The FCC Public Safety Bureau announced Monday that the agency's 911 reliability certification system is open for filing annual certifications, which are due Oct. 15. All covered service providers "must annually certify as to their compliance with circuit auditing, backup power, and network monitoring reliability measures,” the bureau said. “If a CSP does not conform to the elements of any of these reliability measures, the CSP must certify [as] to reasonable alternative reliability measures or explain why the requirements do not apply to its network as appropriate.”
A National Advertising Review Board panel agreed with the recommendation from the Better Business Bureau's National Advertising Division, which said T-Mobile should drop a claim that families who switch to the carrier can “save versus AT&T and Verizon’s comparable plans plus streaming,” as well as another similar claim. T-Mobile said it will comply with the decision. Verizon brought the challenge.
Comments are due Aug. 25, replies Sept. 1., on Declaration Networks Group's proposed purchase of Procom, the FCC Wireline Bureau said Monday. Procom offers competitive local exchange, interexchange and other communications services in West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Ohio, while DNG provides competitive communications services in Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia and Washington state, it said.
GCI agreed to pay a $10,000 fine for having an expired submarine cable landing license for its Alaska United East subsea cable system, according to an FCC Enforcement Bureau order in Monday's Daily Digest.
In a potential win for prisoners and their families, the FCC Wireline Bureau on Monday asked for comment on an application for review of a bureau order delaying some incarcerated people’s communications service deadlines until April 1, 2027 (see 2507310049). Supporters of the application said when they filed it that the bureau wasn't required by law to seek comment. Oppositions are due Aug. 29, replies Sept.15. All filings must refer to dockets 23-62 and 12-375, the bureau said.
The current administration's position on race- and gender-based governmental affirmative action obligations makes it unlikely that there will be future filings of the biennial ownership reports from broadcasters, Wilkinson Barker broadcast lawyer David Oxenford wrote Friday. The reports were instituted in large part to obtain race and gender information about broadcast ownership, as the data could potentially be used for FCC affirmative action considerations, Oxenford noted. In late July, the Media Bureau waived the requirement to file those reports for 18 months; they were to be due Dec. 1 (see 2507300070). Oxenford said the FCC's "Delete" proceeding has teed up a variety of other routine required filings from broadcasters that could be axed, such as the annual children's TV reports and the annual equal employment opportunity public inspection file reports.
Alleged pirate radio operators in two New England states face a total of $45,000 in proposed FCC fines, the Enforcement Bureau said in notices of apparent liability in Friday's Daily Digest. The agency proposed a $25,000 fine against Noah Opoku Gyamfi of Worcester, Massachusetts, and a $20,000 fine against Amoce Pamphile, Alemy Mondestin and Radio Evangelique de la Grace of Providence.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr appoints Enforcement Bureau Chief Technology Officer Andy Hendrickson as chief of the Office of Engineering and Technology, replacing acting Chief Ira Keltz, who returns to deputy chief ... Changes at Eutelsat Group: Eric Labaye, IDEL Partners, named board chairman, replacing Dominique D’Hinnin, stepping down; Lucia Sinapi-Thomas, Capgemini, joins as independent board member; Guillemette Kreis, French Government Shareholding Agency, acknowledged as France’s board representative; Michel Combes, SoftBank, resigns from board … Hughes Fire Equipment names Ryan Burchnell, formerly AT&T, as CEO of Emergency Technical Decon and Emergent and chief operating partner for Hughes Enterprises, newly created positions.
An FCC order conforming certain rules “to reflect the rules that are actually in effect,” resulting from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision invalidating the agency's latest net neutrality order (see 2501020028), becomes effective Friday, according to a Federal Register notice released Thursday. The order also addresses the 8th Circuit's 2002 Iowa Utilities Board II decision.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr announced Thursday he has named Enforcement Bureau Chief Technology Officer Andy Hendrickson as chief of the Office of Engineering and Technology. He replaces acting Chief Ira Keltz, who returns to deputy chief. Hendrickson joined the FCC last year after nearly a decade at Verizon, where he was most recently a senior director of the provider’s cloud platform. Historically, most chief engineers get the job after long service within OET. Keltz had been at the FCC for 30 years before he was tapped as acting chief last year, replacing Ron Repasi (see 2410030057).