Regulators should establish an AI safety model with a supervised process for developing standards and a market that rewards companies exceeding those standards, former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said Monday in a Brookings Institution column. This supervised process should convene “affected companies and civil society to develop standards,” he wrote in a column with telecom and tech policy analyst Blair Levin. “Just as the standard for mobile phones has been agile enough to evolve from 1G through 5G as technology has evolved, so can a standard for AI behavior evolve as the technology evolves,” they wrote. Wheeler and Levin recommended ongoing oversight, which would require transparency and collaboration between public and private partners.
NextNav said Monday it won a $1.9 million award from the Department of Transportation to conduct real-world field tests of its 3D positioning, navigation and timing technologies. In April, NextNav asked the FCC to reconfigure the 902-928 MHz band “to enable a high-quality, terrestrial complement” to GPS for PNT services (see 2404160043). “We realize the importance of a terrestrial PNT complement and backup to support our nation’s critical infrastructure, and we look forward to working with the U.S. DOT to demonstrate our PNT capabilities,” NextNav CEO Mariam Sorond said.
NTCA urged that the FCC adopt additional safeguards as part of a draft order and Further NPRM that lets schools and libraries use E-rate support for off-premises Wi-Fi hot spots and wireless internet services. Commissioners are set to vote on the measure July 18 (see 2406270068). “The most effective use of E-rate funds would be to ensure that funded Wi-Fi hotspots are not made available where service is already available as reflected in the National Broadband Map,” a filing posted Tuesday in docket 21-31 said. The FCC shouldn’t fund a hot spot “at any location that is currently connected leveraging the use of high-cost USF support,” NTCA said. NTCA met with aides to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and Commissioner Nathan Simington.
Funding Wi-Fi on school buses through the E-rate program (see 2312200040) will advance students’ education, according to a Monday brief supporting an FCC declaratory ruling before the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition filed the brief (docket 23-60641). Petitioners Maurine and Matthew Molak challenged expanding the program, contending it will increase the federal universal service charge they pay as a line-item on their monthly phone bill (see 2406040024). SBLB said when the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was enacted, teachers worked with chalkboards and handouts and students carried their textbooks home at night to do their homework. Today, “students are instructed to access reading assignments on web-based learning platforms, to watch online video presentations, and to complete and submit interactive homework assignments online,” SBLB said. The shift to remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic “greatly accelerated the use of Internet-based education,” the group said: “School-bus Internet access serves an important educational purpose because Internet access is essential to modern learning.” The Molaks, whose son was a cyberbullied suicide victim, have also argued that the ruling will give children and teenagers unsupervised social media access.
CaptionCall will pay a nearly $35 million fine and implement a compliance plan following an FCC Enforcement Bureau investigation about data privacy for consumers with disabilities, according to a consent decree Tuesday. The bureau found that the company unlawfully retained call content beyond the duration of a call and submitted inaccurate information to the Telecom Relay Service Fund administrator. The investigation found that CaptionCall retained some call content of TRS users for three years before the issue was discovered. TRS providers must "take additional precautions given their unique access to the content of their customers' calls," Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said.
T-Mobile challenged the FCC's 3-2 April decision (see 2404290044) fining the carrier for allegedly not safeguarding data on customers' real-time locations. The challenge was made at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Notices of apparent liability were proposed in 2020 against T-Mobile and other carriers under then-Chairman Ajit Pai, a Republican, but the commission’s two current Republicans, Brendan Carr and Nathan Simington, dissented in April. Carr voted for the NAL in 2020, but raised concerns at the time. “The majority held -- for the first time” that customer proprietary network information (CPNI) “encompasses mobile-device location information that is unrelated to voice calls,” T-Mobile said in challenging the order in docket 24-1224. The carrier was fined more than $80 million, plus $12 million for violations by Sprint, which it subsequently acquired (see 2404290044). The order is “unlawful, arbitrary and capricious, an abuse of discretion, and unconstitutional,” T-Mobile told the court. The location information cited “is not CPNI within the meaning of Section 222(h)(1)(A) [of the Telecommunications Act], as the statutory text, context, and Commission precedent make clear,” T-Mobile said: “At a minimum, the Commission failed to provide fair notice of its novel, expansive statutory and regulatory interpretations -- the Order punishes T-Mobile based on legal requirements that the majority adopted for the first time in this proceeding and retroactively applied to T-Mobile’s past conduct.” T-Mobile said it “adopted numerous safeguards to protect the privacy of its customers’ location data, and it acted promptly and decisively to stop rogue actors from misusing location data for unauthorized purposes.” On Monday, Jacob Lewis, FCC associate general counsel, filed to represent the agency in the case. T-Mobile also filed an appeal on behalf of Sprint in docket 24-1224.
The FCC activated the disaster information reporting system for six Texas counties affected by Hurricane Beryl, a public notice said late Monday. The alert encompasses Brazoria, Chambers, Fort Bend, Galveston, Harris and Matagorda counties. In addition, it activated the mandatory disaster response initiative for facilities-based mobile wireless providers in the affected area, which requires companies to allow reasonable roaming and cooperate in service restoration during disasters. Tuesday’s DIRS report shows 28.7% of cell sites down in the affected counties, and 803,501 cable and wireline subscribers without service. No TV stations were reported down, but two FM and two AM stations were listed as out of service. The FCC also issued public notices on priority communications services and emergency contact procedures for licensees that need special temporary authority. The Public Safety Bureau issued a reminder for entities clearing debris and repairing utilities to avoid damaging communications infrastructure. T-Mobile said in a news release Tuesday that it has deployed trucks and trailers equipped with Wi-Fi and device charging, and its emergency response team is at the Texas Department of Emergency Management (TDEM) State Emergency Operations Center in Austin.
Sustaining broadband networks is a “paramount objective” of the Nebraska Universal Service Fund (NUSF) high-cost program, especially with the "influx of federal and state deployment funding," the Nebraska Public Service Commission decided in a Tuesday order. Commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday for two orders on state USF changes (docket NUSF-139) and to consider sanctions against Windstream for three separate 911 outages (docket 911-076).
Multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) and independent video programming interests remain miles apart over the FCC's proposed restrictions on carriage agreement terms. In reply comments (docket 24-115) posted Tuesday, MVPDs reiterated their assertions (see 2406100005) that most-favored-nation (MFN) and alternative distribution method (ADM) contract terms ultimately benefit programmers and viewers, while programmers said such terms are smothering their ability to compete.
ISPs told the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in two cases overturning the Chevron doctrine means the FCC’s net neutrality order must be stayed pending judicial review (see 2407010036). The FCC said Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and the other case had no implications for its order, which reclassified broadband as a Title II service under the Communications Act.