The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied (in Pacer) the FTC’s request for an en banc rehearing in its antitrust case against Qualcomm (see 2009250068). A brief order was filed Wednesday by Judges Consuelo Callahan, Johnnie Rawlinson and Stephen Murphy. “The full court has been advised of the petition for rehearing en banc and no judge has requested a vote on whether to rehear,” the denial said. The agency declined comment. “That not one judge on the Ninth Circuit thought it necessary to consider the merits of the FTC’s petition or to even ask for a response from Qualcomm validates the strength and clarity of the panel’s thorough analysis and conclusions,” said Qualcomm Executive Vice President Donald Rosenberg in a statement.

The Technological Advisory Council will hold its year-end meeting, traditionally the most important of the year, Dec. 1 at 10 a.m. EST via conference call, the FCC said Tuesday. TAC will hear presentations from its four working groups.

NARUC will consider urging state legislatures to authorize commissions to reduce intrastate inmate calling service (ICS) rates to cost-based prices. State utility regulators also proposed Tuesday to vote at their meeting Nov. 5-6 and 9-11 on a resolution on providing state access to the FCC's network outage reporting system (NORS). NARUC President Brandon Presley made good on a July promise to sponsor an ICS resolution, after FCC Chairman Ajit Pai urged action (see 2007240045). The FCC and NARUC urged governors last month to act (see 2009220051). Legislatures are best positioned "to address this issue by allocating additional authority to their State Commissions to investigate and assure cost-based fees,” says NARUC’s draft resolution. The NORS proposal echoes a 2015 recommendation that the FCC grant state agencies access to its NORS database in response to a California Public Utilities Commission 2009 petition (see 1502180058). “Granting States secure access to NORS data is consistent with a history of the FCC sharing confidential information with State commissions when a vital need is shown and the information is properly safeguarded,” says this year’s draft resolution. Republican FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly and Democratic former member Mignon Clyburn (D) are on a Nov. 10 panel about the 2020 election’s impact on commission and broadband policy, NARUC announced Tuesday (see agenda).

The Washington, D.C., Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency asked the FCC for a waiver to do a live wireless emergency alert system test Jan. 8, starting at 11 a.m., in preparation for the Jan. 20 presidential inauguration. The test “involves the use of the WEA text message and city’s official e-mail list portion of the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System” and covers an area including the Capitol and White House, said a filing posted Monday in docket 15-91.

With Chairman Ajit Pai expected to announce Tuesday that the FCC will consider an order reallocating the 5.9 GHz band at the Nov. 18 FCC meeting (see 2010190040), NTIA staked out a position on protecting federal incumbents. Commissioners agreed 5-0 in December to examine revised rules, reallocating 45 MHz for sharing with Wi-Fi, 20 MHz for cellular vehicle to everything (C-V2X) and possibly 10 MHz for dedicated short-range communications (DSRC). DOD “operates fixed and mobile radars for surveillance (including airborne surveillance), test range instrumentation, airborne transponders, and testing in support of the tracking and control of airborne vehicles,” said an NTIA technical report filed last week in docket 19-138. NASA and the Department of Energy “operate radar systems in the 5.9 GHz band,” it said. Operations proposed by the FCC’s NPRM must protect higher-priority federal systems in the 5.9 GHz band, where primary allocations include federal radiolocation services. The report lists locations across the U.S. where extra protections are needed. For indoor use, “the analysis indicates that exclusion zones are not necessary to protect federal operations,” the report said: “NTIA recommends rules be put in place to help ensure the indoor devices are not deployed outdoors and that expedient and effective corrective measures be in place to eliminate interference should it occur.” It recommends C-V2X users be required to comply with rules already in place for DSRC. A broad coalition of groups, on the left and right, plus wireless ISPs, sent a letter to the White House Monday supporting reallocation. The 5.9 GHz band is “mostly unused in the vast majority of the country,” the letter said. It “can make an almost-immediate difference for better, faster, higher-capacity Wi-Fi because the band is directly adjacent to existing 5 GHz unlicensed spectrum,” it said: “This band supports Wi-Fi for millions of consumer devices and critical functions like medical telemetry, airport operations, container ports, railway monitoring and logistics, and the industrial Internet of Things networks used in manufacturing and retail fulfillment.” Among the 97 signers: the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, Engine, Public Knowledge, the Open Technology Institute at New America, the R Street Institute and Less Government.

A petition for reconsideration of the FCC's selection of CohnReznick as C-band clearinghouse (see 2010220062) "is very much on the table, as are other approaches," Vertix Consulting partner Greg Weiner emailed us Thursday. Vertix challenged the clearinghouse search team's recommendation of the CohnReznick team (see 2008190045).

ICANN's meeting was in Hamburg; Phase 1 of the expedited Whois policy development process resulted in a new policy for generic top-level domain registration data; and the Governmental Advisory Committee wants ICANN to require registrars and registries make public data of legal persons, which they now could redact (see 2010210001).

The COVID-19 pandemic is an economic and public health challenge, with small businesses -- especially minority-owned ones -- bearing the brunt, Chairman Ajit Pai said Friday at an FCC tech supplier diversity event. (See also his prepared remarks). Black-owned businesses are shutting down at twice the rate White-owned businesses are, and the pandemic exacerbated preexisting issues like a lack of access to capital, he said. Much of the virtual showcase was an explanation of such resources as the Small Business Administration's. Melissa Bradley, founder of Washington startup accelerator 1863 Ventures, said there are other grant programs, though there's no good way of tracking them. They often are narrow in scope and focus on an underserved neighborhood or geography, she said. Sonja Wells, interim chief lending officer for Black-owned City First Bank, said it did about $32 million in Paycheck Protection Program loans, and could have done more. She said minority businesses often aren't as prepared with required documentation, such as audited financial statements, as they should be when applying for funding. In a discussion about available funding for LGBTQ-owned businesses, National Urban League Senior Vice President-Policy and Advocacy Clint Odom said lawmakers are listening to constituents more closely about social justice issues and "need to hear from you about such issues." Internet Association interim CEO Jon Berroya said a second benchmark survey on workforce data for companies in the internet industry is being prepared.

Liberty Latin America's proposed buy of AT&T's wireline business in Puerto Rico would cut major fiber network operators on the island from three to two, hurting competition, DOJ said in a Clayton Act complaint Friday in U.S. District Court in Washington (docket 20-cv-03064). In a proposed final judgment, Justice said Liberty and AT&T agreed to a consent decree that would see Liberty selling assets including a fiber-based network it has in the San Juan area and other fiber assets across the rest of the island, plus retail fiber-based enterprise customer accounts and the right to pull fiber through Liberty's conduit. It said the agreement would give WorldNet Telecommunications an option to buy segments of AT&T's aerial fiber-based core network. "The divestiture will place WorldNet in the position to become a strong competitor in the provision of fiber-based connectivity and telecommunications services to enterprise customers throughout Puerto Rico," DOJ said. Liberty didn't comment. Its $1.95 billion deal for AT&T's wireline and wireless operations in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands was announced 12 months ago.

The CohnReznick team was chosen to be C-band relocation payment clearinghouse. The FCC Wireless Bureau said in an order Thursday that partnering with a financial institution is a must for a clearinghouse team, but that institution doesn't have to be a signer to the clearinghouse agreement. The lack of a financial signatory had been a chief criticism by the Vertix Consulting team, who also sought the clearinghouse appointment (see 2008190045). The bureau said CohnReznick's description of how it would ensure clearinghouse funds' safety and security is consistent with the terms of the C-band clearing order and the clearinghouse request for proposals. Vertix didn't comment.