Comments are due Sept. 14 on the National Lifeline Association’s petition for waiver of the scheduled increase in the minimum service standard for Lifeline mobile broadband (see 2008280050). Currently 3 GB, it will rise to 11.75 GB on Dec. 1 without FCC action. An order on circulation would change the way MSS increases are calculated and result in an MSS of 4.5 GB (see 2008240024). The NaLA petition filed last week also asks the FCC to halt a scheduled rate decrease, from $7.25 to $5.25. Replies are due Sept. 21, said Monday's Wireline Bureau public notice on dockets including 11-42.
Two John Malone-chaired public companies, GCI Liberty and Liberty Broadband, seek FCC OK to combine under Section 214 of the Communications Act, per an application Monday. GCI Liberty would become part of a Liberty Broadband subsidiary, with its operating companies keeping the GCI brand and its Anchorage management and headquarters. The deal was announced in August.
The FCC Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council will meet virtually Sept. 16, starting at 2 p.m. EDT, the FCC said Wednesday. CSRIC is expected to vote on three reports: on standard operating procedures for emergency alerting communications, on the risks from 3rd Generation Partnership Project releases 15 and 16, and on security risks and best practices for mitigation in legacy, transitional and next-generation 911 deployments, the FCC said.
Microsoft urged the FCC to stick with a proposal to increase the effective isotropic radiated power limit of fixed white space devices (WSD) from 40 dBm to 42 dBm in less congested areas and increase the height above average terrain (HAAT) of antennas from 250 to 500 meters, also in less congested areas. “Microsoft believes the Commission’s proposed coordination procedures for WSDs operating at a HAAT greater than 250 meters provides protection to incumbent operations from receiving harmful interference without being overly burdensome on the affected Wireless Internet Service Provider and the White Spaces Database Administrator,” said a filing posted Wednesday in docket 20-36. Commissioners approved a Further NPRM on white spaces rules 5-0 in February (see 2002280055). The Office of Engineering and Technology Wednesday said RED Technologies is now administrator of the white space database previously overseen by Nominet UK, as a result of a transfer of ownership and control.
Most annual fees for telemarketers accessing phone numbers on the FTC’s National Do Not Call Registry will increase “slightly” for fiscal 2021, the agency announced Wednesday with a proposed Federal Register notice. Telemarketers would pay $66 for yearly access to registry “numbers in a single area code,” an increase of $1 from 2020, the agency said. The max charge for entities accessing all area codes nationwide will increase from $17,765 to $18,044 in 2021. Telemarketers will pay $33, an increase from $32 in 2020, to access “an additional area code for a half year,” the FTC said. The commission voted 3-0-2, with Commissioners Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Christine Wilson not voting. Slaughter is on maternity leave and Wilson is on temporary medical leave, a spokesperson said.
House Republicans are aware that the Food and Drug Administration missed its statutory deadline Aug. 18 under the FDA Reauthorization Act for releasing for public comment proposed rules on a new category of over-the-counter hearing aids (see 2008200024), said an aide. “We also understand FDA has been laser-focused on responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and protecting public health,” said the aide. “We are in touch with FDA on a host of issues, and we’re hopeful proposed rules will be released for public comment soon.”
Ongoing participation and development of international standards topped the security and privacy agenda for the National Institute of Standards and Technology in 2019, the agency reported Tuesday. The 2019 NIST/Information Technology Laboratory Cybersecurity Program Annual Report outlines NIST’s research agenda. Enhancement of privacy and security risk management models, “advancement of cryptographic technologies” and “preparation for post-quantum cryptographic methods” were included on the agenda. NIST also highlighted the goal to improve “infrastructure protection in areas such as zero trust architectures and advanced networking security.”
Cable and other Wi-Fi advocates urged the FCC to act on reallocating the 5.9 GHz band for unlicensed use, in a call with an aide to Chairman Ajit Pai. Charter Communications, Comcast, Facebook and NCTA were among those on the call. “The 5.9 GHz band is key to delivering gigabit Wi-Fi and much-needed unlicensed capacity to American consumers in the very near term,” said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 19-138: “Consumers heavily rely on Wi-Fi to connect to the internet, as Wi-Fi carries a majority of internet traffic and a significant percentage of the traffic offloaded from mobile networks, and are using it more than ever before to work, learn, connect with each other and engage with their communities from a distance.” A vote on the band is expected at the Oct. 27 commissioners’ meeting (see 2008200040).
The Dynamic Spectrum Alliance supported having 5G in the 12 GHz band (see 2007140001). Adopt an NPRM to “modernize the service rules governing use of the highly valuable but grossly underutilized spectrum between 12.2 and 12.7 GHz,” DSA said in a filing posted Friday in docket RM-11768. “The 12 GHz band presents an opportunity to adopt a sharing framework that greatly expands the availability of a contiguous 500 megahertz of spectrum with favorable propagation characteristics for both fixed and mobile broadband deployments,” DSA said.
The Food and Drug Administration acknowledged missing its statutory deadline under the FDA Reauthorization Act of 2017 for proposing the rule to create a category of over-the-counter hearing aids for people with mild or moderate hearing loss. Section 709 of the statute gave the FDA three years after enactment to release the proposed rule for public comment. The three-year deadline was Tuesday. "Although FDA staff are tirelessly working to meet the urgent needs of COVID-19 patients and health care providers during these unprecedented times, issuing the proposed rule remains a priority and we are working expeditiously to do so," emailed a spokesperson Thursday. The agency hopes to release the proposed rule in the fall, and "appropriate timing updates will be available at that time," she said. It will post the proposed rule in the Federal Register and open a docket for public comment, plus promote it through web updates and other "agency communications," she said. Section 709 is silent on how long the comment period should last, but requires the FDA to publish the final rule creating the OTC category no more than 180 days after comments close. CTA has a certification logo waiting to identify reputable OTC hearing aids meeting minimum voluntary performance criteria in the ANSI/CTA-2051 standard approved in January 2017 (see 2007180003). The logo is useless until the FDA creates the OTC category.