The FCC said a forum on 5G open radio access networks, postponed in March because of the COVID-19 pandemic, will happen virtually Sept. 14. Chairman Ajit Pai and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are scheduled to speak. Pai will moderate an industry panel on virtualized networks. “Open and virtualized radio access networks may help operators deploy more secure, cost-effective 5G networks,” Pai said Tuesday. The U.S. must “lead the way in researching and developing innovative approaches to mobile network deployment,” he said. The session starts at 10:30 a.m. EDT. "Open RAN networks enable providers to bring together best-in-class vendors, including from the U.S., unleashing innovation and unlocking the economic potential enabled by 5G,” emailed Stephen Bye, Dish Network executive vice president-chief commercial officer, saying Dish is building "the nation's first cloud native Open RAN based 5G network.”
The citizens broadband radio service auction bids continue to climb, hitting a net $4.3 billion after four rounds Monday. The auction first hit $1 billion Aug. 3, climbing to $3 billion Aug. 11. New Street said in a Friday note when prices in large urban areas like New York and Los Angeles were close to 50 cents MHz/POP, “demand fell sharply as bidders pulled out of those markets. Many of those bids were then parked in counties where supply exceeded demand, creating a rotation of bids that drove up gross proceeds while leaving aggregate bids little changed.” Four more rounds are scheduled Tuesday.
Reject Broadnet Teleservices' ask that the FCC find the Telephone Consumer Protection Act doesn’t apply (see 2007210049) to calls made “by or on behalf of federal, state, and local governments when such calls are made for official purposes,” consumer groups told the FCC. “There is no legal authority to support defining local governments as anything other than ‘persons’ fully covered by the TCPA’s requirements,” said the National Consumer Law Center, the Consumer Federation of America, Consumer Reports, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and Public Knowledge. “None of the reasons cited by Broadnet in support of this interpretation actually provide a real justification for Broadnet’s request, as most of the calls described as needing to be made either can already be made under the TCPA’s emergency exception, or because the local government would have received prior consent for the calls from the recipients,” they said, in a filing posted Monday in docket 02-278.
Aug. 19 is the deadline for comments on an ACA Connects' request or a stay of the Aug. 31 deadline for earth station operators to make C-band clearing lump sum elections (see 2008140033), the FCC Wireless Bureau said in a public notice in Monday's Daily Digest. ACA asked for the stay pending resolution of its application for review of the C-band final cost category public notice's exclusion of the cost of integrated receivers/decoders, bureau said, it said Friday in docket 18-122.
There are 23,522 cable and wireline subscribers without service due to the “Midwest Derecho” in the 24 Iowa counties covered by the current activation of the FCC’s disaster information reporting system, said Monday’s report. There were 38,088 subscribers without service Sunday. The affected areas also have outages at 2.4% of cellsites, a slight improvement over Sunday's 2.7%. Eight FM stations and one AM station are out of service, and no public safety answering point reported being down, the report said.
FTC Chairman Joe Simons’ two-year recusal in the agency’s antitrust case against Qualcomm ended in May, a spokesperson confirmed (see 2008110065). The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Qualcomm in the case this past week. The FTC can appeal if the commission approves.
NTCA members taking part in the FCC's Keep Americans Connected pledge this spring racked up on average $80,000 in uncollectible debt and need Congress to help cover that expense, NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield told C-Span's The Communicators, scheduled to be telecast this weekend. She said she hopes whatever stimulus bill Congress passes will include funding for that. There has been "some bridging" of the digital divide in recent months as providers try to connect as many people as they can, but a sizable gap remains and none of the stimulus money spent so far has been directed at connectivity for low-income or rural Americans, she said. Asked about the various infrastructure bills, she talked up the Keeping Critical Connections Act (S-3569) spearheaded by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn. She said the FCC's designation of Huawei and ZTE as a national security threat to communications networks affects a handful of NTCA members, with rural wireless providers more affected, and that Congress will also need to look at funding for replacing hardware from those companies.
The largest cable ISPs added 1.4 million broadband subscribers in Q2 of this year, the most additions since Q1 2007 and up from the 530,000 added the same quarter a year ago, said Leichtman Research Group Thursday. The largest cable ISPs ended the quarter with 70.6 million subs, it said. Landline telecoms ended the quarter with 32.7 million subs, down 155,000 in the quarter, similar to what they lost in Q2 2019, it said. Charter Communications' 850,000 net adds were more than for any provider in any previous quarter, it said.
The FCC voted 4-1 to cancel a 2016 proposal to fine AT&T $106,425 for E-rate violations because the notice of apparent liability was issued after the one year statute of limitations on the violations, said an order in Wednesday’s Daily Digest (see 1608260037). The original NAL argued AT&T’s failure to charge two Florida school districts the lowest corresponding price was a continuing violation of the rules. Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel dissented, saying she respected the procedural argument but believes there were merits to the previous FCC’s approach. The 2016 FCC’s stance that some violations should be treated as continuing would lead to more accountability for USF carriers, she said. She also said the date of violations should be pegged to USF disbursements. Commissioner Geoffrey Starks voted “concur” but raised similar concerns: “The Commission should consider how we can best promote timely detection of violations to avoid future problems with the statute of limitations.” Commissioner Mike O’Rielly said the original NAL would have failed on the merits if it hadn’t been canceled. “The previous Commission’s attempt to evade the applicable statute of limitations through its continuing violation theory was offensive to the rule of law and must be thoroughly rejected,” he said. “This NAL was dismissed because it was procedurally flawed," emailed an AT&T spokesperson. "But it was also substantively flawed, and egregiously so, as its core factual and legal claims were simply wrong.”
The FCC activated the disaster information reporting system and issued three public notices Wednesday on emergency communication procedures and contacting the agency in response to Monday’s “Midwest Derecho” in Iowa. Communications licensees in 24 Iowa counties are requested to report at 10 a.m. Thursday and every day after that until DIRS is deactivated, said the DIRS PN. The FCC “will be available to address emergency communications needs twenty-four hours a day throughout the weekend,” said a second notice, and the third provided bureau contact information for entities seeking emergency special temporary authority and other assistance to maintain or recover communications affected by the storm.