The FCC Public Safety Bureau seeks comment on government and communications industry preparation and response to 2017’s hurricanes and tropical storms, said a public notice Thursday. “This input will inform the workshop(s) that we plan to hold next year to further explore the matter,” Chief Lisa Fowlkes blogged. “Our aim is to build on successful approaches and develop options to address shortfalls as we prepare for future disasters.” According to the PN, the FCC issued more than 85 Disaster Information Reporting System status reports during the 2017 hurricane season, granted more than 200 requests for special temporary authority, and issued more than 30 related PNs and orders. The bureau seeks comment on the causes of communications outages, the effectiveness of responses from the FCC and service providers, and the availability of information. Comments are due Jan. 22, replies Feb. 21. In Puerto Rico, 24.4 percent of cellsites remain out of service, said the FCC's Hurricane Maria update Wednesday, noting a carrier roaming agreement to provide maximum wireless coverage collectively. In the U.S. Virgin Islands, 25.6 percent of cellsites are out, with 75 percent on St. John out. Noting "widespread power outages" in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, the agency said it received reports that large percentages of consumers are without either cable or wireline service. Five TV stations are confirmed operational in Puerto Rico, with two suspected off-air, 70 given special temporary authority to be off and 30 stations with unconfirmed status; in the Virgin Islands, 14 TV stations have STAs and two unconfirmed status. Puerto Rico has 97 radio stations confirmed operational, 38 confirmed out, 16 suspected off-air, 29 unconfirmed and five with STAs. Four radio stations in the Virgin Islands are confirmed operational, three are suspected out, one has an STA, and 20 stations are unconfirmed.

In a government shutdown, the FCC as usual would largely be shuttered, the agency said hours before the House passed 235-192 a short-term continuing resolution Thursday to fund the federal government through Dec. 22. The Senate was expected to vote on the resolution after our deadline. All FCC employees would report to work the first business day after any lapse in appropriations and spend no more than four hours in shutdown activities including securing their work areas and locking up materials, canceling travel plans and scheduled training, internal and external meetings and FCC-sponsored events and putting out-of-office messages on email and voicemail, said the plan. It said of 1,492 employees, the five commissioners will be retained since their compensation doesn't come from annual appropriations that lapse, and up to 227 other employees would be retained because they support spectrum auction-related activities or are otherwise involved in oversight or protection of life or property or are performing international and treaty-related activity. It said a variety of IT contractors and others also will be retained, including 85 IT contractors needed to support auction-related activities.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology is seeking comments by Jan. 19 on a second draft of its Cybersecurity Framework released Tuesday that is based on extensive consultation with the private and public sectors, NIST said. Internet Security Alliance President Larry Clinton praised the updated framework for making “significant achievements toward achieving the goals of the original [Cybersecurity] Executive Order.” The new draft clarifies supply chain risk management assessments, and extends use of the framework to include information technology systems and IoT, the agency said. As the agency works on the second draft, it will be looking at ways to help organizations of all sizes use the framework to meet their specific cybersecurity needs, NIST said.

An Alaska tribal group asked the FCC to "fully fund" the USF Rural Health Care Program for funding year 2016 in the draft order and NPRM targeted for a vote at the Dec. 14 commissioners' meeting (see 1711220026). The commission draft proposed to "carry forward for use in FY 2017 any available RHC Program funds from prior funding years and, on a one-time-basis, commit those funds" to RHC participants for FY 2017, said a Tanana Chiefs Conference filing in docket 17-310. While applauding that proposal, the TCC said the draft doesn't "address the existing RHC Program funding shortfall" for FY 2016, which "caused a great deal of hardship" for rural healthcare providers and the people who depend on them. The group said the FCC should ensure that those providers "get all the funds to which they were entitled before" the agency implemented "pro rata funding."

Charlie Ergen stepping down as Dish Network CEO is "more housekeeping" than a reflection of any strategic change in business, Wells Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker wrote investors Tuesday. Dish said Ergen, while remaining chairman, was promoting President Erik Carlson to CEO so Ergen could dedicate more attention to its wireless business. The company Tuesday said it's moving to a group structure; among those reporting to Carlson are Dish TV Group President Brian Neylon; Sling TV Group President Warren Schlichting; John Swieringa, who succeeds Carlson as chief operating officer; and Chief Technology Officer Vivek Khemka. Ergen previously gave up the CEO role in 2011 to Joe Clayton, resuming it in March 2015 when Clayton left (see 1502230038). Dish has committed to rolling out a 5G-centric NarrowBand IoT network by spring 2020 (see 1703080026).

Along with luring cord cutters and cord nevers, AT&T's DirecTV Now over-the-top service also is helping it snag customers from rival MVPDs, which make up about half its customer base, Chief Financial Officer John Stephens told investors Tuesday. AT&T said DirecTV Now subscribers surpassed 1 million. The company is beta testing its second-generation platform that will include a cloud DVR and 4K capabilities, pay-per-view events and movies, digital advertising inserts and data insight capabilities, Stephens said. He said DirecTV Now profitability "will get up into very acceptable levels," and though it isn't the same fat profit margin opportunity the traditional linear TV business was, it requires much lower capital expenditures. On FirstNet, any states that don't make a choice automatically will be opted in when the opt-in window closes this month, and many states may go that route, he said. He said the work orders to build the FirstNet network over the next five years will start to be issued in January, with the engineering work already complete. He said FirstNet is "a very good revenue opportunity for us," with the potential of new products and services targeting markets like first responders and smart city initiatives, targeting perhaps 10 million users. Stephens said the company expects to finish this year with 7 million homes passed with fiber, and instead of an earlier prediction of 12.5 million by mid-2019, it's on track to pass more than 14 million homes with fiber by then. Stephens said customers should see "no change" from a rollback of Communications Act Title II regulation of ISPs, with the company continuing its policies of no blocking or advantaging some websites over others. House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Mike Doyle,​ D-Pa., and Chairman Ajit Pai were at odds Tuesday about the likely ramifications of Pai's net neutrality proposal (see 1712050057). Clarity on net neutrality "will bring back an opportunity for more investment," Stephens said. He said the company "look[s] forward to trial" and prevailing in the DOJ lawsuit seeking to block its buy of Time Warner (see 1711200064).

Mobile is driving most global spending on telecom services and pay-TV services, a segment expected to reach nearly $1.7 trillion this year, IDC reported Monday. Mobile spending, projected to be 52 percent of the total market in 2017, is forecast to have a 2 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) through 2021, driven by growth in mobile data usage and machine-to-machine applications, offsetting spending declines in mobile voice and messaging services, IDC said. Fixed data service spending, at 21 percent of spending this year, is seen growing by a 4 percent CAGR over the period, driven by higher-bandwidth services. Spending on pay-TV services -- cable, satellite, internet protocol and digital terrestrial -- is projected to be flat over the five-year period, but they're an increasingly important part of the multiplay offerings of telecom providers worldwide, IDC said, with spending forecast to grow 9 percent this year and 7 percent in 2018. Spending on fixed voice services, meanwhile, will drop at a 6 percent compound annual growth rate over the forecast period, to less than 10 percent of the total market by 2021. An increase in IP voice isn't offsetting "rapidly declining” time-division multiplexing voice revenue, it said.

The Entertainment Software Association's petition for extension of a waiver of FCC rules requiring advanced communication services (ACS) access by people with disabilities (see 1711010056) should be its last, disability advocacy groups said in docket 10-213 filings posted Friday, the deadline for replies. The National Federation of the Blind said the pattern of waiver extensions and delays in access to ACS features in videogames for people with disabilities "is a distressing trend" that hopefully ends with this last request. An array of groups support ESA on condition it be the final extension, to be followed by "large-scale compliance." Those groups said the FCC should make clear it will "skeptically" scrutinize claims that making ACS components of future videogames accessible isn't achievable. Signers include Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, the National Association of the Deaf, the Hearing Loss Association of America, the American Foundation for the Blind, the American Council of the Blind, the National Association of State Agencies of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, and Deaf and Hard of Hearing Consumer Advocacy Networks. The Arc of the United States said in a filing posted Monday the petition is "problematic" in not showing usability and accessibility steps for people with cognitive disabilities, so approval should be conditioned on ESA submitting a progress report next year detailing steps members have taken to include people with cognitive disabilities in user research, product design and testing and online community curation. Arc said the report should cover insights ESA members generate about such needs and any changes the members make. The requested extension would go until Jan. 1, 2019.

CTIA opposed a proposal to replace "international bearer circuit" (IBC) regulatory fees with a fee on all holders of international Section 214 authorizations under the Communications Act. The group supports FCC efforts to ensure regulatory fees reflect agency work, but criticized a Submarine Cable Coalition proposal to replace the IBC fees as unfair and inefficient. "The proposal would exempt non-common carrier submarine cable licensees and non-common carrier operators that own international circuits -- a category of operators the Commission included earlier this year -- while imposing new fees on resellers of international services who own no facilities but hold Section 214s, creating additional unnecessary administrative burdens and failing to reflect the work of Commission staff," said CTIA comments, which along with others were posted Friday and Monday in docket 17-134 responding to a Further NPRM (see 1709060050). The Satellite Industry Association "strongly opposes using a tier-based system developed to address extremely high-capacity submarine cable facilities to calculate fees for the tiny proportion of IBCs offered via satellite," it said. "Instead, the Commission should replace the satellite IBC fee with an assessment on international section 214 authorizations or simply retain the current assessment method for satellite IBCs." Addressing submarine cable fee tiers, CenturyLink's Level 3 said "revised fee tiers proposed by the Commission represent a reasonable update to the submarine cable fee assessment methodology. The proposed tiers maintain the balance of interests struck in 2009, while reflecting the upgrades that have been made to many of the cables that were in service in 2009 and the increased capacity of new and proposed cables." NCTA and the American Cable Association urged the FCC "to retain a current voluntary methodology for determining the number of subscribers" in a multiple dwelling unit, "but not restrict operators from using an alternative method of calculation." ITTA said the FCC should retain the MDU "bulk rate calculation, without modification."

North American Portability Management updated parties on various issues in the ongoing local number portability administrator transition from Neustar to iconectiv. Transition oversight manager PwC provided "supplemental information regarding transition testing, readiness, reporting, and rollback to ensure all stakeholders have an accurate view of transition status and plans," and are aware of "communications channels and reporting mechanisms" it's using, said NAPM's November report Friday in docket 09-109. The information is included in a three-page appendix of the report. Neustar complained recently that NAPM was failing to inform parties of key "readiness" elements in its monthly reports (see 1711200040).