The FCC is now taking nominations through Sept. 25 to fill tribal vacancies on its Native Nations Communications Task Force, said a public notice Tuesday. The deadline had been Aug. 26. Separately, FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks toured the Mescalero Apache Reservation in New Mexico Thursday and met with executives from Mescalero Apache Telecom about the tribal Lifeline program "and the need to ensure the National Verifier process does not hinder enrolling people residing on Tribal lands," plus concerns about broadband mapping inaccuracies, said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 10-90.
The FCC is now taking nominations through Sept. 25 to fill tribal vacancies on its Native Nations Communications Task Force, said a public notice Tuesday. The deadline had been Aug. 26. Separately, FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks toured the Mescalero Apache Reservation in New Mexico Thursday and met with executives from Mescalero Apache Telecom about the tribal Lifeline program "and the need to ensure the National Verifier process does not hinder enrolling people residing on Tribal lands," plus concerns about broadband mapping inaccuracies, said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 10-90.
The Commerce and Transportation departments announced more than $109 million in grants to 33 states, Washington, D.C., and two tribal nations to help 911 call centers upgrade to next-generation 911 capabilities. “These grants will boost public safety through 911 systems enhanced with new capabilities such as text message, image and video processing, advanced mapping and other improvements,” said Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao in a Friday news release. Grants range from $13,191 for the Citizen Potawatomi Nation in Oklahoma to $11.4 million for California, it said.
The Commerce and Transportation departments announced more than $109 million in grants to 33 states, Washington, D.C., and two tribal nations to help 911 call centers upgrade to next-generation 911 capabilities. “These grants will boost public safety through 911 systems enhanced with new capabilities such as text message, image and video processing, advanced mapping and other improvements,” said Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao in a Friday news release. Grants range from $13,191 for the Citizen Potawatomi Nation in Oklahoma to $11.4 million for California, it said.
An FCC notice of inquiry for its annual national broadband deployment report could be released this month after it went on circulation with the commissioners in late July (see 1908020048). Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel has already voted in dissent, an aide said, because she wants changes such as new questions about whether the FCC should look at performance speed thresholds above the 25 Mbps upstream/3 downstream current minimum standard for broadband. The aide expects the NOI will go public once each commissioner casts a vote. Nothing material has changed in the language since last year's NOI on the same topic, the aide said. An FCC spokesperson didn't comment on the release date for the NOI or say Friday whether all the commissioner votes had been cast.
FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr is weighing next steps after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit reversed a key part of the FCC’s March 2018 wireless infrastructure order Friday (see 1908090021). The court said in United Keetoowah Band v. FCC, No. 18-1129, the FCC unlawfully excluded small cells from National Environmental Protection Act and the National Historic Preservation Act review. The court upheld other parts of the order. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals hasn't heard oral argument in a challenge to other small-cell permitting rules the FCC approved last year (see 1906180022),
An FCC notice of inquiry for its annual national broadband deployment report could be released this month after it went on circulation with the commissioners in late July (see 1908020048). Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel has already voted in dissent, an aide said, because she wants changes such as new questions about whether the FCC should look at performance speed thresholds above the 25 Mbps upstream/3 downstream current minimum standard for broadband. The aide expects the NOI will go public once each commissioner casts a vote. Nothing material has changed in the language since last year's NOI on the same topic, the aide said. An FCC spokesperson didn't comment on the release date for the NOI or say Friday whether all the commissioner votes had been cast.
TracFone outside counsel Geoffrey Why met Monday with Nicholas Degani, senior counsel to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, to repeat the importance of incorporating into the Lifeline national verifier program application programming interfaces (APIs) that allow two-way communication between the national verifier online registry and Lifeline service providers (see 1907080009), said an ex parte letter posted Thursday in docket 11-42. The parties also discussed Lifeline minimum service standards (see 1907310074) and a TracFone petition to expand its eligible telecommunications carrier designation to include tribal lands (see 1904040071).
The C-Band Alliance told the FCC its proposal remains the best alternative for opening the band for 5G. Other commenters endorsed a proposal by America’s Communications Association, the Competitive Carriers Association and Charter Communications, or a study by Jeff Reed of Virginia Tech and Reed Engineering on sharing the band with fixed point-to-multipoint (P2MP) operations (see 1907020061). Industry officials said there's little consensus on the band. Comments were due Wednesday in docket 18-122.
Three Democratic 2020 presidential hopefuls -- Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts -- separately called Wednesday for major investments in broadband deployments as part of their release of competing rural-focused policy platforms in Medium blog posts. That's one of the first major forays into telecom policy for any of the Democratic candidates during this campaign cycle. Much of the tech-focused debate thus far focused on the antitrust implications of the growth of major tech companies, including Warren's proposal to break up big tech companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon (see 1904170046 and 1906270010).