Four telecoms asked the FCC for more time to implement call authentication technologies, before the June 30 deadline to meet the secure telephone identity revisited (Stir) and signature-based handling of asserted information using tokens (Shaken) framework. The filings appeared Monday in docket 17-97. AT&T asked for a one-year extension, citing network congestion due to COVID-19 and aging platforms. Lumen said it "remains on track" to meet the deadline but sought an additional six months to accommodate any potential equipment-related delays. UScellular asked for an extension and didn't request a specific time frame because it's transitioning non-IP customers to an IP network. Verizon asked the FCC to declare it's not required to deploy Stir/Shaken for its plain old telephone system customers because it would be "an onerous task with any benefits vastly outweighed by the burdens." The company wants three years to finish upgrading its fiber-to-the-premises-session initiation protocol platform with Stir/Shaken capabilities.

San Francisco will review and respond in court to a T-Mobile lawsuit testing federal deemed-granted rules, a spokesperson for City Attorney Dennis Herrera said Friday. In a complaint (in Pacer) Wednesday at U.S. District Court in San Francisco, T-Mobile sought a declaratory ruling affirming deemed-granted status of 16 applications to modify wireless facilities. The carrier said it filed 27 applications between June 24 and Aug. 14 to modify facilities in ways it described as "minor, frequently involving only swapping existing antennas and perhaps adding a small number of new antennas and associated equipment to existing rooftop installations.” T-Mobile said the upgrades are especially needed due to COVID-19 showing the importance of 5G and distance learning. Section 6409(a) of the Spectrum Act requires the city to act within 60 days, but it hadn't by late October, T-Mobile alleged. The carrier notified the city Oct. 20 that the applications were deemed granted, but since then, San Francisco issued permits for only 11, leaving 16 still unresolved, it said. It may be the first formal action by a wireless company on deemed-granted in California, emailed Tellus Venture Associates President Steve Blum, a consultant for local governments. The case will clarify what the term means “as a practical matter,” he said. “In theory, T-Mobile could have just started construction. Instead, they've taken it to federal court,” which probably will “result in a preemptive ruling that sets the de facto rules" for California, he said. Best Best’s Gail Karish noted the applications all involve changes to rooftop facilities. Local authorities and carriers often disagree how FCC rules for eligible facilities requests (EFRs) apply to rooftop facilities, and if “proposed modifications actually qualify for treatment as EFRs, or should be categorized as a different type of application with a longer FCC shot clock,” said the telecom lawyer for local governments.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit will hear oral argument Jan. 25 at 9:30 a.m. about Environmental Health Trust, Consumers for Safe Cell Phones and Children’s Health Defense seeking to force the FCC to reopen examination of RF exposure rules (see 2007300056), said a Friday order (in Pacer). “The FCC refused to meaningfully assess the vast amount of reliable peer-reviewed scientific and medical evidence generated after 1996 indicating current and potential health risks from currently-authorized exposures, and gave inappropriate weight to unreliable and conflicted views and opinions by industry-supported sources,” plaintiffs say (in Pacer) in docket 20-1025. The FCC rightly declined last year to initiate a rulemaking to consider revising limits, the agency says (in Pacer). “The agency reasonably relied on the expert advice of other federal agencies and standard-setting bodies and the record as a whole to conclude that no evidence of such effects exists and that no changes in the limits were warranted. That conclusion was neither arbitrary nor capricious, nor does it constitute the ‘rarest and most compelling of circumstances’ in which this Court would disturb an agency’s decision.”

The Office of Economics and Analytics and Office of General Counsel released a memo formalizing procedures for incorporating OEA analysis into FCC decisions, said a release Thursday. “This memorandum lays out a systematic way to incorporate economic analysis into Commission actions that can have a significant impact,” said Chairman Ajit Pai. The document focuses on rulemakings with an impact of $100 million or more, which, under FCC rules, require a “rigorous, economically-grounded cost-benefit analysis” from OEA. Though the memo concentrates on major rulemakings, the analyses it describes also apply to lesser ones.

The FCC Wireless Bureau decision to not include integrated receiver/decoder (IRD) equipment costs in the C-band clearing earth station lump sum amount was based on "ample evidence" and followed the law and the agency's own C-band clearing order, the full commission said in a docket 18-122 order Thursday denying ACA Connects' August application for review (see 2008140033). There's an extensive record showing IRD costs will be satellite operators' and they should be reimbursed, and ACA is ignoring plain language of the order, the agency said. ACA "relies on misleading quotations and ignores the breadth of evidence" in challenging the reasoning of the commission deciding compression equipment costs are satellite operator costs, it said. ACA emailed it was "reviewing the FCC's decision." The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in September denied ACA's petition (in Pacer) to delay the lump sum election deadline (see 2008270052) (docket 20-1327).

The National Lifeline Association and Assist Wireless asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit for an emergency stay of Monday’s FCC Wireline Bureau order (see 2011170064) raising the Lifeline broadband minimum service standard to 4.5 GB a month. The motion and petition for writ of mandamus (in Pacer) were filed Thursday. The MSS increase from 3 GB to 4.5 GB would take effect Dec. 1, and the emergency motion seeks a ruling on the stay by Nov. 30. The stay request asks the court to block the Dec. 1 increase until it can rule on the accompanying petition for writ of mandamus, which seeks to compel the FCC to act on petitions for reconsideration against the 2016 order that established an automatically increasing MSS. “Absent Court action to force the FCC to render a decision on the 2016 Order reconsideration petitions, [eligible telecommunications carriers], low-income consumers, and the public interest will suffer irreparable harm,” said the petition. NaLA’s filings argue the FCC is dragging its feet on the recon petitions, that allowing the Dec.1 increase will cause a great deal of harm during the pandemic, and that reasoning for the MSS order is arbitrary. Though Monday’s order was enacted at the bureau level and would normally be appealed to the full commission before the courts, NaLA said that would be “futile” because of the looming deadline and the agency’s decision to increase the MSS. The FCC didn’t comment.

House Democrats criticized the Commerce Department for creating a National Institute of Standards and Technology senior position without notice to congressional committees. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross appointed Jason Richwine deputy undersecretary of commerce for standards and technology. Richwine published “blog posts for a prominent white supremacist website,” wrote House Science Committee Chair Eddie Bernice Johnson, Texas, and Research and Technology Subcommittee Chair Haley Stevens, Michigan. “That Dr. Richwine holds these beliefs and has deliberately built a public profile around them is abhorrent; that he has apparently been rewarded for them by the Trump Administration is a scandal.” Commerce didn’t comment.

The judge in DOJ and states’ antitrust case against Google wants to plot an initial schedule before the December holidays, said U.S. District Court in Washington Judge Amit Mehta on a telephonic status conference Wednesday. Mehta asked parties to file Dec. 11 their proposed case management order and outstanding issues for the judge to resolve. It mightn’t include a concrete trial date if parties are planning to seek summary judgment, he said. The judge scheduled an 11 a.m. Dec. 18 telephonic hearing on the proposed scheduling order. Before committing to a schedule, Google wants more information about the third-party investigation done by the government, including a list of the third parties that provided information, said Google attorney John Schmidtlein. DOJ attorney Kenneth Dintzer said that kind of information isn’t usually given until discovery starts but noted the government plans to provide information including 100 potential witnesses in its initial disclosure due Friday. Mehta agreed that disclosure should provide Google sufficient information about the extent of the investigation. Wednesday's conference followed an Oct. 30 meeting (see 2010300027).

Southern Co. asked the FCC not to act now on revised 6 GHz rules, while others sought changes proposed in an April Further NPRM, in filings posted Tuesday in docket 18-295. Chairman Ajit Pai is expected to make clear Wednesday whether there will be a vote at the Dec. 10 commissioners' meeting (see 2011130045). “Take additional time to fully evaluate and consider” concerns that have been raised “before adopting any further rules on unlicensed use of the 6 GHz band,” Southern said in calls with aides to Pai and Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel. The Open Technology Institute at New America told acting Chief Ron Repasi and others from the Office of Engineering and Technology that the FCC should act. “We urged the Commission to act on Verizon’s Petition for Reconsideration requesting higher power for unlicensed standard-power 6 GHz access points already subject to [automated frequency coordination] control,” Verizon said of a call with OET.

The union that represents FCC employees submitted to the Joe Biden presidential transition team a “blueprint” for improving the federal labor-management relationship and rescinding executive actions by the current White House that “undermined the civil service,” said a National Treasury Employees Union news release Tuesday. The NTEU plan recommends replacing appointees to administrative boards such as the Federal Service Impasses Panel and the Federal Labor Relations Authority, the release said. Those bodies “have upended legal precedent with decisions that disproportionately favored management,” NTEU said. The plan urges the Biden administration on day one to roll back executive orders such as the October Schedule F order (see 2010300048). “A new administration is an opportunity to collaborate on restoring the executive branch agencies to the standards that the American people deserve and expect,” said NTEU National President Tony Reardon.