The pace of broadband progress and how it's measured sparked further divisions on the FCC Telecom Act Section 706 inquiry into whether advanced telecom capability (ATC) is being deployed in a reasonable and timely way. Many comments were posted Tuesday in docket 18-238, including over fixed and mobile service distinctions (see 1809170044). Telco and cable incumbents generally said broadband-like ATC is being rolled out adequately, and 5G wireless will bring new advances. Rivals and others cited shortcomings and urged the agency to increase its ATC speed benchmark. The FCC's last 706 report made a positive ATC determination, kept a 25/3 Mbps fixed benchmark and concluded mobile isn't a full substitute for fixed (see 1802050002). Broadband investment and deployment are robust, in part due to light-touch regulation, commented USTelecom. AT&T and Verizon also hailed ATC buildout. AT&T said "mobile broadband is a functional substitute for fixed broadband," and Verizon said providers "stand at the precipice of game-changing 5G network deployments." CTIA called mobile broadband deployment reasonable and timely. NCTA and the American Cable Association urged a positive ATC determination, and they, ITTA, the Wireless ISP Association, Adtran and others backed maintaining the 25/3 Mbps fixed standard. Despite the progress, incumbents said the regulator could do more to spur broadband, but Common Cause and Public Knowledge said recent FCC actions "widened the digital divide." The Communications Workers of America said the pace of broadband deployment isn't reasonable and timely, with more than 24 million Americans lacking access and more lacking high-speed wired connections. Incompas said it's "time to be bold" and raise the benchmark to 1 Gbps, while CWA and others backed 100 Mbps. CWA, Incompas, WISPA, ITTA, rural groups and others said mobile isn't an adequate substitute for fixed. NTCA said only existing, not possible future, services should determine the ATC finding. The Fiber Broadband Association urged a focus on "all-fiber connectivity" and a "holistic approach" factoring in service reliability and latency. ViaSat and SES Americom plugged satellite broadband. New America's Open Technology Institute, Microsoft and others said Form 477 broadband data is flawed and sought fixes and use of other sources. Free Press urged inclusion of data from Puerto Rico and other storm-struck areas and said the FCC should "abandon" proposals to "gut" Lifeline USF. The National Digital Inclusion Alliance cited broadband adoption and affordability as critical and voiced concern about "evidence of AT&T's digital redlining."

Hurricane Florence continues to affect communications primarily in North Carolina, but also in South Carolina said Tuesday’s FCC disaster information reporting system report. There were 285,725 cable and wireline subscribers out of service in North Carolina, an increase of nearly 100,000 from Monday (see 1809170046). South Carolina’s outages increased by close to 25,000 to 30,053. Out-of service cellsites in the area hit by the storm improved from 6 percent to 4.1 percent. Two public safety answering points in North Carolina and one in South Carolina are having their 911 calls rerouted to other PSAPs. The report lists three TV stations out of service, all in North Carolina. Twenty-two FM stations and four AM stations are listed as out, also mainly in North Carolina. The Wireless Bureau granted a 30-day waiver request to allow amateur radio operators assisting with the recovery efforts around Hurricane Florence (HF) to send higher speed data transmission, said an order in Tuesday's Daily Digest. “The request is made by ARRL [the American Radio Relay League] to enable licensed radio amateurs who are directly involved with HF hurricane relief communications to better serve the affected areas.”

FCC FY 2018 regulatory fees are now in effect, says a notice for Tuesday's Federal Register. To avoid interest or penalties, they need to be paid by Sept. 25. Changes to rules about collection of delinquent debts take effect Oct. 1, it says. The FCC adopted the fee structure in August (see 1808290061).

North American Numbering Council member Courtney Neville is associate general counsel, Competitive Carriers Association (see 1809130031).

Parties differed on whether the FCC should distinguish between fixed and mobile services in its latest Telecom Act Section 706 inquiry into the state of advanced telecom capability deployment. Comments were due Monday in docket 18-238 on a notice of inquiry (see 1808100040). "By looking separately at fixed and mobile broadband, the Commission’s approach lacks technological neutrality, thus perpetuating the outdated, siloed version of the communications industry that has bedeviled the Commission’s work in recent decades," said the R Street Institute. The group said the agency should evaluate broadband deployment by "looking only at the objective metrics of consumers’ broadband service -- such as throughput, latency, price and data caps -- rather than at the technologies used to deliver such service." The Internet Innovation Alliance said fixed and mobile distinctions "no longer matter to U.S. consumers," who are "willing to switch to mobile-only Internet access." The Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Cable was among those seeking to maintain fixed and mobile distinctions. "The Commission should continue to conclude that mobile services are not full substitutes for fixed services," it said. "Consumers and businesses rely on both fixed and mobile broadband services, often using both in distinct ways." The Free State Foundation backed "continued use of the 25 Mbps upload/3 Mbps download speeds for defining fixed broadband services and for using LTE coverage with minimum speeds of 5 Mbps upload/1 Mbps download for defining mobile broadband services." It said the "available data supports another affirmative deployment determination in the Commission’s upcoming report."

Hurricane Florence is affecting communications primarily in North Carolina, but South Carolina also is feeling the effects, said Monday’s FCC disaster information reporting system report. The Federal Emergency Management Agency announced Monday that South Carolina is eligible for federal disaster funds. The FCC report shows 187, 885 cable and wireline subscribers out of service in North Carolina, up from 164,892 in Sunday’s report. South Carolina outages are down to 5,073, compared with 5,883 from Sunday. Six percent of cellsites in the storm-affected area are out of service, but the affected sites are concentrated in North Carolina, the report said. Onslow County, on North Carolina’s coast, has more than 50 percent of cellsites down, the report said. Three public safety answering points in North Carolina are having their 911 calls rerouted to other PSAPs, the report said. The report lists five TV stations out of service, all in North Carolina. Twenty-five FM stations and three AM stations are listed as out, also concentrated in North Carolina. Three radio groups are working together to provide emergency information in Spanish in South Carolina communities affected by the storm, said the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council and the League of United Latin American Citizens. Cumulus Media, Spanish Broadcasting System and Dick Broadcasting responded to a request from MMTC and LULAC for emergency broadcasts targeted at Spanish speakers affected by the storm. SBS is providing the Spanish-language emergency information for Cumulus and Dick to broadcast, the release said. “The 22,000 Hispanic residents of the Myrtle Beach radio market and 21,000 Hispanic residents of the Hilton Head radio market are receiving life-saving information.” Frontier Communications has resumed full operations in its service areas with repair and customer contact employees returning to work in South Carolina, and didn’t cease providing repair and installation service to North Carolina, said release Monday. Charter Communications brought in additional supplies before the storm and opened more than 5,000 Wi-Fi hot spots in affected areas, it blogged Saturday. : We have approximately 14,000 employees and three million subscribers in the parts of North and South Carolina that are in the path of Hurricane Florence." Florence postponed Thursday's emergency alerting test (see 1809170035).

Lifeline providers endorsed and USTelecom opposed TracFone's emergency petition for the FCC to direct Universal Service Administrative Co. to speed efforts to obtain access to key federal databases or postpone a national verifier's (NV) hard launch. Comments were posted through Thursday in docket 17-287. Sprint noted the databases contain information on consumers who participate in Medicaid, food stamps and other federal assistance programs. "Automated access to this information will help the NV to verify an end user’s ... eligibility to receive the federal Lifeline benefit in an efficient and user-friendly manner, and will reduce the need for resource-intensive manual processing" that's costly for providers and "cumbersome and frustrating for end users," said Sprint in docket 17-287. The FCC should instruct USAC to set the NV hard launch dates only after application programming interfaces and database connections are implemented, said Q Link Wireless, noting its own API petition (see 1808130034). The National Lifeline Association said FCC policy goals were undermined by USAC's initial, soft launch without automated database access to Lifeline-qualifying programs "while simultaneously refusing to accept eligibility documentation from third-party sources such as Managed Care Organizations." Sage Telecom Communications (TruConnect) also supported the petition but asked if the agency moves forward without access to key databases, it allow documentation through such third parties. USTelecom, citing the goal of combating Lifeline abuses, said the FCC shouldn't let delayed access to the databases disrupt the transition to the NV, but instead should work with USAC and states to ensure timely access to the necessary databases. A telecom consultant disputed FCC claims, based on a 2017 GAO report that Lifeline resellers caused extensive program abuses. The report "in no way supports the Commission’s assertions regarding the scale of actual waste, fraud and abuse within the program, let alone its allegations of 'unscrupulous' behavior by resellers," said Gately Consulting, in a letter to House and Senate Commerce Committee leaders posted in the docket. Gately said GAO used a "flawed methodology to verify eligibility," relied on data intended for other purposes, and the "data fell within the statistical error range."

Net neutrality advocates urged the Supreme Court not to review or vacate a lower court ruling upholding the FCC 2015 Communications Act Title II broadband regulation order. Cert petitions seeking review of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit's affirmation should be denied, and the solicitor general's proposed vacatur under a mootness precedent isn't justified, said a brief filed Friday by Public Knowledge, New America's Open Technology Institute, the Ad Hoc Telecommunications Users Committee, the Center for Democracy and Technology, NARUC and Vimeo in Daniel Berninger v. FCC, No. 17-498. Given the current FCC's January net neutrality deregulation, the SG recently asked justices to grant cert but vacate the D.C. Circuit judgment and remand the 2015 order litigation with directions to declare related legal challenges moot, or to consider the effect of the new order (see 1808030041). "We assume petitioners will take the same position, although most are apparently waiting to explain why until they file reply briefs," said the net neutrality advocates (NARUC opposes FCC pre-emption provisions). Cert petitions were filed last September, and the court is considering the petitions now "because petitioners and the Government collectively took more than ten months’ worth of extensions," the net neutrality advocates said. "After the 2016 presidential election, the Commission realigned itself with petitioners and worked with them not only to repeal the Open Internet Order, but also to delay this Court’s review long enough for the repeal to moot the case and lay the groundwork for their present joint request for vacatur" under 1950's Munsingwear, they said. "This Court’s review was prevented through the cooperative effort of the parties seeking vacature to successfully delay the Court’s consideration of the petitions until the case was moot. Respondents are unaware of any case in which the Court has rewarded such manipulation." A Free Press brief also urged cert denial.

California and other state net neutrality efforts are illegal, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said in a Friday speech at the Maine Policy Heritage Center. “Last month, the California state legislature passed a radical, anti-consumer Internet regulation bill that would impose restrictions even more burdensome than those adopted by the FCC in 2015,” including restrictions on zero rating, said Pai, per prepared remarks. “The broader problem is that California’s micromanagement poses a risk to the rest of the country,” he said. “Broadband is an interstate service; Internet traffic doesn’t recognize state lines. It follows that only the federal government can set regulatory policy in this area. For if individual states like California regulate the Internet, this will directly impact citizens in other states.” The recent 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision on state regulation of VoIP (see 1809070030) reaffirmed that federal law pre-empts state regulation of information services like broadband, Pai added. The California bill’s sponsor, state Sen. Scott Wiener (D), rejected Pai “potshots” in a Friday statement. “Unlike Pai’s FCC, California isn’t run by the big telecom and cable companies,” Wiener said. The California bill “is necessary and legal because Chairman Pai abdicated his responsibility to ensure an open internet. Since the FCC says it no longer has any authority to protect an open internet, it’s also the case that the FCC lacks the legal power to preempt states from protecting their residents and economy.”

House Transportation Railroads Subcommittee members raised concerns Thursday about new warnings from National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Robert Sumwalt and others that a significant number of railroads -- mainly commuter systems -- won't be able to meet a Dec. 31 deadline to implement portions of positive train control technology. Railroads can continue to get extensions through the end of 2020 to fully implement PTC but must demonstrate they are acquiring necessary spectrum holdings and meeting other annual goals. Senate Commerce Committee members raised similar concerns in March about PTC implementation (see 1803010054). Nine railroads, including the Maryland Area Regional Commuter and New Jersey Transit systems, are “at risk” of not meeting 2018 benchmarks, Federal Railroad Administration head Ronald Batory said during a subcommittee hearing. FRA “will continue to support and facilitate railroads’ implementation of PTC technology by utilizing the tools afforded by Congress and providing extensive technical assistance and guidance to railroads and suppliers,” Batory said. “We remain vigilant in harnessing and leveraging all the personnel, financial and other resources available to help expedite railroads’ implementation efforts.” GAO echoed Batory's assessment. GAO Thursday reported many railroads are in “early” stages of implementing PTC technology but at least 32 of the 40 affected railroads are likely to apply for an extension. NTSB “urges swift implementation of the congressional PTC mandate,” Sumwalt testified. “For each day that goes by without PTC, we are at continued risk for another tragic accident.” Chairman Jeff Denham, R-Calif., agreed there was some progress on PTC “among a majority of railroads,” but “we want to see everyone meet their requirements.”