Verizon agreed to pay a fine of just more than $1 million and implement a compliance plan following a December 2022 outage that affected 911 voice-over-LTE calls in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. The outage lasted one hour and 44 minutes and prevented "hundreds of 911 calls" from being completed through Verizon Wireless’ network, the FCC said Tuesday. Verizon experienced a similar outage in October 2022, the agency said. Verizon agreed to a consent decree with the Enforcement Bureau. “When you call 911 in an emergency, it’s critical that your call goes through,” FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said. The December outage “was the result of the reapplication of a known flawed security policy update file by a Verizon Wireless employee,” the bureau said: “Verizon Wireless was aware that the version of the security policy update file that caused the outage was related to the root cause of the outage that occurred in October. Due to insufficient naming convention protocols and a failure to follow then-current implementation protocols, the flawed security policy update file was reintroduced into the Verizon Wireless network.”
Amateur radio operators were the most prolific commenters to an FCC Public Safety Bureau request for comment on the effects of the May 7-11 geomagnetic storm. Responses were due Monday in docket 24-161 (see 2405240046). Amateurs submitted most of the 17 comments. “Developing an ability to better predict storms such as the … 2024 geomagnetic storm is essential to prevent serious disruptions to our nation’s communications services as well as to the electric grids that power them,” the American Radio Relay League said. The storm “affected amateur radio communications as expected, with radio black outs between many areas of the world and signals with substantially reduced strength between other areas of the world, depending upon frequency and time,” ARRL said. NOAA said the storm touched some of its systems. “With the growing interdependence on spectrum across critical infrastructure systems, there is increased potential vulnerability to space weather,” NOAA said. The agency said “several specific examples can be seen of systems operating erratically due to the geomagnetic storms,” including farm equipment running in circles “due to loss of navigational signals.” SpaceX satellites “measured two-to-three times more drag than normal in orbits at 300 km and as much as five times more drag in orbits at 550 km,” it said. SpaceX was “fortunately able to maintain service throughout the May solar storm,” and on the day the storm peaked, “the average Starlink user saw less than one minute of disruption.” Iridium’s second-generation constellation “experienced an instantaneous, but short lived, increase in the atmospheric drag up to 10 times greater than normal” during the storm, the company reported. Iridium said it continuously monitors its system and was able to address the storm's issues: “The monitoring for this storm was not new, although more engineers were required to be engaged because each of the six planes in the constellation has a different angle from the sun, and experienced different impacts from the storm.”
The FCC Media Bureau is seeking comment on channel substitutions for King Broadcasting Company and Gray Television Licensee, NPRMs in Monday's Federal Register said. Comments are due July 24 in docket No. 24–152 for King’s request to switch the channel for KTVB Boise from 7 to 23, and in docket No. 24–153 for WRDW–TV Augusta, Georgia, to change from 27 to 12, the NPRMs said.
The FCC Wireless Bureau Monday approved utility company Evergy's request for a waiver of the agency’s 2018 900 MHz licensing freeze, thus providing it with access to additional spectrum (see 1809130064). The bureau noted that when it sought comment on the request last year, there were no filings in support or opposition (see 2309120047). “Grant of a waiver is in the public interest, as Evergy has demonstrated a long-standing need to upgrade and expand a complex multi-state communications system that is critical to its extensive utility operations and the safety of its personnel, and thereby replace significantly older, no longer supported network equipment,” the bureau said. Evergy has headquarters in Topeka, Kansas, and in Kansas City, Missouri.
SpaceX's second-generation Starlink satellites are proving more robust than expected and can operate easily a couple of hundred kilometers lower than their 525-535 km operational orbits without hardware changes, the company told the FCC Space Bureau last week. It said its pending request for operating in the 340-360 km range capitalizes "on the significant space sustainability and service improvements that lower-altitude operations allow." SpaceX said it has been coordinating with NASA and the National Science Foundation to ensure that the lower-altitude operations won't increase risk to federal space and science missions and in many cases will decrease risk. Earlier this month, the bureau posed a series of questions to SpaceX about its lower-altitude plans. Pointing to its partial approval of the company's second-generation constellation (see 2212010052), including a condition that it not deploy satellites that operate below the International Space Station -- roughly 400 km altitude --, the agency asked how many satellites SpaceX anticipates operating below the ISS at any one time. In its filing last week, SpaceX said the figure could vary, but potentially 600, though perhaps more. It said it hopes ultimately the FCC will sign off on 19,440 satellites at 340-360 km altitudes, as it requested in its second-generation application. However, for now it wants to include those orbital shells as an option for its first tranche of 7,500 second-gen satellites. SpaceX said its automated collision avoidance system "has proven its mettle on-orbit."
The National Sheriffs' Association urged the FCC to include safety and surveillance costs in its final ratemaking for incarcerated people's communications services (IPCS), holding separate meetings with aides to Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and Commissioners Nathan Simington, Geoffrey Starks and Brendan Carr. NSA also met with Wireline Bureau and Office of Economics and Analytics staff. It said that jails are "subject to a broad array of requirements that necessitate safety and security measures," in a filing posted Friday (docket 23-62). IPCS can also "expose jails to liability for failing to fulfill their obligations to the incarcerated," NSA said. "It is important to recognize that the commission does not have authority over jails," NSA said: "The commission must therefore take care not to interfere with the operation of jails as it develops an IPCS compensation plan." NSA also asked that the FCC "disregard proposals to use industry-wide average costs based on the general telecommunications industry," noting the industry is "largely deregulated." The group suggested developing separate rates for smaller jails "due to the unique cost structure of such facilities" and higher rates for jails based on average daily population.
With the FCC signing off on four of Tomorrow Companies' planned non-geostationary orbit satellites and deferred action on 14 more, Tomorrow is asking the agency's Space Bureau to modify its grant, going to six satellites and allowing the company to move on the remaining 12. The Space Bureau application posted Thursday included updated re-entry casualty risk information; the agency in granting the four weather satellites had deferred action on the 14 pending updated re-entry casualty information (see 2405200049). Tomorrow said it's trying to make redesigns that are part of the updated re-entry casualty information, but they don't appear to be practical to be implemented before the seventh and eighth scheduled missions. It said it anticipates an October launch for its third and fourth satellites, with another 10 launching in Q1 2025.
Banning early-termination fees (ETF) and requiring prorated refunds would hurt consumers, but should the FCC go that route, it should ban only "unjust or unreasonable" whole-month billing, NCTA and cable operators said Thursday in docket 23-405. Recapping a meeting with Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel's office and Media Bureau Chief Holly Sauer, the cablers said that approach would "preserve the benefits of reasonable ETFs" and protect consumers from excessively high ETFs. Reasonable ETFs would be transparently disclosed, or cable companies could grant a grace period, letting consumers cancel video service without incurring a fee, they said. Moreover, the record would need further development before supporting extending ETF rules to bundled services, they added. Representatives of Comcast, Charter Communications and Cox Enterprises also met with the FCC on these items. In December, FCC commissioners 3-2 approved a video service fees NPRM that proposes banning ETFs and requiring prorated refunds when service is canceled (see 2312130019).
The FCC Media Bureau is seeking comment on a petition to create a more powerful Class-A FM station class known as A-10, a public notice said Thursday. The petition, from Commander Communication, asks the agency to allow existing Class A FM stations to upgrade to the higher power class where they wouldn’t interfere with other co-channel stations. Commander CEO Carl Haynes told us his proposal would follow the existing interference rules and allow many FM stations to be more economically viable and extend reach. “Implementing these proposals will enable stations to better serve the public with a more reliable signal for news and emergency weather notifications,” the petition said. A previous FM power increase proposal, creating a C4 class of FM station, has been stalled at the FCC since 2016. Comments on the A10 petition are due in docket 24-183 on July 22, replies Aug. 21.
The FCC Media Bureau approved a deal for Gray Television to sell two TV stations in Wyoming and Nebraska to Marquee Broadcasting in exchange for Marquee’s FCC-issued construction permit to build a station in Salt Lake City, an order in Thursday’s Daily Digest said. Because the swap includes transferring a Gray station that carries top-four affiliate channels -- KGWN-TV Cheyenne, Wyoming -- the deal falls under the agency’s new 2018 quadrennial order, which requires transactions involving multiple top-four programming streams to be considered on a case-by-case basis. The agency approved the deal because there doesn’t appear to be a commercially viable alternative home for KGWN’s CBS and NBC network affiliations, the order said. “Permitting Marquee to acquire KGWN with its two top-four network affiliations intact” is "in the public interest and would ensure the preservation of local news service and network-affiliated program distribution in the local market,” the order said.