An FBI investigation, which it requested the Association of National Advertisers cooperate with, was into media buying practices between advertisers and ad agencies (see 1810100051). ANA was not, as we erroneously reported, linked to a DOJ investigation into ad price collusion among major TV groups including Sinclair. That reported DOJ investigation is a separate matter from the reported FBI probe (see 1810050041).

A hold Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, placed on FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr's reconfirmation remained in place Thursday night despite the commission's bid to fund payments to a top Alaska USF Rural Health Care (RHC) Program participant. The FCC Wireline Bureau said Wednesday evening it cleared Alaska telco General Communication Inc. to receive $77.8 million in RHC payments for FY 2017. Sullivan and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, told us that action alone won't fully resolve their concerns with FCC handling of the program, which led Sullivan to place the hold on Carr's confirmation to a full five-year term ending in 2023 (see 1809120056). Sullivan worries FCC handling of RHC negatively affected constituents (see 1809130059). The approved GCI payment figure is 26 percent less than the $105 million it sought. The agency required GCI and other RHC participants to substantiate rural telecom rates after finding two non-Alaska carriers apparently falsified documentation to inflate their rural rates, which the program subsidizes based on their differential with typically lower urban rates. The FCC proposed $40 million in fines against the two carriers. GCI didn't comment. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters he's aware of an FCC proposal “that addresses” concerns Sullivan and Murkowski raised about RHC “and we hope that this satisfies” them. The senators were still “getting feedback” on the proposal Thursday, Thune said. He said he hopes the FCC's actions might end Sullivan's hold so the Senate can confirm Carr and Democratic FCC nominee Geoffrey Starks as part of a pre-election package of nominees, though that appeared to be unlikely. Senate leaders were negotiating at our deadline on a deal that would leave the chamber in recess until after the November elections. Sullivan later told reporters he plans to meet with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai “next week” to follow up on his RHC concerns. Murkowski believes the FCC needs to address how it will provide “certainty” on processing Alaska providers' RHC applications in the future.

Hurricane Michael had a "serious impact on communication services in the Florida Panhandle and parts of Georgia," the FCC reported Thursday, based on network outage data submitted by 11 a.m. Chairman Ajit Pai cited "substantial communications outages." The FCC said one public safety answering point was reported down in Florida and 15 PSAPs in both states were "re-routed." About 19 percent of cellsites in 101 affected counties across three states were reported out of service: in Florida, seven counties had more than two-thirds of cellsites out, and four had more than one-third out; 14 Georgia counties and one Alabama county had more than one-third of cellsites out. There were 185,841 subscribers reported without cable or wireline telecom service in Florida, 63,473 in Georgia and 14,855 in Alabama. Four TV stations, 30 FMs and four AMs were reported out. Pai said his office and Public Safety Bureau staff contacted representatives of carriers and broadcasters about the situation and how to restore service as quickly as possible. "We were pleased that carriers had pre-positioned equipment and were in the process deploying cells on wheels (COWs) and cells on light trucks (COLTs) in order to get wireless service up and running in many locations," he said. USTelecom said members are coordinating with emergency responders and electric utilities to keep networks running, and summarized efforts of AT&T, CenturyLink, Frontier Communications and Verizon to help affected customers. The Wireline Bureau Wednesday reminded providers of a temporary waiver it granted from a phone number "aging" rule in storm-affected areas. It lets carriers, upon customer request, disconnect phone service to avoid billing issues during network disruptions and then reinstate the customer's number when service is reconnected.

"The race is on to see who will make 6 GHz available first for Wi-Fi,” with the U.S. and the EU looking at different approaches, blogged Chris Szymanski, Broadcom director-product marketing and government affairs. The FCC will consider a 6 GHz NPRM at the Oct. 23 commissioners' meeting (see 1810020050). The proposed U.S. rules are on “the right path, but a few improvements are required,” he said Tuesday. Most important is “enabling low power indoor use throughout the 6 GHz band, which is likely to be a common sharing approach throughout various regulatory regimes and enable global equipment harmonization,” Szymanski wrote. “Harmonization leads to scale, which in turn leads to higher value at lower costs.” NAB, meanwhile, raised 6 GHz concerns in a filing in docket 18-295. The band is used for electronic news gathering, including the use of portable transmitters on cameras and temporary fixed links to transmit program material back to studios, it noted. NAB is pleased the FCC plans to restrict operations to indoor use, but said that doesn’t resolve all its concerns. “Confining unlicensed operations in these bands to indoor operations does not address the potential for interference to broadcast operations that may take place indoors” at events, the group said. “Broadcast use for newsgathering operations tends to have high 'RF visibility’ because these links travel over long distances. Such links can easily travel through residential areas where unlicensed operations near windows could cause interference.”

Chairman Ajit Pai gave predecessor Tom Wheeler credit for bringing direct 911 dialing to the FCC's phone system, as Pai and Hank Hunt discussed the story behind Kari's Law in a podcast. Hunt's daughter, Kari Dunn, was murdered by her estranged husband in a hotel bathroom in 2013 as her 9-year-old tried to call 911 unsuccessfully, because the phone system required extra-digit dialing. "In many cases, the fix is pretty easy," Pai said, citing the FCC's 2015 change (see 1505040060). "It essentially just was a case of my predecessor, the former chairman [Tom Wheeler], saying we want to change this and there it was. It was done. And so I think that's part of what struck members of Congress too, saying this is a common-sense fix." The FCC on Sept. 26 adopted an NPRM proposing to implement Kari's Law mandating direct 911 dialing (see 1809260047). Hunt, who played a key advocacy role, wanted to ensure changes didn't "break" business owners: "I don't want someone in a mom-and-pop hotel that's got a 40-room hotel having to spend $10,000 to upgrade." He said whenever he is in a hotel room, he checks to see if the phone system has direct 911 dialing, and talks to the manager if it doesn't: "It's an awareness problem at this point."

Telecom parties sought more FCC leeway to block illegal robocalls while others decried legal "false positive" calls being blocked. Carriers need "flexibility to combat [illegal] calls in multi-faceted and creative ways," CTIA replied, posted in docket 17-59 Wednesday (see 1810090039). It said carriers "combatting illegal robocalls in good faith must have protection from associated legal and regulatory liability; and the ecosystem should not be stifled by rules aimed at addressing false positives," an issue "unlikely to be caused by carrier-initiated blocking." Identify "targeted situations where the consumer benefits of permitting blocking will outweigh any risk of interference with lawful calls," advised NCTA. It urged permitting but not mandating "blocking pursuant to objective criteria developed by providers or industry standard-setting bodies, including the SHAKEN/STIR [Secure Handling of Asserted information using toKENs/Secure Telephone Identify Revisited] protocol" for call authentication. Voice providers should be empowered to offer access to blocking services "on an opt-out basis to a greater extent than they do today by affirming the permissibility," said the American Cable Association. It noted consumer group support for opt-out that cited few consumers as opting in to blocking. T-Mobile vendor First Orion sought a "balanced" approach to develop "innovative call protection solutions" without regulating call labeling. SiriusXM opposed expanding call-blocking authority, "at least until effective solutions to the problem of false positives have been fully implemented." It said many initial commenters (see 1809250031) minimized "overblocking" problems, as FCC efforts to target spoofed and other illegal calls "inadvertently led to widespread blocking and mislabeling of legitimate calls." It called for adopting "pragmatic recommendations like white lists, intercept messages, Caller ID requirements, and mandatory time frames" for voice providers to respond to complaints and halt blocking of legal calls. Neustar backed the FCC's existing criteria -- "invalid, unallocated, unassigned, and do-not-originate telephone numbers" -- for industry blocking of suspect robocalls. "In other cases, however, although some calls may have characteristics that make them appear to be illegal robocalls, there is high risk that legitimate traffic may be blocked as well. ... It is better to use the Caller ID system to provide information to consumers."

The record shows near unanimous agreement the FCC should auction 39 GHz and two other millimeter-wave bands in 100 MHz rather than 200 MHz channels, AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon replied, posted this week in docket 14-177. Commissioners approved a Further NPRM 4-0 in August (see 1808020025) on how to clean up the 39 GHz band for proposed auction next year of the 37, 39 and 47 GHz bands. AT&T noted that in initial comments only the Telecommunications Industry Association advocated 200 MHz channels. “Most parties recognized that altering the band plan to create 100 MHz channels could limit the number of fractional license interests encumbering the spectrum,” AT&T said. “While AT&T fully agrees with TIA that 5G services will be optimized for large bandwidths, AT&T believes the auction process, including an assignment round that guarantees license contiguity, will provide bidders with the opportunity to acquire the wide bandwidth channels they desire.” AT&T said the three bands should be auctioned together “as long as adding the 47 GHz band would not delay the auction of the 37.6-40.0 GHz band.” Verizon recommended the FCC “reject” any calls it “do away with the pre-auction voucher exchange, a key step to ensuring robust participation in a fair auction while reducing encumbrances in the 39 GHz band.” Auction rules should include a pre-auction voucher exchange encouraging incumbents to participate and “allow 39 GHz incumbents to use their vouchers to pay winning bids for licenses in any of the auctioned bands,” the carrier said. “For the 39 GHz band in particular, use of 100 megahertz channels will simplify the realignment process, as incumbent licensees generally hold non-contiguous paired 50 megahertz blocks.” Comments "reveal general agreement" on "standardization of 100 megahertz channel bandwidths and auction mechanisms that will promote access to unencumbered spectrum,” T-Mobile commented. It asked the agency to “proceed with the plans announced by Chairman [Ajit] Pai to auction the spectrum it covers before the end of 2019.”

The Wireless ISP Association supported arguments by rural telco groups that asked the FCC to postpone and redo broadband testing duties for RLECs and other smaller providers of fixed service receiving high-cost Connect America Fund support (see 1809200035). WTA and NTCA sought FCC review of a July 6 staff order (see 1807060031). “NTCA and WTA are correct that, for a variety of reasons, implementing the performance testing requirements will be particularly challenging for small providers, not the least of which is that the equipment necessary for small providers to carry out their obligations under the Order is simply not yet readily available,” WISPA said in docket 10-90. “This is a very practical, and very real, concern.” Also unclear is the availability of consultants who offer performance testing support services and the cost of these services, WISPA said. The filing was posted Friday.

NCTA is the association that elevated Michelle Ray to Kaitz Foundation executive director (see 1810050060).

The FCC activated the disaster information reporting system for Hurricane Michael, said a Tuesday public notice. The FCC wants DIRS reports starting Wednesday at 10 a.m. and each day by that time while DIRS is active. The FCC also gave its 24/7 emergency contact information and bureaus posted emergency procedures in separate PNs. The Florida Public Service Commission canceled this week's meetings in anticipation of the Category 3 storm predicted to strike Florida’s Big Bend area Wednesday, the PSC said Monday. Gov. Phil Scott (R) declared an emergency for 35 counties. Carriers described preparations, including Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile.