While at the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, Sharon Bradford Franklin was executive director (see 1803290050).

The FCC Public Safety Bureau's final report on the January false missile alert in Hawaii blames “a combination of human error and inadequate safeguards” for the alerting error, a similar conclusion to that reached by the bureau in a preliminary report the same month (see 1801300053). “Neither the false alert nor the 38-minute delay to correct the false alert would have occurred” if Hawaii had implemented “reasonable safeguards and protocols” to minimize the risk of false alerts and ensure the availability of measures to correct false alerts, the final report said Tuesday. It condemns the use of the phrase “this is not a drill” in a practice alert, as occurred in Hawaii. Test messages should be clearly identified as tests, the report said. “The script and content for actual emergency alerts versus test alerts should be clearly distinguishable,” the document said. Recommendations include that public safety alerting entities conduct tests in “controlled and closed environments,” require validation by more than one “credentialed person” for tests of “high-impact alerts,” create procedures to correct false alerts and establish redundant lines of communication. The bureau will follow up with additional outreach, it said, including a webinar and upcoming roundtable. “Fixing this should be a top priority -- from working to promote best practices to establishing a mechanism for false alert reporting,” said Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel. “We have our work cut out for us.”

The Rural Utilities Service should coordinate with the FCC on disbursing $600 million for broadband deployment under the recently enacted Consolidated Appropriations Act, blogged FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly Wednesday. The Department of Agriculture agency is to administer the pilot program of grants and loans. "The new program could be instrumental to filling coverage gaps in rural America not yet addressed by private companies and the FCC’s USF programs -- but only if it is implemented in a thoughtful and coordinated manner," he wrote. He lauded statutory language intended to target the funding to areas without 10/1 Mbps service and prevent overbuilding. "It is imperative that RUS coordinate with the FCC to ensure the implementation of regulations prevent any overbuilding of USF funding recipients," he said. "By working in a complementary fashion, these programs can help providers extend and sustain broadband into the most rural parts of the nation. For instance, the FCC has lacked the funding and resources to complete its Remote Areas Fund (RAF) proceeding, which was intended to bring service to the hardest to reach portions of the United States. If the RUS pilot program can reach into these RAF or RAF-like areas, then the country will be much closer to achieving the objectives of universal service." He said it's also important for the FCC to understand how the RUS money is being spent and for both agencies to work with the NTIA "on data on current and future broadband funding commitments so that the broadband map developed pursuant to this legislation provides the most accurate information possible regarding any remaining unserved areas."

AT&T provided a broad update Tuesday on its 5G commercial trials. “It’s no coincidence that AT&T is aiming to be the first U.S. carrier to launch standards-based, mobile 5G services to customers this year,” said Melissa Arnoldi, president-technology and operations, in a blog post reporting the early results. “We’ve been ‘practicing’ for this moment for almost 2 years. And unlike some of our competitors, we plan to offer a 5G-capable device to customers this year, too. After all, what’s the use of a highway without an on-ramp?” In Waco, Texas, AT&T provided 5G service to a retail location more than 150 meters away from a cellsite, using high-frequency spectrum, and had wireless speeds of about “1.2 Gbps in a 400 MHz channel,” the carrier said. In Kalamazoo, Michigan, AT&T said, it studied the impacts on 5G millimeter-wave signal performance from rain, snow and other weather. The company “learned mmWave signals can penetrate materials such as significant foliage, glass and even walls better than initially anticipated,” the carrier said. It “observed more than 1 Gbps speeds under line of sight conditions up to 900 feet.” In South Bend, Indiana, the carrier said, it studied “a full end-to-end 5G network architecture, including the 5G radio system and core, demonstrating extremely low latency.”

The local number portability maintenance window was extended only one hour Sunday as iconectiv took over LNP administrator duties from Neustar in the Southeast region (see 1804090028), said PwC, transition oversight manager.

The North American Numbering Council expects to meet or beat deadlines for reporting to the FCC on call authentication trust anchor (CATA) governance and deployment, nationwide number portability (NNP) and toll-free assignment modernization (TFAM) issues, said Chairman Travis Kavulla, in an update for Wireline Bureau Chief Kris Monteith posted Tuesday. He said the NANC is to consider a CATA draft on an April 27 teleconference, before a May 7 report deadline, and consider NNP and TFAM drafts at its May 29 meeting, before a June 7 deadline. He believes "working groups are making substantial progress" on their tasks. A CATA group "reached consensus that the industry should be responsible for standing up" a "General Administrator" (GA) for the call authentication framework in the "very near term" without a formal proceeding, though the group wants the FCC's endorsement, Kavulla wrote. There's "strong opposition" to a possible commission request for proposals for a GA and differing opinions on who should be on its board. A baseline draft "includes sections outlining the role and selection of a Policy Administrator," and on how industry parties "might be incented toward and monitored for their progress" toward framework participation. He said another working group sees three plausible NNP solutions: "commercial agreements, non-geographic local routing numbers (LRNs) and nationwide implementation LRNs." The group "has concluded that the modifications to the SS7 signaling parameters that would be required to implement the GR-2982-CORE specification make it an inferior solution," with comments also negative in FCC proceedings. The TFAM group has three subgroups, he wrote: one that "has made substantial progress in identifying rules that would need to be adjusted"; another considering a secondary market for toll-free numbers has "addressed about half of the questions" from a September NPRM; and a third looking at set-asides or reservation of certain toll-free numbers "is still in fact-finding mode" and plans to question registry database administrator Somos on "what kinds of abuse of the existing system may have happened" and on possible changes.

Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue and Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross were among the leaders of a dozen federal agencies and councils that signed on Monday to a White House-drafted memorandum of understanding to establish a coordinated process for environmental reviews of broadband and other major infrastructure projects. The MOU sets up the process President Donald Trump mandated in an August executive order that required one lead federal agency to spearhead reviews for each major infrastructure project (see 1708150067). Trump emphasized the need for streamlining the permitting process as part of his push for major infrastructure legislation, including in a February proposal that also included $200 billion in funding (see 1802110001 and 1802120001). The MOU designates the lead agency to “decide whether a project sponsor has identified the reasonable availability of funds, and whether the project otherwise meets the requirements for being identified as a major infrastructure project. It also requires the lead review agency be determined “as soon as practicable for each project." The document requires all signatory agencies and councils to do their reviews simultaneously rather than sequentially, as part of Trump's goal to reduce the permitting timeline to two years.

DOJ and AT&T/Time Warner counsel continued to joust Monday in U.S. District Court in Washington over Turner's alleged market power. Meanwhile, citing unspecified legal issues with confidential business information, Judge Richard Leon Monday afternoon held proceedings behind closed doors and said there wouldn't be any witness testimony until Tuesday. John Harran, Turner senior vice president-business development, digital distribution and strategic partnerships, acknowledged under DOJ questioning that he wrote a March 2016 internal Turner email indicating Turner believed it could "ignite or diminish" interest in the burgeoning field of virtual MVPDs by being in programming bundles or not. He also acknowledged writing an October 2017 internal email indicating "we have the leverage" in talks with YouTube TV, and an October 2016 internal email saying Hulu's virtual MVPD service without Turner or NBCUniversal content would be a recipe for disaster for that service. He said it was possible NBCU would pull its content from Hulu after the expiration of the Comcast/NBCU consent decree. But Harran, under AT&T/TW questioning about the October 2016 email, said he wasn't predicting Hulu's business failure but the failure of its business goal that hoped to have as many networks as possible. The sides also disagreed about AT&T Vice President-Digital Strategy and Experience Devin Merrill's emails and what they say about AT&T strategy for highlighting its DirecTV satellite service over its less profitable DirecTV Now streaming service. Merrill denied he was ever instructed to de-emphasize DirecTV Now and said with its 2016 launch he had "crystal clear" objectives to market and grow the service. DOJ and AT&T/TW have repeatedly battled over the supposed must-have nature of Turner content (see 1804020019 and 1803280025).

Commissioner Brendan Carr will visit southern Nevada Monday to assess the “impact that high-speed broadband can have on small businesses, healthcare, education, and economic development in these rural communities,” the FCC said in a Friday news release. Carr plans to visit Beatty, Amargosa Valley, Pahrump and Mountain Springs in rural parts of Nye and Clark counties. Chairman Ajit Pai last year assigned Carr the task of leading work on wireless infrastructure rules. Carr will be in Las Vegas next week for the NAB Show.

The FCC is seeking comment on the rules it adopted in 2005-06 and their economic impact, said a public notice Friday. The agency said under the Regulatory Flexibility Act, it will review in the next 12 months which rules might need to be amended or rescinded to minimize economic impact. Comments will be due 90 days after the notice is published in the Federal Register, the agency said.