Part of the problem with Mobility Fund Phase II broadband coverage maps lies with the FCC, the Practising Law Institute was told Tuesday. Competitive Carriers Association General Counsel Alexi Maltas said what the agency seeks isn't going to generate reliable data, and incorporating parameters like load factor could improve the model's accuracy. He noted the proposed 5G Fund will require a new mapping process. For the maps to be more accurate, a better understanding of what carriers are filing is needed, said Commissioner Mike O'Rielly's aide Erin McGrath. Phoenix Center President Larry Spiwak said fixing it is difficult since some carriers don't want to provide all information for competitive reasons. The FCC should do more to address the digital divide in tribal areas and communities of color, said Commissioner Geoffrey Starks. Getting fixed broadband to underserved areas is “absolutely imperative,” he said. The Democrat slammed the FCC GOP majority for not addressing problems with data collection on broadband deployment. “I've been very frustrated,” he said. If companies providing data to the FCC misrepresent their information, “that should be taken up in an enforcement capacity,” said Starks, formerly of the Enforcement Bureau. Spending billions of dollars on rural broadband deployment based on flawed data is a bad idea, Starks said. “What I am going to be choked with rage on is if in 10 years we wake up with $20 billion spent, and we still don't fundamentally understand how to get broadband to these communities.”
The FTC should expand its definitions of personal information to include biometric data, a bipartisan group of state attorneys general wrote Monday. The agency is collecting comments on its review of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act rule, extended through Wednesday (see 1912090061). The agency should “clamp down on companies that embed code in children’s mobile applications and collect data in order to serve children behavioral advertising” and “examine how the rules apply to school-issued laptops that are ‘free’ so long as companies get to collect information from the students using them,” the group said. Signing were law enforcement chiefs in Maryland, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia and Washington state and the District of Columbia.
Amazon downplayed news it’s opening a new office in New York City in 2021 after The Wall Street Journal reported Friday the company signed a lease for 335,000 square feet in Manhattan’s emerging Hudson Yards neighborhood. An Amazon spokesperson emailed Monday the move is part of plans it shared earlier this year to “continue to hire and grow organically across our 18 Tech Hubs, including New York City.” That announcement came after Amazon scuttled plans in February (see 1902140054) for a controversial second headquarters in New York’s Long Island City, Queens, that was opposed by union activists and some local politicians due in part to $3 billion in financial incentives promised to the multibillion company. Amazon originally said its HQ2 location would create 25,000 jobs over a decade; the Hudson Yards leased office will employ 1,500 from Amazon’s consumer and advertising teams, the spokesperson said. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat whose 14th congressional district is adjacent to Long Island City, opposed the headquarters, saying it would put a strain on local resources and the $3 billion the city and state were willing to give Amazon could be better invested elsewhere. On Friday’s announcement, she tweeted: “Won’t you look at that: Amazon is coming to NYC anyway -- *without* requiring the public to finance shady deals, helipad handouts for Jeff Bezos, & corporate giveaways.” Other Amazon locations in the New York City area include a Tech Hub with some 3,500 employees and fulfillment facilities with more than 8,000 staffers.
Eligible telecom carriers must enhance engagement with tribal communities to address challenges deploying broadband there, Gila River Telecommunications Inc. (GRTI) told the FCC. Comments were posted through Friday in docket 10-90. GRTI said "the time for discussing whether broadband will be delivered to Indian Country must end. The next phase of engagement must focus on the development of concrete plans for each tribal community to gain broadband access." It recommends elevating the Office of Native Affairs and Policy to a separate office independent of the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau and having it report directly to the chairman and commissioners. GRTI wants ONAP to develop a voluntary process to engage tribal governments and ETCs with service areas including tribal lands that haven't deployed broadband to determine when it makes sense for tribal governments to take an ownership stake in the ETC. The Alaska Rural Coalition asked the FCC to answer its 2011 petition for reconsideration on "unique challenges facing Alaska carriers." It wants the FCC to allow carriers to substitute informal engagement with strategic performance benchmarks, as "formal outreach [hasn't] proven particularly effective." USTelecom has legal concerns about members' First Amendment rights and a current requirement ETCs market their services "in a culturally sensitive manner," which can interfere with effective dialogue. The Oceti Sakowin Tribal Utility Authority said the tribal engagement process "is currently form over substance." The National Tribal Telecommunications Association wants additional enforcement of the tribal engagement rule.
State and federal governments should link arms on USF programs, including more syncing up between the California Advanced Service Fund (CASF) and the FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) and Connect America Fund (CAF), the California Public Utilities Commission told the FCC. Staff from the CPUC Communications Division and the FCC’s Wireline Bureau and Office of Native Affairs had a call Tuesday, said a Thursday-posted filing in docket 19-126. FCC staff say they plan to wrap RDOF meetings by month’s end and hope to start taking bidding applications late next year after auction rules are adopted, the CPUC said. Statestaffers said it’s hard to know how many CAF Phase II subscribers are in California because carriers don’t report it, so they use subscribers to 10/1 Mbps as a proxy. “CPUC staff noted that subscribership to CAF II appears to be fairly low, below 15%, with some counties at 0%.” Thursday, the CPUC scheduled a Jan. 22 en banc hearing on how California should update rules and processes to keep up with the communications market, following up on a May meeting (see 1905200052). The commission wants providers to weigh in on affordability, rural and tribal challenges, grant programs and network sharing. The hearing is 10 a.m. PST.
The Oregon Public Utility Commission got more details about a settlement on Northwest Fiber’s proposed buy of Frontier Communications wireline, video and long-distance operations. The companies, PUC staff and the Oregon Citizens’ Utility Board filed a stipulation Wednesday saying they support the deal with conditions. The agency typically rules within six to eight weeks, but there's no statutory deadline, a spokesperson emailed Thursday. The companies made commitments including about expanding broadband deployment, keeping wholesale agreements, and reporting on finances and service quality. Beyond Connect America Fund Phase II funding, Northwest agreed to spend at least $50 million enhancing and expanding 1 Gbps fiber symmetrical service within five years. That should cover at least 60 percent of locations in the combined ILEC territories in Oregon. Northwest would spend at least $10 million outside the Portland area. Northwest would ensure existing Frontier fiber customers have such access within a year. The companies and Montana Consumer Counsel filed their own pact Tuesday at that state’s Public Service Commission (see 1912040050). Settlement was earlier announced in Washington state, the last state OK needed. Details are due Dec. 19 to the Utilities and Transportation Commission, with a hearing Jan. 27.
Montana parties reached a settlement on Northwest Fiber’s proposed buy of Frontier Communications wireline, video and long-distance operations. The companies and Montana Consumer Counsel filed a stipulation Tuesday about the pact in docket 2019.06.39. Settlements were earlier announced in Oregon and Washington state, the other two states reviewing the deal (see 1911130051). The companies agreed to conditions, including expanding broadband deployment, keeping wholesale agreements and reporting on finances, outages and service quality.
California and localities were in the hot seat at Tuesday's FCC Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee meeting. BDAC members don't agree whether a working group should focus on wired or wireless broadband, and on whether consumers who haven't adopted broadband in areas in which it's available could be convinced to do so. An item in Friday's issue will discuss this in more depth; subscribers to Communications Daily can read about it here. Meanwhile, localities shouldn't underestimate broadband infrastructure deployment as a form of disaster preparedness, said Wireless Infrastructure Association President Jonathan Adelstein and Doug Dimitroff of the New York State Wireless Association. States should recognize the public safety advantages of better broadband access and “welcome deployment,” Adelstein, a former Democratic FCC commissioner, said in discussion of the disaster response working group's (WG) coming report. If infrastructure is insufficient, there won't be recovery, said Dimitroff, former NYSWA president. The report is expected to be finished in March, said Red Grasso, who chairs the WG and represents the North Carolina Department of Information Technology. No state is more difficult to build broadband infrastructure in than California, said Adelstein, referencing recent public safety power outages and wildfire threats. It's “shocking” that a state subject to those plus earthquakes and storms isn't encouraging broadband deployment, he said. California and other localities reject broadband buildout over unproven public safety claims about RF radiation, and then aren't able to rely on broadband during “a real and proven danger,” said Adelstein. “They didn't think of that when they were listening to a handful of people making spurious claims.” The office of Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) didn't comment Wednesday. The WG on increasing broadband investment in low-income communities found it challenging to define low-income areas, deployment and broadband, said Connected Nation CEO and subgroup Chair Tom Ferree and Wireless ISP Association CEO Claude Aiken. Though the subpanel tentatively defined broadband as 25/3 Mbps downstream/up, the final report could have “aspirational goals” of faster speeds as a standard, Ferree said.
Verizon is using Amazon Web Services for a 5G pilot where developers can deploy applications requiring ultra-low latency to 5G mobile devices, they said Tuesday. Developers could deliver latency-sensitive uses like machine learning inference, autonomous industrial equipment, smart cars and cities, IoT and augmented and virtual reality. Placing AWS compute and storage services at the edge of Verizon’s 5G network with AWS Wavelength brings processing power and storage physically closer to users and their devices. Customers in the Chicago trial include Bethesda Softworks and the NFL. Additional deployments are planned across the U.S. in 2020.
Connecticut's Public Utilities Regulatory Authority won't appeal the state Superior Court's November decision that PURA overreached when it ruled 2-0 last year that “municipal gain” space on utility poles or underground ducts -- reserved by a 2013 law “for any purpose” -- can't be used to provide muni broadband (see 1911130037). "PURA has elected not to appeal the Superior Court’s decision," Chairman Marissa Paslick Gillett emailed Monday. Industry that supported the PURA order could still appeal or take the fight to the legislature or a federal court. "Federal litigation could occur at any time," emailed Connecticut Office of Consumer Counsel Principal Attorney Joe Rosenthal, who supports the Superior Court ruling for muni broadband. "That would be brand new litigation, likely in response to an actual municipal construction that intends to offer services to the public."