The C-Band Alliance (CBA) is proposing a sealed-bid combinatorial second-price auction process for clearing 180 MHz of the 3.7-4.2 GHz band. The auction design -- now being discussed with the FCC -- is the last of the major components of its band-clearing plan put before the commission, the CBA told us Tuesday. That follows its transition (see 1904090067) and band plan.
Matt Daneman
Matt Daneman, Senior Editor, covers pay TV, cable broadband, satellite, and video issues and the Federal Communications Commission for Communications Daily. He joined Warren Communications in 2015 after more than 15 years at the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, where he covered business among other issues. He also was a correspondent for USA Today. You can follow Daneman on Twitter: @mdaneman
Kidvid rules are either an anachronism with significant First Amendment problems or a small price for broadcasters to pay in exchange for the "money-making machine" that's a broadcast license. Those were the opposing viewpoints at a Media Institute lunch Tuesday with former Commissioner Robert McDowell, now at Cooley, debating Georgetown Law Institute for Technology Law & Policy's Gigi Sohn, a former FCC chairman's aide. The only common ground was that Congress is unlikely to get involved.
Expanded use of dialing code 211 for a national suicide prevention and mental health crisis hotline -- as recommended by the FCC's North American Numbering Council (see 1905080020) -- got both support and criticism in docket 18-336 comments this week. The proposal doesn't have consensus in the mental health community (see 1905160054). Using 611 isn't realistic, given the amount of calls it receives annually, and 211's dual use is technically feasible and compatible, said the Alliance of Information and Referral Systems. It suggested a "press one/press two" command putting callers into one of two independent systems, or an enhanced integration. It said the veterans service line should remain separately governed, and the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (NSPL) -- working with the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration -- should head the suicide prevention aspect of any joint use. It said 211 staffers today handle crisis calls for domestic abuse, child protection and homelessness on a daily basis. It said some believe there would be initial confusion about 211 as a suicide prevention number, and there were similar perceptions in the early days of 211 about possible confusion between it and 911. The 211 National Leadership Group backed a 211/NSPL collaboration, directing calls "to the best people to handle them as quickly as possible." It said expanded 211 use will necessitate more funding for operating the NSPL via 211. Some see expanded 211 as giving short shrift to suicide. The Trevor Project said expanded 211 use "would ... be inefficient and diminish the importance of the issue," and such operators aren't properly trained to handle emergency calls. It advocated a dedicated three-digit number. It suggested FCC recommendations include training of NSPL counselors in LGBTQ cultural competency and creating an integrated voice response to route calls to the group. Centerstone said expanded 211 use would likely result in insufficient coordination and delays "as people filter" through the system, and instead a sole-purpose number should be designated. It gave no recommendations. A collection of Utah United Way agencies said 211 doesn't work in some parts of the state and a suicide prevention hotline would dilute the core mission and purpose of 211.
Despite calls for carriers to provide robocall-blocking tools for free, it would be a bad outcome if every carrier opted for the same, cheap option instead of employing a variety of them, said Patrick Halley, USTelecom senior vice president-advocacy and regulatory affairs, at an FCBA robocalls CLE Monday. "Carriers face legitimate costs." He said noted secure handling of asserted information using tokens (Shaken) and secure telephone identity revisited (Stir) implementation will be expensive for some carriers. Call-blocking tools' costs came up repeatedly at last week's FCC commissioners' meeting (see 1906060056). And Commissioner Geoffrey Starks on Monday wrote 14 providers seeking details on their plans to offer free, default call blocking services to consumers (see 1906100025).
With SpaceX and the American Astronomical Society (AAS) partnering to explore ways to reduce the reflectivity of the StarLink satellite constellation, some told us other low earth orbit operators also will have to take into account reflectivity, a concern among astronomers. It's considered unlikely agencies or Congress will get involved soon.
The argument that changing technology has left FCC leased access rules at odds with the First Amendment rights of cable operators is seemingly a step toward axing those and other content carriage requirements, said the public, educational and government channel community and Democratic commissioners Thursday. Commissioners adopted the leased access item on their meeting agenda.
Regardless of the ultimate direction of the C-band clearing proceeding, it could be a precedent for how the FCC repurposes other contested spectrum bands such as the 5.9 GHz band, said C-Band Alliance (CBA) Head-Advocacy and Government Affairs Peter Pitsch Wednesday on a Technology Police Institute panel. CBA and T-Mobile butted heads over their rival plans, with little common ground beyond the need for 5G access to the 3.7-4.2 GHz band.
Limiting what 833 toll-free numbers might end up in secondary markets and taking a different look at the data responsible organizations (RespOrgs) are supposed to provide about those secondary markets are among suggestions the telecom industry had in FCC docket 95-155 postings Tuesday. Rules authorizing the auction took effect last fall (see 1811260030) and replies are due Monday. Consider rules restricting from the secondary market any toll-free numbers that were obtained for free, even if they were obtained under competitive bidding processes, ATIS Systems SMS/800 Number Administration Committee asked, saying numbers in which there was only one bidder -- and thus free -- shouldn't be eligible for the secondary market. It said defaulted bids should be treated as if they hadn't been submitted, with the second-highest bidder awarded the number for the third-highest bid amount or, if there's no other bidder, for zero, instead of subsequent auction rounds. The group called "unnecessarily severe" the proposed penalty that not submitting secondary market data to Somos within 60 days would mean discontinued access to the toll-free database. Citing "ease of administration," CenturyLink said only contested numbers should be eligible for the secondary market and that possible RespOrg reporting penalties are too severe. It said requiring a bidder participate in the same way for all numbers instead of bidding on some directly and others through a RespOrg would promote auction process integrity. The proposed information-gathering burdens on RespOrgs "go well beyond their current capabilities" and need to be narrowed, Verizon said. It said the FCC should ensure financial burdens of such information gathering and reporting aren't excessive and protect proprietary business information -- such as toll-free number sales prices. A competitive auction of a few 833 numbers is a far more modest undertaking than a spectrum auction, so don't apply such spectrum auction rules on a blanket basis to the participants of the experimental toll-free auction, 1-800 Contacts commented. It said application procedures and qualification requirements must be "much less burdensome" so as not to preclude participation. It said problems include the common control restriction, which isn't needed "given the very minimal chance" of collusion by otherwise independent companies.
Sizable private equity investing resulted in legions of startups in the small-satellite universe, but 2019 will likely be the year when "some of them start peeling off" and failing, said Quilty Analytics President Chris Quilty at an American Bar Association space law symposium Tuesday. "There's going to be a lot of roadkill in the next year or two." Most companies are "fighting over the table scraps" beyond the money that's gone to OneWeb and SpaceX, and when those smaller startups start getting to the point where they're ready for larger-scale investments, "stumbles" are likely, Quilty said, with funding if not declining at least decelerating. "It's healthy, it happens," he said.
Looking for information on alternatives to GPS-provided positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) capabilities, the Department of Transportation received input on a variety of systems that supposedly could fit that bill. Comments were due Monday at Regulations.gov. Globalstar and Echo Ridge said they're ready to do a field demonstration of PNT capability that could back up or complement GPS, operate independently of other global navigation satellite systems and require no new infrastructure. They said its augmented positioning system uses 24 low earth orbit Globalstar satellites and a series of its earth stations. Skyhook said its Wi-Fi-based system could provide hybrid location in populated areas that also use crowdsourcing to monitor GPS performance trends. Locata said its terrestrially based non-GPS system could cover all the traditional GPS functions needed for PNT services. Seven Solutions said its timing-only solution, using disparately located global navigation satellite system receiver sites, "would render local jamming and spoofing activities moot." Multiple filings weren't made public because of confidential business information. GPS is the best technology for precision navigation and timing requirements, and the industry supports looking at complementary technologies as long as they offer equivalent capabilities and performance, the GPS Innovation Alliance said. GPSIA said given the costs to develop those alternatives and potential limitations, federal resources should still be principally be directed at maintaining and improving the existing GPS system. Some possible alternatives came under fire. GPSIA said one possible complementary technology, eLoran, isn't accurate enough in navigation opposition data for many PNT functions like high-precision agriculture, surveying and intelligent transportation. Qualcomm said eLoran has problems -- its 10-inch square antennas are tough to house in mobile handsets and mobile devices generate high levels of low frequency noise in the 100 KHz rate in which eLoran operates. It said another possible approach, metropolitan beacon systems, would be limited to urban areas and need extensive network buildout and ongoing maintenance. DOT should keep in mind the wireless industry's network rerouting, device-based navigation and timing and cloud-based application capabilities to continue voice and data transmissions in the case of GPS outages when deciding the scope of need for GPS backup when it comes to wireless communications, CTIA said. It said any terrestrial backup will require substantial antenna deployments on U.S. wireless infrastructure, and DOT should be talking with tower company owners and operators about tower space availability and operational issues.