Industry and the National Emergency Number Association agreed the FCC needs to do more work before reporting to Congress on feasibility and cost of making Wi-Fi access points and other communications technologies available for access to 911 during times of emergency. Replies on a Public Safety Bureau notice were due Friday in docket 20-285. The FCC must file a report as a requirement of Ray Baum’s Act. “In light of the significant technical and security issues raised in this proceeding about relying on Wi-Fi access points as a backup for wireless 9-1-1, the FCC should seek the guidance of relevant technical expert bodies on these issues prior to submitting its study to Congress,” CTIA said. Access points supported by fixed wireline are “just as challenged as mobile wireless services to remain operational during severe emergencies,” it said: “Other Commission proceedings demonstrate the increasing resilience of mobile wireless networks even where fixed wireline backhaul and commercial power is unavailable for extended periods of time.” Connecting through access points “appears to be technically feasible, but work must be done to ensure quality assurance to 9-1-1 and to its callers,” NENA commented. Such connections “must meet, at the very least, the public’s expectations for reliability and service; meeting these expectations may be challenging absent regulatory authority,” the group said. ACA Connects said it’s not “technically feasible” today to use Wi-Fi “to provide a backup path to 911 when mobile networks are down.”

Mike Bloomquist, departing House Commerce Committee GOP staff (see this section, Oct. 5), hired by Venable as partner, Legislative and Government Affairs Practice, working on "legislative and regulatory matters affecting the environmental, healthcare, communications, and technology industries" ... Information Technology Industry Council adds Mike Flynn, ex-Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee senior counsel, as senior director and counsel-government affairs ... Albright Stonebridge Group additions include Michael Masserman, ex-Lyft, as senior adviser ... ACA Connects adds Nathan Penrod, ex-Frankfort Plant Board, as digital media specialist.

Consult with tribes before changing FCC ex parte rules, the National Congress of American Indians commented, posted Monday in docket 20-221. Comments were due Friday on a July NPRM. “The proposed rule is a Commission action which would significantly and uniquely affect tribal nations because it sets forth a new process for exempting tribal nations from ex parte rules,” NCAI said: “Tribal nations may reasonably have questions.” The notice “requires more substantive consideration and dialogue,” the Cherokee Nation commented: “Without the proper dialogue, the Cherokee Nation cannot adequately embrace the proposal nor intimately characterize how it may impact interactions, either positively or negatively,” with the commission. “Proposals to accelerate the schedule for the submission of notices of oral ex parte presentations, and replies thereto, are neither in the public interest nor necessary to achieve the Commission’s goals,” T-Mobile said. “Requiring the same-day submission of notices of oral ex parte presentations could undermine the Commission’s efforts to increase transparency and develop a fully informed record.” Expand by a day, “to three weeks and one day, the date it makes available to the public drafts of documents to be voted on” at commissioners' meetings, ACA Connects commented: “While ACA Connects recognizes the benefits to the Commission’s decision-making that should result from adoption of the NPRM’s proposal, it does not believe these benefits must come at the expense of the public having one less day of advocacy.”

A USTelecom proposal to exempt some small voice service providers from a proposed two-year extension of caller ID authentication requirements is raising ACA Connects concerns. The group said in a docket 17-97 posting Friday that it backs the goal of clamping down on providers that knowingly originate big volumes of illegal robocalls, but there's not enough time to see if the USTelecom proposal could also entangle legitimate voice providers that the FCC plainly is including in the small provider exemption in the draft order. It urged the FCC to get comment on the proposal. USTelecom, in meetings with aides to Chairman Ajit Pai and the commissioners, said the secure telephone identity revisited (Stir) and secure handling of asserted information using tokens (Shaken) implementation draft order on Wednesday's agenda (see 2009090048) proposed the two-year extension exception for small voice service providers that originate a disproportionate amount of traffic relative to their subscriber base. USTelecom recommended the FCC expand its robocall mitigation program requirement to all domestic traffic and on intermediate providers and get more comment on restricting intermediate providers from taking traffic from foreign voice service providers while not disrupting legitimate calls. CTIA urged its own modifications. They included seeking further comment on barring providers from accepting voice traffic from foreign voice service providers that haven't registered or certified and extra time between the filing deadline for robocall mitigation program certifications and the effective date of not accepting traffic from providers that don't appear in the database.

The FCC got differing advice from commenters in its annual Communications Act Section 706 proceeding. Wireless and wireline groups had a different version of the role wireless can play. Public interest groups said the FCC should say the market needs improvement, in comments posted Friday (see 2009180049) and Monday in docket 20-269. The agency's decision depends on who's in control next year, industry officials said. In April, FCC Democrats disagreed that broadband is being deployed in a reasonable and timely manner (see 2004240042).

"There is no reasonable regulatory purpose served" in not including earth stations operated by Hotwire Communications, Cunningham Communications and others from the C-band incumbents list for relatively minor registration snafus, ACA Connects said in a docket 20-205 posting Monday. It backed Hotwire's petition asking the FCC reconsider its exclusion.

Big cable distributors, with headends staffed 24/7 and often heavy use of fiber instead of C-band satellite downlinks, shouldn't have difficulties with the integrated receiver/decoder (IRD) changes for the C-band repacking. Smaller operators with fewer resources face far bigger challenges. That's what experts told us. There aren't broad expectations of an IRD shortage due to the repack.

Claims that a stay of the C-band lump sum election deadline could jeopardize the timing of the band's auction are "fanciful" as bidders face much bigger uncertainties than the lump sum elections, ACA Connects told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in a reply Monday (docket 20-1327, in Pacer). ACA said excluding integrated receiver/decoder costs from the lump sum amount is "illogical." Its filing was in response to oppositions from the FCC and others to its proposed stay. The FCC, in its opposition Friday to the petition for writ of mandamus, said ACA's stay is about getting a larger lump sum reimbursement amount to pay for replacing satellite distribution via the C band with fiber, but the lump sum isn't supposed to "provide a windfall" or cover fiber costs. Intelsat, SES and content companies Discover, Disney, Fox and ViacomCBS said a delay in the lump sum election could mean uncertainty and delays that "impair the ongoing planning, purchasing, and work necessary to carry out the C-Band transition on the FCC’s tight schedule." Also opposing ACA's stay were AT&T, Verizon and CTIA.

Cable ISP interests like NCTA's pole attachment declaratory ruling petition (see 2007170023), while telecom, localities and utilities interests are more mixed, judging by docket 17-84 comments last week. The petition "confirms what the Commission already knows ...: utilities often charge unjust and unreasonable pole replacement fees" that impede network deployment, ACA Connects said. It urged codifying policies including that a utility can't assess pole replacement fees if there isn't "insufficient capacity" on an existing pole. Charter Communications said despite being told make-ready charges must reflect just the costs caused by an attachment, pole owners "frequently leverage their superior bargaining position" to make an attacher seeking access buy a new pole and pay for installation. Altice said it has run into high make-ready fees for replacements, and the FCC needs to clarify that pole owners must share in the cost of replacements in unserved areas. It applauded expedited processing of pole attachment complaints for unserved areas. Calling the petition "anti competitive, misleading and ill-informed," the Coalition of Concerned Utilities said electric utility pole owners often voluntarily replace poles and add capacity. NCTA's petition would require they pay for these capacity expansions and obligate them to expand rapidly, even at the expense of safety and reliability, the coalition said. The Edison Electric Institute, National Rural Electric Cooperative Association and Utilities Technology Council said the FCC has acknowledged that leaving pole owners with unrecoverable costs would create a disincentive for utilities to build taller poles or replace poles. Next Century Cities said the digital divide won't be closed more quickly by cutting local government authority to determine the cost of replacing poles, with the FCC sole arbiter. Putting attachment complaints on an accelerated docket is a problem for municipalities now, as they lack time and resources to adequately respond that quickly, it said. AT&T said NCTA's push that it's unjust in unserved areas for a pole owner to make a new attacher pay for all the replacement costs is an attempt to change rules. Rules also let access disputes be eligible for an accelerated docket, it said. USTelecom said the issues raised in the petition are better off as part of a rulemaking, adding that cable has been successfully building out networks to new locations. The Wireless Infrastructure Association backed the petition, saying pole owners should share in replacement costs everywhere, not just unserved areas.

The FCC’s methodology for calculating regulatory fees is “deeply flawed” and “would not survive judicial review,” NAB said Tuesday responding to the 2020 reg payments order (see 2008310056). “However, we very much appreciate Chairman [Ajit] Pai and his staff correcting certain errors in the proposal’s original calculations to result in reduced fees for many radio broadcasters. NAB urges the Commission to convene stakeholders to take a closer look at its approach to regulatory fees to ensure they are fairly and equitably applied for all entities that utilize Commission resources.” ACA Connects praised the order for continuing to phase in higher fees for direct broadcast satellite providers. “Next year the FCC must eliminate this long-inexplicable disparity between cable/IPTV and DBS regulatory fees once and for all,” said ACA President Matt Polka. “The DBS industry is mature and its two providers, AT&T/DirecTV and DISH, are not exactly fledglings. It is time to stop treating them with kid gloves.”