The FCC announced allocation of an initial $64.2 million in extra USF support to help telecom providers restore broadband and voice service in hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Providers will receive $51.2 million in Puerto Rico and $13 million in the Virgin Islands, with 60 percent going to fixed network operators and 40 percent to mobile network operators in both jurisdictions, said a Wireline Bureau public notice in docket 18-143 and Wednesday's Daily Digest. The top recipients are: Puerto Rico Telephone (Claro), $16.4 million of fixed and $5.7 million of mobile support; AT&T, $1.65 million in conditional fixed support and $12 million in mobile support spread over both jurisdictions; Liberty Cablevision, $11.1 million in conditional fixed support in Puerto Rico; Virgin Islands Telephone (Viya), $6.9 million in fixed support, and Vitelcom Cellular (Viya Wireless), $126,576 in conditional mobile support; T-Mobile, $4.4 million, and PR Wireless, $3 million, in mobile support in Puerto Rico; and WorldNet Telecom, $1.3 million in fixed support in Puerto Rico. Providers receiving conditional support must show in two months they have received relevant eligible telecom carrier designations. The short-term funding was part of a May order and NPRM proposing $900 million in additional and repurposed USF support for the islands over the mid-to-long term (see 1805290028). Hughes Network Systems said initial comments on the NPRM "overwhelmingly" demonstrate that satellite services "must be" part of the islands' broadband infrastructure and "should" receive USF support. The FCC "must take these comments into account and address the issues in its proposal that prevent the participation of satellite operators in this [USF] proceeding, including the arbitrary selection of the June 2017 Form 477 data filing as a cut-off date for participation; the unjustified application of latency requirements; and the decision to award funds using non-transparent, anti-competitive, subjective processes," said Hughes' reply Wednesday. "Failure to do so will result in the residents of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands being denied access to truly resilient and reliable broadband services."

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is looking at possible changes to or revocation of its 2014 decision that employees given access to an employer's email system for work purposes have a presumptive right to also use it for non-work activity related to union organizing and bargaining. In a notice last week inviting comment by Sept. 5, NLRB said it also wanted input on the standard to be applied to evaluate policies governing the use of employer-owned computer resources other than email.

The 2019 World Radiocommunication Conference Advisory Committee's Informal Working Groups 3 and 4 scheduled teleconference meetings for Sept. 4 and 19, and Informal Working Group 1 scheduled one for Sept. 18, said an FCC International Bureau public notice posted Friday.

The FCC issued a notice of inquiry on creating a "connected care" pilot program adopted at its Thursday meeting 4-0, with Commissioners Mike O'Rielly and Jessica Rosenworcel expressing some concerns, including about the agency's legal authority (see Notebook at end of 1808020034). Comments are due Sept. 10, replies Oct. 10 on a possible $100 million budget, a potential requirement that broadband participants be facilities-based eligible telecom carriers, and other issues, said the text released Friday and in Monday's Daily Digest.

NTCA encountered stiff resistance and USTelecom got some backing on their petitions for reconsideration of parts of an FCC rural call completion (RCC) order, in comments posted in docket 13-39, mostly on Friday. CTIA, ITTA, NCTA, Sprint, USTelecom and Voice on the Net (VON) Coalition opposed, while WTA supported, NTCA's request for revisiting a commission decision to not require covered originating providers to file their RCC monitoring procedures with the agency. CTIA said such a filing requirement isn't necessary to achieve regulatory objectives and would unduly increase burdens. Sprint said the request "was risky and burdensome," won't generate benefits and isn't supported by any new information. NTCA offered "no compelling evidence" for why its proposed requirement would mitigate "any remaining [RCC] problems," said USTelecom. ITTA said the FCC "properly places the focus of rural call completion troubles on unidentified intermediate providers" and seeks to address them through registration and quality-of-service requirements. The FCC decision was "sensible" and consistent with its efforts to eliminate "regulatory underbrush," said NCTA. The VON Coalition said the change would add a "costly burden without any countervailing benefit." Backing the petition, WTA said, The monitoring rule "is a step in the right direction, but will lose a substantial portion of its effectiveness if the Commission is unable to inspect, require modification, and monitor these call completion procedures." ITTA and NCTA supported USTelecom's petition, which sought reconsideration of rules requiring (1) that covered originating providers directly monitor intermediate providers beyond those they're directly interconnected with, and (2) contractual restrictions to ensure quality call completion though the call path. NTCA previously opposed the petition (see 1807180035). The FCC "should abandon the covered provider monitoring requirements, or at least curtail them substantially," said ITTA. "Moreover, as USTelecom argues -- and NTCA fails to refute -- these requirements are fraught with pragmatic obstacles, and are unsupported by the record in this proceeding. They also will lead to profound confusion, and threaten to defeat the Commission’s goal of facilitating enforcement where necessary."

An FCC Office of Inspector General report shows that a May 2017 breakdown of the FCC’s electronic comment filing system was caused by the sheer volume of commenters on net neutrality rather than a distributed denial-of-service attack (see 1806050046), according to statements from Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel. Pai initially blamed the ECFS failures on such an attack, and said Monday the report shows then-FCC Chief Information Officer David Bray provided “inaccurate information” to his office about the cause of the issues. “The Inspector General Report tells us what we knew all along: the FCC’s claim that it was the victim of a DDoS attack during the net neutrality proceeding is bogus,” said Rosenworcel. Pai said he's ”deeply disappointed” that Bray provided his staff with incorrect information. “I’m also disappointed that some working under the former CIO apparently either disagreed with the information that he was presenting or had questions about it, yet didn’t feel comfortable communicating their concerns to me or my office,” Pai said. The report, which hasn’t been publicly released, also “debunks” theories that Pai or his office knew the information from Bray about the alleged DDoS attack was false but were allowing the story to spread for political purposes, Pai said. According to Pai’s statement, the report shows Bray twice told Pai’s Chief of Staff Matthew Berry that “external folks deliberately trying to tie-up the server” caused the ECFS problems. Pai emphasized that Bray was hired during his predecessor former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s administration, and in part blamed the incident on the prior leadership. “It has become clear that in addition to a flawed comment system, we inherited from the prior Administration a culture in which many members of the Commission’s career IT staff were hesitant to express disagreement with the Commission’s former CIO in front of FCC management,” Pai said. He said he will make it clear that IT staff should speak up if incorrect information is being provided to FCC leadership, and the report “highlights the need for the FCC to revamp ECFS.” He praised Congress for approving a request for funding for an ECFS redesign (see 1807110044). “It’s unfortunate that this agency’s energy and resources needed to be spent debunking this implausible claim,” Rosenworcel said. An FCC spokesperson told us the OIG would decide when to release the report. The OIG report is separate from a Government Accountability Office report requested by lawmakers on the same issue. The OIG,Wheeler and Bray didn’t comment.

The FTC plans 15 to 20 public sessions on potential changes to competition and consumer protection policy from September to January in Washington and across the country, says a Federal Register notice set for Monday. It's accepting comment on the hearings until Aug. 20 and will solicit comments for each session. Topics include: the state of antitrust and consumer protection law, specifically on communication, information and media technology; market power analysis; the intersection of privacy, big data and competition; authority to “deter unfair and deceptive conduct in privacy and data security matters”; competitive impacts of acquisitions; monopsony power; the role of IP and competition policy in promoting innovation; consumer welfare concerns about algorithms, artificial intelligence and predictive analytics; and investigation, enforcement and remedial processes.

The Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy cited potential harms from a USTelecom forbearance petition seeking FCC relief for ILECs from wholesale unbundling discount and resale duties. The office said many CLECs are "very concerned" the FCC may grant nationwide relief. "A blanket grant of forbearance in every market could have a devastating impact on small businesses that rely on unbundled network element (UNEs) to serve customers," said SBA advocates' filing on meeting aides to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, posted Thursday in docket 18-141. Many CLECs heavily invested in deploying fiber networks using revenue from UNE-based services, and then moved customers to their own facilities over time, creating competitive pressures and incentives for incumbents to do likewise, the advocates said. They "urged the FCC to study the impact forbearance would have on small businesses, competition and the deployment of next generation networks." SBA also addressed robocalling, infrastructure deployment streamlining and 3550-3700 GHz band issues. On the citizens broadband radio service, SBA sided with advocates of census tracts for the priority access licenses that will be part of the band. SBA has concerns that adopting larger geographic licenses could “foreclose competition and result in decreased service in rural areas.” Uniti Fiber said UNEs "enable the company to expand its service offerings and network to new customers," and it "relies especially heavily on dry copper loops" and "dark fiber interoffice transport," regarding meetings with Commissioners Mike O'Rielly and Brendan Carr, and an aide to Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel (here, here, here). It said "the loss (or increase in price) of these inputs will have a significant impact" on its ability to make new deployments and maintain existing services. Blackfoot Communications, an ILEC/CLEC leasing UNEs from CenturyLink, said eliminating its access to UNE loops or increasing their price "would have an immediate and direct adverse impact on businesses in Montana and Idaho," given lack of alternatives. UNEs support Blackfoot's fiber and fixed-wireless expansion, it told Wireline Bureau staffers. It urged the FCC to look at the UNE specifics of each regional Bell. CenturyLink, another ILEC/CLEC, "views purchasing UNEs as a short-term strategy which is part of a larger transitional process," said a filing on a meeting it and USTelecom had with bureau staffers.

The FCC should reconsider pre-emption decisions in a pole-attachment order it adopted Thursday (see 1808020034), said U.S. Conference of Mayors CEO Tom Cochran Friday. Mayors strongly oppose FCC actions that “subordinate local governments and their property rights to the benefit of the nation's communications providers,” he said. “With little advance notice or engagement with local and state governments, the FCC action -- which effectively prohibits local and state actions or policies having the effect of barring for some duration a private telecommunications company for accessing the public's rights-of-way -- immediately disrupts local management regimes for the sole purpose of granting one group special federal protections and rights. It also upends a key provision of federal law that was enacted overwhelmingly by Congress in 1996 to protect and respect local and state government property rights and their authority to manage these public assets.” The FCC late in the day released the text of the order and ruling adopting one-touch, make-ready and other pole-attachment changes, and also declaring that state and local moratoriums on network facility siting deployment would be pre-empted. Earlier, others concerned about the FCC's decisions were withholding judgment. “Cities are still deciding on their legal strategies, and we’re going to take the lead from our members,” said a National League of Cities spokesman. NATOA hasn’t decided next steps, said General Counsel Nancy Werner, saying she’s not aware of any decisions by other local government groups. Electric utilities also awaited the text and hope the FCC made changes in response to their concerns, said Aryeh Fishman, Edison Electric Institute associate general counsel. “It depends on what they actually put out," he told us. "We’ll be looking out for whether the FCC changed the draft’s proposal for self-help in the electric space because we see that as being a real risk to worker safety.” He shared the concerns of Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, who said the order's ambiguity could lead to further disputes. "They’re presenting electric companies with a very substantial compliance challenge," he said. Electric utilities agreed with the FCC's draft decision not to give ILECs pole-attachment rate relief beyond new agreements, he noted.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said he circulated an order that would extend by 90 days the window to file challenges to the eligibility map for the upcoming Mobility Fund II auction. The fund will provide up to $4.53 billion to support 4G LTE in unserved areas and should meet a critical need, Pai said Friday. “It’s critical that we get it right.” Limited USF monies for mobile service “must be effectively and accurately targeted to areas that lack unsubsidized 4G LTE service,” he said: The extension "will ensure fulsome participation in the process. I’m urging my fellow commissioners to vote this item quickly, so we can proceed with a robust challenge process, and then move forward with this important auction.” Carri Bennet, counsel to the Rural Wireless Association, welcomed the order: “Our members have been working tirelessly and spending financial reserves that would be better put toward expanding service in unserved areas to deal with an overly burdensome challenge process that has been part brought on by overstated inaccurate coverage data. Due to the overstated coverage that has been filed, the additional time will allow our members to launch additional challenges. More is needed though -- the FCC needs to review Verizon’s overstated coverage data as it is causing rural carriers to launch challenges and expend resources to disprove what appears to be a deceptive coverage map. This is a waste of resources and could be avoided if the FCC would step in and question the data.” Verizon didn't comment. "Rural and regional carriers depend on USF, coupled with private investment, to deploy new services in the hardest to reach areas," said a spokesperson for the Competitive Carriers Association. "It’s critically important that the FCC help to produce maps that accurately depict the geographic areas not covered by unsubsidized 4G and therefore eligible for Mobility Fund II support. A successful challenge process is a key piece of the coverage puzzle and this extra time will help improve the current unreliable coverage maps."