Groups representing rural wireless carriers are pressing the FCC to increase the rural carrier bidding credit from a proposed 15 percent to 25 percent, as the agency takes up revised designated entity (DE) rules before the TV incentive auction. Representatives of Blooston Mordkofsky, the Rural Wireless Association, NTCA and Bennet & Bennet discussed the topic with Louis Peraertz, aide to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, said a filing in docket 14-170. “Additional bidding credit support is needed in order to level the playing field for rural carriers and to give them a fighting chance when bidding for highly sought-after low-band spectrum,” the filing said. The rural advocates noted that rural carriers had little success in the AWS-3 auction. “CTTC -- a bidder that was ineligible for a small business bidding credit in Auction 97 and would also be ineligible in the Incentive Auction under the proposed thresholds -- was outbid by a Special Purpose DE substantially owned by DISH Network, Inc. that had access to a 25 percent bid credit,” the filing said.

Mobile Relay Associates faces a proposed $25,000 penalty for violation of FCC rules in its operation of private land mobile radio (PLMR) station WPPF234 in Malibu, California. MRA failed to “monitor and take other precautions to avoid causing harmful interference to another licensed station operating on a shared frequency in the Los Angeles area,” said a notice released by the FCC Enforcement Bureau Tuesday. The FCC warned MRA its operations violated the commission’s sharing and monitoring requirements for PLMR stations, “however, MRA failed to modify its operations of the station to remedy the interference it was causing,” the bureau said. MRA released a statement saying it respects the Enforcement Bureau but disagrees strongly with the notice of apparent liability for forfeiture (NALF). “MRA intends to file a statement in opposition thereto,” the company said. “MRA has not and does not intentionally cause harmful interference to co-channel licensees, and did not intentionally cause harmful interference here.” The proposed fine “represents disparate and haphazard enforcement of the rules,” MRA said, citing a case where a $17,000 fine was proposed against another company for causing harmful interference to the Coast Guard. “MRA’s heavy use of the shared channels in this matter was a direct result of unlicensed operations by San Gabriel Transit on another … exclusive channel licensed to MRA, which knocked MRA’s customers off the exclusive channel and onto the shared channels,” the company said. “Although MRA had complained to the FCC staff, and although unlicensed operations interfering with exclusive licensees is a worse offense than what MRA is accused of, the FCC staff has not issued any NALF against San Gabriel Transit.”

Cablevision representatives weighed in on touchy questions over restrictions on LTE-unlicensed and licensed assisted access (LAA) in a meeting with aides to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. In comments filed on the issue there was “widespread recognition of the danger of LTE-U and LAA [devices] to existing consumer devices and the ineffectiveness of proposed sharing mechanisms,” Cablevision said (see 1506290060). The FCC should test assertions by Qualcomm and Cisco that LTE-U can coexist with Wi-Fi “to gather the technical information on the record necessary for proper consideration and testing of these approaches,” Cablevision said.

The FCC should reject any arguments that would force wireless industry companies to pay a higher percentage of the regulatory fees needed to keep the agency open, CTIA said in reply comments filed Monday in docket 15-121. CTIA generally supports the FCC’s proposed fee structure for FY 2015, the group said. The FCC should recognize that the wireless industry already pays more than its fair share, CTIA said. It said it continues to support the commission’s efforts to ensure that regulatory fees appropriately reflect the work conducted by agency staff and asks the commission to ensure that any changes to the regulatory fee framework are "measured, rational, and do not unreasonably affect a particular industry."

The National Safety Council launched a tool that provides instant feedback on an employer's cellphone policy, said a news release from the NSC. Many employers are implementing cellphone use policies to keep their workers safe on the roadways, but many "still allow hands-free use and exempt certain classes of employees, leaving gaps in safety that also increase an employer's liability risk in the event of a crash," the NSC said. Because motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of workplace death, and distracted driving is a common cause of crashes, the NSC has released the Cell Phone Policy Assessment Tool to reveal gaps and their associated costs to help improve policies, the release said. By completing a simple survey, a report is generated to assess how an employer's policy matches up with best practices to keep workers safe, it said.

CTIA and member companies asked the FCC to “engage” with potential bidders in the TV incentive auction in an “iterative, collaborative” process aimed at helping them understand the data the FCC will provide during the auction. The industry representatives met with FCC officials Wednesday to discuss their concerns, said an ex parte filing Monday in docket 12-268. The FCC “should adopt frameworks that speed deployment and promote bidder confidence,” CTIA said. “For example, 600 MHz licensees should be permitted to conduct pre-deployment testing of licensed spectrum without any encumbrances from secondary users of the spectrum as soon as possible and should not be required to provide ongoing notifications to secondary operations once a licensee has initiated transmissions.” CTIA also asked the FCC to clarify the scope of a requirement on what would trigger additional inter-service interference analyses and “fully disclose any potential impairment associated with this process,” the filing said. “For example, 600 MHz licensees should not be required to conduct extensive analyses of interference effects if proposed mobile network modifications would not increase the interference potential to a broadcast station.”

Verizon asked for extra time to file an objection to a supplemental discovery request from NTCH in a roaming dispute between the two carriers (see 1505080011). The objection is due Monday and Verizon asked that be extended until Friday. “NTCH consents to this request,” said a Verizon filing Thursday in docket 14-212. “The additional time is needed because the NTCH discovery request is extensive and will require considerable time and effort to consider and prepare any objections.” NTCH does business as Cleartalk. The Enforcement Bureau granted the request.

The methodology the FCC proposed for the TV incentive auction, which includes incorporating bidding procedures into the assignment phase of the auction, could mean lower revenue in the auction, U.S. Cellular representatives said in a meeting with Erin McGrath, aide to Commissioner Mike O’Rielly. “Incorporating bidding procedures into the assignment phase is unnecessary and overly complex, and likely would lead to lower bids during the crucially important clock phase of the forward auction,” the carrier said. “Assignment phase bidding could delay satisfaction of the final stage rule and cause the incentive auction to move to another stage with a lower spectrum clearing target.” The filing was posted Thursday in docket 12-268.

Next-generation 911 systems and FirstNet have different functions but in the end will have to work together, said a report by the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council released Wednesday. NG-911 systems deal with a call “from its origination through its arrival and processing” at a public safety answering point, NPSTC said. “The FirstNet system is designed to take call information from the PSAP, via the agency network, and distribute it to first responders. There are many options for how data is managed as it crosses from the NG911 network into the public safety agency network and then out to first responders via the FirstNet system.” Making the two work together may require data standardization, the report said. For example, a computer assisted dispatch (CAD) system must be programmed to accept a standardized NG-911 data stream. “Other demarcations may be used only to pass IP traffic to the next network,” NPSTC said. “For example, a public safety agency’s CAD system may send an IP message through FirstNet to a fire truck’s mobile data terminal.” Additional information may be pushed from the PSAP to the first responders, such as URLs first responders can use to access various databases while on the scene of an incident, NPSTC said.

There's broad industry agreement that the FCC should minimize the intentional placement of U.S. TV stations in the 600 MHz band as part of the TV incentive auction repacking, an AT&T official said in various meetings at the FCC. “As the record confirms, repacking U.S.-based television stations into the 600 MHz band will significantly degrade the quality of the adjacent licenses for mobile wireless use, both within the same market and in geographically adjacent markets,” AT&T said in a filing in docket 14-252. Doing so would reduce the value of licenses sold to carriers in the forward part of the auction, AT&T said. The impairments also would “force the Commission to offer non-generic licenses under circumstances in which bidders cannot know during the forward auction which licenses they will ultimately receive, and that uncertainty will cause bidders to further reduce their bids,” the carrier said. The filing was signed by Joan Marsh, AT&T vice president-federal regulatory.