The FCC is looking for nominations for members and a chairperson for the Advisory Committee on Diversity and Digital Empowerment, which will start service in the fall and last for two years, said a public notice. The committee’s mission will be to provide recommendations to the FCC on “how to empower disadvantaged communities and accelerate the entry of small businesses, including those owned by women and minorities, into the media, digital news and information, and audio and video programming industries,” the PN said. The FCC is seeking members from “various sectors of the communications industry, state and local regulators, and consumer and community groups, particularly from “organizations and other entities representing disadvantaged communities,” the PN said. Nominations are due by midnight June 28.

The FCC released an updated Mapping Broadband Health in America platform through its Connect2Health Task Force. “The 2017 platform now reflects the latest complete annual fixed broadband dataset from the Commission and updated health data from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s County Health Rankings,” the FCC said in a Thursday news release. “As telehealth, telemedicine, and other cutting-edge mHealth initiatives gain momentum across the country, this web-based mapping platform enables more efficient, data-driven decision making at the intersection of broadband and health.” The FCC said data is a first step for everything from “better leveraging broadband to help manage chronic health conditions for seniors in Giles County, Tennessee” to reducing post-surgical pain “through Virtual Reality applications in Barbour County, West Virginia.” The FCC said nearly half of U.S. counties have high incidents of chronic disease and a need for better broadband connectivity. “That translates to over 36 million people who live in counties with a ‘double burden’ of need -- an increase of 1 million between 2014 and 2015,” the agency said. The data shows preventable hospitalizations are 150 percent higher in the least-connected counties compared with other counties, it said. Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said the data shows the situation remains bleak for many Americans. “By investing in this vital broadband health mapping platform and unveiling a new list of critical need counties, the Commission is providing the data needed to ensure connectivity reaches those communities most in need," she said. "I am confident that when relevant stakeholders work together across sectors, we will successfully break boundaries at the intersection of broadband and health policy.”

The latest legs of FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s tour of Plains states to talk rural broadband brought him to Minnesota, Iowa and South Dakota, according to his tweets Wednesday and Thursday. In Minnesota Wednesday, Pai visited a fiber-to home company, watched workers wire a neighborhood, and spoke with the Minnesota Telecom Alliance. In Iowa, Pai visited two facilities that deliver broadband to small communities there. He also met with the Siouxland Chamber of Commerce in Sioux City to discuss broadband access and spoke about the issue on local KELO(AM) Sioux Falls, his tweets said. In South Dakota Thursday, Pai visited an Indian reservation. “Going to Rosebud Sioux Reservation to listen to, learn from Tribal leaders,” said Pai’s tweet. He's expected to visit Wyoming for the last leg (see 1706020053).

Verizon slammed comments by the Competitive Carriers Association that the FCC shouldn’t find in its upcoming mobile competition report that industry is effectively competitive (see 1705090051). CCA "refuses to acknowledge what the American public knows to be true: the U.S. mobile marketplace is effectively -- and intensely -- competitive,” Verizon said. “It ignores that the vast majority of Americans are experiencing falling prices and burgeoning choices. Instead, CCA myopically focuses on remote, less populated areas.” CCA in the proceeding, docket 17-69, agreed "industry is continuing to evolve at a rapid rate,” it commented. “To broadly claim that competition for mobile wireless service is present nationwide is factually inaccurate, contradicts the Chairman’s own Digital Empowerment Agenda, and is dismissive of rural and remote consumers’ experiences.” Section 254(b) of the Communications Act dictates the FCC examine whether “services in ‘rural, insular, and high cost areas’ that are ‘reasonably comparable’ to those provided in urban areas,” CCA said. CTIA urged a finding that industry is competitive. It's "vibrant and competitive, creating myriad choices,” the group commented. Verizon is a member of CTIA, not CCA.

The FCC has told security officers not to "physically engage" with anyone at open meetings unless they're purposefully disruptive or pose a safety threat to commission employees, Chairman Ajit Pai said in a letter to Sens. Tom Udall, D-M.N., and Maggie Hassan, D-N.H. Pai said it also instructed security that reporters shouldn't be asked to leave areas of headquarters that are open to the public. The FCC caught heat for manhandling a reporter at its May meeting and other security measures (see 1705190031). Pai said the incident "should not have occurred," but defended building security as "hav[ing] a difficult job to do, particularly in cases where the FCC is facing violent threats." Udall and Hassan -- who wrote Pai expressing concern about the May incident -- said they remain troubled by an apparent pattern of hostility by the Trump administration toward the media. Security was understandably high at the meeting, Udall said, but "I'm extremely concerned that the FCC security wasn't able to better balance the need to ensure access and safety." While applauding the steps the FCC is taking, Udall said he hopes Pai also "ensure[s] that FCC commissioners understand that their job includes answering for their actions and being reasonably responsive to the people and the media." Meanwhile, the National Press Club's Journalism Institute invited the FCC to a summit later this year on media access and security issues, as expected (see 1705250014). In a letter Wednesday to Pai, the NPC said the goal is "to talk about the challenges facing all of us and how we might establish some common ground and rules of the road for security and access in a 21st century democracy." The NPC also said it was skeptical of the recap of the incident that Pai provided to the senators, since it "diverges considerably" from what the reporter described: "The account of the events you have given the Senate simply does not ring true to us." The FCC told us it "continues to review its security procedures and has taken steps the minimize the chance of a similar event occurring in the future."

The FCC’s newly reconfigured Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council will meet June 23, starting at 1 p.m.. in the Commission Meeting Room, said a notice in Wednesday's Federal Register. The last CSRIC met the final time in March (see 1703150058). The FCC rechartered the group in April for a new two-year term, though with no focus on cybersecurity issues (see 1704100059).

The FCC should move forward on rules to speed siting of wireless infrastructure, said Wireless Infrastructure Association President Jonathan Adelstein in a meeting with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai last week. “WIA emphasized the importance of the FCC’s current efforts to reduce regulatory barriers … and the opportunity to encourage investment in innovative 5G services and Internet of Things solutions,” said a filing in docket 17-79. WIA said streamlining wireless infrastructure siting rules would lead to better broadband deployment on tribal lands. Illinois' DuPage Mayors & Managers Conference said, meanwhile, the FCC must allow flexibility. Illinois state law gives city governments “extensive discretion” on permitted uses, special uses and variances for land uses, it said. “This discretion is rooted in the variety of urban, suburban, and rural small and medium communities, and in how land use planning impacts each type of community differently.” Different land uses within a municipality are based on different siting and aesthetic requirements, “for example undergrounding or camouflage along main commercial routes,” the group said. “These specific needs must be addressed in the application process and require municipalities to examine applications on an individual basis to ensure collocation requests are structurally sound and aesthetically appropriate given the location.” Comments were filed in docket 17-84.

Restoration of the UHF ownership cap discount would be cause irreparable harm because the FCC almost never denies transactions or later requires their unwinding, said a combined reply (Pacer) from public interest groups seeking a stay of the discount’s return. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued an administrative stay of the discount’s restoration (see 1706020058) and is expected to rule on the actual merits of the stay after receiving the groups’ filing. The precise timing of that ruling isn’t clear, attorneys told us. Though Sinclair and other opponents of the stay said restoring the discount isn’t irreparable because the deals it makes possible could be denied or walked back later, Common Cause, Free Press and the other groups said in practice either move would be rare. “They cannot point to a single example of such disapproval in this century,” the groups said of the broadcasters. “Similarly, their suggestion that if the Court were to reverse the Commission, the Commission might require divestiture of stations acquired during the pendency of this litigation also flies in the face of the reality that no mandated television divestiture has been effectuated in decades.” The groups used similar logic to attack the FCC argument for restoring the discount, that it would be reconsidered alongside the national ownership cap later this year. Two sitting commissioners have said the agency lacks authority to change the cap, the groups said. The rulemaking is arbitrary because it's conditioned “on the mere possibility that the Commission will, in the future, open a proceeding to consider something that, as of now, a majority of the Commission believes it cannot or should not do,” the filing said. Without the stay, “the nation’s television ownership structure will be significantly and irreparably altered well before this Court will have time to reach a determination on the merits,” the groups said. “Granting a stay would maintain the status quo pending judicial review, would not harm broadcasters.”

Email domains in Russia, France and Germany generated 237,000 pro-net neutrality comments filed with the FCC in a seven-day span in May, the National Legal and Policy Center said in a news release Wednesday. NLPC said its forensic analysis found that thousands of the comments were the same comment submitted repeatedly from the same foreign filer, using the same international email domain and same international address. It said thousands more were from foreign domain extensions but used nonexistent U.S. addresses. It said many of the comments filed by foreign filers used international or U.S. addresses seemingly generated by www.fakeaddressgenerator.com, since the fake addresses roughly match addresses used in filed international comments. NLPC last week said it found more than 465,000 pro-net neutrality public comments submitted with email addresses that didn't match up with the signers' names or the same email addresses were used to file multiple comments (see 1705310019). NLPC President Peter Flaherty said, "The gaming of the FCC’s comment system appears to be massive and now encompassing overseas bot campaigns utilizing fake foreign physical and email addresses to submit comments. But gaming the system to generate hundreds of thousands of comments from people that aren’t even U.S. citizens and may not even exist is unprecedented." NLPC said it plans to submit the data to a professional data forensics expert for a deeper comments analysis. The FCC didn't comment. Separately Wednesday, the Internet Foundation released a video of recent comments by ISPs on their network and broadband investments, with IA saying those levels of investment run contrary to the companies' claims the existing net neutrality rules stifle innovation and investment. IA CEO Michael Beckerman in a statement said, "Broadband investment enables a virtuous circle of innovation for the whole internet ecosystem. Strong, enforceable net neutrality rules allow this virtuous circle of growth to continue." And the Application Developers Alliance emailed us that at its meeting with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai (see 1706050055), it said it believes Congress needs to act on establishing net neutrality rules.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has been across parts of Wisconsin this week as part of his sweep of Plains states to talk rural broadband issues, according to his Twitter feed. Pai tweeted Monday that he discussed regulatory barriers to rural broadband with Badger State companies and Sen. Ron Johnson, R.-Wis. (see 1706050054), including permitting fees, rights of way and paperwork. He tweeted Tuesday about meetings with the state broadband director (see here) and about visiting a cheese curd maker (see here). Pai is road tripping to five northern Plains states this week, with stops also planned in Minnesota, Iowa, South Dakota and Wyoming (see 1706020053).