NTIA filed a revision to its initial filing asking the FCC to update rules for the wireless priority service, designed to give priority to calls by public officials during times of network overload (see 1807100040). NTIA filed on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security's Emergency Communications Division (ECD) Wednesday in docket 96-86. The agency requested changes consistent with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Act of 2018. The edits “make more clear that DHS is responsible for issuing procedures and other technical guidance needed for the day- to-day operation of WPS, while the White House remains responsible for setting the Executive Branch’s overall national security/emergency preparedness policies,” the filing said. In response to industry complaints, NTIA said it changes “references to specific existing technical standards that could have locked service providers into using approved standards that may be replaced or updated in the future.” NTIA also filed a petition at the FCC Wednesday asking the agency to update telecom service priority rules (see 1907170042). TSP authorizes national security and emergency preparedness organizations to receive priority treatment for vital voice and data circuits. “Rules governing TSP were developed in the late 1980s and have not been updated since the program began,” Senior Policy Adviser Shawn Cochran blogged. “While the purpose of TSP remains fundamentally unchanged, the program has needed to evolve to accommodate new technologies as well as meet the increasing communications needs of the national security and emergency preparedness community.” Many of NTIA’s requests “simply seek to align the FCC’s rules with ECD’s practices and capabilities, remove ambiguous language, and include terminology more reflective of today’s telecommunications environment,” Cochran said.

The type of petitions posted in docket 18-119 Tuesday were petitions for reconsideration of FM translator interference rules (see 1907160066).

The FTC requests comment on 2013 amendments to the children’s online privacy protection rule and whether additional changes are needed, the agency announced Wednesday. The comment period will be open for 90 days after Federal Register publication. A workshop is scheduled for Oct. 7. “In light of rapid technological changes that impact the online children’s marketplace, we must ensure COPPA remains effective,” Chairman Joe Simons said of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. The agency included specific questions. It wants to know if the rule affected “availability of websites or online services directed to children” and if it considers the right factors for determining if websites are directed at children. It asks about implications “for COPPA enforcement raised by technologies such as interactive television, interactive gaming, or other similar interactive media”; if the commission should consider exceptions to parental consent for educational purposes; and if the rule should be modified to “encourage general audience platforms to identify and police child-directed content uploaded by third parties.” This appears to be a move by the Trump FTC to help Google and “other child-directed digital marketers escape responsibility" for big data and manipulative marketing practices, said Center for Digital Democracy Executive Director Jeff Chester. “I am worried that this commission is more concerned about the profits of big platforms than the privacy of the public, especially America’s youth.”

The FCC continues to look at the possibility of routing 911 calls to public safety answering points based on where the call originates, as location-based routing becomes more technologically feasible, but it’s “not there yet,” said David Furth, Public Safety Bureau deputy chief, at a GPS Innovation Alliance briefing Wednesday. The agency began a notice of inquiry in 2018 (see 18032200027). Citing traffic fatalities in rural Nebraska where victims couldn't be found until days later, Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., co-chair of the GPS Caucus, said GPS-linked 911 is a lifesaving synergy between two capabilities that speeds up response. In some jurisdictions, 80 percent of 911 calls annually come via smartphones, he said. Rep. Norma Torres, D-Calif., a member of the NextGen 911 Caucus, said most 911 dispatchers have a story about being unable to get location of a caller in an emergency. "The technology is getting there,” but geolocation needs federal support, said Torres, a former 911 dispatcher. She backed the 911 Supporting Accurate Views of Emergency Services (Saves) Act (see 1904050054) and hopes it gets Senate support. Stormy Martin, U.S. National Coordination Office for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing director, said ongoing GPS modernization efforts like the Air Force's ground infrastructure upgrades and the next-generation GPS III satellites will lead to increased accuracy and availability of GPS signals, which in turn will mean better accuracy of 911 geolocation. The first GPS III satellite, launched in December, should be operational next year, and the second GPS III satellite is set for launch later this summer, he said. Martin said mapping software rather than the constellation is typically the source of GPS problems such as wrong locations.

The FCC Public Safety Bureau deactivated its disaster information reporting system for Tropical Storm Barry Monday at the request of the Department of Homeland Security's National Coordinating Center for Communications and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, it said in docket 19-660 and Tuesday's Daily Digest. The FCC published its final daily communication about the storm earlier Monday (see 1907150050).

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and Pierce Bainbridge filed a class-action status-seeking lawsuit on behalf of AT&T customers in California to stop the carrier and two data location aggregators “from allowing numerous entities -- including bounty hunters, car dealerships, landlords, and stalkers -- to access wireless customers’ real-time locations without authorization.” The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California. “AT&T and data aggregators have systematically violated the location privacy rights of tens of millions of AT&T customers,” said EFF Staff Attorney Aaron Mackey. “Consumers must stand up to protect their privacy and shut down this illegal market.” In May, FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel sent letters to CEOs of the carriers asking what they're doing to make sure real-time location information they collect isn’t being sold to aggregators (see 1905010167). Commissioner Geoffrey Starks also complained about companies selling data (see 1902080056). “The facts don’t support this lawsuit and we will fight it,” an AT&T spokesperson said now. “Location-based services like roadside assistance, fraud protection, and medical device alerts have clear and even life-saving benefits. We only share location data with customer consent. We stopped sharing location data with aggregators after reports of misuse.”

One U.S. agency is at odds with the FTC having won its case against Qualcomm over the company's alleged mobile chip monopoly. "The district court’s ruling threatens competition, innovation, and national security," said the government's "statement of interest" on the chipmaker's motion for partial stay of injunction pending appeal. "Its liability determination misapplied Supreme Court precedent, and its remedy is unprecedented. Immediate implementation of the remedy could put our nation’s security at risk, potentially undermining U.S. leadership in 5G technology and standard-setting." Qualcomm likely would succeed on the merits of the appeal, said the filing (in Pacer). The case began at the end of the Obama administration over dissent of the then-sole Republican commissioner. U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose had issued a permanent injunction over some of the company's IP licensing practices (see 1905220035), which the defendant appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. That's where the government made its new request, and where also this week, stakeholders including Ericsson backed (in Pacer) Qualcomm's partial stay request pending appeal. An FTC spokesperson declined to "comment on DOJ’s views on the Qualcomm case."

Rural broadband providers will start receiving funding this month in the third wave of last year's Connect America Fund Phase II auction, the FCC said Monday. This wave allocates $524 million in USF spending to expand broadband to more than 200,000 homes and businesses in 23 states. In the latest wave, the FCC authorized $39.2 million for broadband deployment in 26 rural New York counties through winning bidders Gtel, MTC Cable, Ostego Electric Cooperative, Slic and Verizon, the agency said, all of which bid to deliver downstream speeds of at least 100 Mbps and upstream speeds of 20 Mbps. Over the next several months, the FCC is expected to approve additional applications of winning bidders from last fall's auctions and authorize remaining funding totaling $1.488 billion to support broadband expansion to more than 700,000 rural locations over 10 years. Eventually, CAF could be replaced by a new 10-year, $20.4 billion Rural Digital Opportunity Fund proposed earlier this year at the White House (see 1904120065). Commissioners are expected to vote at the Aug. 1 meeting whether to release an NPRM, currently in draft form, on the RDOF (see 1907110031).

The operational status of communications services improved Monday in parts of Louisiana and Mississippi tracked by the FCC disaster information reporting system, said Monday's report on areas impacted by Tropical Storm Barry. By 11:30 a.m. EDT, only 0.5 percent of wireless cell sites were out of service in the 72 counties in the DIRS disaster area, compared to 1.7 percent a day earlier. The agency noted cell site outages don't necessarily translate into a customer losing service because coverage from cell sites can overlap. For wired communications, 53,123 subscribers in Louisiana experienced outages of cable or wireline service, which include phone, internet, TV or a combination of those services, and 462 subscribers in Mississippi suffered a cable or wireline outage Monday. All 17 TV stations in the area reported being operational on Monday, up from 16 on Sunday. One FM station, W266CD, reported being out of service.

There's “widespread agreement” mid-band spectrum is needed for 5G and the C-Band Alliance’s plan to make available only 180 MHz is “inadequate to meet those requirements and promote a competitive environment,” T-Mobile representatives, accompanied by auction economists, told the FCC. Most also want an FCC-run auction, it said. “Bidders know and understand the rules, policies, and practices the Commission has developed over more than twenty years of conducting spectrum auctions,” T-Mobile said: “These rules, policies, and practices are not easily replicated and offer full transparency, including for any payment terms.” The carrier sees growing support for clearing the band “by deployment of alternative transmission mechanisms, such as fiber.” The reps met staff from the Wireless and International bureaus and offices of Economics and Analytics; Engineering and Technology; and General Counsel. The CBA didn’t comment on the filing posted Monday in docket 18-122. “Our market-based process with the … auction design offers the quickest way to free up C-band spectrum for wireless 5G while protecting a content distribution system that serves nearly 120 million American households every day,” a CBA spokesperson emailed: The auction design “developed by the world's leading auction design experts is fast, efficient, fair, effective and transparent, and, combined with FCC oversight, serves the public interest.” America's Communications Association said it answered staff questions on a proposal made with the Competitive Carriers Association and Charter Communications. “The transition to fiber can be accomplished within eighteen months in urban areas (Stage 1), within three years in the majority of the remaining areas (Stage 2), and within five years for a few hard-to-reach areas (Stage 3),” ACA estimated. “The staggering of the transition among different types of areas means that, for a limited period of time, urban areas where the lower 370 MHz of the band has been cleared will neighbor areas where that spectrum is still used to provide satellite service to earth stations.” The Wireless ISP Association said it filed a recent study that “shows that current C-band earth stations are vastly overprotected, and right-sizing those protections can result in gigabit fixed broadband services for more than 80 million Americans, particularly in underserved communities.” The study was co-sponsored by WISPA, Google and Microsoft. An FCC decision is expected by the end of the year (see 1907090064).