Tribal areas still don’t have all the broadband connectivity they need, though improvements are being made, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said Monday at the National Tribal Broadband Summit. “Bringing high-speed connectivity to rural Tribal lands can be a game-changer,” Pai said: “It ... enables teleworking, job searches, and even starting an online business. It enables patients to consult with specialists without having to drive hours to the nearest hospital. And it enables students to take advanced math and science classes online, if they aren’t offered at the local school.” The Interior Department reports 73.3 percent of rural non-tribal locations have at least one broadband provider, compared with 46.6 percent of rural tribal locations. Pai emphasized tribal areas can obtain 2.5 GHz education broadband service licenses, under rules approved by commissioners in July (see 1907100054). “Before any commercial auction of this spectrum, Tribes can obtain this spectrum for free,” he said: “This is the first time in the FCC’s history that we have ever given Tribal entities what we call a ‘priority window’ to obtain spectrum for wireless broadband. ... I hope that Tribes will take advantage of it.”

Tribal areas still don’t have all the broadband connectivity they need, though improvements are being made, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said Monday at the National Tribal Broadband Summit. “Bringing high-speed connectivity to rural Tribal lands can be a game-changer,” Pai said: “It ... enables teleworking, job searches, and even starting an online business. It enables patients to consult with specialists without having to drive hours to the nearest hospital. And it enables students to take advanced math and science classes online, if they aren’t offered at the local school.” The Interior Department reports 73.3 percent of rural non-tribal locations have at least one broadband provider, compared with 46.6 percent of rural tribal locations. Pai emphasized tribal areas can obtain 2.5 GHz education broadband service licenses, under rules approved by commissioners in July (see 1907100054). “Before any commercial auction of this spectrum, Tribes can obtain this spectrum for free,” he said: “This is the first time in the FCC’s history that we have ever given Tribal entities what we call a ‘priority window’ to obtain spectrum for wireless broadband. ... I hope that Tribes will take advantage of it.”

TAMPA -- Municipal relations with carriers are generally better than with the FCC, some local representatives told us Monday. A lawyer for localities and a consultant to them criticized the FCC for tensions. A cable and telecom official from a Washington suburb and a NATOA board member who's a utility-company lawyer said they're getting along OK with wireless-service providers.

Make sure small phone carriers with legitimate spikes in incoming calls don't get swept up in a coming FCC order redefining how phone companies are deemed access stimulators, said representatives of rural LECs and other small LECs in interviews last week and in docket 18-155. Chairman Ajit Pai's draft gets a vote Thursday (see 1909050043). The rules would shift financial responsibility for tariffed tandem switching and transport services away from interexchange carriers to the access-stimulating LEC for terminating traffic.

The British government apologized after breaking a court ruling banning it from granting export licenses for defense goods to Saudi Arabia. In a Sept. 16 letter to the United Kingdom Committees on Arms Export Controls, Trade Secretary Lizz Truss said the U.K. allowed two “inadvertent breaches” of the license ban.

Some Senate Indian Affairs Committee members voiced skepticism Wednesday about the extent of FCC efforts to improve outreach to tribal governments to improve those entities' access to spectrum. The hearing focused on GAO's 2018 findings in its committee-sought study on tribal spectrum access. That report found deficiencies in FCC outreach, and the commission said at the time of the study's November report it would follow through on the recommendations (see 1811140069). Senate Indian Affairs members last year criticized what's seen as deficiencies in FCC practices for determining broadband coverage on tribal lands (see 1810030055).

Many 8K Association member companies also are in CTA's Video Division, emailed Chris Chinnock, 8KA executive director, Wednesday. The division released its 8K Ultra HD compliance logo and platform definitions Tuesday (see 1909170061). “While those companies have visibility into the full details of the spec, I do not,” he said. “However, it has been our goal to harmonize our 8K Definition with the CTA 8K definition as much as possible.” Since 8KA hasn’t defined its test methods or reviewed the full CTA spec, “we can’t yet comment on any issues with harmonization between the two specs,” said Chinnock. One possible differentiator is that CTA’s focus “will be limited to the TV and TV interface,” while 8KA’s activities “will reach out into the full ecosystem,” he said. “We already have a good start in representative companies from this supply chain, but we welcome more companies to join as well to help advance the state of 8K content creation, mastering and distribution in addition to playback and display. We also welcome coordination with other industry organizations to increase compatibility of standards and guidelines and reduce professional and consumer confusion.” 8KA announced technical specs just before IFA and landed 11 new members (see 1908290018), but not LG or Sony, both active in the CTA Video Division, as is founding 8KA member Samsung. Sony early on ruled out joining 8KA, using its CTA participation as its rationale (see 1902120019).

Professional audio supplier Millennia Music & Media Systems applied to register the trademark HDR-A for use on equipment for the “recording, transmission, processing and reproduction of sound,” said Patent and Trademark Office records. HDR-A’s first use in commerce was “at least as early as” Sept. 3, the date of the application, said the records. “The mark consists of standard characters, without claim to any particular font style, size, or color,” said the application. It appears on the front panel of Millennia's HV-3C two-channel mic preamplifier to highlight the product’s high dynamic range audio functionality. Millennia founder John La Grou owns the HDR-A mark and filed the application without an attorney, said the PTO records Though most of the industry’s recent attention has turned to HDR video, HDR audio, the ratio between the loudest and the softest audible sounds on a recording, has been around for decades and reached mainstream popularity with the advent of the CD. La Grou won’t comment on HDR-A because it’s “a stealth technology” that Millennia hasn’t announced, he emailed us Saturday. “Probably 2Q20.” The HV-3C is a new “iteration of our famous HV-3 micamp, used to record more feature film scores and classical music recordings than any other microphone preamplifier over the last 25 years,” said La Grou. The HV-3, introduced in the early 1990s, was inducted this year into the National Association of Music Merchants Technical Hall of Fame, he said. Recent history shows PTO giving HDR trademark applicants a rough go even if they got agency approval. PTO killed Sony’s application to trademark an 8K HDR logo earlier this year after examiners twice refused it for being “merely descriptive” of Sony’s goods (see 1902040020). Dolby Labs twice failed to pass PTO examiners’ merely-descriptive tests on its JPEG-HDR trademark application. Dolby ultimately landed registration of the trademark after nearly two years of trying, and succeeded only after amending the application to suit PTO's objections.

The Federal Maritime Commission will look at multiple factors, including cargo accessibility and the transparency of involved terminology, when it considers whether detention or demurrage practices are reasonable, the agency said in a notice it posted ahead of publication in the Federal Register. The proposed interpretive rule is meant to help address issues with detention and demurrage charges and follows a multiyear effort on that front (see 1606130005). Comments are due Oct. 17, the FMC said in a news release.

The FCC Wireless Bureau denied a waiver request by Kansas City Power & Light to use 900 MHz licenses it controls for fixed supervisory control and data acquisition. The FCC has a freeze since last year on new or expanded use of 900 MHz band frequencies (see 1809130064). KCPL says a new system “will improve the company’s ability to avoid and identify outages and other problems, improve the public’s safety, and increase the efficiency of KCPL’s operation” the bureau said Thursday: “It would not be in the public interest to authorize a new 900 MHz fixed system on a significant number of channels in a major metropolitan area while the Commission considers proposed rule changes to realign this land mobile band to support the provision of broadband” (see 1909120042).