mike O'Rielly and Ajit Pai both dissented from an FCC vote on an application for review of OpenBand connected with a Freedom of Information Act request (CD Oct 9 p14).

More can be done to include people with disabilities in the design, development and re-engineering of advanced communications technology, said the FCC in its second biennial 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA) report to Congress, released Thursday (http://bit.ly/1v7PlEV). The availability of accessible communications equipment has increased since the 2012 report, and industry “has made efforts to ensure that advanced communications services and the equipment used for these services are accessible to people with disabilities,” the report tentatively concluded. But some accessibility gaps remain, the report said. One issue is that while software updates can be used to disseminate accessibility improvements to technology such as Web browsers and mobile phones, they can also unintentionally make such features malfunction, the report said. “These concerns suggest a need to be mindful about avoiding the creation of new barriers to accessibility as technologies and service plans continue to evolve,” the report said. The CVAA report is largely complimentary of industry efforts to provide accessible products and information to the disabled. Between Jan. 1, 2012, and Dec. 31, 2013, consumers filed 92 complaints with the commission, the report said. Of these, 31.5 percent alleged violations by equipment manufacturers, 55.5 percent by service providers, and 12 percent complained of violations by both, the report said. All of the complaints reported violations of Section 255 of the Communications Act, which requires telecommunications providers to ensure “that such services and equipment are accessible to and usable by individuals with disabilities, if readily achievable,” the report said. Fifteen percent of complaints about equipment-related issues involved “inaccessible wireless handsets received in conjunction with subscriptions for telephone services under the Commission’s Lifeline program,” the report said. Another 12 percent of complaints about service providers concerned an inability to access billing information, the report said. “Most of these were from consumers who were blind or visually impaired, who expressed long-standing frustrations with acquiring access to their accounts,” the report said. The commission’s Disability Rights Office was able to resolve nearly all the complaints, the report said. “The Commission did not assess any forfeiture penalties for accessibility-related violations during the period covered by this Report,” the report said.

The FCC has been implementing recommendations from its report on process reform to reduce the number of pending items and move incoming items through the FCC system faster, said Diane Cornell, special counsel to the Chairman’s Office, in a blog post Thursday (http://fcc.us/1oVdirW). Efforts to streamline processing have led the Enforcement Bureau to “largely complete” its review of pending complaints, which in turn led to the Media Bureau granting “almost 700 license renewals this week,” Cornell said. The Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau has closed more than 760 dockets and sought comment on another 750 dockets that could be eligible for closing by the end of 2014, Cornell said. Between May and September 2014, the Wireless Bureau resolved 2,046 applications older than 6 months, creating a 26 percent reduction in its applications backlog, Cornell said. The process improvements responsible for the enhanced efficiency include the FCC’s consent agenda, Bureau specific backlog reduction plans and best practices, said Cornell. These have led to the Media Bureau issuing effective competition rulings in omnibus form, the International Bureau eliminating the effective competitive opportunities test for submarine cable landing licenses and 214 applications, and the Wireline Bureau streamlining USF appeals, the report said. Further process reforms will come in the months ahead, and will be accompanied by periodic updates, Cornell said.

Creating net neutrality rules under Title II would require edge providers to make payments to ISPs for termination services, said George Ford, Phoenix Center chief economist, during a teleforum Wednesday. Reclassification, he said, would turn edge providers into ISP customers, which would require the broadband providers under Section 203 of the Communications Act to tariff termination service for Internet content. The FCC can’t forbear the tariff because the broadband providers are considered terminating monopolies, and competition is the basis for Section 10 forbearance, said Ford, who made the argument in a policy bulletin last month (http://bit.ly/WEvdLa). That the tariff requirement hasn’t been discussed in depth during the net neutrality debate “reveals the superficial nature of this debate,” Ford said during the forum. Tariffing has “significant compliance costs,” and neither carriers nor the agency is set up to handle tariffs, which have become less common, said Wiley Rein’s Thomas Navin, a former Wireline Bureau chief, during the forum. Title II proponents disagreed. The agency could forbear the tariffing requirement in Section 203, said Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld, pointing to his Oct. 2 blog post (http://bit.ly/10K8cZV), because other statutes like Sections 201 and 202 allow the FCC to act in the case of “unjust reasonable rates and practices and otherwise protecting consumers.” Edge providers “are not in fact the customers of the end-user ISP. There is no service there,” said Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood, and “there'd be a real danger in that view,” because “quite literally every website in the world becomes a customer of Comcast’s just because I view that site on my Comcast connection.”