Racial discrimination concerns “absolutely” need to be addressed in the data privacy debate, House Consumer Protection Subcommittee Chair Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., told reporters after a hearing Wednesday. The tech industry should ensure that facial recognition and other technologies aren’t discriminating against minorities, she said.
Frontier Communications faces a second Minnesota investigation in response to complaints by consumers and workers in a state Commerce Department report finding that the carrier possibly violated at least 35 laws and rules (see 1901240025). The Minnesota Office of Attorney General is probing possible consumer fraud in parallel to a Public Utilities Commission’s service-quality investigation, OAG commented this week at the PUC. Responding at length to the Commerce report of about 1,000 complaining consumers, the telco claimed fewer than 450 Minnesota customers had major service problems last year.
Even with FCC progress in easing the infrastructure path to 5G deployment and extending broadband connectivity, industry officials at a Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council event Wednesday sought lower barriers to infrastructure deployment. Some commissioners also said the draft Telecom Act Section 706 broadband deployment report points to big progress in closing the digital divide.
An FCC broadband report draft appears to rely on "tremendous over-reporting by a single CLEC/WISP," Free Press said. "Wildly over-inflated" data from Barrier Communications (BarrierFree) exaggerates the agency's claimed improvement in national broadband deployment in 2017, FP filed, posted Wednesday in docket 18-238. It said the FCC must address the error before adopting the 2019 report on the adequacy of advanced telecom capability deployment pursuant to a Telecom Act Section 706 mandate.
Democrats are aiming to move their newly filed Save the Internet Act through the House first amid perceptions the net neutrality bill faces better prospects there than in the Senate, lobbyists said. The bill mirrors the Congressional Review Act resolution that last year aimed to undo FCC rescission of its 2015 rules. Colorado and Hawaii state-level net neutrality bills this week cleared their originating chambers.
Antitrust law isn't a “Swiss Army knife,” capable of solving a host of social ills like privacy concerns, Senate Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman Mike Lee, R-Utah, said Tuesday during a hearing on monopolies. But ranking member Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said the increase in ownership concentration, particularly with tech, is leading to stagnating wages and other consumer harms.
A C-Band Alliance proposal for how CBA would protect earth stations in the 3.7-4.2 GHz band from interference from flexible use operations in the lower part of the band isn't winning over all critics. American Cable Association Senior Vice President-Government Affairs Ross Lieberman emailed that CBA's docket 18-122 posting Tuesday "fails to address the most pressing concerns ... like higher prices, lost programming, and foregone investments. CBA’s failure to acknowledge and offer solutions to these problems highlights why they are not suited -- whereas the FCC is -- to manage any reimbursement program for C-band users.”
Grace Koh, who started working at the State Department Monday, was designated Tuesday to lead the U.S. delegation to the 2019 World Radiocommunication Conference. The move was expected. Some feared it might not be automatic given White House personnel issues (see 1903040058).
NTCA objected to an FCC draft order on intermediate carrier standards the association said could increase rural call completion problems. The RLEC group urged the FCC to add to the draft's "flexible" service-quality standards and condition elimination of existing "covered" originating provider record-keeping duties. WTA backed NTCA, but some others supported the draft, tentatively scheduled for a vote at a March 15 commissioners meeting (see 1902220062).
Former FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, now a consultant to T-Mobile/Sprint on their proposed deal, offered her first public defense during a Capitol Hill lunch sponsored by the Georgetown Institute for Tech Law & Policy Tuesday. The panel presented arguments for and against the transaction, now before the FCC and DOJ. T-Mobile acknowledged to lawmakers it spent $195,000 at the Trump International Hotel in Washington since announcing its proposed buy of Sprint in April (see 1903050044).