The FCC Enforcement Bureau should vacate a $9,600 fine against Bethune-Cookman University because its student training station is a low-power FM outlet, said a Tuesday letter to acting bureau Chief Suzanne Tetrault from five groups. The college’s WRWS(FM) Daytona Beach, Fla., was fined by the bureau in April for running an unlicensed radio station and not installing required emergency alert system gear. LPFM stations usually get “dramatically reduced” fines, the groups said. The bureau disregarded that policy by not penalizing the station “at most a few hundred dollars,” said the Black College Communication Association, Minority Media and Telecommunications Council, National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters and others.

The FCC fined four radio stations a total of $32,200 via Enforcement Bureau forfeiture orders. WIFI(AM) Florence, N.J., was penalized $18,400 for running at excessive power, not keeping up emergency alert system gear and other violations. Also fined were Wisconsin stations WKLJ(AM) Sparta, and WFBZ(FM) Trempealeau and WGBN(AM) New Kensington, Pa.

All options remain on the table for the 700 MHz D-block, Public Safety Bureau Chief Jamie Barnett told reporters Thursday. Bureau officials said, meanwhile, that it’s unclear when the 800 MHz rebanding, ongoing for five years, will be completed. Barnett has been at the FCC only since late July.

“Vulnerabilities remain” and states have yet to take many recommended steps to deal with problems previously pointed out in emergency communications across the country, the GAO said. Meanwhile, a House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee Monday called in the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s administrator, Joe Fugate, and other witnesses for a hearing on emergency alerts, FEMA and whether the agency should again be made independent from the Department of Homeland Security.

Some industry officials said they're generally pleased with new satellite TV legislation from Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark. They also welcomed the House Judiciary Committee draft of satellite reauthorization legislation, which would free Dish Network from the so-called death penalty, a court injunction preventing the company from importing distant signals.

An AT&T emergency petition on Universal Service Fund contributions is expected to flare up old arguments before the new FCC, telecom industry officials said Monday. Late Friday, the company urged “immediate commission action” to adopt the plan by AT&T and Verizon for a pure numbers-based mechanism, in light of the all-time high 12.9 percent contribution factor that kicked in earlier this month. But AT&T’s foes don’t appear to have budged on the subject.

An existing 3GPP registration mechanism allows for allocation of cell broadcast message identifiers for any use, including identifiers for emergency alerting and civic purposes required by ITU-T, the 3GPP said in a letter to a study group. The study group is trying to put a national registry of cell broadcast identifiers into place, said Dan Warren, director of technology at the GSM Association. 3GPP already has a similar registry in place, he said. Administration and allocation of multicast addresses for civic purposes is outside ITU-T’s scope, 3GPP said (CD March 23 p12). 3GPP wants a single registry for cell broadcast identifiers, said Stephen Hayes, chairman of 3GPP’s service and system aspects group. 3GPP and GSMA “have serious concerns” with the ITU-T proposal to “be administrators for the allocation of identifiers for emergency alerting for civic purposes,” 3GPP said. Having two registration mechanisms in the industry will cause confusion and may result in inconsistencies, 3GPP said. “It is crucial that the single, global registration mechanism already in place within 3GPP be retained.” 3GPP could reference identifiers developed by ITU-T, Hayes said. 3GPP’s registry could also be referenced in ITU-T’s, he said.

An HD Radio emergency alert system is in the works, iBiquity Digital, Sage Alerting Systems and BIA’s SpectraRep said Wednesday. They hope the system will help broadcasters offer emergency information to the public, government agencies such as public safety and people with special needs or those that live in specific geographic regions.

David Boyd, director of the Command, Control and Interoperability Division of the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate, said Wednesday the department is close to final decisions on how an emergency alert system for wireless devices will work. “Right now all of the major carriers have opted in and are working with us,” Boyd told the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council’s governing board. Two issues still must be worked through, he said. “How do you build a message 96 characters long that gets the reaction you want without causing reactions you don’t want,” Boyd said. The second is: “How do you go about aggregating this information so if the alert comes from a county or some other authorized source that you know who it is and know that they're authorized to make that alert.”

GENEVA -- Consensus on a distributed, discoverable Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) identifier namespace is crucial to getting the most out of emergency messaging, an executive said. A June World Meteorological Organization workshop aims to debate ways to handle emergency messages internationally, executives said. The FCC has ordered CAP use by all U.S. communications providers.