FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr started a trip to North Carolina Tuesday, which will include speaking at the National Association of Tower Erectors’ annual conference on a 5G workforce partnership between Wake Technical Community College and Tower Engineering Professionals. On Tuesday, Carr's schedule included tour touring a 911 call center in Charlotte, a fiber deployment in Salisbury and the Corning fiber manufacturing plant. On Wednesday, Carr is to visit a fixed wireless deployment by Open Broadband in a rural area north of Raleigh and then tour a tower climbing training facility. He will take part in a keynote chat at the NATE conference. The trip also focused on telehealth.

Maryland senators received a 911 fee auditing bill Friday that passed the House 132-0 Thursday. HB-6 would require wireline and wireless providers keep records of 911 fees collected and remitted for at least four years, and require the state comptroller to adopt procedures for auditing surcharge collection and remittance. The House voted 131-0 for HB-44 extending the terms of state next-generation 911 committee through June 30, 2022, and requiring reports to the governor and legislature by Dec. 15 this and next year.

Telecom carriers and equipment vendors are addressing confusion over who must comply with Kari's Law rules that were to take effect Monday (see 1802160032). The law requires multi-line telephone systems to give direct access to 911 without the need to dial a prefix. The MLTS must notify a representative, such as the front desk or security, once 911 is dialed. "This is a reminder to building managers and others responsible for multi-line telephone systems that they must adhere to the new requirements," FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said Friday. "There's some confusion for enterprise customers," said Tricia McConnell, Bandwidth 911 product marketing manager. "They're responsible for compliance, but they don't know what compliance means." MLTS managers such as hotels and corporate campuses must ensure someone on site or monitoring operations there knows when a 911 call has been placed, to greet first responders and direct them to where the call originated. In a large complex, building security might also provide preliminary assistance to the caller before first responders arrive, McConnell said. Outbound emergency calls can't be screened by building security before they're sent to 911 operators, however, McConnell said. In the past, some hotels might have screened such calls to protect employees or for fear of misdials, she said, but as of the compliance date, "that's no longer acceptable." As the compliance date approached, carriers "focused on helping their customers provision these MLTS with the direct-dialing and notification capabilities required," emailed Incompas Policy Adviser Chris Shipley. "They are also working with their enterprise and business customers to clearly identify who is responsible for the system's day-to-day management and operation, particularly with larger companies that are interested in exercising greater control." Requirements also apply to government agencies and nonprofits using MLTS, and to cloud-based and VoIP and traditional circuit-based systems, Hogan Lovells blogged Feb. 10: MLTS operating before the compliance deadline don't need to meet the new rules unless they're modified after the compliance date. Most business customers aren't looking to meet only minimum standards, McConnell said. Recent talks about Kari's Law are driving meaningful conversations on how organizations respond in an emergency, she said. Some larger companies may consider coming into compliance sooner than required under the law because "no company wants to be outed on social media for restricting access to 911," McConnell said. There are other E-911 laws in roughly half the states, McConnell said: Bandwidth is pushing for a federal law.

The FCC is likely to face a variety of suggested changes to its C-band clearing and auction order on the February agenda (see 2002050057), including arguments for limits on spectrum aggregation and trying to ensure earth station repacking isn't done in a slapdash fashion, we are told. Chairman Ajit Pai has support of the two Republican commissioners. Democrat Jessica Rosenworcel, a critic of the band plan, is seen as a likely no vote, but fellow Democrat Commissioner Geoffrey Starks may be undecided.

Senate Appropriations Financial Services Subcommittee Chairman John Kennedy, R-La., told reporters Thursday he plans to again meet with or talk to President Donald Trump to express his renewed ire about the FCC’s direction in planning an auction of the 3.7-4.2 GHz C band. Kennedy railed against FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s current C-band auction plan during a Senate floor speech, criticizing the proposal to allocate about $15 billion of sale proceeds for relocation and incentive payments to incumbents on the frequency (see 2002060057). Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said she's supporting Kennedy’s C-band centric Spectrum Management And Reallocation for Taxpayers (Smart) Act (S-3246).

National Emergency Number Association members began their annual Capitol Hill meetings Wednesday to urge Congress to pass the 911 Supporting Accurate Views of Emergency Services Act (HR-1629/S-1015) and Next Generation 9-1-1 Act (HR-2760/S-1479). HR-1629/S-1015 would change the federal government's classification of public safety call-takers and dispatchers to "protective service occupations" (see 1904050054). HR-2760/S-1479 would provide $12 billion in federal grants for NG-911 projects and directs NTIA to provide further technical assistance while also maintaining state and local control of 911 systems. Democrats included the bill’s text (see 1905220076) in their Leading Infrastructure for Tomorrow’s (Lift) America Act (HR-2741), which NENA also supports. Lead HR-1629 sponsor Rep. Norma Torres, D-Calif., urged NENA members before their meetings to counter opponents’ arguments against the measure, including that it could increase personnel costs due to a change in dispatchers’ job classification. The bill “comes with zero costs,” leaving it up to government agencies to decide whether the change in job classification should lead to higher pay for dispatchers, Torres said at the event. She noted OMB concerns torpedoed an effort to attach the text of HR-1629 to the FY 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (see 1912120061).

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., believes there’s a rapidly decreasing likelihood lawmakers will reach a deal on legislation allocating the proceeds of a coming FCC auction of spectrum on the 3.7-4.2 GHz C band before or after the commission's planned Feb. 28 vote on Chairman Ajit Pai’s proposal (see 2002060057). House Commerce Committee leaders don’t share Wicker’s pessimism. The House-side lawmakers plan further talks this week on a coming bill, which has become their main telecom policy priority (see 2002070044).

The House Commerce Committee’s telecom agenda is set to be dominated in the coming weeks by leaders’ work to reach a deal on legislation on allocating the proceeds of a coming FCC auction of spectrum on the 3.7-4.2 GHz C band, lawmakers and lobbyists told us. Committee members are being pressed by a planned Feb. 28 FCC vote on Chairman Ajit Pai’s C-band plan, which he unveiled Thursday (see 2002060057) and released Friday. Other items are also percolating, including on public safety communications, network resiliency and broadband.

CenturyLink pledged to work with the Arizona Corporation Commission after commissioners directed staff to prepare an order to show cause in the agency’s probe of the telco’s 911 outages (see 1901030011). “We believe litigation is counterproductive and hope the Commission agrees,” a company spokesperson emailed Thursday. Commissioners discussed the probe in docket T-00000A-19-0179 this week at their February meeting. “Evidence shows that lines belonging to [CenturyLink] have experienced service interruptions in Pima County on several occasions and most recently in Page, Arizona,” ACC said. On Jan. 3, Page’s 911 switchboard failed to process toll or 911 calls for 18 hours due to a radio issue on a local provider network, it said.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai proposed accelerated relocation payments of up to $9.7 billion for C-band incumbents to clear the band quickly for an auction to start Dec. 8, in a speech (see 2002060031) Thursday at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. Those would be above compensation for relocation costs, estimated to be between $3 billion and $5 billion, he said. Pai has the three votes he needs for approval at the commissioners' Feb. 28 meeting (see 2002060048) with quick endorsements of Commissioners Mike O’Rielly and Brendan Carr.