Some users of fcc.gov haven't been able to open all documents on the website this week, in our experience and that of some other users. PDF versions of items won't open at times, with some users getting an error message. However, "docx" and "txt" versions appear to open. For examples, see this Public Safety Bureau denial of a waiver for Washington state: docx, pdf and txt. (Although it wasn't working Tuesday morning and mid-day, by evening it was.) Unlike with some past FCC IT problems, we have mostly been able to access documents in the Electronic Comment Filing System, even PDF versions. A commission spokesman declined to comment.

Streaming devices and nimble services are setting the bar for video user experience, causing MVPDs to play catch-up, said Chris Thun, TiVo vice president-product, on a Parks Associates webcast Tuesday. The over-the-top video experiences consumers are interacting with “are the bar" they expect, Thun said. Devices, content distribution options and competitors that didn't exist 10 years ago were joined by changes in the past 18-24 months in user experience trends, challenging MVPDs, said Parks analyst Brett Sappington. Deeper focus on TV viewing is needed to make voice navigation successful for video viewing, said Thun. On the top challenges facing MVPDs, Thun said TiVo research finds in testing video services, consumers inevitably bring up Netflix functionality, and a typical comment might be: “I don’t see those in my pay-TV experience.” Sappington and Thun said more MVPDs are using Google Android TV apps to improve user experience. A typical video customer might interact with two or three pay-TV interfaces over a three-to-five-year period compared to “dozens, perhaps even hundreds” of mobile app experiences, he said: That creates a “much broader landscape” influencing consumer perception of where innovation is happening and how fast. MVPDs looking to new infrastructure are hampered by costs of repurposing their networks' spectrum, replacing set-top boxes, developing software and running separate networks for different delivery mechanisms, said Sappington. Costs aren’t trivial to a “massive transition,” which musn't alienate consumers, Sappington said. “They have to do it in a way that the consumer doesn’t feel it at all because if subscribers end up feeling the pain of transition, they’ll just go somewhere else.”

The FCC issued a public notice reminder Tuesday of rules for attending commissioners’ meetings and options for viewing them in response to “significant public interest” in its net neutrality proceeding. The PN includes reminders attendees will be checked in by security and aren’t allowed to stand or address the commission. If the Commission Meeting Room is filled, audience members will be seated in “overflow rooms” with video feeds of the meeting, the PN said. Signs 11 by 17 inches or smaller will be permitted in the meeting room as long as they are held in front of the body to avoid obstructing views, the PN said: Audience members engaging in disruptive behavior “will be asked to leave the building, and anyone who refuses to leave voluntarily will be escorted from the building.” The Washington Metropolitan Police will have officers monitor protests outside Thursday’s commissioners meeting but won't assume “an elevated posture,” an MPD spokeswoman said. The monitoring of planned demonstrations is “routine practice” for all such gatherings that MPD becomes aware of, she said. Free Our Internet, a group supporting the draft item to roll back net neutrality regulations, asked MPD to increase security at the meeting and warned of possible violent protests (see 1712110050). A net neutrality protest outside the FCBA Chairman’s Dinner last week didn't result in any incidents (see 1712080016). In other net neutrality news, Incompas and NTCA criticized the net neutrality draft for effects on interconnection rules (see 1712120015), legislators raised the prospect of congressional action (see 1712120037) and Democratic representatives raised cybersecurity concerns on earlier FCC IT problems (see 1712120052). Other net neutrality news: on dueling partisan congressional moves (see 1712120037), on how the draft net neutrality order may affect interconnection (see 1712120015), and on congressional Democrats' concerns about FCC commenting system cybersecurity (see 1712120052).

The FCC unveiled an online dashboard with information on how many pending proceedings and open dockets the agency is working on, said a news release. The dashboard is an idea Chairman Ajit Pai has been advancing since 2013, the release said. It provides the numbers of open items in a given category, such as consumer complaints, and compares them with the same quarter in the previous year. In some categories -- like consumer complaints -- which offer fewer open items than in Q4 2016, the dashboard includes a green checkmark with the caption, “Heading in the right direction.” There are 2,106 open dockets now, compared with 1,803 at this time last year, and with that information the dashboard includes a picture of a yellow hard-hat with the caption, “We’re working on it!” The “good-government tool” will help consumers to know more about the FCC’s workload, Pai said. The FCC also made changes to the agency’s Freedom of Information Act webpage to make it easier to search FOIA responses.

A state small-cells bill may soon be introduced in Maryland, said Best Best local government attorney Christy Lopez during a NATOA webinar Monday. “There’s a draft out there,” and other states may have similar draft bills to pre-empt local jurisdiction, she said. Local officials around the country should make sure to “keep an ear to the ground” and “make a real effort to take a position” on small-cells bills as they arise, she said. Small-cells bills have passed in 15 states, though the California governor vetoed that state’s bill, the Illinois governor hasn’t signed yet, and three courts have overturned an Ohio law (see 1712070056). Three other bills are pending before legislatures in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. Maryland and Pennsylvania local governments are acting to prevent pre-emption (see 1710240053). Local governments could learn from California, said Lopez: “It could be a model for other states to follow.” Cities and local associations mobilized and early on approached Gov. Jerry Brown (D) in addition to state legislators, she said. “You also very much want to target your governor,” and getting unions on board also helps, Lopez advised. Some good talking points for localities include state-mandated local programs and universal service, said Tripp May, partner at Telecom Law Firm. “One of the biggest problems with California’s bill was that it was incredibly difficult to figure out what the fee was going to be, and it was almost mathematically impossible for the local governments to recover their actual costs,” May said. “The state was going to have to pick up the tab, and they just didn’t have the money for it.” California local governments successfully argued that carriers were making no firm commitment to deploying in rural areas, May added. Litigation against the Ohio small-cells law was successful, but the approach in Ohio isn’t widely applicable to other states, said May. Courts rejected the Ohio law because it contained too many unrelated issues, violating the state’s single-subject rule, he said. It’s worth watching pending lawsuits against the Texas small-cells law because the challenges address more substantive issues that would apply in other states, May said.

An FTC-FCC draft memorandum of understanding lists online consumer protection options after Thursday's expected vote to revoke net neutrality rules, said a statement released Monday. The draft policy said the FCC will review complaints about ISP compliance with disclosure obligations in the new transparency rule, including providing notice of practices on blocking, throttling, paid prioritization and congestion management, and take enforcement action if an ISP fails to make required disclosures. The FTC would take action against ISPs on "accuracy" of disclosures or other "deceptive or unfair" broadband provider actions. The two agencies vowed to "broadly share legal and technical expertise" in investigating complaints and coordinate on industry outreach and education. House Commerce Committee Republican leaders lauded the draft agreement as a “positive move for consumers and the internet ecosystem,” but committee ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., criticized the move. It’s “good to know that these powerful commissions are working together to protect consumers from any unfair or anticompetitive practices” before the FCC’s planned vote, said committee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and House Digital Commerce Subcommittee Chairman Bob Latta, R-Ohio. “The FTC has successfully provided those essential protections for decades, and we are confident they will continue to do so.” The agreement “is effectively worthless” given the 9th Circuit’s pending decision in AT&T v. FTC, Pallone said in a statement. It “underscores the absurdity” of Pai’s proposed repeal of the 2015 rules, which “not only leaves consumers fending for themselves, it is now creating a bureaucratic nightmare with no one left in charge when things inevitably go wrong." The agreement is "a confusing, lackluster, reactionary afterthought: an attempt to paper over weaknesses in the Chairman’s draft proposal repealing the FCC’s 2015 net neutrality rules," said a statement from FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn. Public Knowledge saw little to celebrate, saying the FCC is joining forces with the FTC "only when a broadband provider is deceiving the public," said Vice President Chris Lewis. On Democratic members of Congress' concerns on Thursday's vote: see 1712110050; on paid prioritization, see 1712110002.

President Donald Trump signed off Friday on a Congress-passed continuing resolution to fund the federal government through Dec. 22. The Senate cleared the funding measure 81-14 Thursday. The House passed it earlier Thursday, soon after the FCC released its government shutdown plan (see 1712070071).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit called for responses (in Pacer) to a petition asking for an en banc rehearing of the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council’s challenge (see 1710170036) of the FCC rulemaking on multilingual alerts. “The full court has called for responsive briefs, where presumably the difficulties in implementing such alerts will be discussed,” blogged Wilkinson Barker broadcast attorney David Oxenford. The review “raises serious issues that may be considered by the court,” Oxenford said. MMTC's petition (in Pacer) is based on Judge Patricia Millett’s dissent (in Pacer) from the ruling for the FCC. Millett said the majority opinion didn’t adequately explain why it rejected MMTC suggestions for alternative ways to implement multilingual EAS messages, and faulted the majority for allowing more delay. “Choosing to repeat an inquiry that has twice been asked and answered, the Commission identified no reason to believe that round three of reporting would reveal new ways to address the multilingual problem,” Millett said. MMTC said "the panel’s decision therefore must be set aside for the reasons outlined in Judge Millett’s well-reasoned dissent.”

The FCC is obstructing a law enforcement investigation, the New York attorney general’s office said Friday. Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel slammed her agency’s general counsel for refusing to cooperate with the probe into allegedly fake comments in the proceeding to rescind some net neutrality rules (see 1712040046). FCC General Counsel Thomas Johnson wrote in a Thursday letter to New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (D) the commission declined the request.

A higher percentage of emergency alert system participants received the alert signal during the 2017 national EAS test (see 1709270071) than in 2016, but more than 1,000 fewer EAS participants sent their receipt and transmission results to the agency afterward, and more TV stations didn't get the alert and so didn't pass it on, said initial results Thursday from the FCC Public Safety Bureau. “Performance appears to have improved over what we observed in the 2016 nationwide EAS test,” said a public notice. This year, 95.8 percent of test participants successfully received the simulation, vs. 95.4 percent. But 19,069 broadcasters provided information afterward, compared to 20,389. More participants received the alert through the Integrated Public Alert Warning System in 2017, 59.3 percent v. 43.5 percent. Only participants that received the alert through IPAWS were able to send out Spanish-language alerts, and 207 test participants did so in 2017, up from 75 in 2016. The results could change with further analysis, the PN said. “Together with [the Federal Emergency Management Agency], the Bureau will continue to analyze the results of the 2017 nationwide EAS test and release more detailed findings when available.”