Expanded use of dialing code 211 for a national suicide prevention and mental health crisis hotline -- as recommended by the FCC's North American Numbering Council (see 1905080020) -- got both support and criticism in docket 18-336 comments this week. The proposal doesn't have consensus in the mental health community (see 1905160054). Using 611 isn't realistic, given the amount of calls it receives annually, and 211's dual use is technically feasible and compatible, said the Alliance of Information and Referral Systems. It suggested a "press one/press two" command putting callers into one of two independent systems, or an enhanced integration. It said the veterans service line should remain separately governed, and the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (NSPL) -- working with the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration -- should head the suicide prevention aspect of any joint use. It said 211 staffers today handle crisis calls for domestic abuse, child protection and homelessness on a daily basis. It said some believe there would be initial confusion about 211 as a suicide prevention number, and there were similar perceptions in the early days of 211 about possible confusion between it and 911. The 211 National Leadership Group backed a 211/NSPL collaboration, directing calls "to the best people to handle them as quickly as possible." It said expanded 211 use will necessitate more funding for operating the NSPL via 211. Some see expanded 211 as giving short shrift to suicide. The Trevor Project said expanded 211 use "would ... be inefficient and diminish the importance of the issue," and such operators aren't properly trained to handle emergency calls. It advocated a dedicated three-digit number. It suggested FCC recommendations include training of NSPL counselors in LGBTQ cultural competency and creating an integrated voice response to route calls to the group. Centerstone said expanded 211 use would likely result in insufficient coordination and delays "as people filter" through the system, and instead a sole-purpose number should be designated. It gave no recommendations. A collection of Utah United Way agencies said 211 doesn't work in some parts of the state and a suicide prevention hotline would dilute the core mission and purpose of 211.

Upward momentum in industry's capital investment in broadband rose an estimated $3 billion last year to $75 billion, USTelecom reported Monday. The group said the administration's forward-looking regulatory framework, signaled in 2017, helped to reverse a capital spending decline from the recent peak in 2014. "Annual broadband investment rebounded in 2017 and the data now confirms that the upward momentum continued in 2018," USTelecom said, based on the providers analyzed in its initial report. It confirms a trend from February when USTelecom released an analysis of the top six broadband providers (see 1902070048). FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said the preliminary report "reaffirms that our policies are working," and noted other evidence of broadband expansion (see 1905290017).

The Department of Education said the FCC should preserve the 2.5 GHz educational broadband service (EBS) band for educational institutions. The FCC is examining whether to open the band, possibly through an incentive auction, providing mid-band spectrum for 5G. Chairman Ajit Pai was expected to seek changes for the band at the June commissioners’ meeting but didn't (see 1905130054). A year ago, commissioners approved 4-0 an NPRM seeking proposals for changes to the band, including an incentive auction like the one for TV broadcast spectrum (see 1805100053). “The Department's interest in this matter is tied to its mission to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access,” DOE said. “The Department strongly encourages the Commission to maintain and modernize the current educational priority of the EBS spectrum by keeping the current eligibility requirements for EBS licenses, modernizing the educational use requirement, and issuing new EBS licenses using local priority filing windows.” The letter was posted Monday in docket 18-120. Officials from the National EBS Association and the Catholic Technology Network, meanwhile, met with aides to Pai. They urged “licensing EBS white space through local priority filing windows to new educational entities as proposed in paragraph 41” of the NPRM.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology shouldn’t rush developing artificial intelligence standards and should rely on existing international efforts, stakeholders commented through Monday (see 1905300048). A “rush to impose standards could hamper innovation or lead to standards that quickly become irrelevant as technology advances,” AT&T said. Microsoft said it’s “premature” to develop “sector‐specific vertical standards at this time,” given AI’s continued development. Shift focus to promoting development of “open frameworks, shared definitions, and related tools -- including evaluations, data sets, and metrics,” IBM recommended. “Premature standardization is even more important to avoid given the rapid rate of innovation,” the Information Technology Industry Council said. Rather than creating new standards, “look to existing data standards for acquisition, storage, access and use,” ITI said. The association emphasized existing international standards established by organizations like the International Organization of Standardization/IEC Joint Technical Committee. Microsoft also urged NIST to retain international principles like those from the Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development. The agency should address analysis gaps with government, academia and industry, but it needs to avoid “becoming a standards‐setting organization,” the company said. Like Microsoft and ITI, BSA|The Software Alliance backed “robust” U.S. participation in the development of international standards. Global standards “have the added benefit of mitigating the risks that can accompany country-specific standards,” BSA said. Strive for federal standards in the handling and securing AI data, the Center for Democracy & Technology said, and emphasize transparency for AI development. Establish a “uniform vocabulary for describing structures, elements, parameters, hyperparameters, and techniques for developing” machine learning systems, CDT said.

The FCC should “release promptly” a public notice seeking input on “key technical engineering matters relevant to the policy and legal issues raised” in the C-Band proceeding, AT&T told the FCC. AT&T reported on meetings with officials from the Wireless and International bureaus, the Office of Economic Analysis and the Office of Engineering and Technology. The record hasn’t been “developed to the degree necessary to permit the Commission to engage in reasoned decision-making; and given the passage of time since release of the NPRM (i.e., almost twelve months), there is good cause to believe that such record will not develop organically without further Commission encouragement,” AT&T said in a filing posted Friday in docket 18-122.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) won't be ready to support recent improvements to wireless emergency alerts by Monday, the FCC Public Safety Bureau said. In April, the commission reminded carriers (see this publication, May 1) that revised rules for wireless emergency alerts, approved in 2016 (see 1609290060), were to take effect May 1. That notice said IPAWS expected to be ready to support the new features on June 10. IPAWS recently notified the FCC it won’t meet that deadline, the notice said. One of the features is the ability to conduct state or local tests. “Until such time as IPAWS will support and deploy the State/Local WEA Test option, alert originators may not conduct an end-to-end WEA test to the public without first obtaining a waiver of the Commission’s rules,” Friday's publican notice said: “The Bureau will issue a Public Notice announcing when IPAWS is available to fully support these WEA enhancements and providing further guidance on their use.”

The 2019 regulatory fee NPRM doesn’t provide sufficient explanation for the hikes it proposes, commented NAB, Nexstar and Gray Television, posted in docket 19-105 Friday. The agency proposes “extraordinary” fee increases for radio stations while providing “little or no explanation” for why, said NAB. The NPRM “spends a mere four words” explaining why it proposes increasing the fees for TV satellite stations, said Gray and Nexstar. “The proposed elimination of a separate flat fee for satellite stations is unjustified as a matter of policy, would be arbitrary and capricious if implemented, and has been insufficiently noticed to regulates.” The FCC has a “checkered history” of not explaining regulatory fee changes, NAB said. Expand the base of contributors to regulatory fees beyond only FCC license holders, it said. Ray Baum’s Act eliminates a reference to licensees from the agency’s regulatory fee authority, the association said. “Unlicensed spectrum users and their advocates” have “placed significant demands on limited Commission resources,” NAB said. “As it stands now, radio and TV stations are paying for the FCC staff to handle this work.” Marantha Broadcasting said the FCC proposal to base regulatory fees for broadcasters on population served rather than designated market area will disadvantage VHF stations, which must rely on heightened power to overcome interference: “In many cases these fees are being disproportionally assessed on parties who can least afford them.” Waive the regulatory fees of radio broadcasters assisted through its incubator program, commented the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters and Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council. The fees could “render it more difficult for incubated entities to thrive under the program,” they said. Reallocate the distribution of fees between submarine cables and other international bearer circuits to put more of the burden on the cables, asked CenturyLink. Adjust the fees “to better align the fees imposed with the statutory requirement that such fees be ‘related to the benefits provided to the payor of the fee by the Commission’s activities,’” the telco said.

The FCC Advisory Committee on Diversity and Digital Empowerment has the final meeting under the current charter June 24 at 10 a.m. in the Commission Meeting Room, said a public notice Thursday. The charter expires July 5, but FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has said he will recharter the committee, an FCC spokesperson told us. The meeting will feature reports on each working group’s work under the current charter, plus reports on the committee’s March diversity symposium, the adoption of broadband in underserved communities, and a best practices guide for diversity in tech hiring.

The FCC continues to examine how it can work across the federal government to help support public health, said Chairman Ajit Pai after the commissioners' meeting (see 1906060056) Thursday. He said the agency wants to look at available broadband maps to see where additional deployments could help address the opioid crisis, for example. The commission wants to work more closely with the Department of Veterans Affairs and state and local organizations around the country to bring telehealth to areas like the U.S. Virgin Islands that are underserved by traditional health centers, Pai told us in Q&A.

The FCC rush to roll out the Lifeline national verifier is leading to mass de-enrollments in two states, said Q Link Wireless. Slow its Lifeline national verifier rollout until an application programming interface (API) is ready, the Lifeline provider said in a Monday meeting with the Wireline Bureau, per a filing in docket 09-197 posted Thursday. “The unabated string of National Verifier hard launches and the recent start of mass de-enrollments for those who have yet to pass reverification is alarming,” it said. “Q Link alone has had thousands of subscribers de-enrolled in Colorado and Utah, many, if not all, of whom appear to be eligible.” The company is glad Universal Service Administrative Co. is developing an API for machine-to-machine communication, but “Q Link and the rural and suburban customers it serves lack an alternative way for enrollment and verification information from online consumers to be transmitted to USAC,” the provider said. “With each successive hard launch, more online consumers in rural and suburban areas lack an effective way to enroll (or re-enroll) in Lifeline.” The FCC “could prevent this problem from getting worse by not proceeding to hard launch in any more states pending completion of the API and securing adequate database access (i.e., SNAP [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] and Medicaid at a minimum),” it said. “Suspending hard launches and reverifications would allow USAC to work collaboratively with all stakeholders to ensure systems are working properly before disconnecting consumers.” The FCC inspector general's most recent improper payments report found 18.5 percent ($227 million) of Lifeline payments in 2017 were improper, a spokesperson said. "The FCC began rolling out the National Eligibility Verifier in 2018, and it is critical that we continue this rollout to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse."