Massive changes in the global domain name system are causing connectivity problems, stakeholders said. The burgeoning number of top-level domains (TLDs) with more than three characters behind the dot (such as .connectivity) and the growing number of internationalized domain names (IDNs) in non-ASCII characters means not all domain names and email addresses work in all applications, they said. Universal acceptance (UA) is now a key issue for ICANN, standards bodies and the domain industry in general. It's the "concept that all domain names should be treated equally," and that domains and email addresses should be accepted, stored, processed and displayed in "a consistent and effective manner," said the Universal Acceptance Steering Group (UASG).
Municipal and electric cooperative pole attachment rates either chill rural broadband deployment, and their exemption from Section 224 of the Communications Act needs to end, or those rates are a nonissue. Those are the competing NCTA and National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) narratives before the FCC, with NCTA on Monday filing a 49-page study in docket 17-83 documenting notably higher pole attachment rates muni and co-op electric companies charge over investor-owned utilities.
INDIANAPOLIS -- As they extend broadband to hard-to-serve areas, some with subsidies from states and the FCC, ISPs are aiming to upgrade speeds, working in public-private partnerships and getting pole space from electric cooperatives and others. Some providers are doing this using multiple technologies, including fiber and licensed and unlicensed spectrum, they said on a NARUC panel Monday. They said state telecom commissions are generally easy to work with and one speaker identified some challenges at the federal level.
The FCC should equitably address discrepancies between the number of rural locations a broadband provider is funded to serve after alternative Connect America cost model (A-CAM) auctions and the number of actual locations the provider encounters during a network build-out phase, industry said in comments to FCC posted through Monday in docket 10-90, rather than impose penalties to providers when pre-bidding estimates turn out to be wrong (see 1907110003). The agency's Wireline Bureau "should study the impact of actual location discrepancies before deciding what measures are appropriate for A-CAM support recipients that experience location shortfalls," ITTA said.
INDIANAPOLIS -- There are alternatives to Congress and the FCC requiring carriers and others to remove from their networks equipment made by Chinese telecom gear makers, NARUC was told. Though some state commissioners later expressed skepticism, industry panelists (see 1:30 p.m. event listing) largely backed monitoring networks of U.S. companies for cyberattacks, including from Huawei or ZTE, and testing all equipment before installation for vulnerabilities. Stakeholders generally want testing and monitoring across the board, not limited to one company or manufacturers based in one country.
Questions remain about the draft rules for the upcoming auction of more than 17,000 numbers in the recently opened 833 toll-free code. Commissioners are to vote Aug. 1 on application, bidding and post-auction procedures for the FCC's first-of-its-kind auction, to be held on Dec. 17. The FCC previously chose Somos to administer the auction. The agency bills the auction as "an experiment in using competitive bidding as a way to assign toll free numbers."
Members of Congress continue introducing or working on bills targeting national security concerns with Chinese telecom equipment manufacturer Huawei, including a pending bill from House Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, D-N.J., lawmakers and lobbyists told us. Some on Capitol Hill said they're holding out hope that a conference committee to marry the disparate House and Senate versions of the FY 2020 National Defense Authorization Act will agree to include a trio of House-passed amendments that target Huawei and ZTE. But they and others said legislative vehicles and these recent stand-alone bills should be considered as an alternative if the conference process fails to bear fruit.
The FCC Communications Security, Reliability, and Interoperability Council started Friday at its first public meeting in this iteration. The focus was on promoting security for 5G and 911 networks, broadcaster resiliency and strengthening emergency alerting. The agency plans a notice asking for volunteers for the six working groups, agency officials said.
The FTC again met criticism last week from Senate Democrats and Republicans after reports of an estimated $5 billion privacy settlement with Facebook. A former commissioner defended the agency's reported 3-2 decision, saying a more-stringent penalty was never guaranteed in court.
Parties in proposed reallocation of some C band for 5G said each of their plans is the only one that makes sense, in docket 18-122 comments posted Friday. The Wireless and International bureaus and offices of Engineering and Technology and of Economics and Analytics said in a public notice Friday they were seeking comment on the band-clearing plans put forward by AT&T; America's Communications Association, the CCA and Charter Communications; and the Wireless ISP Association, Google and Microsoft. Comments are due Aug. 7 and replies Aug. 14.