Different levels of government should improve coordination in emergencies and reduce barriers to telemedicine, the FCC Intergovernmental Advisory Committee reported, released Thursday. IAC covers delivering multilingual emergency alerts to people who speak in different languages or have communication disabilities, improving communications among state, local, tribal and territorial government on emergency alerting system procedures, enhancing coordination for disaster resiliency efforts, and reducing regulatory barriers to telemedicine. There are “valuable insights and recommendations that will help inform the work of the FCC and that of our state, local, Tribal, and territorial government partners,” said FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. The FCC should develop “non-language-oriented” alerts based on symbols and colors to address the current paucity of multilingual emergency alerts and alerts intended for those with disabilities, said the multilingual alerting report. “Use of universal colors, symbols and sounds takes the language barrier out of the equation.” IAC suggested that state emergency communication committee alerting plans include reaching non-English speakers and the disabled. To prevent and minimize the repercussions of incidents such as the January 2018 false missile alert in Hawaii, SECCs should require state, local, tribal and territorial (SLTT) governments to regularly hold annual meetings of their emergency managers, said another report. The FCC should consider formalizing requirements that states document such meetings, the report said. Direct state EAS plans to involve social media protocols that include the specific SLTT entities that will issue messages, and the contents of such messages, it said. The FCC should update rules to require SECCs adopt recommendations from the agency’s report on the Hawaii incident to deal with and prevent false alerts, the document recommended. Those include changes to software to separate tests from real alerts, redundant lines of communication, and protocols for handling false alerts. Best practice “is to actually plan and coordinate with each other on a regular basis during ... normal, non-emergency, working conditions,” the disaster resiliency report said: Locate critical communications facilities and access roads and make recovery crews aware of critical lines to avoid damage. Wireless providers should set up roaming agreements in advance of disasters, and more work is needed to ensure public safety communications interoperability, it said. Barriers to telemedicine include limited technical support in rural hospitals, physician concerns over reimbursement, and complexities of credentialing and privileging for telecare providers, the IAC reported.
Companies and associations urged opening the 6 GHz band for sharing with Wi-Fi, writing FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. “The Wi-Fi industry powers 13 billion devices worldwide,” said Tuesday's letter in docket 18-295: “Wi-Fi has become the single most important wireless technology for American consumers and businesses.” The letter notes no new mid-band spectrum has been made available for Wi-Fi for 20 years, “causing a severe shortage for a wireless technology that handles 75 percent of mobile data traffic.” Apple, Boingo Wireless, Broadcom, Charter Communications, Cisco, the Consortium for School Networking, Facebook, Google, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Intel, Juniper Networks, Marvell, Microsoft, Netgear, New America’s Open Technology Institute, Philips North America, Public Knowledge, Qualcomm, Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition, Sony Electronics, Wireless ISP Association and Wisper Internet were among signers.
CTIA asked the FCC to pause new Lifeline standards, in a filing posted Wednesday in docket 11-42. “CTIA remains concerned that the impending four-fold increase in minimum service standards for mobile wireless data from 2 GB to 8.75 GB” on Dec. 1 “as well as the phase-down in support for voice services, will severely hinder eligible low-income consumers' ability to choose Lifeline supported mobile wireless services." A TracFone proposal (see 1910310009) to instead require a monthly broadband data allowance of 3 GB while the agency explores a new standard is “a reasonable alternative to meaningfully increase the minimum service standards for mobile wireless data services, while mitigating the negative impact to low-income consumers,” CTIA said.
Commissioner Mike O’Rielly is headed to Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, to take part in the 2019 World Radiocommunication Conference, FCC officials confirmed. Chairman Ajit Pai was at the opening stages and O’Rielly’s trip is timed so he can be there near the end of the conference. He's expected to return before the commissioners’ meeting Nov. 22. O’Rielly was at the last WRC in 2015 and is active in international spectrum issues. He said in a recent speech U.S. priorities should include pushing for 3.1-3.3 GHz to be among the bands studied for future wireless broadband and protecting the use of the 6 GHz band for Wi-Fi (see 1910240030). O’Rielly advocates a bigger leadership role for the U.S. in the ITU (see 1710050055).
The FCC postponed its November commissioners' meeting to Nov. 22, it said Tuesday. The meeting, still set for 10:30 a.m., had been scheduled for Nov. 19; the agency didn't give a reason.
Net neutrality advocacy groups asked the U.S. Appeals Court for the D.C. Circuit for a 28-day extension for petitioners and intervenors to petition for a rehearing or rehearing en banc of Mozilla v. FCC (case 18-1051), in an unopposed motion filed (in Pacer) Tuesday. They ask that the deadline be extended from Nov. 15 to Dec. 13.
The FCC Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee will meet Dec. 3, starting at 9:30 a.m. at FCC headquarters, says Tuesday's Federal Register. “The BDAC will receive status reports and updates from its three working groups: Disaster Response and Recovery, Increasing Broadband Investment in Low-Income Communities, and Broadband Infrastructure Deployment Job Skills and Training Opportunities,” the FCC said.
AT&T warned of looming challenges to rules for the sale of the C band, in a meeting with FCC General Counsel Tom Johnson. “Some parties have asserted that the [C-Band Alliance’s] private sale of ‘clearing rights’ with winning bidders subsequently applying for licenses would violate the requirement that new spectrum licenses be awarded through a system of competitive bidding,” AT&T said in docket 18-122, posted Monday. “AT&T is also concerned that, without notice and comment to adopt detailed Commission rules governing the auction and the transition, various stakeholders may bring notice or arbitrariness claims under the Administrative Procedure Act and otherwise reduce their support for, and participation in, the reallocation process,” the carrier said: Risk remains of “judicial appeals, and because of the nature of the objections, those appeals could leave the proposed auction in an extended legal limbo that could delay reallocation of this spectrum for years.” America’s Communications Association, meanwhile, filed a new report from Vantage Point Solutions in docket 18-122 on the amount of fiber required under its C-band plan. The report said connecting all MVPD earth stations with fiber through the purchase of indefeasible rights of use (IRUs) on 300,000 route miles of existing fiber and the construction of 120,000 additional route miles, “as proposed in the 5G Plus Plan, is achievable within the plan’s 18-36 month timeframe for urban and suburban markets and five-year timeframe for rural areas,” said the filing. IRUs for 300,000 route miles of fiber “are relatively easy to acquire in today’s market, and fiber IRU availability is nearly ubiquitous in urban and suburban areas,” ACA said: MVPDs are “capable of deploying hundreds of thousands of fiber route miles annually, far more than the plan requires.”
The FCC Enforcement Bureau settled with CenturyLink and West Safety Communications to end a probe into a multistate 911 outage on Aug. 1, 2018. Under consent decrees, CenturyLink agreed to pay $400,000 and West $175,000, and pledged to implement a compliance plan, the FCC said Monday. The 65-minute outage occurred when a West Safety Services technician mistakenly made a configuration change to the 911 routing network, resulting in many calls failing to route properly to 911 centers, the FCC said. In June, the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission voted 5-0 to require more 911 reporting by CenturyLink after a state probe into the 911 outage (see 1906130053). “The August 2018 event was caused by a third-party vendor’s employee error,” a CenturyLink spokesperson emailed. “We quickly notified public safety officials in impacted areas,” then “focused our efforts on future reliability by working closely with our vendor to ensure improved processes were implemented to prevent this type of error from recurring.” FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks said the FCC should have hit CenturyLink harder, especially as a repeat offender (see 1504060050). The settlement “does not address the repeat nature of the outages, and in fact the consent decree fails to even mention the 2015 action,” he said: “Today’s consent decree re-adopts measures previously instituted, including designating a compliance officer and developing and implementing a compliance plan reflecting industry best practices. Notably, even though the consent decree assigns fault for the outage at issue here to a subcontractor, the compliance plan contains nothing about better coordination and supervision of such parties.”
Incompas General Counsel Angie Kronenberg asked members Monday to share their perspectives on proposals for the FCC on how it should address the USF contribution factor to make the program more sustainable. She spoke at the end of a policy talk at the annual Incompas show in Louisville. She said Incompas, NTCA, the Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition and other USF stakeholders have begun discussions toward an agreement on suggestions to overhaul the USF contribution system that they will take to the FCC. Last month, state members of a federal-state joint task force on universal service sent their own proposal to the FCC, which included an assessment of residential broadband (see 1910150045). During the policy panel, Inteserra Consulting Vice President Carey Roesel predicted the USF contribution factor, already at a record high this quarter of 25 percent, could reach 40 percent within three years if the FCC and the Universal Service Administrative Co. don't make changes.