ATIS said much work remains on more accurate geo-targeting of wireless emergency alerts by carriers. Wireless Technologies and Systems Committee members spoke with Lisa Fowlkes, FCC Public Safety Bureau chief, and an aide to Chairman Ajit Pai. “The industry is advancing several standards required to implement new WEA capabilities,” said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 15-91. “One of the challenges … is the need to define the behavior of devices as they move from outside the polygon to inside the polygon during the WEA broadcast,” ATIS said. “This is a complex issue and a significant number of proposals have been contributed, each of which has different potential impacts to standards, networks, and devices, and require more time to develop a consensus with the alert originator community.”

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals should suspend review of Portland, Oregon's challenge to an FCC ban on local moratoriums of wireless infrastructure deployments, replied (in Pacer) the agency Wednesday in Portland v. FCC, No. 18-72689. Three petitions for reconsideration are at the commission on "issues identical to those presented here," the regulator noted: "Because resolution of the FCC’s reconsideration proceeding may limit or modify the needed scope of judicial review, the Court should grant the FCC’s motion for abeyance."

Ericsson was hired to create the radio access and core network for Dish Network's planned narrowband IoT network, Dish said Tuesday. Ericsson is the first wireless vendor hired for the network deployment, scheduled for March 2020, Dish said. It said it and Ericsson have validated narrowband IoT data transmissions based on 3rd Generation Partnership Project standards, including extended range communications of up to 100 kilometers from a base station.

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr learned lessons from 48 hours with telecom crews in Florida last month post-Hurricane Michael. Better coordination is needed, he said. “More than 7,000 power company crews and contractors worked around the clock to restore power, and this meant cutting, pulling, and replacing thousands of utility poles,” Carr blogged Tuesday. “Unfortunately, their work resulted in a significant number of cuts to fiber and other communications lines. In fact, one fiber company reported 37 cuts in the first few days.” Carr has questions about the wireless resiliency cooperative framework, subject of staff inquiries earlier Tuesday (see 1811060052). “The reports I heard on the ground were that this type of roaming worked well when carriers exercised their roaming rights,” he said. “But I heard conflicting reports about how quickly some providers implemented roaming. There should be greater awareness about resiliency roaming and planning.”

The FCC Public Safety Bureau sought information from seven wireless carriers are how they are implementing the industry’s wireless resiliency cooperative framework, in light of recent hurricanes. Tuesday's letters went to Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, U.S. Cellular, Southern Linc and GCI, asking for responses by Nov. 26. The bureau asks about mutual aid and roaming agreements, how they might have been modified during each disaster and about any incidents where another carrier refused a request for such an agreement. The FCC approved the framework in December 2016 (see 1612210008). Americans "expect quick and effective recoveries from natural disasters like Hurricane Michael and other storms,” said Chairman Ajit Pai. “We are re-examining the last Administration’s framework to make sure all wireless carriers are meeting communities’ needs and doing everything they can to promptly restore service.” Some expressed concerns then that a voluntary approach wasn’t strong enough. The bureau sought more general comment in June and in August, New York City said a voluntary approach isn’t sufficient to ensure network resilience (see 1808030036). CTIA disagreed.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai "demanded" industry "adopt a robust call authentication system to combat illegal caller ID spoofing" and launch it no later than 2019. “Combatting illegal robocalls is our top consumer priority," he said Monday on letters to 14 telecom and internet voice providers. Call authentication is "the best way to ensure that consumers can answer their phones with confidence," he said. "By this time next year, I expect that consumers will begin to see this on their phones. Carriers need to continue working together to make this happen and I am calling on those falling behind to catch up. ... If it does not appear that this system is on track to get up and running next year, then we will take action to make sure that it does.” In May, Pai welcomed a North American Numbering Council report recommending industry quickly establish governing and policy authorities for implementing a Shaken/Stir (Secure Handling of Asserted information using toKENs/Secure Telephony Identity Revisited) framework, with some providers expected to adopt the protocols within a year (see 1805140028). Some then made announcements. Pai's letters Monday asked providers that apparently haven't established concrete Shaken/Stir implementation plans to do so without delay, with questions about their efforts: CenturyLink, Charter Communications, Frontier Communications, Sprint, TDS, U.S. Cellular and Vonage. He asked other providers for Shaken/Stir implementation timelines and details: AT&T, Bandwidth.com, Comcast, Cox Communications, Google, T-Mobile and Verizon. USTelecom leads the Industry Traceback Group working to fight robocalls via "consumer tools, new technologies, traceback efforts and law enforcement," an association spokesperson responded. "The SHAKEN/STIR standard is an important tool" in the industrywide "toolkit to combat illegal robocalls and identify the sources of untrustworthy communications," he emailed. “NCTA members are actively participating in the development and implementation of the Shaken/Stir protocol,” said a spokesperson. "The wireless industry is fully committed to protecting consumers and will continue to work closely with the FCC, FTC, law enforcement and other stakeholders to combat the problem, including developing and deploying call authentication tools as quickly as possible," said CTIA Senior Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Scott Bergmann.

The Supreme Court declined to review the prior FCC's 2015 net neutrality order, which was upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Justices 4-3 denied cert petitions appealing affirmation of the Communications Act Title II order, with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh not participating, said the order list Monday deciding Daniel Berninger et al. v. FCC, No. 17-498. It noted Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch would grant the petitions, vacate the D.C. Circuit's judgment and remand to that court with instructions to dismiss the cases as moot under U.S. v. Munsingwear. The solicitor general, backed by ISPs, had urged justices to take that course, given the current FCC's order undoing Title II net neutrality regulation, which is being challenged in the D.C. Circuit (see 1810030036). ISP groups and some others Monday said they weren't surprised by cert denial. “Once the current FCC repealed the 2015 Order, almost all parties -- including NCTA -- agreed that the case was moot," said NCTA: "Today’s decision is not an indication of the Court’s views on the merits but simply reflects the fact that there was nothing left for the Court to rule on.” Net neutrality advocate Andrew Schwartzman emailed, "This was the likely outcome and doesn't change things much, if at all. However, had the court vacated the 2016 DC Circuit opinion, it would have precluded the petitioners in the current DC Circuit case from relying on the earlier decision as precedent." The current order "remains the law of the land and is essential to an open internet," said USTelecom President Jonathan Spalter. CEO Matt Polka said the American Cable Association will continue "to defend the [current] order in federal court and fight impermissible interference with the national regime by the states." Unless Congress legislates, "the ping-pong match over the FCC's authority will continue," said TechFreedom President Berin Szoka. The group noted three Republican appointees would have vacated the 2015 order; Kavanaugh dissented from the D.C. Circuit affirmation while on that court; and Roberts was recused, "apparently because of prior" cable stock holdings. “Although the current FCC repealed [the] net neutrality rules in 2017 in a fit of partisan overreach ... we will continue to fight until net neutrality is once again the law of the land," said Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass. Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel tweeted: " It wasn't enough for this @FCC to roll back #NetNeutrality. It actually petitioned the Supreme Court to erase history and wipe out an earlier court decision upholding open internet policies. But today the Supreme Court refused to do so." Free Press and Public Knowledge welcomed the decision (here and here).

A draft FCC jurisdictional separations freeze item is an order, a spokesperson told us Friday, describing an item on the circulation list. An NPRM proposed to extend by 15 years the freeze on federal-state separations rules apportioning rate-of-return telco regulated costs and revenue between interstate and intrastate jurisdictions (see 1807180059), drawing objections from state regulators and support from telco interests (see 1808280021). The spokesperson noted the circulation list included a draft order on a Sandwich Isles petition for reconsideration of a December 2016 order requiring the company repay $27 million in "improper" USF support, which was released with a proposed $49 million fine. It also included a draft item on Spectrum Networks Group "Applications and Waiver Request to Allow it to Provide Private, Internal Machine-To-Machine Communications to Businesses on 900 MHz Business/Industrial/Land Transportation Channels."

The FCC confirmed the Lifeline national verifier (NV) hard launch in six states Friday. The commission "is not aware of any problems so far, but the agency and [Universal Service Administrative Co.] will be watching closely to be sure that the National Verifier is determining eligibility appropriately for consumers in those six states," emailed a spokesperson. There weren't any issues in Colorado or Montana, state commission spokespersons said. It’s too early to know whether the hard launch is going smoothly, given limitations during the soft launch and unresolved FCC issues pending, said an industry official. Lifeline providers and a NARUC official last month objected to hard launch in Colorado, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming without an electronic interface for carriers and access to databases to check consumer eligibility (see 1810040045). Q Link Wireless petitioned the FCC for waiver to use alternative means for NV confirmation of applicant eligibility in hard-launch states before agency resolution of the provider's previous petition to implement application programming interfaces permitting USAC-carrier machine-to-machine communications during enrollments. NV's online portals are "impossible for Q Link to access without an API," it said, posted Thursday in docket 17-287.

Lawsuits challenging the FCC September wireless infrastructure order targeting state and local barriers will be heard by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based on random selection, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation said Friday after the FCC Thursday notified the panel about six lawsuits. It’s the circuit where Sprint sued (see 1810290049). Local government groups filed three lawsuits in the 9th Circuit (see 1810310056); Verizon sued in the 2nd Circuit and Puerto Rico Telephone in the 1st Circuit.