Elizabeth Bowles, chair of the FCC Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee, told us she would welcome additional local government members, and BDAC's work hasn’t been compromised (see 1807300029). “Anyone who has been paying attention to the BDAC and its process knows that municipal viewpoints are vetted, heard, and even prevail,” Bowles emailed. “Industry representatives and municipal representatives have worked together to reach a compromise resolution that is acceptable to both constituencies. While I understand that it is easy to take a headcount of the members of the BDAC and criticize its diversity, many of those who have taken this position prejudged the BDAC’s process, making a number of assumptions that have not proven out with time. Many critics of the BDAC itself have repeated what they have been led to believe, but in my opinion, anyone who has actually watched the BDAC’s proceedings would be hard-pressed to argue that municipalities and their representatives are not given ample opportunity to express their views.” Bowles noted the group unanimously approved the municipal code and an official from Lincoln, Nebraska, David Young, was the vice chair of the committee that harmonized muni and state codes. “The municipal representatives on the Harmonization Working Group were able to make substantive changes to portions of the Model State Code,” Bowles said. “In the last BDAC meeting this month, one of the recommendations in the Model State Code -- that States consider enacting State Franchise agreements -- was narrowly defeated, in large measure because of municipal opposition.” CTIA supports the new focus on disaster preparation (see 1807270020), a spokesperson said. “Providers have been working hard to further bolster networks ahead of the 2018 hurricane season.”

Trouble with communications sector companies was the seventh-highest source of 2017 consumer complaints, the Consumer Federation of America reported Monday. CFA cited complaints about communications companies for “misleading offers, installation issues, service problems, billing disputes with phone and internet services.” Misrepresentations or other deceptive practices and failure to deliver online purchases made through online sales also made the list tied for 10th The report was based on a survey of city, county and state consumer agencies. CFA said 38 agencies handled 908,595 complaints last year.

CTIA said the FCC is right to move forward on a ban on state and local moratoriums on new wireless facilities, part of a larger infrastructure item set to get a vote at Thursday’s commissioners’ meeting (see 1807130045 and 1807300040). CTIA said in a Friday filing in docket 17-79 that it spoke with aides to Commissioners Mike O’Rielly, Brendan Carr and Jessica Rosenworcel about the moratoriums and other infrastructure issues. “CTIA therefore applauded the Commission for its proposal to adopt a Declaratory Ruling to clarify that moratoria -- whether express or de facto, interim or not -- are barriers to wireless deployment and prohibited under the Communications Act,” the group said. “There is no more absolute prohibition on deployment than refusing to accept or act on applications. A local law that bars acceptance of applications and a local agency’s refusal to act on them have precisely the same impact -- no deployment is permitted -- and they are thus per se unlawful.” NATOA opposed the moratoriums. “We object to this ill-defined attempt to bend federal law to accommodate industry desires while ignoring the impact on communities across the country and doing nothing to address the digital divide,” the group said.

Initial briefs in consolidated challenges to the FCC’s net neutrality rollback order are due in late August, with briefing running through November, said a schedule (in Pacer) released Monday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Mozilla v. FCC, No. 18-1051. It also imposed word limits. The joint brief of government petitioners is due Aug. 20, and the joint brief of nongovernment petitioner-intervenors and the brief of intervenor Digital Justice Foundation are due Aug. 27, it said. The FCC/DOJ response is due Oct. 11, and the joint brief of ISPs and the brief of another intervenor supporting respondents are due Oct. 18. Reply briefs from petitioners and their supporting intervenors are due Nov. 16; a deferred joint appendix is due Nov. 20; and final briefs are due Nov. 27. The court will set oral argument later, the order said.

An FCC order on regulatory fees will take effect Aug. 29, after its scheduled publication in the Federal Register on Monday. The order adopts new tiers for calculating submarine cable fees and retains the bulk rate calculation method for determining the number of subscribers in multiple dwelling units (see 1805220075).

AT&T’s representative on the FCC Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee is now Chris Nurse (see 1807260055) ... Charter Communications' position on an FCC pole-attachment proposal included that it backs it -- with tweaks (see 1807260036).

The FCC mostly heard from industry commenters who said the U.S. wireless market is effectively competitive, in comments on the new, biennial “Communications Marketplace Report.” That market "is vibrant, innovative, and highly competitive,” CTIA said. “Consumers today have unparalleled choice among wireless providers, services, plans, and devices.” Monthly data traffic per smartphone increased last year from 3.9 GB to 5.1 GB, CTIA said. Carriers invested some $25.6 billion in their networks in 2017, the group said. “4G LTE service is now available to at least 99.7 percent of Americans,” CTIA said. “That connectivity is enabled by the 323,448 cell sites. ... The deployment of small cells, which helps satisfy consumers’ data demands and provides an important network densification precursor for 5G, is expected to see a skyrocketing increase of 550 percent in 2018.” Comments were due Thursday in docket 18-203 (see 1806260056). The Competitive Carriers Association again warned all is not well. “Increasing concentration of the wireless market between the two largest providers -- AT&T and Verizon -- combined with existing regulatory barriers to wireless market expansion negatively impact competitive entry and competitive expansion, particularly in rural and remote areas,” the group said.” CCA represents nearly 100 mobile carriers, yet by the end of 2017, AT&T and Verizon had 70 percent market share of wireless subscriptions, it said. Verizon and AT&T offered similar comments to those filed by CTIA. “The mobile wireless marketplace is constantly evolving with each ‘generation’ of wireless technology ushering in dramatic innovations for consumers that change not only the way they communicate but also how they go about their lives,” Verizon said. AT&T cited as evidence how each of the four major carriers offered unlimited plans, starting with its offer in 2016, and undercut each other on price. “Carriers have also continued to innovate to offer greater value at those lower prices," AT&T said. “AT&T added HBO to its $90 offering, and now also includes a live television service called WatchTV. T-Mobile responded by adding Netflix and MLB.tv to its unlimited offerings, and Sprint added Hulu and TIDAL.” Mobile Future said competition among carriers “has predictably yielded higher connection speeds, broader network coverage and falling prices.”

Advocates for people with disabilities urged the FCC to back off Lifeline proposals to bar pure resellers, and to impose mandatory "co-pay" charges on eligible low-income consumers. The proposals "would cause irreparable harm to the very consumers this program is intended to help," wrote the American Association of People with Disabilities, Hearing Loss Association of America, National Association of the Deaf, National Council on Independent Living and World Institute on Disability, posted Wednesday in docket 17-287. They asked the FCC to suspend the subsidy phaseout of voice-only Lifeline support across the country, not just in rural areas. TracFone renewed a request for a Section 54.408(b) waiver or a ruling that it could comply with minimum service standards by giving customers "a specified quantity of 'units' per month," the subject of a November emergency petition (see 1711030064). "Those units could be used at the consumers’ discretion either for voice service, mobile broadband Internet access service, or for a combination," it said, noting updated standards taking effect Dec. 1 (see 1807180038).

NAB and FCC Advisory Committee on Diversity and Digital Empowerment members dispute what markets the agency should consider comparable for purposes of waiving radio ownership limits in exchange for incubating a new entrant, said filings in docket 14-50 Thursday. The agency should disallow such waivers from applying in markets that are more than five Nielsen audio market rank sizes removed in either direction from the incubated station’s market, said Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council Senior Advisor David Honig and National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters President Jim Winston in meetings with Pai Chief of Staff Matthew Berry, Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel and aides. Winston and Honig appeared on the behalf of other ACDDE members, including former Commissioner Henry Rivera. Such a limit is “unduly restrictive and would inhibit participation by potential incubating broadcasters,” NAB told aides to Pai, Rosenworcel and Commissioner Mike O’Rielly. Allow such waivers to be transferable, NAB recommended. The two sides pushed for the incubator program to include TV stations.

Comcast ended its bidding for Fox's nonbroadcast assets (see 1807190022) when it decided it "couldn't build enough shareholder value" to justify the cost, CEO Brian Roberts said in a Q2 earnings call Thursday. He said Sky, for which it's vying with Disney (see 1807120001), "will fit well." He said Comcast's focus on connectivity means it's increasingly investing for its xFi service, and it now offers 1 GB speeds across virtually its entire footprint. Comcast Cable CEO David Watson said the company is putting more focus on expanding its broadband-only customer segment. Asked about growth of virtual MVPDs, Roberts said Comcast is "benefiting more from that competition than we're losing," with NBCUniversal having more distributors and through increased data traffic the company is seeing. For Q2, Comcast revenue rose 2.1 percent to $21.7 billion from the year-ago quarter, it said. The 260,000 added broadband customers gave it one of the highest Q2 results in 10 years, it said. The operator ended the quarter with 21.1 million residential video customers, down 136,000; 24.4 million residential broadband customers, up 226,000; and 10.2 million residential voice customers, down 32,000. Its Xfinity Mobile service ended the quarter with 781,000 subscribers, up 204,000. Comcast shares closed Thursday up 4 percent to $34.75. BTIG analyst Walt Piecyk wrote investors that losses from Comcast's wireless business since its May 2017 launch have topped $1.2 billion, while subscriber growth seems to have flattened out at 200,000 per quarter, lower than expected. He said Comcast isn't likely to end its wireless push given the 5G threat to wired broadband, and it makes sense for Comcast to build a wireless network atop its growing fiber investments.