The FCC Enforcement Bureau proposed fines against three wireless ISPs Thursday and warned industry on devices that apparently interfered with FAA terminal Doppler weather radar in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The bureau proposed $25,000 fines against wireless Boom Solutions, Integra Wireless and WinPR. The companies used unlicensed national information infrastructure (U-NII) devices for point-to-point communication operating in the 5.25-5.35 GHz and 5.47-5.725 GHz bands, the FCC said. Doppler radar uses the 5.60-5.65 GHz band. “The companies apparently misconfigured the devices by turning off a required feature that would have prevented the devices from causing interference to the FAA terminal doppler weather radar station at San Juan International Airport,” the agency said: “Interference to these weather radar stations, which are used to detect wind shear and other dangerous weather conditions, is potentially life threatening.” The WISPs didn’t comment. “Operators of U-NII devices must ensure certified devices are installed, configured, and operated in accordance with the Commission’s rules,” the FCC advisory said: “Proper operation of U-NII devices is particularly important when they are situated near terminal doppler weather radar stations and especially in the context of U-NII devices operated outdoors by" WISPs. The Wireless ISP Association said none of the companies is a member. “This is still a serious matter with potentially severe public safety consequences,” emailed President Claude Aiken: “WISPA has for several years educated its members on compliance with FCC rules, particularly the [Doppler radar] interference rules. We strongly encourage our members to stay in full compliance with all FCC rules.”
The FCC authorized $4.9 billion in federal subsidies over the next decade to maintain, improve and expand rural broadband for 455,334 homes and businesses as part of the alternative Connect America cost model (A-CAM) program. A report attached to Thursday's public notice details the annual support authorized for the 171 participating rate-of-return carriers in 39 states and American Somoa. At the high end, Golden West Telecommunications is authorized for $32.5 million in annual A-CAM support in South Dakota; Nemont Telephone, $13.6 million for Montana; and Hill Country Telephone Cooperative, $11.5 million in Texas. At the low end, North State Telephone is authorized to receive $6,800 yearly to provide broadband to all 36 locations within its designated North Carolina census block. The agency authorized broadband support to 44,232 homes and businesses in tribal lands.
The agreement DOJ extracted from T-Mobile/Sprint to sell off key assets to Dish Network so it can build a fourth national wireless network (see 1907260071) likely won’t work as planned, said John Kwoka, American Antitrust Institute senior fellow. The new T-Mobile has big advantages over Dish, Kwoka wrote Wednesday: “The merged firm has advantages in terms of information, control of assets, and pretextual excuses for what may appear to be non-compliance. It also has strong incentives not to aid its direct rival and make it into a more effective constraint on its own market position.” The settlement “fails the test of plausibly and predictably preserving competition in the U.S. wireless market,” he said: “It is anything but certain that Dish can successfully make itself into the fourth carrier that otherwise will disappear. Even if it does, it will be years before that happens.” Justice didn’t comment.
Comments are due to FCC Sept. 23, replies Oct. 7 on a Further NPRM in docket 19-195 that's part of an order establishing a digital opportunity data collection and modernizing Form 477 program. Commissioners OK'd the order Aug. 1 (see 1908070009). The agency wants recommendations on how to enhance the accuracy and usefulness of the data it uses to draw broadband maps, says a notice for Thursday's Federal Register.
The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security tried to answer questions from stakeholders about standards organizations' activities that involve Huawei and about its BIS entity listing. It calls for licenses for any activities involving “the exchange, transfer, or other disclosure of technology or software that is of U.S.-origin or is otherwise subject to the” export administration regulations, BIS said Tuesday. Examples include: “participating in a non-public working or study group involving the exchange ... of such technology,” “participating in electronic exchanges within a standards body, by email or other means, that contain or attach such technology or software” and “releasing or otherwise providing access to blueprints, flowcharts, schematics, prototypes, or similar materials that contain such technology.” U.S. carriers using Huawei got more time this week to adjust to restrictions pushed by President Donald Trump involving the company (see 1908190040).
The FCC's Disability Advisory Committee will meet Sept. 24, the agency said in a public notice Tuesday. The second meeting of the DAC's third term will include reports and recommendations on TV listings for audio-described programming and real-time text integration with video relay services and compatibility with Braille displays. The meeting will be 9 a.m. in the commission meeting room.
Hughes and startup Virtual Network Communications announced a partnership to extend mobile network connectivity using an integrated combination of VNC's deployable LTE technology with Hughes Jupiter and HM satellite systems. The connectivity will support various applications for government, militaries, first responders and commercial mobile network operators, the companies said Tuesday.
An FCC report released Monday provides numbering resource utilization/forecast data as of March 16, 2018, and porting and toll-free data as of Dec. 31, 2017, for competitive LECs, incumbent LECs, mobile wireless carriers, paging carriers and, for the first time, VoIP providers, it said.
The FCC will release a public notice with guidance on network reliability best practices to help protect against outages like the one CenturyLink experienced in late December (see 1812280033), said a Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau report Monday. The agency said it will offer assistance to smaller providers to ensure the nation's communications networks "remain robust, reliable, and resilient." CenturyLink's nationwide outage on its fiber network began Dec. 27, lasting nearly 37 hours and affecting as many as 22 million customers in 39 states (see 1901280023), the report said. Among the best practices, the FCC recommended network administrators disable or turn off system features not in use. In CenturyLink's case, it had not disabled a proprietary management channel, leaving its network vulnerable to malformed packets that propagated across the network. The report said filters should be able to address unanticipated rather than only specified risks to the system. It said network monitoring should include memory and processor utilization alarms "regularly audited to ensure functionality and evaluated to improve early detection and calibration." When the malformed data packets overwhelmed the processing capacity of the nodes at CenturyLink, no processor utilization alarms were triggered to alert the company of the "rapidly diminishing ability of nodes to process traffic." Telecom companies should have procedures in place for network repair when normal network monitoring procedures are inoperable or network administrators are unable to connect to nodes remotely for outage diagnosis, the agency advised. CenturyLink continues to cooperate fully with the FCC's investigation, the company said in an emailed statement Monday. "The outage was caused by a network management card that generated malformed packets that unfortunately were retransmitted across parts of CenturyLink's transport network." The company took a variety of steps to prevent a recurrence, it said, "including disabling the communication channel these malformed packets traversed during the event and enhancing network monitoring."
When the FCC Consumer Advisory Committee next meets Sept. 16, it will consider a Critical Calls List/Robocall Blocking group recommendation related to an NPRM to cut down on illegal robocalls and call authentication. The committee meets at 9 a.m. in the Commission Meeting Room, said a Friday public notice.