The Hawaiian Broadband Initiative and National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) petitioned the FCC on priority filing window eligibility rules for tribes seeking 2.5 GHz spectrum licenses. In a docket 18-120 posting Tuesday, the Hawaii agency said native Hawaiians not being listed as an eligible party for window participation wasn't raised with the agency before its October order because no reasonable party would have anticipated the FCC's saying Hawaiian homelands are eligible for the window but omit native Hawaiians from the list of eligible applicants to participate. Gov. David Ige (D) (see here) and state Office of Hawaiian Affairs (see 1911250040) also raised eligibility red flags. NCAI said the FCC should reconsider limiting off-reservation lands including tribal trust lands from the eligibility window because that limit will especially affect rural tribal nations without reservations or that have service populations located in noncontiguous parcels of off-reservation trust land. It said the agency should reconsider its requirement that an area be "rural" to qualify for the tribal priority window. The commission didn't comment.

The FCC will hold the first meeting of its rechartered North American Numbering Council Dec. 16 at 9:30 a.m. in its Commission Meeting Room, said a public notice Tuesday for docket 92-237. Chairman Ajit Pai named Jennifer McKee, NCTA vice president-associate general counsel, NANC chair. Maine Public Utilities Commissioner Bruce Williamson is the new vice chair. NANC was re-chartered two months ago (see 1909190070). Other members also were named. The FCC will also take nominations through Dec. 26 from non-NANC members who want to participate on particular NANC working groups.

Ford remains willing to share the 5.9 GHz band if it can be shown non-safety applications won't degrade cellular vehicle-to-everything technology (C-V2X) performance or jeopardize the future availability of the spectrum, CEO James Hackett wrote FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, who tweeted the letter Monday. Hackett said Ford will begin deploying C-V2X in 2022, and all its new vehicles will have it within a few years. It said the proceeding considering C-V2X as a crash avoidance technology is "appropriate and timely." Dec. 12, commissioners vote on a proposal to take some band from dedicated short-range communications and reallocate it for Wi-Fi and other unlicensed use (see 1911200055).

SES CEO Steve Collar and Intelsat CEO Stephen Spengler told aides to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai how the C-Band Alliance "could work cooperatively with the FCC" to develop a C-band public auction, per a docket 18-122 posting Monday. Pai supports an auction instead of what had been CBA's planned private sale (see 1911180026).

The FCC is "solidly on track" for a 2020 C-band auction, said Commissioner Brendan Carr in an interview with The Communicators, posted online Friday and to have aired on C-SPAN over the weekend. Noting concerns that such an auction might be three or more years out, he said "that's not going to happen" due to the auction's being such an agency priority. “A lot of regulators right now are struggling with a lack of vision” on 5G, and he said it will be more consequential than the transition from analog to digital. He said that lack of vision is reflected in opposition to T-Mobile buying Sprint. Support of deals like it shows "you understand where technology is going," he said: "A lot of consumers aren't happy with the status quo," and want to see new competition. He has "significant concerns" about China Unicom and Chinese Telecom being licensed to operate in the U.S., and favors an investigation of whether existing Communications Act Section 214 licenses should be pulled. He said there's unanimity among U.S. allies on the issue. Carr doesn’t think there's a need for a new agency like the FCC to regulate just edge providers; instead, antitrust authorities need to have "forward-looking vision" to see where the tech industry is going.

NARUC's board OK'd two resolutions asking the FCC delay telecom-related changes, meeting attendees told us. One resolution asked the agency to delay sharing 6 GHz frequencies with unlicensed devices including for Wi-Fi until automatic frequency coordination (AFC) can be proven to ward off interference. Critical Infrastructure Committee Chair Gladys Brown Dutrieuille and Telecom Committee Chair Karen Charles Peterson worked out an agreement about making a further change to the last sentence of the item before the board met, as some had expected (see 1911180050), said NARUC General Counsel Brad Ramsay in an interview Thursday. The sentence now says the association, referring to critical-infrastructure industries, recognizes "the criticality of utility and other CII communications in the 6 GHz spectrum band," and asks the FCC to "modify its proposal to not allow unlicensed operations in the 6 GHz band unless and until such time that it has tested and proven that its AFC system works as intended to protect license holders, including utility and other CII systems, and it is demonstrated that unlicensed operations will not cause harmful interference to license holders as determined by the FCC." Utilities Technology Council CEO Joy Ditto said the item "sends a strong signal to the" FCC "it must first ensure it can protect the mission-critical communications networks located in the 6 GHz band before it allows unlicensed users access to the band. Ensuring that the numerous critical-infrastructure communications networks, including utilities, public safety, oil and gas, telecommunications companies, and many others, are protected from interference is absolutely essential if the FCC is to proceed with this plan.” NARUC's board also okayed asking the FCC to set automatic speech recognition standards for IP captioned telephone service before allowing ASR reimbursement, as expected (see 1911150011). The FCC declined to comment.

With implementation of secure handling of asserted information using tokens (Shaken) and secure telephone identity revisited (Stir) call authentication not where it should be, rules to require it could be coming, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said Thursday at the Robocall Symposium of the New England States, per prepared remarks. He's "generally been pleased" with progress, but it's not enough. He said staff "is actively working on developing regulations to make this happen" and there could be a vote on the new rules if the deadline isn't met. Pai previously warned of a mandate in 2020 if Shaken/Stir deployment isn't voluntarily completed this year (see 1907110023).

Refusing to delay a Dec. 9 trial in states' lawsuit against T-Mobile's buying Sprint, U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert Lehrburger denied as “untimely” a DOJ motion to intervene so it can ask to disqualify the lead attorney for states, Munger Tolson's Glenn Pomerantz. The judge denied the motion from the bench at U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in New York City Thursday. Justice said there's a conflict of interest because Pomerantz represented the U.S. in litigation over the failed AT&T/T-Mobile. Lehrburger said DOJ knew about Pomerantz since April but didn’t come to court until Nov. 8. It “could have and should have moved earlier,” he said: If allowed to intervene two weeks before trial, and the attorney were disqualified, there would be “extreme prejudice” to plaintiffs because they would have to scramble to get a new representative up to speed. The department argued that since it settled with the carriers, DOJ's an adverse party to the states that its former attorney Pomerantz now represents. Lehrburger noted defendants say they don't object to Pomerantz because their priority is going to trial quickly, and he's "not sure there's taint if the defendants aren't challenging it." The U.S. didn't convince the judge the government would suffer much harm from Pomerantz's knowing possibly sensitive U.S. information, Lehrburger said.

AT&T was upfront about the risks of launching a new product and there's no proof it knew of any improper practices in selling DirecTV Now -- now AT&T TV Now -- subscriptions, it said in a motion to dismiss (in Pacer, docket 19-cv-02892) Monday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. It's challenging of a fraud suit by union pension fund investors claiming the company inflated its streaming service subscriber numbers (see 1909160026). Plaintiffs' outside counsel didn't comment Wednesday.

A full panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the FCC’s en banc appeal of the Prometheus IV ruling, which vacated and remanded many broadcast ownership regulations, said an order (in Pacer) released Wednesday (see 1911070067). “No judge who concurred in the decision having asked for rehearing and a majority of the judges of the circuit in regular service not having voted for rehearing, the petitions for rehearing by the panel and the Court en banc are denied,” said Judge Thomas Ambro in the order. Ambro presided over the three-judge panel that ruled against the FCC and wrote the majority opinion. Attorneys and officials speculated the agency might seek U.S. Supreme Court review if the en banc appeal were rejected. “The rapid dismissal of the FCC and industry rehearing petitions is hardly surprising in light of the weakness of their positions,” said Benton Institute for Broadband and Society Senior Counselor Andrew Schwartzman, who represented public interest entities against the FCC in the case: “Chairman [Ajit] Pai should stop posturing and do what the court has told the FCC to do, not once, not twice, not three times, but four times.” The FCC didn’t comment.