The FCC again extended by one year its waiver pausing the phase-out of Lifeline support for voice-only services and increasing minimum service standards for mobile broadband data (see 2307070056). A Wireline Bureau order in docket 11-42 Wednesday noted the "marketplace for affordable broadband services is undergoing significant changes as a result of the end of the affordable connectivity program." The waiver now expires Dec. 1, 2025.

ATIS fired back at an Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials' opposition to the standards group’s petition for reconsideration or clarification of the FCC’s January outage reporting order (see 2406120043). APCO found the petition confusing. “ATIS’ request is clear, and there is adequate notice from an [Administrative Procedure Act] perspective to grant” the relief, said a filing posted Wednesday in docket 21-346. ATIS had asked the FCC to clarify the application of its waiver of network outage reporting system filings during disaster information reporting system (DIRS) activations. “Granting ATIS’ request would facilitate service restoration by allowing service providers to focus on repairing and restoring the network, rather than on notifications,” ATIS said: “DIRS was adopted to provide a simplified and consistent process for service providers to report communications infrastructure status and situational awareness information during times of crisis.” In creating DIRS, the commission “acknowledged the need to reduce reporting-related burdens on service providers during major disaster and recovery events,” ATIS said.

An attorney for Rochester, New York, is examining the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which overturned a four-decades-old standard on judicial deference to regulatory agency decisions (see 2406280043). In February, U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Wolford for Western New York in Rochester found in favor of Crown Castle, Extenet and Verizon on their consolidated claim that the city violated sections 253 and 332 of the Telecommunications Act in the unlawful manner in which it assessed fees for telecom deployments within its jurisdiction. “My office is presently reviewing the Loper Bright decision to determine its implications for the instant matters, particularly as to this Court’s summary judgment analysis,” city lawyer Patrick Beath's filing said: “Plaintiffs believe that Loper Bright has no impact here. I need additional time to make that assessment and confer with my client.”

The FCC sought comment Wednesday on Inland Cellular’s proposed acquisition of Commnet’s rural digital opportunity fund support obligations in parts of Washington and Montana. Comments are due July 17, replies July 24, in docket 24-134. “Applicants state that Inland and its affiliates have deployed wireless and broadband networks and served customers since 1989 in rural areas of Washington and Idaho,” said a Wireline Bureau notice: “They further assert that Inland is uniquely situated to efficiently deploy RDOF-supported voice and broadband service in the Assigned Census Blocks.”

The creator of an automatic speech recognition (ASR) app criticized the long period he and other small providers have endured waiting for FCC approval before they could begin offering IP captioned telephone services supported by the Telecom Relay Services Fund. Rogervoice founder-CEO Olivier Jeannel spoke with an aide to Commissioner Nathan Simington about the need for an “emergent rate” for small providers of IP CTS service. The company applied for certification in March 2022 and the FCC acted in January, said a filing posted Wednesday in docket 03-123. “The nearly two-year wait for Commission action on their applications has made it all the more challenging to break into the IP CTS market, where established providers have had that much more lead time to develop and market their ASR-based captioning services,” Rogervoice said.

Data submissions for the FCC's fifth broadband data collection are due Sept. 3, an FCC public notice said Thursday in docket 19-195. Submissions should include broadband availability as of Sunday.

FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel asked nine telecom companies how they will prevent politically motivated "fraudulent robocalls" that use AI (see 2204220051). A Thursday news release said Rosenworcel sent letters to AT&T, Charter, Comcast, Cox, Dish, Frontier, Lumen, T-Mobile and Verizon. The letters come after the agency responded to an AI-assisted fraudulent robocall campaign that targeted New Hampshire voters (see 2402060087). "This is just the beginning," Rosenworcel said. "We know that AI technologies will make it cheap and easy to flood our networks with deepfakes," she said: "As AI tools become more accessible to bad actors and scammers, we need to do everything we can to keep this junk off our networks."

NTIA accepted digital equity plans from American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands, the federal agency said Tuesday. That means NTIA has accepted plans from all states, territories and the District of Columbia to use grants from NTIA’s $1.44 billion digital equity program.

Zayo became the first ISP to begin construction on a project that includes funding from NTIA's middle mile broadband infrastructure grant program, the agency said Monday. Zayo received $24 million to build a 645-mile fiber network across Nevada and 23 access points that will "enable ready access to local [ISPs]," NTIA said (see 2405220050). The start of construction "means the people of Nevada are one step closer to more affordable, more reliable high-speed internet service," NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson said.

Congress should renew the affordable connectivity program (ACP) and protect local authority in the right of way (ROW), mayors attending the U.S. Conference of Mayors conference said Sunday. City leaders adopted resolutions on ACP, ROW compensation and opposing the American Broadband Act (HR-3557), which is a package of GOP-led connectivity permitting revamp measures (see 2311060069). The conference adopted the resolutions as part of a unanimous consent agenda Sunday after the Technology and Innovation Committee approved them unanimously Friday. ACP “has been one of the most effective broadband benefit programs to date with its direct-to-consumer model to enroll low-income households and help ensure they can afford the internet connections they need for work, school [and] healthcare,” the first resolution said: The conference urges Congress to renew and extend ACP this year “to ensure eligible households have access to affordable high-speed internet.” The second resolution on local compensation noted that some members of the FCC, Congress and state legislatures “have wrongly characterized this balancing act among competing interests for the public rights-of-way and maintenance of local authority as a barrier to broadband deployment, putting the interests of national corporations ahead of the needs of communities by effectively granting those corporations subsidized access to local public rights-of-way that do not belong to the federal or state government.” Congress should pass a bill amending the Cable Act’s franchise fee section to correct the FCC and the 6th U.S. Circuit of Appeals misreading of the act “and make clear that no other provision of the Cable Act limits or preempts state or local fees or taxes on cable operators or on the non-cable services they provide,” it said. Also, Congress should approve the Protecting Community Television Act (HR-907 and S-340) “to make clear that the cost of non-monetary franchise obligations do not constitute a ‘franchise fee’ under the Cable Act,” the resolution said. And the FCC should act soon on a related remand from the 6th Circuit that has been waiting for action for more than two years, it said. The third resolution urged that Congress drop HR-3557, which “would bestow on broadband providers an unprecedented federal grant of access to state and local public property but impose no obligations on those providers to serve ‘unserved’ and ‘underserved’ Americans.”