Parties now have until Sept. 14 to respond to requests for Supreme Court review of the prior FCC's 2015 Title II Communications Act net neutrality order. The court Thursday granted for all respondents a request of intervenor-defendants for a 30-day extension to file their briefs in opposition to cert petitions in Daniel Berninger et al. v. FCC, No. 17-498 (Aug. 9 grant notice) and consolidated cases. Kevin Russell, counsel for Free Press, New America's Open Technology Institute and Public Knowledge, on behalf of his clients and other private respondents sought the additional time to address issues raised by the solicitor general (DOJ and FCC) Aug. 2 in asking justices to vacate and remand the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit's affirmation of the 2015 order (see 1808030041). Russell noted most of the intervenors are also petitioners or intervenors challenging the current FCC's order undoing Title II net neutrality regulation, and have related briefs due Aug. 20 to the D.C. Circuit.

Comments are due Sept. 10 on a Further NPRM (see 1807160050) on a reporting system for false emergency alerts, wireless alerts sent to mobile phones, and amendments to state emergency alert system plans, said the Federal Register. Replies are due Oct. 9.

The FCC asked for nominations for membership on a new Disaster Response and Recovery Working Group of the Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC). “This new working group will assist the BDAC in providing advice and recommendations to the Commission on steps that can be taken to improve disaster preparation, response, and recovery for broadband infrastructure,” the FCC said in docket 17-83. Nominations are due Sept. 7. BDAC will take on disaster recovery issues at the direction of FCC Chairman Ajit Pai (see 1807270020), though questions continue about lack of state and local representation on BDAC.

The FCC kicked off an inquiry into whether advanced telecom capability is being deployed in reasonable and timely fashion to all Americans. Comments are due Sept. 10 and replies Sept. 24 on the agency's annual examination of broadband-like ATC pursuant to Telecom Act Section 706, said a notice of inquiry in docket 18-238 issued Thursday, with Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel dissenting. If the FCC finds ATC deployment progress is inadequate, it's to take remedial action. In its February report, the commission determined it "is now encouraging the deployment on a reasonable and timely basis." That formulation isn't what the statute asked the FCC to determine, said Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., criticizing FCC Chairman Ajit Pai at a Communications Subcommittee oversight hearing last month. The new NOI said the 2018 report found ATC "was being deployed to all Americans in reasonable and timely fashion." It seeks comment on a host of proposals and questions. The FCC proposed to keep a 25/3 Mbps benchmark for fixed ATC and to continue to not set a single mobile ATC benchmark, given "the inherent variability of the mobile experience, combined with data limitations and methodological issues;" instead, it proposed to analyze various mobile speeds. It also asked if mobile services are now "full substitutes for fixed service" after finding in February they weren't. The NOI said the FCC plans to issue its next 706 report as part of a Communications Marketplace Report required in Q4 of even-numbered years under the Ray Baum Act. Rosenworcel said she feared the NOI "sets the stage for an unfortunate repeat" of the last report. "That report found -- despite clear evidence of 24 million Americans without high-speed service -- that broadband deployment nationwide is both reasonable and timely," she said. "It ignored too many people in too many places struggling to access high-speed service and dealing with connectivity that falls short of what is necessary for full participation in the digital age." She also said the 25/3 Mbps standard was "insufficiently audacious," and urged a 100 Mbps standard. "I suspect I can take my client’s comments from last year, update a few data points, and submit basically the same comments this time," quipped Butzel Long attorney Stephen Goodman, who represents Adtran. "And I would expect the same result because nothing has changed significantly." The FCC is "only giving one month for comments, during major vacation season," emailed Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld. "If the FCC is trying to make it as difficult as possible for the public to participate, they are doing an excellent job."

Cox Communications' commercial division bought cloud services provider RapidScale, it announced Thursday. Terms weren't disclosed. Cox said the deal beefs up its managed services portfolio.

Comments are due Aug. 23 on the FCC's tentative findings for the agency's biennial report to Congress required by the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act, said a public notice Thursday. The report itself is due Oct. 8. Among those tentative findings, the FCC said various smartphones can deliver accessible telecommunications and advanced communication services (ACS) to a wide range of people with disabilities. It also said the wireless industry continues to exceed agency minimum hearing aid compatibility requirements for wireless handsets. But it said gaps remain for accessible low-end non-smartphones, and little to no recent progress has been made on accessibility of non-smartphones used for telecommunications and ACS for blind or visually impaired individuals.

In an opinion piece in The Hill Wednesday, FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly wrote that the ITU is suffering from mission creep and staffing problems, and a failure to take seriously the candidacy of Doreen Bogdan-Martin as director of its Telecommunication Development Bureau "would be a grave mistake" and could boost the case of those who want the U.S. to leave the ITU or limit its financial support. O'Rielly said many ITU member states are trying to make it a global regulator of new technologies, such as the internet, that are outside its core mission or jurisdiction. A possible fix would be allocating a minimum of 80 percent of all ITU spending or events to spectrum policies, he said. O'Rielly also said there's too little oversight of staffers, leading to them picking the projects to pursue, hiring technical consultants and framing debates, and there needs to be better procedural safeguards and more detailed budgeting information. He also said more decisions should be made by member states rather than on a delegated basis. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and NTIA Administrator David Redl endorsed Bogdan-Martin (see 1803130029).

The FCC should allow Educational Broadband Service licensees to apply for additional open spectrum, said America’s Public Television Stations and CPB in an ex parte filing in docket 18-120 Wednesday. “The current licensing scheme has enabled public television stations to provide distance learning services to millions of Americans, including those in remote areas of the country,” APTS said in a release. The FCC should “issue new EBS licenses to qualified educational entities, most assuredly including local public television stations,” said APTS CEO Patrick Butler in the release. The "extraordinary technological achievement" of the new ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard "will allow public television stations with EBS licenses to offer extraordinary new educational possibilities,” he said.

Huawei Technologies attacked the Telecommunications Industry Association's defense of an FCC proposal to bar USF subsidy support for products from companies seen as posing a national security threat. TIA's reply comments "misrepresent the record, are full of distortions and unproven accusations against Huawei, and fail to confront the statutory, administrative, constitutional, and factual deficiencies" in the proposed "national security blacklist," said Huawei's 50-page filing posted Tuesday, in docket 18-89, with 401 pages of exhibits. "As an example, TIA’s hodgepodge of reasons that the Chinese Government allegedly has undue influence over Huawei arbitrarily rests on speculation and is belied by both the law and the facts. As another example, TIA completely ignores both the statutory limits on the Commission’s USF authority and the lack of expertise in and responsibility for national-security issues that are necessary for any rulemaking in this context." TIA's comments and reply in the proceeding represent the TIA Public Policy Committee's views, noted Huawei, citing TIA footnotes. "The composition of that committee is undisclosed. Even Huawei, which is a member of TIA and has a representative on the board, has not been informed of the identity of the committee members." TIA's comments weren't "reviewed or approved by all of its members, or even by all members of its board," Huawei said. "While TIA claims that it submitted comments 'on behalf of its membership comprising hundreds of global manufacturers and vendors of ICT equipment and services,' ... this contradicts its own statements in the footnotes cited above, and it is not clear that its comments here are supported by more than a handful of such companies. TIA continues to refuse to disclose the identity of its members or other entities backing its Comments, who may be competitors of Huawei." TIA said Wednesday it's still reviewing Huawei’s filing. "That said, all commenters in this docket agree that protecting U.S. telecommunications networks is critical," emailed a spokesperson. "TIA continues to support the Commission taking carefully targeted action to address this pressing national security issue."

The FCC granted a waiver to an Alaskan E-rate applicant and invited others to seek relief due to similar application processing problems. Pribilof School District of St. Paul Island sought more than $300,000 in E-rate support to provide satellite internet access to 65 low-income students on two islands in the Bering Sea. Following a "series of errors" in the Universal Service Administrative Co.'s rollout of the E-rate Productivity Center (EPC), "Pribilof filed its application for funding and its subsequent waiver request after the applicable deadlines," said a unanimous commission order in docket 02-6 Wednesday. "[W]e grant relief to Pribilof and give an opportunity for relief to other similarly situated applicants whose applications were rejected because of failures of the EPC platform during funding year 2016." It directed the Wireline Bureau to initiate a process giving other FY 2016 applicants 60 days "to demonstrate that they experienced the same special circumstances as Pribilof and that a waiver would be in the public interest." Commissioner Mike O'Rielly's said his "concern has been the misguided position that information provided by USAC on the EPC news feed constitutes notice to an applicant of a funding decision and sets the deadline to appeal the decision." He thanked Chairman Ajit Pai for making revisions "to clarify that items posted on the EPC news feed are merely informational in nature." He recommended the FCC "take the next available opportunity to codify a rule that any funding decision be communicated by letter and distributed directly to the applicant’s designated contact(s), preferably by electronic means." Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel lauded the decision.