The FCC has activated disaster information reporting in anticipation of the Gulf's Tropical Storm Barry, it said Friday. The FCC Operations Center will be available around the clock over the weekend for telecom providers affected by Tropical Storm Barry, said a public notice Friday. It can be reached at (202) 418-1122 or at FCCOPCenter@fcc.gov. The Public Safety and Homeland Security, International, Media, Wireline and Wireless Bureaus in a separate PN announced methods for requesting emergency special temporary authority.

Relying on census block reporting for broadband availability is problematic, with 2011 census data for Missouri residential structures disagreeing with other census block data used for Connect America Fund modeling 64 percent of the time, USTelecom CEO Jonathan Spalter blogged. He said USTelecom's pilot broadband mapping effort in the state found more than 4,000 census blocks with 100 percent more structures than the 2011 census data, and more than 13,000 census blocks where the structure count was between 81 and 100 percent less than 2011 census data. The FCC's Aug. 1 vote on new broadband mapping data-collection methods (see 1907110071), along with the Broadband Deployment Accuracy and Technological Availability (Data) Act (S-1822), are progress toward more accurate broadband mapping, he said in a post the association emailed Friday. He said USTelecom still expects to deliver findings on its mapping pilot project to the FCC by month's end, as expected (see 1906200048). In a docket 11-10 posting Friday, Free Press urged "caution" on reforms to the Form 477 reporting process that could result in less understanding of the U.S. broadband market. It worried about the USTelecom pilot being used to eliminate or lessen public access to the underlying data sets. It said Form 477's heavily criticized deployment data shouldn't be confused with its capacity and adoption data. It said 477 deployment data is generally "highly accurate and very useful," though there needs to be better geographic granularity in rural areas and a less-vague definition of deployment. It said FCC mobile broadband deployment maps contain "an unacceptable level of overstated availability," which its fixed broadband deployment maps don't, due largely to the differences in determining where a mobile signal is available vs. where a wireline is located. The group said telecom companies might claim address-level deployment data is competitively sensitive, while finished maps aren't: Remember that companies have "a history of ... non-disclosure requests." The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights said Friday the FCC should update Form 477 methodology specifically to ensure better measurement of broadband availability in underrepresented and marginalized communities where connectivity historically lagged. It said the form should include data on pricing, quality of service and actual speeds, race and other key demographics and usage and subscription rates.

FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks said he’s disappointed about responses to his June letter (see 1906100025) to 14 providers seeking details on their plans to offer free, default call blocking services to consumers aimed at curbing robocalls. Some were posted Thursday, as the FCC held a robocall summit (see 1907110023). “Despite historically clamoring for new tools, it does not appear that all providers have acted with haste to deploy opt-out robocall blocking Services,” Starks said Friday: “The Commission spoke clearly: we expect opt-out call blocking services to be offered to consumers for free. Reviewing the substance of these responses, by and large, carriers’ plans for these services are far from clear.” Among the new responses, T-Mobile said it has long been helping customers fight scam calls. “T-Mobile’s scam-fighting tools are updated every six minutes through machine learning and artificial intelligence that looks at the behavior of a call -- a capability not available through applications,” the carrier said: “T-Mobile was the first to adopt this network-based approach specifically because network solutions provide real-time decisions on incoming calls, intelligent analysis of phone call and network-wide data, and an adaptable machine-learning based framework to stop the next scammer tactic.” Verizon said “components needed to provide consumers with meaningful protections from robocalls … exist today.” Frontier is evaluating “whether we can feasibly offer default call blocking services on an informed opt-out basis.”

FCC current broadband mapping, relying on a model where all homes in a census block are considered covered if a single home has access, overstates availability by 3.3 points, meaning roughly 4 million homes nationwide don't have broadband but are counted as covered, said Phoenix Center Chief Economist George Ford Thursday. He said overstatement rates are higher for rural regions. The study looked at Form 477 data for California, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Texas, West Virginia and Wyoming. It said mapping indicates 95.7 percent of households have broadband service there under the all-in census block assumption, but his model predicts 92.4 percent nationwide. The FCC will vote in August on new broadband mapping data collection procedures (see 1907110071).

A 4-1 NPRM would make permanent a five-year budget approach to funding internal connections (including Wi-Fi) for schools and libraries under the USF E-rate program, the FCC said on docket 13-184 Tuesday. It follows a five-year test period due to expire this year (see 1906190019) that replaced a previous approach granting funds to individual schools and libraries two out of five years. The FCC will consider whether to move to a school-districtwide budget application process and a similar library-systemwide one, and how to address logistical challenges if it does. The agency wants comment on whether it needs to find a new way to calculate funding for small, rural schools and libraries. In a statement of partial dissent, Commissioner Mike O'Rielly said he "cannot endorse maintaining elements that I have always considered problematic, including the flatly absurd idea" to allocate libraries' E-rate support on a per square foot basis. O'Rielly, partially dissenting, hopes "our next action with respect to E-Rate will be laser-focused on eradicating USF-funded overbuilding" that use Category 1 E-rate funds. Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Geoffrey Starks issued statements endorsing the NPRM (see 1907080068). "In this rulemaking, the agency seeks to sustain and extend the impact of these Wi-Fi policies for future generations of students and library patrons," Rosenworcel said. Starks doesn't support reverting to the prior funding approach because "the lack of certainty of funding under the prior methodology discouraged schools and libraries from applying for funding for Wi-Fi networks." Comments are due 30 days after Federal Register publication, replies 15 days later. The NPRM was adopted June 28.

The Aug. 1 FCC meeting will see voting on creation of a Rural Digital Opportunity Fund that, Chairman Ajit Pai blogged Wednesday, would represent the agency's "single biggest step yet to close the rural digital divide," connecting millions to broadband networks. Also up is a new route to broadband mapping and revisions to local franchise authority rules, the latter as expected (see 1907090030). Pai said the fund would provide $20.4 billion over the next 10 years supporting rural networks, operating in two phases using a multi-round, descending-clock reverse auction to ensure maximum coverage at the lowest possible cost. He said the first phase would target areas already unserved while the second focus on areas not won in the first phase and areas that are partially served. He said his proposal also would set a minimum speed of 25/3 Mbps for the auction and favor services with lower latency, and open the auction to ISPs ranging from small cable companies and rural telephone companies to electric co-ops and fixed wireless companies. Pai said the digital opportunity data collection broadband mapping approach would collect granular broadband availability maps from service providers using shapefiles, with those maps verified through crowdsourcing. Pai said the LFA order "would prevent local authorities from unlawfully evading the five percent statutory cap on franchise fees" and make clear franchising authorities can't regulate non-cable services offered by cable operators over their cable systems. Such fees and regulations chill broadband deployment, he said. Also on the agenda will be changes to the Rural Health Care program, which provides financial support to help rural healthcare providers obtain communications services at discounted rates for telehealth services, including a new route for calculating the rates that healthcare providers pay. The agenda will feature 833 toll-free auction procedures, with the auction to be conducted in December; updated technical rules for low-power FM stations to allow greater use of directional antennas and of FM booster stations; new licensing rules for small satellites (see 1907090030); caller ID spoofing rules (see 1907080063); and rules allowing for calling 911 directly on multiline telephone systems.

A letter FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr sent Monday is “disappointing” and “implies EBS is currently underutilized and existing EBS licensees are somehow to blame,” the North American Catholic Educational Programming Foundation and Mobile Beacon emailed. The two responded to a letter to NACEPF asking about its business practices in light of its holdings of educational broadband service spectrum (see 1907080070). Both are reviewing the letter and intend to “respond appropriately,” they said. “NACEPF and Mobile Beacon have already provided the Commission with extensive information about the scope and depth of our existing programs, which specifically and successfully provide broadband for educational purposes, not only in our licensed market areas but throughout all 50 states. Moreover, over 95 percent of all organizations and individuals that filed comments in this proceeding have told the Commission to preserve EBS for education, many detailing various ways they are using Mobile Beacon’s service to support education." Commissioners are to take up an order reallocating the EBS band Wednesday (see 1906180072).

Delaying comments on competitive bidding procedures for the 833 toll-free numbers auction would unnecessarily delay the auction, said the FCC Wireline Bureau and Office of Economics and Analytics in a docket 17-192 order Tuesday. The agency said responsible organization TollFreeNumbers.com's ask for an extension as GAO hears its bid protests about selecting Somos as auctioneer was unrelated to the setting of auction proceedings. GAO dismissed that protest June 19. The FCC said RespOrg Get800's request and issues of how the auction might affect the toll-free number market are similarly outside the proceeding's scope. The proceeding's deadlines were June 3 and 10. In a docket 17-192 posting Tuesday, TollFreeNumbers.com said having Somos auction 833 numbers directly to RespOrgs' customers instead of through RespOrgs violates the Communications Act and is outside toll-free number administrator, service management system database administrator, numbering administration administrator and numbering administration service center duties. It said Somos itself said it could administer the auction among RespOrgs but not that it could execute the auction proposed by the FCC.

Commissioners will vote at their Aug. 1 meeting on rules to help ensure first responders can locate more quickly callers who contact 911 from multiline telephone systems, the agency said Tuesday. Chairman Ajit Pai circulated draft rules to implement Kari's Law Act of 2017 and the Ray Baum's Act of 2018 to extend 911 location requirements to new telecom platforms (see 1812110025). Multiline systems are commonly used by hotels, college campuses and office buildings, and often require users to dial 9 before dialing 911. The new rules for docket 18-261 would establish new location requirements for VoIP and telecom relay services (see 1905280018).

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr sent a letter to the North American Catholic Educational Programming Foundation, the third organization targeted (see 1907050034) in the probe of nonprofits holding educational broadband service licenses. The Monday letter notes the NACEPF listed $60 million in assets in its 2016 Form 990 filing with the IRS. A check of the form substantiated that amount, “What formal restrictions exist on the expenditure of your assets and, in particular, what controls exist to ensure that assets derived from EBS licenses are spent consistent with the purpose of such licenses?” the letter asks: “Do you commit to use all of your accumulated assets and future revenue attributable to EBS licenses -- including the sale of such licenses -- to the provision of instructional material to accredited educational institutions or governmental organizations engaged in the formal education of enrolled students?” The group didn’t comment.