The next big 3rd Generation Partnership Project document, Release 19, is still taking shape and the approach it will take to 5G standards isn’t clear, experts said Wednesday during an ATIS webinar. Many 3GPP meetings remain remote, they said. 3GPP Release 17 “focused on a select set of verticals, like the factory, like medical,” T-Mobile’s Greg Schumacher said. That document was “the big rush and flood of new verticals,” he said. “Release 18 had some new verticals, but it was a little more balanced” and “more of the work was focused on providing services across multiple verticals,” he said. “We will see what Release 19 looks like,” Schumacher said. “We expect to have more work to discuss and agree upon this coming quarter,” he said. The target is to get to 80% completion of the release in Q2 of next year, with the document complete at the end of Q3, he said: “This is subject overall to 3GPP schedules, which often are driven by other external forces,” he said. The timeline for Release 16 slipped about six months in 2020, because of the COVID-19 pandemic (see 2009220052). 6G won’t hit the market until the end of the decade, but “these technology and generational transitions have a very long lead time,” said Iain Sharp, ATIS principal technologist. Now is “a time to be looking at the early stages of what technology goes into 6G and what is its vision,” he said. In February, ATIS released the "Roadmap to 6G" by its Next G Alliance (see 2202170049). “We are in a pre-standards phase,” he said: “It’s really only in 2027 and beyond that we get to the standardization phase.” Work on 6G shouldn’t “detract” from work being done to make 5G work better, he said.

The FCC deactivated emergency measures for Puerto Rico’s island-wide power outage Saturday at the request of the Puerto Rico Emergency Management Bureau, said an FCC news release listed in Monday’s Daily Digest. The final DIRS report Saturday said 14.2% of cellsites were reported down, and 74,950 cable and wireline subscribers didn't have service. Both numbers are improvements from the previous day, when over 18% of cellsites were down and 267,111 cable and wireline subscribers were without service. No broadcast stations were reported out Saturday and the agency didn’t issue any grants of special temporary authority during the incident.

More than 18% of cellsites in Puerto Rico were out of service and 267,111 cable and wireline subscribers were down, said Friday’s disaster information reporting system release on the island-wide power outage there. The FCC’s Public Safety Bureau activated its emergency response measures Thursday over the outage, and Friday was the due date for the first reports. The bureau issued public notices Friday on emergency contact information for licensees that need special temporary authority and on 24-hour availability of staff. One FM station was reported out of service, but no public safety answering points are down, the report said.

NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield and Fiber Broadband Association President-CEO Gary Bolton asked NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson to prioritize broadband, equity, access and deployment program funding for "future proof, all-fiber networks," said a letter Thursday. Bloomfield and Bolton said NTIA should "place a heavy priority and preference" on projects that would serve a higher percentage of unserved locations. They also raised concerns that previous grant programs "have sought to award support based on subjective factors and policies that are extraneous to building and operating a broadband network and providing services." NTIA should "adopt tight guardrails" and accountability measures to "ensure applications are considered on their objective merits," they said. The program "has tremendous potential," they said, but "we are under no illusion this will be easy."

Global information tech spending is projected to reach $4.4 trillion in 2022, increasing 4% from last year, reported Gartner Wednesday. The 2023 outlook is for spending to increase 5.5% to $4.7 trillion, it said. Communications services will be about a third of total IT spending this year, but that proportion is projected to decline slightly in 2023, said Gartner. Inflationary impacts the past two years on IT hardware, including mobile devices and PCs, “are finally dissipating and are starting to spill over into software and services,” it said. Software spending is expected to grow 9.8% to $674.9 billion in 2022 and IT services are forecast to grow 6.8% to reach $1.3 trillion.

FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks is making staff changes, including a new wireline adviser, and new legal adviser, said a news release Thursday. Former Wireline Associate Bureau Chief Justin Faulb is Starks’ newest adviser; he previously had multiple roles at the agency, including as designated federal officer of the Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee. “He is one of the Commission’s leading experts on supply chain security,” said Starks in the release. Faulb’s wireline experience will come in handy on “securing our communications networks, increasing deployment, and achieving digital equity,” Starks said. Starks’ Media and Consumer Protection Adviser Diane Holland is moving to a position as deputy bureau chief in the Wireline Bureau and will be replaced by Austin Bonner, who had been Starks’ legal adviser, wireline and public safety. “Diane brought to my office a depth of knowledge and experience that will be hard to replace,” Starks said. Morgan Bodenarain, a former aide to Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C., will be Starks’ new legal adviser, focusing on digital equity, the release said. Bodenarain will succeed Special Adviser Alisa Valentin, who's leaving the FCC to work in the “non-profit space,” the release said.

The FCC is expected to deny a petition for reconsideration filed by wireless-mic maker Sennheiser of a December 2020 order (see 2012080064) closing the agency’s 2015 NPRM on whether to allocate a vacant channel for use by white space devices and wireless microphones. Sennheiser faced an uphill climb, with strong opposition from NAB and a united commission voting to close the proceeding, industry officials told us. Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel circulated an order last week on the recon petition. The FCC didn’t comment. Rosenworcel also circulated for a commissioner vote proposed changes to rules for environmental review of telecom projects in flood plains, in light of various changes to other federal environmental rules. FCC officials said the NPRM doesn’t seem to be on a fast track. It also circulated last week. In February, Sennheiser asked the FCC to reopen the proceeding, in a call with Wireless Bureau and Office of Engineering and Technology staff. “Microphones operating on low-band UHF TV band spectrum are the only ones that can deliver the fault intolerant reliability, compact size and battery life that film, TV and theater producers demand,” said a filing in docket 15-146. In December, the company told the FCC a study it commissioned found an open channel in the 50 largest U.S. markets. “NAB emphasized that Sennheiser has provided no basis for reconsideration of the Commission’s unanimous order closing the vacant channel proceeding,” broadcasters told Wireless Bureau and OET staff in their last filing on the topic in November: “NAB urges the Commission to promptly dismiss Sennheiser’s petition for reconsideration of this order.” NAB and Sennheiser didn’t comment Wednesday.

The FCC’s electronic comment filing system launched a new, upgraded version Monday after going off-line over the weekend. The upgraded version, which has a new user interface, “will help enable expanded features and functions to be introduced into ECFS in the coming year,” said a news release. The update "transitions ECFS to a cloud-based platform, which will make the system scalable and more agile,” the release said. The upgraded system includes additional security in the form of reCAPTCHA functionality that will help protect it from malicious software. “Our comment filing system is a critical avenue for public input that we need to keep up-to-date,” said Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel in the release. Rosenworcel was critical of ECFS security, as a commissioner, after the system was flooded with comment filings during the 2017 net neutrality proceeding (see 1812030034), though upgrading it began under the previous administration. The upgrade effort's first phase “will enable the development of new functions that take advantage of the upgraded technology platform,” the FCC said. Agency staff said in 2019 that the additional features could include optional user registration and improvements to automation, ease of use, and search functions (see 1909160019). In a March 21 letter to House Appropriations Committee Chair Mike Quigley, D-Ill., released by the FCC Monday, Rosenworcel called the upgraded system “ECFS v4.0” and said it addresses recommendations from a September GAO report (see 2109230079) on making government electronic commenting systems less vulnerable to bots and spoofed comments. Rosenworcel told Quigley the upgraded ECFS includes a “data dictionary” defining the data elements used by the system, and a rewritten user guide. The upgrade doesn’t appear to have affected the issue of thousands of blank filings to docket 20-99 carpeting the system (see 2203240049), which seemed to be still occurring Monday. Friday afternoon, docket 20-99 had 19,447 filings. By Monday afternoon, that number increased to close to 27,000 and searching ECFS for documents posted Monday showed screen after screen of the blank filings, with an occasional substantive filing buried among them. The FCC hasn’t responded to questions about the problem since saying March 24 it was caused by software update. The agency didn’t comment on the matter Monday.

The FCC and DOJ reached a $13.4 million settlement with Tracfone after a "detailed investigation" found the carrier enrolled "more than 175,000 ineligible customers" in the Lifeline program from 2012 to 2015, said a news release Monday. The investigation found Tracfone "did not have adequate internal controls and other Lifeline compliance measures in place" and "failed to detect that for several years its contract sales agents in Florida were improperly targeting and marketing Lifeline services by exploiting a loophole in TracFone’s process for verifying Lifeline eligibility." A DOJ news release said Elite Promotional Marketing sales agents, who were hired by Tracfone, learned the company had a glitch in its computer software that allowed ineligible consumers to enroll. "Some agents in Florida then exploited the glitch to increase their consumer enrollments and commission payments," the release said: "After TracFone eventually discovered the software glitch in August 2015, it repaid more than $10.9 million to Lifeline, an amount that was credited as part of the $13.4 million settlement." Under the settlement, Tracfone signed a three-year compliance agreement and parent company Verizon will "oversee and audit" the carrier's Lifeline program. Tracfone will also pay $2.5 million in damages. “Lifeline providers have a duty to ensure that only eligible subscribers are enrolled,” said Michael Granston, DOJ Civil Division Commercial Litigation Branch deputy assistant attorney general. "Let today’s action serve as a warning to others that we will do everything we can to ensure strict compliance with the rules of the road," said Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. Tracfone "reported these activities to the government years ago and we're pleased to now bring this matter to a close," emailed a spokesperson.

The FCC confirmed Monday that former White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Legislative Affairs Director Narda Jones will be FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel’s new chief of staff, as expected (see 2203290064). Jones will be joined in Rosenworcel’s office by Meta’s Priscilla Delgado Argeris, who will be chief legal adviser. Jones is expected to start in mid-April, while Argeris joined the agency Monday. Jones will replace Rosenworcel’s acting Chief of Staff Travis Litman, who's leaving the agency, according to another release. “From the very beginning, Travis has provided sound counsel and leadership and we couldn’t have accomplished so much without his support, knowledge, and guidance,” said Rosenworcel. Jones’ “unique combination of skill, expertise, and record of service will be a major asset for my team and the agency as a whole,” said Rosenworcel in a release. Jones spent over a decade in senior positions in the Wireline and International bureaus and spent years working on Capitol Hill for Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and then as senior technology policy adviser for the Democratic staff for the Commerce Committee. Argeris was a legal adviser to Rosenworcel on wireline and wireless matters when she was still a commissioner, before leaving in 2015 to work for Meta on spectrum policy, the release said. Before joining the FCC in 2012, Argeris was an attorney at Wiley Rein. Litman worked in Rosenworcel’s office for seven years, including as chief of staff when she was a commissioner. He also worked in the Wireline Bureau and at Senate Commerce. The FCC and Litman didn’t comment on his next stop.