Flat Wireless sought rehearing Friday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, after the court in December dismissed its challenge of Verizon roaming rates (see 1912100069). The challenge "largely runs counter to Commission rules that deliberately eschew cost-based regulation of roaming rates,” wrote Judge Laurence Silberman for himself and Judges David Tatel and Thomas Griffith. “The Panel’s ruling was not only erroneous but also meets the Court’s more stringent rehearing criteria that: (1) the ruling conflicts with several bedrock rate regulation precedents of this Court; and (2) concerns a matter of exceptional importance,” Flat Wireless said now, in docket 18-1271 (in Pacer). The FCC refuses “to confront the fact that roaming rates -- the pricing agreements which allows millions of subscribers to hundreds of small or regional wireless carriers to make and receive phone calls when they are outside the home territories of their wireless companies -- are excessive,” the company said. The FCC didn't comment.

FCC staff is holding “routine discussions and meetings with NTIA on behalf of other federal agencies and consultation with the Department of Energy and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission” on the 6 GHz band, Chairman Ajit Pai told Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, in a Jan. 16 letter posted Friday. The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology “has been evaluating a variety of issues, such as indoor and outdoor use cases and a variety of device power levels, to discern whether and to what extent unlicensed operations can exist alongside incumbent uses,” Pai said: “The Commission will ultimately be driven by the facts in the record, including the technical analysis that OET compiles.” FERC raised concerns about utilities sharing the 6 GHz band with Wi-Fi (see 1912190082).

The FCC had to take on revised wireless infrastructure rules, despite opposition from local and state governments (see 1909250062), because in some areas the federal government has to step in, said General Counsel Tom Johnson in a podcast released Friday. The question regulators have to ask is “what is the competent authority in a particular area?” Johnson said: “It's got to be the lowest level of government that's competently able to deal with an issue.” In wireless siting, states and localities have a role to play but “can't impose rules that would unnecessarily delay that deployment, that would make it prohibitively expensive, because ultimately these are not local networks,” he said. Telecom is an area that only the federal government can “effectively” address “because a lot of these networks, especially when you get into broadband networks, emerging 5G networks” are national or regional, he said: A state or locality imposing a particular rule on these networks “makes it either impossible or extremely costly for [providers] to comply and deploy across multiple jurisdictions.” When the FCC was preparing to defend its 2017 order (see 1712140039) overturning parts of the 2015 net neutrality rules, Johnson said it got support from small wireless carriers, “particularly in rural or less prosperous parts of the country, that said that the conduct rules that had been imposed on a nationwide level by the prior administration were preventing them from deploying, because they couldn't afford to take on the regulatory or litigation risk.” The companies found it “too costly” to “figure out how to comply,” he said. “In many parts of the country, these were the only option for wireless service for consumers.” Johnson looks to the work of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in understanding federalism. The general counsel’s job lies “at the intersection of law and policy,” he said: “Sometimes … the commission will want to do something and you'll find that if you do X, it's legally risky. Maybe if you do part of X, it's less risky. So you do have these tradeoffs as to what a litigation risk is and how much policy you can get without taking on unnecessary litigation risk.” Evan Swarztrauber, an aide to Chairman Ajit Pai, interviewed Johnson.

Video remains a valuable service, but Comcast is "not chasing this segment of the market" and expects increased video subscriber losses this year due to rate hikes and ongoing cord cutting, Chief Financial Officer Michael Cavanagh said on the company's Q4 call Thursday. The company ended 2019 with 20.29 million residential video customers, down 671,000 year over year. It ended the year with 26.4 million residential broadband customers, up 1.3 million, 9.9 million residential voice customers, down 220,000, and with 2 million wireless lines, up 816,000. Cavanaugh anticipates wireless subscriber growth rates to continue this year. CEO Brian Roberts said it was the best year for broadband net additions in 12 years. He said the company ran out of its Flex set-top boxes for its Flex streaming platform (see 1903210038) in its first month. Comcast said revenue was $28.4 billion, flat on a pro forma basis. Comcast bought Sky in Q4 2018.

Petitioners didn't demonstrate "certain, impending harm" to show standing in Greenlining v. FCC, said a decision (in Pacer) memo by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Thursday. Judges probed standing during oral argument (see 1908270026) and allowed petitioners to make a new attempt at proving independent standing (see 1909060038). The case involved potential consumer harms in the move from plain-old-telephone service to VoIP and addressed an FCC move striking down the functional test standard in service discontinuances (see 1908230003). "We are deeply disappointed with the Court's decision," wrote Harold Feld, senior vice president at Public Knowledge, one of the joint petitioners. "As the California wildfires demonstrated, the deregulation of our telephone network can have devastating consequences. We will confer with our co-petitioners and consider what other avenues to pursue to ensure that all Americans have affordable, reliable access to critical communications infrastructure." Chairman Ajit Pai is "pleased that the Ninth Circuit has rejected this challenge to the FCC’s efforts to expedite the transition from the networks of yesterday to the networks of tomorrow." Co-petitioner The Utility Reform Network is "very disappointed that the court dismissed the case based on standing," said Telecom Director Regina Costa. Telecom deregulation overall has made service less reliable, she added. She expects TURN to discuss with fellow petitioners next steps, including possible actions in states and Congress. NASUCA is "disappointed with the decision," emailed Executive Director David Springe. USTelecom backed the FCC and didn't comment now. Hearing August argument in Seattle were Margaret McKeown, Jay Bybee and Fernando Gaitan. The order wasn't signed by a single judge to indicate who wrote it.

House Infrastructure Committee Chairman Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., ranking member Sam Graves, R-Mo., and 36 other committee members raised "substantial" concerns Wednesday about the FCC’s 5.9 GHz NPRM. The rulemaking (see 1912120058) proposes to reallocate the 5.9 GHz band for Wi-Fi and cellular vehicle-to-everything, preserving some for dedicated short-range communications. Four House Communications Subcommittee members backed the proposal earlier this month (see 2001100066). The House Infrastructure members cited Transportation Department calls to preserve the band for DSRC (see 1909160018) in a letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. The commission significantly changed the proposal in response to Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and other DSRC advocates (see 1911200055). “We have made the adoption of technology in our transportation system a key priority and expect to take further steps in the upcoming surface transportation reauthorization to encourage greater use of [intelligent transportation systems]," the House Infrastructure members wrote. "Removal of this dedicated spectrum would be counter to our national transportation policy goals, as affirmed by the DOT and the Congress" in the 2015 Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act. “For over 20 years, the vast majority of the 5.9 GHz band has sat unused, and it is therefore time to turn the page on the failed status quo,” an FCC spokesperson emailed. The NPRM “would improve automotive safety by allocating 20 MHz for C-V2X, a promising technology that currently does not have any spectrum available to it. The FCC is committed to transportation safety and is pursuing a balanced approach.” WifiForward said the 5.9 GHz band “is unused in the vast majority of the country the vast majority of the time and this is the best near-term opportunity to help with that crunch. The FCC has proposed a win-win; providing airwaves for wireless broadband and innovative automotive safety applications broad bipartisan and cross-industry support.”

Audi, the Virginia Department of Transportation and Qualcomm Technologies announced plans Wednesday for initial deployment of cellular vehicle-to-everything on northern Virginia roads in Q3. The C-V2X deployment uses the same part of the 5.9 GHz band the FCC proposed to allocate for C-V2X (see 1912180019), Qualcomm said. Efforts are “designed to focus on improving safety for construction workers and motorists alike,” Qualcomm said. C-V2X is “a new and promising technology that is gaining momentum in the automotive industry as it enables communications between cars, infrastructure, cyclists, pedestrians, and road workers,” said FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. He noted the pilot requires an experimental license because rules haven’t changed.

DOD, in opposing Ligado's proposed license modifications (see 1911210055), is contradicting the stance it took in 2010 on GPS protection, the company said in a docket 11-109 filing to be posted. DOD then concurred with NTIA that GPS devices should be protected only when operating in their allocated spectrum, but today the agency wants Ligado's applications denied because of a 1 dB change in noise floor in GPS devices operating in Ligado spectrum, the company said. It said FCC reliance on such now-contrary statements would be "the height of unreasoned decision-making." The satellite firm said 2016 Air Force testing of possible effects on military GPS receivers never raised red flags. It submitted a 2013 email from a former principal director with the DOD Deputy Chief Information Officer for Resources Analysis office saying DOD had "no issue" with what was then LightSquared's proposal. "This continues the pattern in which the Department blithely ignores past commitments on the relevant spectrum, does not reveal or ignores its own tests, and ignores its clear statements to Congress on Ligado’s spectrum plan," the company said. DOD didn't comment. FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly urged the agency Tuesday to make a decision on Ligado's pending license modification applications (see 2001210028).

Revoke Communications Decency Act Section 230 “immediately” for Facebook and other platforms, said former Vice President Joe Biden, a 2020 Democratic candidate for president. Facebook “is not merely an internet company,” Biden told The New York Times in a Q&A Friday. “It is propagating falsehoods they know to be false, and we should be setting standards not unlike the Europeans are doing relative to privacy.” Singling out Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Biden said he should be “submitted to civil liability and his company to civil liability.” Congress is considering whether to change immunity laws for big tech companies (see 1912270037). Removing Section 230 would mean internet platforms would “either become the most rigorous speech police ever created” or would step back and “allow an unfiltered stream of the kinds of ruinous libel, hate speech and falsehoods that the former vice president is understandably concerned about,” said Free Press Action Senior Policy Counsel Gaurav Laroia. He said changes should be “undertaken carefully and cautiously with an eye to protecting marginalized and vulnerable communities and with an understanding that it’s the First Amendment, not Section 230, that allows individuals to engage in the speech of their choosing, for good and for ill.” Facebook and the Internet Association didn’t comment Friday.

Seven telecom groups asked for changes to FCC letter of credit requirements in its draft Rural Digital Opportunity Fund order, they wrote Thursday in docket 19-126. USTelecom, NCTA, NTCA, Incompas, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, WTA and the Wireless ISP Association said LOC burdens unite them. They asked for revisions so obligations correspond more closely to risks. "Encouraging robust participation and prudentially managing risks to the fund are both important goals, but should not, and need not, be mutually exclusive," the groups said. The agency declined to comment. USTelecom separately asked the FCC to revise the RDOF item, due for a commissioners' vote Jan. 30 (see 2001150005). Otherwise, current letter of credit requirements "will prevent USTelecom members (and in our view the entire pool of potential bidders) from participating meaningfully in the RDOF auction," USTelecom said in filings posted Thursday in docket 19-126. Under the current draft, letter of credit requirements "scale dramatically and unsustainably," USTelecom said. "Critically, the compounding nature of the requirements would force participants -- ranging from small independent providers to large, publicly-traded companies -- to access more credit than they are capable of accessing." Industry had asked for changes (see 1912190073). USTelecom said the modifications made "are grossly insufficient to match the business reality that potential bidders face." USTelecom CEO Jonathan Spalter and CEOs including Consolidated Communications' Bob Udell and Windstream' Tony Thomas had meetings Monday with officials including Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioners Brendan Carr and Geoffrey Starks, plus Wireline Chief Kris Monteith and other bureau officials. The Wireless ISP Association said the "modest change does not go far enough" and would preclude participation for many small ISPs. WISPA said letters of credit are treated as debt that harm RDOF recipients' ability to borrow.