AT&T is putting “real money” into backup power systems in California, after last year’s public safety power shutoffs, Assistant Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Fassil Fenikile told California Public Utilities Commissioners at an en banc hearing. Cost is the biggest barrier to carriers adopting longer-life backup power at cellsites, said witnesses. AT&T has “taken a very high note of what happened in October” and will brief commissioners soon on its actions responding to the outages caused by power shutoffs, said Fenikile: “There is a lot of work underway.” The carrier is using portable, diesel-based generators with a focus on high-fire-risk areas, he said. All AT&T towers have battery backup system of up to eight hours, enough time to bring portable generators to sites without fixed generators, he said. There are “some scalability challenges” to deploying renewable backup systems, and space can be a limitation, he said. Without requirements or incentives, telecom operators make decisions about buying fuel cells based on what has the least immediate capital cost, said Darin Painter, Plug Power director-sales. Customers don’t consider long-term costs, he said. “The operators are looking for the initial investment, and they don't want to go beyond that,” agreed Ray Schnell, NantEnergy vice president-global business development. “Realistically, if you want 72 hours of storage like California's starting to think about, you really need a low-cost energy storage.” Adding value to backup power would help the business case, said SolarVision Consulting CEO Andrew Skumanich. "If you're going to be asking the telecom companies to be putting in assets that are essentially insurance for when the power drops, you're asking them to put out a capital outlay for assets that may be used 1% of the time, if that." The challenge is getting enough data and machine learning so a system knows when to switch energy sources, said Skumanich. There is such optimization software, said Schneider Electric Microgrid Competency Center Program Director John Ahrens. Earlier Wednesday, CPUC members heard about broadband adoption (see 2003040048).
A request for en banc review or a Supreme Court petition for writ of certiorari is next after a 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmation of a lower court's dismissal of a complaint against Charter Communications for running fiber cable using a Louisville Gas & Electric electrical line easement (see 1810240014). So said lawyer John Cox of Lynch Cox, representing landowner plaintiff Stephen West, in an email to us Wednesday. The opinion (docket 19-2442), filed Monday by Judges William Bauer, Frank Easterbrook and David Hamilton and written by Easterbrook, said Charter's use of the easement was permissible under Indiana law. Whether other state laws or other easement situations would justify a different reading of "dedicated for compatible uses" is a question for another case, the judges said.
The FCC is suspending “noncritical” domestic and international travel for employees (see 2003040060) and its involvement in “non-critical large gatherings that involve participants from across the country and/or around the world.” That's until further notice as a preventive measure related to the coronavirus, said a public notice Wednesday. Chairman Ajit Pai, Commissioner Brendan Carr, and Media Bureau staff were all slated to participate in the NAB Show April 18-22 in Las Vegas. The commission and NAB didn’t comment. The agency is also barring visitors to headquarters and facilities who in the past 14 days “have been in any country that is the subject of a COVID-19- related CDC Level 3 Travel Warning.” Those countries are currently China, Iran, Italy and South Korea, the PN said. “Similarly, employees and contractors who, during the most recent 14 days, have been in any of these countries are being asked not to enter FCC facilities.” An aide to Commissioner Geoffrey Starks said a planned hearing on artificial intelligence co-hosted by the commissioner will still take place in Detroit March 16. “The Chairman’s Office, in consultation with the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, the Office of Managing Director, and Office of General Counsel, will continue to monitor developments and will implement additional precautions (or relax current precautions) should circumstances warrant,” the PN said.
Comments are due March 30 for the FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs biennial report to Congress required by the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act, said a public notice in Tuesday’s Daily Digest on docket 10-213. CGB seeks comment on compliance with accessibility rules for “telecommunications and advanced communications services, equipment used with these services, and Internet browsers built into mobile phones,” and accessibility barriers involving newer communications tech, the PN said. The biennial report is due Oct. 8.
Coronavirus could hurt NBCUniversal Q1 revenue 7%-9% due largely to closure of its Osaka, Japan, theme park, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said at a Morgan Stanley investor conference Tuesday. Earlier that day, America's Communications Association said it's going ahead with its summit in Washington, D.C., next week, working with the Grand Hyatt venue to ensure "a clean environment with the best on hand in prevention and immediate care." Fox said Tuesday it won't attend the Morgan Stanley conference Wednesday due to "an abundance of caution" about coronavirus health concerns. Verizon Chief Financial Officer Matt Ellis, also at Morgan Stanley, said coronavirus currently is having a "not significant, not material" impact on the business. Comcast's Roberts said the Olympics are "full steam ahead," and if there's a disruption of the games, insurance would cover lost costs. He said construction of Universal's theme park in Beijing was down for several weeks but has since resumed and the park should open on time. Ellis said Verizon doesn't expect New T-Mobile and the emergence of Dish Network in the wireless space to affect his carrier's market share.
DOJ Antitrust Division Competition Policy Section Chief David Lawrence noted the FCC cited “remarkable efficiencies” in T-Mobile’s proposed purchase of Sprint as among the reasons the commission approved the deal in October (see 1910160058), speaking at a Tuesday Incompas event (see 2003030064). Lawrence temporarily transferred to the commission as head of its T-Mobile/Sprint Transaction Task Force (see 1806270068). FCC engineers found “real complementarities between” the T-Mobile and Sprint networks, and the commission’s order approving the deal requires the two carriers to build out their combined network “to a tremendous swath of the country,” Lawrence said. He wouldn’t discuss DOJ’s separate review of T-Mobile/Sprint, saying the agencies’ merger reviews are usually very similar and “tend to be very long” and “very thorough.” Lawrence noted a belief that good antitrust policy “puts competition in control.” That approach is especially important to the telecom sector because it’s now “really at the heart” of the U.S. economy, he said. It's "the goose that lays the golden eggs,” with 5G now poised to “be the next golden egg,” Lawrence said. U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero ruled last month against states’ challenge to T-Mobile/Sprint (see 2002110026). The California Public Utilities Commission will vote on the deal April 16 (see 2002240053).
Safe harbor rules should protect the telecom industry from liability when providers inadvertently block a legitimate call, they said, but companies placing outbound calls to customers demand efforts to ensure legitimate calls go through and corrective action when they don't, in comments to the FCC Wireline Bureau posted through Monday in docket 17-97. Public health and safety sectors report "alarmingly increased levels of blocked or mislabeled calls," said the Credit Union National Association. There's no comprehensive or reliable data on the effectiveness of blocking tools that identify illegitimate or fraudulent calls without also interfering with the ability of legitimate providers to have their calls completed or not mislabeled as spam, it said. USTelecom tells the FCC providers act with care and caution while call blocking. Providers are sensitive to overblocking, the accuracy of their analytics tools improve every day, and providers want to quickly address legitimate calls that are inadvertently blocked, it said. Industry can address concerns while under a safe harbor, it said. ACA International, which represents collection agencies, opposed a safe harbor and wants the FCC to rescind its call blocking declaratory ruling. It said current regulations give too much discretion to voice service providers to determine what types of calls can be blocked. Calls sent by alarm company central stations responding to an alarm continue to be blocked or labeled as potential fraud by voice providers, said the Alarm Industry Communications Committee. AICC urged the FCC to adopt a critical call list of numbers that may never be blocked, including central station numbers used to respond to alarms. But a database of whitelisted numbers "would be a target for bad actors to spoof and otherwise exploit, even with robust security measures," CTIA said. T-Mobile asked the FCC to work with stakeholders to adopt a narrow definition of critical calls, such as those from public safety answering points. T-Mobile also asked the FCC to remain flexible as it measures the success of call blocking. "The tactics used by scammers to target and reach consumers are always evolving," it said. Voice service providers should notify callers immediately upon blocking or labeling a call as spam, Twilio said, and designate a contact point for redress when calls are blocked erroneously. Industry must coalesce around a standard enabling transmittal of secure handling of asserted information using tokens (Shaken) and secure telephone identity revisited (Stir) call authentication information access across TDM-based networks as mandatory implementation deadlines approach, the Cloud Communications Alliance said.
The FTC had sent us a link to comments on its draft vertical merger guidelines (see 2002270043). We therefore are withdrawing a Freedom of Information Act request.
Commerce Department Deputy Chief of Staff and Policy Director Earl Comstock is leaving effective Friday, communications sector officials and lobbyists told us. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross confirmed Comstock’s impending departure Monday (see 2003020028). Ross noted Comstock had committed to “serve for three years.” Officials and lobbyists noted overarching controversy over his tenure, including his role in the department’s public disagreement with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai on 5G goals (see 1906120076). Comstock’s exit could provide a new opening for President Donald Trump’s administration to attempt to nominate a permanent replacement for former NTIA Administrator David Redl, though there appears to be little time left to feasibly advance a nominee through the Senate confirmations process, given the presidential campaign cycle, lobbyists said. Redl left abruptly in May, with some saying his disagreements with Comstock were a factor (see 1905090051). Work to find a permanent successor has been hindered by concerns about Comstock’s influence at Commerce (see 1908090070). Several officials pointed in December to Treasury Department acting Deputy Assistant Secretary-International Affairs Edward Hearst as a potential successor (see 1912160049), but he now appears to be out of the running because of objections to his tenure at Treasury, lobbyists said. Doug Kinkoph is acting NTIA administrator (see 1912230065). “The relationship between Earl and the NTIA was unprecedented and odd to be sure," said Gigi Sohn, Benton Institute senior fellow. "So are a lot of things about how this administration works.”
Senate passage of the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act (HR-4998) got more praise Thursday and Friday (see 2002270070), including from the bill’s original co-sponsors and FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks. The bill would allocate at least $1 billion to help U.S. communications providers remove from their networks Chinese equipment deemed to threaten national security. The House passed the measure in December (see 1912160052), meaning it now moves on to President Donald Trump. “The existence of Huawei’s technology in our networks represents an immense threat to America’s national and economic security,” said original bill sponsors House Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, D-N.J., ranking member Greg Walden, R-Ore., House Communications Subcommittee Vice Chair Doris Matsui, D-Calif., and Rep. Brett Guthrie, R-Ky. "This bipartisan bill will help communities across the country by bolstering efforts to keep our communications supply chain safe from foreign adversaries and other dangerous actors, while helping small and rural providers remove and replace suspect network equipment.” Starks tweeted he’s “very glad to see bipartisan agreement around helping small carriers get untrustworthy equipment out of their networks.” The FCC “needs to work quickly to get these funds to providers,” he said, replying to our tweet reporting the development. “We’ll all be more secure when the replacement is done.” FCC national security supply chain rules barring equipment from Chinese vendors Huawei and ZTE from networks funded by the USF took effect in January (see 2001020027).