T-Mobile promised to continue to offer Lifeline service, should it get the OK to buy Sprint. “New T-Mobile has no contemplated end date to its participation in the Lifeline program, and the company has no intention to stop offering Lifeline in any state where T-Mobile and Assurance currently offer it,” the buyer wrote Rep. Tony Cardenas, D-Calif. T-Mobile also countered Communications Workers of America complaints the company's buy of Iowa Wireless last year was bad for broadband in that state. CWA raised the issue in the context of the T-Mobile/Sprint deal. “IWireless’s 2G and 3G service was vastly inferior to the quality of T-Mobile’s mobile broadband,” T-Mobile told an aide to FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, said a filing posted Monday in docket 18-197. “IWireless had no low-band spectrum and relatively limited 4G LTE coverage. T-Mobile is already investing more than $70 million to transform the network by building out its 600 MHz spectrum and introducing 5G-ready sites throughout Iowa.” T-Mobile and Sprint engineering staff told the FCC team reviewing the deal the companies' "three-year network migration process was designed to minimize customer disruption and provide superior user experience at all stages of the migration.” They said their combination "would drive down the cost of capacity and coverage by making more efficient use of existing spectrum and other network assets.”

California's net neutrality law is "a consequence" of FCC deregulation, said ex-commission Chairman Tom Wheeler on C-SPAN: "If the federal government has stepped aside, and the agency responsible for America’s networks says, 'No, we don’t have this responsibility any more for internet networks,' and we are a federal system, then why should we be surprised if the states step up?" Under President Donald Trump, "those networks regulated by the FCC have gotten everything they want. And they turn around and they say, ‘Oh my goodness, there’s a void there, we need some kind of rules.’ So they turn around and they go to Congress and say, ‘We’ve got to pre-empt what California has done,'" Wheeler added. ISPs are discovering the truth of what Adam Smith wrote that markets can't work without rules, Wheeler told The Communicators, put online Friday and televised this week. "They had uniform set of rules on open internet … on privacy that got overturned in the Trump administration." Monday, the Internet Association and USTelecom didn't comment and the commission and NCTA declined to comment. Wheeler criticized the FCC on cybersecurity under Chairman Ajit Pai. "If the most important network is probably going to be the wireless network, now in shorthand described as 5G," Wheeler asked, "what are we doing now to get in front of the threats that we know are coming?" The agency under Wheeler sought to require standards for spectrum the agency is making available for fifth-generation wireless be able to prevent such attacks, and sought technical feedback from experts, he recalled. "When the Trump FCC came in, they shut down both of these activities." He said the examination of what 5G gear can be bought is "important," such as whether equipment can come from Chinese companies. "The first step in rebalancing between the people and the powerful begins with oversight of the dominant network" via net neutrality, Wheeler blogged Friday for the Brookings Institution. "The second step comes with the establishment of rules for those who ride on the internet." The Trump FTC, which declined comment Monday, "has made noises, but has yet to step up to this challenge," wrote Wheeler, a Brookings visiting fellow. "Today’s internet barons behave just as the industrial barons in [then-President Teddy] Roosevelt’s day."

Monday's release of President Donald Trump's FY 2020 $4.7 trillion federal budget proposal provided a limited picture of its potential impact on telecom and tech-centric federal agencies, with the FTC the only of those entities to release budget justification documents. The White House said it won't release an appendix of its full budget proposal figures until March 18. The FCC and Commerce Department didn't release their proposals. The administration is proposing $312.3 million in funding for the FTC, up from the almost $310 million it proposed in FY 2019 and the similar amount allocated in the federal spending law Trump signed last month (see 1902150055). The FTC's budget would keep staffing level from FY 2019 at 1,140 full-time equivalents. The agency plans to keep its division of labor unchanged, too, with 612 employees working in jobs aimed at consumer protection activities and 528 in competition-related roles. DOJ said it's allocating $166.8 million of its $29.2 billion proposed FY 2020 budget for the Antitrust Division and proposes increasing the division's staffing level by 39 positions. The White House's budget proposal again mentioned a perennial proposal to introduce a spectrum license user fee, which it estimates would generate about $4 billion revenue through 2029. FCC-administered spectrum auctions could generate $6.6 billion revenue through 2029, the White House said. The Trump administration also outlined infrastructure-related aspects of its budget proposal, which include $200 billion in funding for rural broadband and other non-transportation sectors.

The Senate Commerce Committee is eyeing March 27 as the date for a media marketplace hearing, several lobbyists told us Friday. The hearing is expected to be a likely precursor to Senate Commerce's debate on reauthorizing the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act, lobbyists said. The House Communications Subcommittee held a similar hearing in September (see 1809270062). Senate Commerce Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said in February he views STELA renewal as a "must-pass" measure despite lobbying by broadcasters against such action (see 1902270018). The committee is lining up witnesses for the potential hearing, lobbyists said. Senate Commerce didn't comment.

The final meeting Friday of the Communications, Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council under its current charter focused on next-generation 911 (NG911), network security, and recommendations for future CSRICs to pursue. The body is expected to be rechartered, said CSRIC’s designated FCC federal officer Jeffery Goldthorp. The group voted to approve a set of best practices for NG911 that included recommendations for testing the service, monitoring its use and preventing outages. NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield and American Cable Association Board Chair Robert Gessner expressed concerns that some of the best practices would be difficult for smaller carriers to implement. It would be “challenging” if some of the best practices “moved from a should to a must,” said Bloomfield. No CSRIC members voted against the best practices. The council also approved recommendations for future CSRICs to study aspects of network security for the Domain Name System and the Border Gateway Protocol. Future CSRICs may want to consider the effect on internet stability and fragility of alternative network systems, said Travis Russell, Oracle director-cybersecurity.

The FCC announced new E-rate and rural healthcare USF program caps for funding year 2019, adjusted for inflation of 2.2 percent. The E-rate cap will go from $4.06 billion to $4.15 billion and the rural healthcare cap will go from $581 million to $593.8 million, said a Wireline Bureau public notice Friday in dockets 02-6 and 02-60.

FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly again objected to E-rate overbuilding of networks and asked Universal Service Administrative Co. to clarify its understanding of the rules and detail its treatment of applications. He's "very concerned" E-rate subsidies are reportedly being used to overbuild USF-backed fiber networks in some Texas school districts. "At least three regional-based consortia (representing 'Educational Service Centers') have sought proposals, via the Form 470, for the construction of Wide Area Networks (WANs) to provide Internet access to entire school regions, each covering well over ten thousand square miles, even though multiple fiber-based providers are already capable of serving the individual schools," he wrote Thursday to USAC CEO Radha Sekar, citing a Nov. 19 filing by telco cooperatives. The consortiums have filed Form 471 and "largely been approved" for "over $100 million to lay new fiber to schools already served by fiber networks. ... partially paid for with federal funds," O'Rielly said. "This number does not even include the subsidies requested for connecting individual schools within the WAN that were already connected to existing fiber networks." In one case, "a winning bidder was approved to receive over $40 million in special construction costs for a fiber build, even though most of the district already has fiber connectivity," he added. It's "likely that support for these fiber builds will also subsidize warehousing of fiber capacity not needed for E-Rate purposes." He asked Sekar to respond by April 1 to questions, including if E-rate rules let USAC fund: (1) special construction projects, whether through self-provisioned or commercial networks, that "duplicate, in whole or in part, fiber networks" built with federal funds; and (2) consortium "construction of a WAN to provide Internet access to the entire consortium, even where fiber-based providers are already capable of serving individual consortium members." He sought answers on the number of WAN-related applications, approvals and denials, and on any USAC warnings to the FCC about "overbuilding risk" or "an apparent gap" in rules permitting overbuilding approvals. USAC and FCC spokespersons didn't comment.

BarrierFree acknowledged an error in its FCC Form 477 filings of December 2017 broadband deployment data, which it expects to be corrected soon. Free Press this week said "wildly" inflated BarrierFree data apparently led FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, in highlighting a draft report, to overstate broadband deployment improvement in 2017, drawing concern from commission Democrats (see 1903060034). The FCC "is looking into the matter," said a Pai spokesperson Thursday. "A portion of the submission was parsed incorrectly in the upload process," emailed BarrierFree Chief Operating Officer Jim Gerbig. "With the government shutdown in January, we were unable to submit revised documents before the full report went live. Also, the deployment data only reflected one transmission technology (fiber), and should have included wireless as well. We are working with the FCC to improve our 477 data for the December 2017 filing, and expect to have it resolved soon." He said BarrierFree is "building one of the nation's fastest Internet networks," including through fixed wireless in the northeast corridor: "New York State is one of our highest served areas and is focus for future expansion." Free Press Research Director Derek Turner said the FCC hadn't responded to the group's request to remedy BarrierFree's "tremendous over-reporting" of deployment before it adopts a Telecom Act Section 706 broadband report. "I would not be surprised if the Commission took a little time to respond, but not too long; this is something that they (and anyone with software that can handle a data set this large) can check and verify," he emailed. "I am surprised the FCC itself did not catch it." Although Free Press believes "the Pai FCC routinely makes irresponsible causal claims about the impact of its policies," Turner hopes "his office and the career staff at the FCC would recognize the need for quality data."

Late delivery of components is adversely affecting broadcaster efforts to adhere to the FCC’s repacking timeline, said Electronics Research Inc. President Tom Silliman in a meeting Feb. 27 with Incentive Auction Task Force Chair Jean Kiddoo, Video Division Chief Barbara Kreisman and other Media Bureau and IATF staff, said a filingTuesday in docket 12-268. Late delivery of “final transmission line components” causes delays and those delays generate additional costs that the FCC must reimburse, ERI said. Broadcaster-equipment supplier exclusivity agreements are also hurting the repacking by making it hard for broadcasters to substitute equipment when they encounter delivery delays, ERI said. FCC flexibility in allowing broadcasters to use interim facilities will help ameliorate the “aggressive” repack schedule, said the tower builder and installer.

Inching closer to possible settlement with New York, Charter Communications asked to have until April 5 to seek rehearing of the New York Public Service Commission’s July order revoking the MVPD’s Time Warner Cable buy, and until May 3 to file a six-month plan to exit the state (see 1902280061). New York PSC Chairman John Rhodes granted the 30-day extensions in a one-commissioner order. Deadlines were March 6 and April 3. “Considerable time and resources have been deployed to analyze and consider proposed settlement frameworks, which have required extensive internal review both at Charter and by the Department,” Charter told the commission in a Tuesday request in docket 15-M-0388. “The parties have made considerable progress. They have now exchanged term sheets and reached agreement on many key issues. Further data analysis is still underway on certain passings under discussion, and additional time will allow the parties an opportunity to fully review the information exchanged, as well as to convert the term sheet into a fuller written agreement.”