The FCC draft "restoring internet freedom" order cites studies to show the 2015 net neutrality order hurt the economy. Such arguments have been disputed, but court watchers agree for the most part that when legal challenges are filed, judges are likely to give the analysis little scrutiny. NCTA CEO Michael Powell told reporters Wednesday consumers will see no change due to the order. The National Hispanic Media Coalition said it expects to take the regulator to court, and states may as well.
The FCC Public Safety Bureau seeks comment on government and communications industry preparation and response to 2017’s hurricanes and tropical storms, said a public notice Thursday. “This input will inform the workshop(s) that we plan to hold next year to further explore the matter,” Chief Lisa Fowlkes blogged. “Our aim is to build on successful approaches and develop options to address shortfalls as we prepare for future disasters.” According to the PN, the FCC issued more than 85 Disaster Information Reporting System status reports during the 2017 hurricane season, granted more than 200 requests for special temporary authority, and issued more than 30 related PNs and orders. The bureau seeks comment on the causes of communications outages, the effectiveness of responses from the FCC and service providers, and the availability of information. Comments are due Jan. 22, replies Feb. 21. In Puerto Rico, 24.4 percent of cellsites remain out of service, said the FCC's Hurricane Maria update Wednesday, noting a carrier roaming agreement to provide maximum wireless coverage collectively. In the U.S. Virgin Islands, 25.6 percent of cellsites are out, with 75 percent on St. John out. Noting "widespread power outages" in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, the agency said it received reports that large percentages of consumers are without either cable or wireline service. Five TV stations are confirmed operational in Puerto Rico, with two suspected off-air, 70 given special temporary authority to be off and 30 stations with unconfirmed status; in the Virgin Islands, 14 TV stations have STAs and two unconfirmed status. Puerto Rico has 97 radio stations confirmed operational, 38 confirmed out, 16 suspected off-air, 29 unconfirmed and five with STAs. Four radio stations in the Virgin Islands are confirmed operational, three are suspected out, one has an STA, and 20 stations are unconfirmed.
Comments are due Jan. 23, with replies Feb. 22, on FCC proposals to allow more flexible fixed satellite service use of the 24.75-25.25 GHz band and to eliminate the cap on how much spectrum in the 28, 38 and 39 GHz bands a bidder can buy at auction, said the spectrum frontiers order posted Wednesday. The order was approved at Thursday's meeting (see 1711160026). A second Final NPRM also seeks comment on developing performance metrics for IoT, such as upper microwave flexible use systems (UMFUS) meeting their buildout requirements when they hit geographic area coverage of 25 percent of a license area. The agency proposal would add the 24.75-25.25 GHz band to rules for the 47.2-48.2 GHz band allowing for earth stations in the band to operate on a co-primary basis. In the latest spectrum frontiers order, the agency said it opted to use partial economic area geographic licensing for UMFUS operations in the 24 GHz band since that approach is consistent with existing rules for the 39 GHz band. Rather than license the 24 GHz band in three segments, it opted for 100 MHz channels as a means of maximizing efficiency of spectrum use. The agency also opted to license the 47 GHz band in five 200 MHz blocks. The agency in the order rejected increasing the earth station exclusion zones to 0.2 percent of the population of UMFUS license areas, saying there was no evidence of the need of such an ask. But it did adopt a three-tiered model for earth station siting in the 28 GHz band that it said was intended to give satellite more flexibility and clarified definitions of interstates, freeways and principal arterials with regard to limits on earth station sitings in mass transit areas. It declined to ax the numeric limit on three earth stations per license area in the 28 GHz bad but increased the number of permissible earth station locations in the 37.5-40 GHz band from three to 15 per partial economic area, as long as there are no more than three per county. The order also saw the agency adopt rules for unlicensed use on aircraft in the 57-71 GHz band under Part 15 of the agency's rules, which currently ban unlicensed use there.
Puerto Rico fixed wireless and fiber ISP AeroNet expects to have service 100 percent restored by early January, President Gino Villarini emailed us Friday. He said the company began re-establishing infrastructure immediately after Hurricane Maria and expects to be 90 percent restored by early December. He said damage was mostly broken antennas, wear damage, and damaged and cut fiber, plus 15 collocated towers fell down. Restoration will cost more than $3 million, he said. Communications network recovery in Puerto Rico has been hampered by lack of electricity (see 1711010012). Villarini said minus the power outage, about 70 percent of its customers would have service Monday, but actually about 50 percent do. He said that for the first four weeks after the hurricane, recovery efforts also were hampered by employee issues. "We had a lot of issues without housing, food and gas," he said, with employees staying at AeroNet facilities and the company providing meals and gas. He said the FCC expedited a company request for special temporary authority to operate backhaul radios in the 5.9 GHz band, with approval in about two days. As of Monday, 48 of 78 counties had more than 50 percent of their cellsites out of service, down from 49 the previous day, according to the FCC's latest Maria status report. It said 47.8 percent of cellsites in Puerto Rico and 38 percent of cellsites in the U.S. Virgin Islands were out. It said two Puerto Rico TV stations and 61 AM and FM radio stations are confirmed or suspected to be off-air.
Eighty-four percent of adults say they will be less willing to shop this holiday season at retailers that experienced past data breaches than at those that didn't, said a Thursday survey from Generali Global Assistance. It canvassed 1,016 people in early October and found 38 percent were unsure if businesses were doing enough to safeguard their personal information. Data breaches “weigh much more heavily on holiday shoppers’ minds” than being pickpocketed (11 percent), or having their cars broken into (10 percent) “when it comes to identity theft,” said the ID protection division of an insurer.
Discovery Communications and Google will launch a 38-episode virtual reality series Nov. 3 exclusively on YouTube and DiscoveryVR.com and on the Discovery VR app, they announced Wednesday. Discovery TRVLR can be experienced in VR with the new Google Daydream View headset and with Google Cardboard, as well as through the web and on Android and iOS phones, they said. The series takes viewers beyond the TV screen “and drops them directly into the lives of fascinating locals in every corner of the globe across all seven continents,” using a “visceral 360-degree storytelling experience,” it said.
The FCC needs to work toward immediately restoring communications service to affected areas in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands before it considers longer term issues, said Chairman Ajit Pai in a news conference after a Public Safety Bureau report on the FCC response to storms Harvey, Irma and Maria at Tuesday’s commissioners’ meeting. The commission is “focused like a laser beam” on restoration, Pai said, calling the situation in Puerto Rico "dire." Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said the FCC should hold field hearings in affected areas on how best to prepare for such disasters. The agency should “have the guts” to get out on the ground, she said. “You don’t pull together a report with only the information you amass from sitting in front of your keyboard,” said Rosenworcel. “You get out.”
Revenue in the global wrist-worn wearable market will advance at a 13 percent compound annual growth rate through 2021 to $38 billion, a Thursday Technavio report said. Integration of wearables for sports and fitness use with smartphones will allow manufacturers to offer “highly sophisticated analyses” aided by technologically advanced apps, it said. The opportunities created a market for startups that allow developers to access devices and enhance functionality, analyst Ujjwal Doshi said: Most of the wrist wearables “serve a single purpose or a specific set of related functions for a user.”
HC2 LPTV Holdings will buy 38 Class A and low-power TV stations from Mako Communications and associated companies Mintz Broadcasting, Nave Broadcasting and Tuck Properties for $29 million, said an SEC filing Wednesday. The deal includes all of Mako’s LPTV assets.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said he's not against regulation but wants it to "solve market failure," foster competition, spur innovation and investment, and account for costs and benefits. "The goal is to make sure our rules are tailored to the market as it exists in 2017," he said, responding to questions at a Lincoln Network event Tuesday evening in San Francisco (available here). Pai said the FCC needs to "modernize" its rules to give broadband providers "timely, cheap" access to poles, ducts and conduits: "That's something we're aiming to do." Companies competing in the same space "should be regulated similarly," he said, declining to specify how broadband providers and internet edge providers should be treated and noting the FCC must "stay within the four corners of the law." Pai said "the future of wireless is particularly promising" and hailed mobile and fixed wireless solutions, software defined networks, and unlicensed spectrum use: "We stand on the brink of something big." He said his "personal passion" is to close the digital divide by bringing more broadband to rural, tribal, low-income and other "disadvantaged" communities, including people with disabilities. He said he's still "haunted" by a visit to a Sioux reservation in South Dakota where unemployment is high and one woman was found dead clutching her cellphone after dialing for 911 help 38 times, unsuccessfully, because wireless coverage was lacking: "We need to push technology as far out into the countryside as we can." He said he was "humbled" by his recent visit to Harvey-ravaged Texas, but said only 5 percent of cellsites went down, compared with 25 percent during 2012's Superstorm Sandy. He cited "amazing" rescue and recovery efforts of public-safety personnel, industry and others, including "incredible" FCC field personnel: "Everyone seemed to be coming together." Pai said he's eager to collaborate with his commissioner colleagues and said the number of bipartisan votes is "up dramatically" to "something like 86 or 90 percent." Pai said President Donald Trump is "very gregarious, very up to date on some of our work." He called the administration very receptive to his push for including broadband digital proposals in any infrastructure initiative: "At least in my area, it's been a productive relationship." Asked if he would seek elected office, Pai joked that he will never run for governor of California, but if he did, he would win with "Saddam Hussein-level margins."