The Office of Managing Director extended comments for the FCC’s regulatory fee Further NPRM to Dec. 6. The Satellite Industry Association requested an extension to Dec. 13 because many members are involved in the World Radiocommunication Conference. WRC-19 runs until Nov. 22, the original comment due date, Friday's order said. With the extension, replies are now due Jan. 6. The docket is 19-105.

The FCC got general support for a September NPRM (see 1909060030) proposing the agency fully transition its universal licensing system (ULS), its largest, from paper to electronic. Initial comments in docket 19-212 welcomed the change (see 1911010064) and replies were posted Thursday and Friday. American Tower said the FCC should act: “Electronic communications ease the administrative burden that accompanies traditional, non-electronic record keeping and allows for the creation of a more robust record for each transaction at a lower cost. Conducting business electronically is ubiquitous in almost every industry and government, making this move a win-win for the Commission and those it regulates.” AT&T supported a Verizon proposal that the commission permit nonstandard applications to be submitted electronically in PDF form or on a webform for receipt of nonconforming applications. “Currently, non-conforming applications, such as subleases and leasebacks, must be filed on paper in Annapolis Junction, and that office must then forward the application for processing,” AT&T commented: “Because filers of paper applications do not have the benefit of ULS controls that detect certain typographical errors and invalid entries, a ministerial error in an application may not be detected until it reaches Commission staff, and at that point filers often are required to start the process over again. This process is unpleasant and inefficient for applicants and Commission staff alike.” NTCA welcomed all-electronic filing for ULS and in the antenna structure registration (ASR) system. “Allowing additional types of applications to be filed via ULS or ASR would almost certainly benefit filers and the Commission alike through an ability to catch most application errors prior to submission and the ability of Commission staff responsible for reviewing the application to access the application online once the application is deemed complete,” NTCA said.

Industry would benefit if the FTC had more rulemaking authority to provide clarity and could do more policymaking like the FCC, FTC Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter told FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel on a podcast released Thursday. With fewer limits on rulemaking, the FTC could provide clearer rules for industry, so businesses wouldn’t have to guess and fall “afoul of enforcement action,” Slaughter said. She sought more resources, noting the FTC had about 50 percent more employees at the start of the Reagan administration. “And that's not an accident, right?” Slaughter said. “We were systematically downsized in order to limit our effectiveness and limit our enforcement.” She said the agency could be doing more with its existing resources. She noted her dissent on the FTC’s $5 billion privacy settlement with Facebook, which she said wasn’t a strong enough deterrent to bad behavior. The agency hears a lot of concerns about manipulative ads, Slaughter said, which are enabled by personal data and personalized advertising. It can be useful for giving consumers what they want, but there's risk of propaganda messages reaching certain audiences, said Slaughter, a Democrat like Rosenworcel. “We've seen a lot of literature, recently, about white supremacist recruitment, targeting teenage boys.” The FTC member noted consumers have very little information about who collects data and how it’s collected, shared and used.

The FCC addressed waste, fraud and abuse in the Lifeline USF program in a fifth order and a Further NPRM in docket 17-287, issued Thursday and OK'd about two weeks ago. Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Geoffrey Starks dissented in part and concurred in part. Comments are due 30 days after Federal Register publication, replies 30 days later. The rulemaking seeks comment on prohibiting Lifeline providers from offering handsets to consumers at no cost.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit granted an unopposed motion for extension, until Dec. 13, to file petitions for a rehearing of the recent net neutrality case, it said Wednesday. Net neutrality advocacy groups had asked for a 28-day extension to request a rehearing or hearing en banc for Mozilla v. FCC, case 18-1051 (see 1911050038). The Digital Justice Foundation asked for rehearing (see 1911010008).

Alaska Gov. Michael Dunleavy sought clarification of an FCC rule on rural telehealth, among petitions for reconsiderations posted in docket 17-310 Wednesday. Dunleavy said the new mechanisms for determining cost recovery rates "don't sufficiently acknowledge the logistical and economic challenges to delivering service throughout rural Alaska, nor does it recognize the dramatic differences between our regions and communities." Rule changes would lead to systemic underfunding of telecom needed to deliver healthcare services to hard-to-reach communities, the Republican said. Alaska Communications asked to promptly address all outstanding matters from the telehealth rulemaking. It said the FCC is better positioned than the Universal Service Administrative Co. to timely resolve questions about rural rate determinations. USTelecom has concerns about how the FCC will implement a new median rural rate framework, citing material errors or omissions, and "Alaska requires a different approach to setting a rural rate that is unique." The median rate calculation risks "defunding telehealth services for the neediest rural Alaskans," it said. The Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition said USAC may have overstated nonrural telehealth expenditures, and the FCC should reconsider major policy changes based on such data. It also warned against deprioritizing funding for nonrural telehealth consortium participants. The North Carolina Telehealth Network Association and Southern Ohio Health Network asked the FCC to modify the definition of rural for the purposes of the program's eligibility.

The California Public Utilities Commission plans to probe communications provider response to public safety power shutoffs, at a 10 a.m. PST hearing Wednesday in San Francisco. The commission Wednesday directed executives from AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Charter Communications, Comcast, Cox and Frontier Communications to appear. Topics include the providers’ responses to maintain communication service, compliance with CPUC disaster relief rules including to provide supplemental cellular service and device charging stations and Wi-Fi access in refuge centers, and coordination with California’s Office of Emergency Services and Forestry and Fire Protection Department. CPUC President Marybel Batjer wrote communications companies Wednesday, asking them to file by Nov. 18 responses to questions about their performance during the shutoffs. “Based on your performances over the past few weeks, it appears that you are not managing your network infrastructure adequately to maintain vital communications services for Californians during emergencies," said Batjer, urging companies to "step up to address these issues before we experience another devastating wildfire or the unfortunate need for widespread Public Safety Power Shut-offs in California."

With the FCC in April no longer acting as accounting authority for international maritime mobile communications (see 1904230010), it will shut the post office box used to collect charges payments on July 15 and end the fee for processing those transactions, said a 5-0 order released Tuesday.

The lawyer who spoke about FCC staff finding for AT&T in a good-faith negotiations complaint is Rick Brecher, of Greenberg Traurig (see 1911080036). ... The docket number for Irregulators v. FCC before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is 19-1085, and an Oct. 31 brief by the National Exchange Carrier Association and NTCA, as well as an Oct. 31 FCC brief, added only appendix citations (see 1910310040).

A Connecticut court said the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority overreached when it ruled 2-0 last year that “municipal gain” space on utility poles or underground ducts -- reserved by a 2013 law “for any purpose” -- can't be used to provide muni broadband. Tuesday's Connecticut Superior Court ruling agreed with the state consumer counsel and municipal appellants that PURA “acted beyond its statutory power, and its action was invalid.” The court disagreed with PURA saying the 2013 law wasn’t plain and unambiguous about whether the space could be used for any purpose: “The authority created ambiguity where none otherwise exists by finding the conflicting construction proposed by the petitioners equally ‘plausible.’” The authority “paid no attention to the words of the statute, made no attempt to discern their meaning,” and should have checked the dictionary for the meaning of “any,” said the court. Sections 224 and 253 of the federal Telecom Act, and a Connecticut telecom law, apply only to telecom services, so they don’t prohibit a municipality from using the space for internet services, it said. The court noted the matter “is clearly headed toward higher judicial ground.” PURA didn’t comment.