The agreement DOJ extracted from T-Mobile/Sprint to sell off key assets to Dish Network so it can build a fourth national wireless network (see 1907260071) likely won’t work as planned, said John Kwoka, American Antitrust Institute senior fellow. The new T-Mobile has big advantages over Dish, Kwoka wrote Wednesday: “The merged firm has advantages in terms of information, control of assets, and pretextual excuses for what may appear to be non-compliance. It also has strong incentives not to aid its direct rival and make it into a more effective constraint on its own market position.” The settlement “fails the test of plausibly and predictably preserving competition in the U.S. wireless market,” he said: “It is anything but certain that Dish can successfully make itself into the fourth carrier that otherwise will disappear. Even if it does, it will be years before that happens.” Justice didn’t comment.

Comments are due to FCC Sept. 23, replies Oct. 7 on a Further NPRM in docket 19-195 that's part of an order establishing a digital opportunity data collection and modernizing Form 477 program. Commissioners OK'd the order Aug. 1 (see 1908070009). The agency wants recommendations on how to enhance the accuracy and usefulness of the data it uses to draw broadband maps, says a notice for Thursday's Federal Register.

The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security tried to answer questions from stakeholders about standards organizations' activities that involve Huawei and about its BIS entity listing. It calls for licenses for any activities involving “the exchange, transfer, or other disclosure of technology or software that is of U.S.-origin or is otherwise subject to the” export administration regulations, BIS said Tuesday. Examples include: “participating in a non-public working or study group involving the exchange ... of such technology,” “participating in electronic exchanges within a standards body, by email or other means, that contain or attach such technology or software” and “releasing or otherwise providing access to blueprints, flowcharts, schematics, prototypes, or similar materials that contain such technology.” U.S. carriers using Huawei got more time this week to adjust to restrictions pushed by President Donald Trump involving the company (see 1908190040).

The FCC's Disability Advisory Committee will meet Sept. 24, the agency said in a public notice Tuesday. The second meeting of the DAC's third term will include reports and recommendations on TV listings for audio-described programming and real-time text integration with video relay services and compatibility with Braille displays. The meeting will be 9 a.m. in the commission meeting room.

Hughes and startup Virtual Network Communications announced a partnership to extend mobile network connectivity using an integrated combination of VNC's deployable LTE technology with Hughes Jupiter and HM satellite systems. The connectivity will support various applications for government, militaries, first responders and commercial mobile network operators, the companies said Tuesday.

An FCC report released Monday provides numbering resource utilization/forecast data as of March 16, 2018, and porting and toll-free data as of Dec. 31, 2017, for competitive LECs, incumbent LECs, mobile wireless carriers, paging carriers and, for the first time, VoIP providers, it said.

The FCC will release a public notice with guidance on network reliability best practices to help protect against outages like the one CenturyLink experienced in late December (see 1812280033), said a Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau report Monday. The agency said it will offer assistance to smaller providers to ensure the nation's communications networks "remain robust, reliable, and resilient." CenturyLink's nationwide outage on its fiber network began Dec. 27, lasting nearly 37 hours and affecting as many as 22 million customers in 39 states (see 1901280023), the report said. Among the best practices, the FCC recommended network administrators disable or turn off system features not in use. In CenturyLink's case, it had not disabled a proprietary management channel, leaving its network vulnerable to malformed packets that propagated across the network. The report said filters should be able to address unanticipated rather than only specified risks to the system. It said network monitoring should include memory and processor utilization alarms "regularly audited to ensure functionality and evaluated to improve early detection and calibration." When the malformed data packets overwhelmed the processing capacity of the nodes at CenturyLink, no processor utilization alarms were triggered to alert the company of the "rapidly diminishing ability of nodes to process traffic." Telecom companies should have procedures in place for network repair when normal network monitoring procedures are inoperable or network administrators are unable to connect to nodes remotely for outage diagnosis, the agency advised. CenturyLink continues to cooperate fully with the FCC's investigation, the company said in an emailed statement Monday. "The outage was caused by a network management card that generated malformed packets that unfortunately were retransmitted across parts of CenturyLink's transport network." The company took a variety of steps to prevent a recurrence, it said, "including disabling the communication channel these malformed packets traversed during the event and enhancing network monitoring."

When the FCC Consumer Advisory Committee next meets Sept. 16, it will consider a Critical Calls List/Robocall Blocking group recommendation related to an NPRM to cut down on illegal robocalls and call authentication. The committee meets at 9 a.m. in the Commission Meeting Room, said a Friday public notice.

Eight Democratic senators asked the FCC to issue a public notice and seek comment on T-Mobile buying Sprint as laid out in the DOJ consent decree (see 1907260071), though the FCC doesn't seem so inclined. Louisiana, meanwhile, joined states supporting the deal. In a letter Friday to Chairman Ajit Pai, the senators said they have significant competition concerns about the deal and the consent decree terms "may prove insufficient to protect competition, innovation, and the public interest." They noted the decree then had Dish Network asking the FCC for construction deadline extensions. They said the FCC's merger review process wasn't transparent, with Pai voicing support for the deal weeks before knowing of the consent decree terms. The senators said Dish's planned 5G deployment as part of its Boost acquisition is a major part of T-Mobile/Sprint that the public hasn't had a chance to address. Presidential candidates Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York signed, along with fellow Sens. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Tom Udall of New Mexico and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut. The FCC doesn't seem so inclined. It emailed us that T-Mobile/Sprint "has been pending in front of the Commission for more than a year, and there have been multiple public comment cycles. Moreover, the commitments offered by T-Mobile and Sprint to the Commission have been public since May, and many parties have submitted comments about them. The time has come for Commissioners to vote and for this proceeding to be brought to a close.” Announcing Louisiana's support for the deal, state Attorney General Jeff Landry noted T-Mobile's aims of providing coverage to 90 percent of rural America and offering residential broadband to more than 5.5 million rural Americans. “Louisiana citizens living in rural communities deserve meaningful competition and reliable service,” he said. Nebraska, Kansas, Ohio, Oklahoma and South Dakota backed the consent decree, while about a dozen states are suing to block T-Mobile/Sprint.

Americans With Disabilities Act principles of nondiscrimination, functional equivalency and inclusion should guide the FCC as it navigates “accessibility for all,” said Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel Thursday at Gallaudet University. She called a petition to itemize telecom relay service fees on consumer bills (see 1905310012) “antithetical” to the ADA and said that in updating its policies for IP captioned telephone service (CTS), the “agency rushed ahead to include automatic speech recognition in IP CTS without first asking does it meet the threshold of functional equivalency.” The FCC posted her remarks.