The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board is about “midway” through developing recommendations for Congress on U.S. surveillance programs, Chairman Adam Klein told us Friday. NSA is reportedly considering letting the controversial Section 215 phone surveillance program expire (see 1905060048) in December when the USA Freedom Act sunsets.
Industry commenters continued to push for tweaks to proposed competitive bidding rules for the upper 37, 39 and 47 GHz auction, slated to start Dec. 10 (see 1904120058). In initial comments, the Rural Wireless Association and Wireless ISP Association pressed for a more significant change -- smaller license sizes than the partial economic area licenses already agreed to by the FCC (see 1905170014). Replies were posted through Friday in docket 19-59.
Rural telecom carriers stand to gain some and lose some if T-Mobile buys Sprint and the carriers live up to the conditions they offered (see 1905200004) to clear the way for likely FCC OK, insiders say. Many remain skeptical that a new T-Mobile would be willing or able to build a 5G wireless infrastructure covering two-thirds of the rural U.S. population and 99 percent of the country within six years.
A push by 47 House Democrats for a “bipartisan working group” to create a compromise net neutrality bill has dim prospects despite offers of support from Commerce Committee GOP leaders, experts told us. The pro-working group Democrats, led by Reps. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey and Scott Peters of California, are pushing for a compromise bill. That's given what they view as low odds the House-passed Save the Internet Act net neutrality bill (HR-1644) will clear the Senate or be signed into law by President Donald Trump (see 1905230072).
By a party-line FCC member vote, the regulator began asking about starting an overall USF budget cap, as expected (see 1905240064). "Mindful of our obligation to safeguard the USF funds ultimately paid by ratepayers," and to ensure the money is "spent prudently" and consistently, the NPRM asks a number of questions.
Chairman Ajit Pai told fellow commissioners Friday a Further NPRM on robocalls is being changed to add a proposal that the FCC mandate secure handling of asserted information using tokens (Shaken) and secure telephone identity revisited (Stir) technology if major voice providers don’t comply with demands that it be implemented by year-end, officials said. The change came after the start of the sunshine period on the item, closing off outreach.
CTA recently finished canvassing consumers for a project in partnership with NAB to fashion an ATSC 3.0 certification logo that would adorn compliant TVs and other receivers when those products arrive at retail, Lesley Rohrbaugh, CTA director-research, told the ATSC Next-Gen TV Conference Thursday. She wouldn’t comment on which logos emerged as the biggest winners.
“No aspects” of NAB’s proposal to relax radio subcap rules “would require, or even directly encourage” radio groups to sell off their AM stations, the association replied on the quadrennial review in docket 18-349 (see story in the May 2 issue). The FCC shouldn't reject FM ownership deregulation “based on speculation about reduced demand for AM stations,” NAB said. “That would be the regulatory equivalent of cutting off radio’s nose to spite its face.” Other filers disagreed, in comments posted later Thursday.
The FCC and competition aren’t enough to protect customers from service-quality problems on IP-based connections, said California Public Utilities Commissioner Martha Guzman Aceves. At the CPUC's meeting Thursday, she slammed the FCC’s 3-2 Wednesday report showing a narrowing digital divide (see 1905290017) and urged the California legislature to allow the state to regulate VoIP. Commissioner Cliff Rechtschaffen said carriers aren’t doing enough to ensure adequate service quality and questioned the effectiveness of a California policy that allows companies to avoid penalties.
The Trump administration released two reports Thursday on the future of spectrum and 5G. By the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, they are part of the administration’s broader pursuit of a national spectrum strategy, as directed by President Donald Trump last year (see 1810250058). Among the recommendations are receiver standards and more sophisticated sharing.