Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., introduced HR-6099 Wednesday to “support the establishment and improvement of communications sites on or adjacent to Federal lands under the jurisdiction of the Secretary of the Interior or the Secretary of Agriculture through the retention and use of rental fees associated with such sites,” its description said. His co-sponsor is Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif. The bill was referred to the Agriculture and Natural Resources committees. A Huffman spokeswoman didn’t comment Thursday when asked for the bill text.
Commissioner Ajit Pai said the FCC should get tough on siting issues as carriers get set to deploy 5G, in a keynote at the Competitive Carriers Association meeting, live-streamed Wednesday from Seattle. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler told the CCA Tuesday there's broad support among the commissioners for tackling siting issues (see 1609200058). Pai also endorsed Wheeler’s calls for a new mobility fund. Commissioner Mike O’Rielly also spoke Tuesday on zero-rating, though not at CCA.
The New York Police Department’s unprecedented use Monday of a 90-character Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) to help catch suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami in connection with the weekend’s New York and New Jersey bombings typified how “new technology can be utilized to improve public alerting,” said John Lawson, executive director of the AWARN Alliance, in a Wednesday statement.
The New York Police Department’s unprecedented use Monday of a 90-character Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) to help catch suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami in connection with the weekend’s New York and New Jersey bombings typified how “new technology can be utilized to improve public alerting,” said John Lawson, executive director of the AWARN Alliance, in a Wednesday statement.
Commissioner Ajit Pai said the FCC should get tough on siting issues as carriers get set to deploy 5G, in a keynote at the Competitive Carriers Association meeting, live-streamed Wednesday from Seattle. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler told the CCA Tuesday there's broad support among the commissioners for tackling siting issues (see 1609200058). Pai also endorsed Wheeler’s calls for a new mobility fund. Commissioner Mike O’Rielly also spoke Tuesday on zero-rating, though not at CCA.
The New York Police Department’s unprecedented use Monday of a 90-character Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) to help catch suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami in connection with the weekend’s New York and New Jersey bombings typified how “new technology can be utilized to improve public alerting,” said John Lawson, executive director of the AWARN Alliance, in a Wednesday statement.
The Fish and Wildlife Service will add five species of animals from American Samoa to the Endangered Species List. The agency’s final rule (here) lists as endangered two native land snails (Eua zebrina and Ostodes strigatus), the American Samoa distinct population segment of the friendly ground-dove, the Pacific sheath-tailed bat (South Pacific subspecies) (Emballonura semicaudata semicaudata), and the mao (Gymnomyza samoensis). Import and export restrictions set by the agency’s final rule take effect Oct. 24.
The National Tribal Telecommunications Association gave the FCC more details on two proposals to promote tribal broadband deployment. NTTA has asked the FCC to waive or modify an operations-expense limitation for rural carriers that predominantly serve tribal locations, and adopt a tribal broadband factor that provides more USF support to carriers serving tribal lands. Fourteen carriers would qualify for the opex relief if a predominantly tribal carrier is defined as having more than 75 percent of its served locations on tribal lands, and 19 carriers would be eligible if the FCC required only a majority of locations to be on tribal lands, said an NTTA filing Friday in docket 10-90 that cited analysis Alexicon did for the group. It said the impact on the overall distribution of high-cost rate-of-return USF support would be "negligible," though the impact on the affected carriers would be "significant," allowing them to deploy and maintain their broadband infrastructure. NTTA said 112 carriers would be eligible for a tribal broadband factor (TBF), but it expected the number that would elect to receive the extra support would be lower, given the "very small number" of tribal locations that many serve along with proposed buildout duties and reporting requirements. The filing offered further details on NTTA's proposals, including to cap the tribal broadband factor at $25 million annually, and establish a buildout schedule that would require deployment to at least 50 percent of TBF-targeted locations within five years, increasing by 10 percentage points a year until achieving 100 percent deployment in year 10. Chairman Tom Wheeler said the FCC would deal with tribal broadband issues "by the end of football season" (see 1609150058).
The National Tribal Telecommunications Association gave the FCC more details on two proposals to promote tribal broadband deployment. NTTA has asked the FCC to waive or modify an operations-expense limitation for rural carriers that predominantly serve tribal locations, and adopt a tribal broadband factor that provides more USF support to carriers serving tribal lands. Fourteen carriers would qualify for the opex relief if a predominantly tribal carrier is defined as having more than 75 percent of its served locations on tribal lands, and 19 carriers would be eligible if the FCC required only a majority of locations to be on tribal lands, said an NTTA filing Friday in docket 10-90 that cited analysis Alexicon did for the group. It said the impact on the overall distribution of high-cost rate-of-return USF support would be "negligible," though the impact on the affected carriers would be "significant," allowing them to deploy and maintain their broadband infrastructure. NTTA said 112 carriers would be eligible for a tribal broadband factor (TBF), but it expected the number that would elect to receive the extra support would be lower, given the "very small number" of tribal locations that many serve along with proposed buildout duties and reporting requirements. The filing offered further details on NTTA's proposals, including to cap the tribal broadband factor at $25 million annually, and establish a buildout schedule that would require deployment to at least 50 percent of TBF-targeted locations within five years, increasing by 10 percentage points a year until achieving 100 percent deployment in year 10. Chairman Tom Wheeler said the FCC would deal with tribal broadband issues "by the end of football season" (see 1609150058).
The Bureau of Industry and Security and the State Department could issue final rules by early October moving less sensitive articles from the U.S. Munitions List (USML) Category XII (fire control, range finder, optical and guidance and control equipment) to the dual-use Commerce Control List (CCL), Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security Eric Hirschhorn said Sept. 15. The rulemaking is in the congressional notification period, which is scheduled to end Sept. 20, said Hirschhorn, speaking at a meeting of the President’s Export Council Subcommittee on Export Administration (PECSEA). BIS and State have also submitted their final rules to amend the International Traffic in Arms Regulations and CCL to delineate types of military aircraft and military gas turbine engines subject to each control list, respectively, for Congressional notification, which bodes well for chances those final rules will be issued before President Barack Obama’s term expires Jan. 30, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Export Administration Kevin Wolf said. The only engines moving from the CCL to USML under the rule are engines specific to military aircraft, Wolf said.