FCC Approves Mobility Fund II Order, Reforms Wireless Radio Services Rules, Among Several 3-0 Items

The major MF-II tweak, as expected, was that the FCC allows more time than proposed by Chairman Ajit Pai for parties to lodge a challenge. FCC officials told us rather than a 60-day window for challenging the map, the agency will allow 120 days. “The Commission will use this coverage data, in conjunction with subsidy data, to establish the map of presumptively eligible areas,” said a news release. “Interested parties will have a window after the release of this map to file challenges to areas deemed presumptively ineligible, and providers will have an opportunity to respond to those challenges.”

“Working together, my colleagues and I have struck the right balances,” said Pai. “Having carriers submit maps based on uniform parameters, which parties can then challenge, creates a fair opportunity for both the challengers and the challenged. And on a bipartisan basis, we have made some important revisions which should lead to a more robust challenge process.” The FCC is now requiring confidential disclosure of the parameters that carriers use in their propagation models, including signal strength and clutter, he said. “This will let potential challengers see if an area is actually likely to meet a certain service threshold.”

Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said the MFII program will be critical to deployment of wireless in rural America. “We adopt an industry consensus proposal to undertake a new, one-time data collection on deployment of 4G LTE,” Clyburn said. “This is a watershed decision, because as I have said before, lack of good data would prolong the time it takes to deliver on the Mobility Fund’s stated objective of bringing connectivity to unserved communities.”

The order “appears to have struck an appropriate balance," Commissioner Mike O’Rielly said in a statement. “While this process will involve a new data collection, which is not something to be undertaken lightly, the order attempts to standardize and streamline the requirements, which is intended to make the process more efficient and expeditious.”

The Rural Wireless Association said the FCC moved the order in the right direction. “Adoption of a challenge window longer than the initially-proposed, too-short 60 days will be critical to ensuring that small rural carriers have a legitimate opportunity to challenge areas with overstated coverage,” RWA said. “While the use of an 80 percent cell edge probability figure for use in the one-time data collection is an improvement over the 70 percent draft item proposal, it will less accurately represent the consumer coverage experience than using the industry-proposed 90 percent.”

The FCC also approved 3-0 an order and further NPRM creating a unified regulatory framework for wireless radio services (WRS) rules. Officials said the commission tweaked the order to address concerns raised by industry that a safe harbor in the rules was too restrictive.

The WRS rules were a “patchwork” and that wasn’t “optimal, to say the least,” Pai said. “We want to change all that by standardizing the framework,” he said. “We’ll have a single step-by-step process that will be applied across the board. This simplified process will reduce regulatory burdens.”

O’Rielly said he has reservations about the FNPRM, especially about increasing the buildout requirements for existing licenses. “I am unlikely to support such efforts,” he said. “Licensees made decisions based on the rules at the time and bid accordingly. To consider altering these requirements for licensees is beyond bad faith.”

CTIA

CTIA sought changes to “safe harbors” proposed by Pai. “When a wireless provider upgrades service (e.g., re-farms a spectrum band to a next-generation air interface technology) at a number of sites, it may reduce overall coverage below the level required by buildout requirements, or briefly turn down service on that spectrum, for a limited period,” CTIA said in a filing on meetings last month: “Licensees need such flexibility to best serve their customers, and the Commission should encourage such network upgrades, not unnecessarily complicate or deter them.”

The draft offered regulatory relief only to companies able to certify they substantially complied with rules and aren't the subject of FCC orders finding violations. The requirements are too restrictive, since carriers often use multiple licenses in many services and also should not be held accountable for violations by a corporate parent or affiliate, CTIA said.

FCC Meeting Notebook

The expected mid-2018 start to the Connect America Fund reverse auction is a step closer, with commissioners 3-0 approving a public notice seeking comment on procedures to implement the auction, though O'Rielly expressed concerns about weighting procedures. Approval was expected (see 1707270015). O'Rielly said the auction potentially could concentrate spending in relatively low-cost areas. He said weighting procedures could have satellite operators less willing to participate because it relegates their broadband services to "tak[ing] up the scraps and leftovers." O'Rielly said reconsideration is unlikely so he will focus on ensuring further decisions promote broad participation and maximum deployment, saying the draft PN was revised to include more questions on those issues. The approved PN wasn't posted. The Wireline Bureau said the PN proposes different auction procedures, and a multi-round defending action to allocate support. Clyburn said she backed the PN seeking comment on ways to make the auction process easier for smaller providers. Pai said the agency also is working on building an auction interface for bidders, with the expectation the auction will attract companies new to universal service funding, such as small competitive providers and rural electric co-ops.

The FCC's Form 477 data -- "the Game of Thrones of data sets in terms of buzz it generates," according to Pai -- should get more accurate, while reporting it is made less burdensome under a final NPRM approved by commissioners 3-0. Commissioners said there have been criticisms about the quality of Form 477 data. Clyburn said FCC data on broadband availability in different markets at times doesn't reflect reality, at times showing connectivity or multiple providers in areas where there aren't. An associated Further NPRM wasn't posted. The Wireline Bureau said it seeks comment on issues such as collecting voice subscription data at the census tract level and whether to eliminate the requirement mobile providers submit their data by spectrum band and transmission technology. It also asks about collecting data that identifies where new customers can get service and on increasing the level of granularity at which Form 477 data is collected. O'Rielly said the agency needs to be able to justify how the data it collects will be used to prevent over-collection of some data and under-collection of other. He said the draft FNPRM was revised to seek more on that. He said the agency should consider costs and benefits of new data collection requirements or more granular reporting. NCTA pushed for the agency to focus more on use of the document's data, ensuring the collection is worthwhile (see 1707260055).

Using the license renewal application of WRAX Lake Isabella, Michigan, as a springboard, the FCC set up a new process for assessing if a radio station has served the public interest. Commissioners voted 3-0 on a hearing designation order for the FM station, with the agency conducting a paper hearing instead of a hearing before its administrative law judge. According to the order, WRAX has shown a pattern of one partial isolated day of operation per year since it was licensed in 2010 -- which makes the issue of whether it's meeting its public interest obligation questionable, Pai said: Instituting paper hearings for license renewal applications for stations that have been off air for a substantial period will help cut the backlog of such applications while still giving station owners a chance to make their cases for renewal. Outside counsel for WRAX owner Radioactive didn't comment. O'Rielly -- who pushed for reform of ALJ procedures at the agency (see 1707130046) -- used the vote as opportunity to criticize the slowness of the ALJ process on some cases: "We do not sweep an issue under the rug for a decade, hoping the case will be withdrawn or resolve itself." He said the paper hearing process "seems like a logical first step that we should be able to expand upon." Clyburn also applauded the new process, saying lack of available broadcast licenses can be a barrier to would-be station owners.

The FCC proposed an $82.1 million fine against Best Insurance Contracts and owner-operator Philip Roesel for allegedly making more than 21 million illegally spoofed robocalls in violation of the Truth in Caller ID Act. Clyburn noted that in June the FCC approved a proposed $120 million fine (see 1706220046) against another company for spoofed robocalls but the practice continues. It’s like a game of whack-a-mole at the local arcade, Clyburn said. “As soon as you stop one, another pops right back up.” Clyburn said the company allegedly targeted the elderly, poor and infirm. Roesel allegedly said of his targets "the dumber, the more broke, the better,” Clyburn said. O’Rielly, who approved in part and concurred in part, said the notice is “stronger and more precise” than some recent enforcement items, but he had questions about some of the conclusions drawn. The company didn’t comment. “The Commission is currently exploring ways to set up a reliable system to verify that a phone call is really coming from the phone number that it claims to be,” the FCC said in a news release. “The agency is also aiming to help consumers prevent spoofing scams like the famous IRS debt scam through a ‘Do-Not-Originate’ list which would help carriers block spoofed calls purporting to be from numbers that do not make calls, like specific in-bound-only phone lines used by entities like the IRS or numbers using non-existent area codes.”