There's optimism Congress could shift its focus to infrastructure soon, said USTelecom President Jonathan Spalter in a recent interview for C-SPAN's The Communicators to be televised this weekend and posted here. “We hear a lot of talk about the opportunity to pivot Congress’s attention back to the idea of a national infrastructure framework,” he said. “We’ve heard figures of up to $40 billion” to bring fiber networks across the country, Spalter said. “A national bipartisan commitment to infrastructure could propel broadband access to all Americans who need or want it.” USTelecom is developing a more sophisticated U.S. broadband map with more data at the granular level. It’s started with maps in Virginia and Missouri with plans to create a scalable database with harmonized and digitized data (see 1903210041). “We have to know where the underserved areas are,” Spalter said, as well as where broadband isn't available at all. He noted that several million Americans may have no access to broadband, especially in areas where the terrain is too difficult to deploy fiber in or where the economics of scale prohibit it. “We’re working with the FCC to close that gap,” Spalter said. He said the broadband mapping data is necessary for regulators to fulfill their fiduciary responsibilities in subsidizing rural broadband expansion. He noted 5G technologies won't likely start in rural areas nor in underserved urban markets, “but it absolutely has to include our rural communities.” Spalter favors the principles of net neutrality but not the Save the Internet Act (S-682), which he suggested would return telco policy to outdated 1934-era public-utility-style rules. When asked about Democratic presidential candidates’ interest in breaking up larger social media giants, Spalter said he’d rather see Congress “break up the difficult red tape” for telcos and establish more shared responsibility by all actors who touch the consumers through the internet, so it doesn't fall more on ISPs.

All cable operators would only have to respond to "bona fide" leased access requests from prospective programmers under the draft order on the FCC's June 6 agenda, released Thursday. It also released its robocalls draft declaratory ruling and Further NPRM (see 1905150041) and draft aviation safety NPRM. Under the leased access draft order, bona fide requests would include desired length of contract term, nature of the programming and the expected commencement date for carriage. The draft order, along with eliminating the requirement cable operators make leased access available on a part-time basis, which was expected (see 1905150060), would give cable operators more time to reply to bona fide requests and would allow charge of an application fee of $100 per system-specific request. The FCC declined to block cable operators from refusing to carry leased access programmers on only a portion of the operator's system but said it would continue to evaluate programmer complaints about cable operator denials on a case-by-case basis. An accompanying draft FNPRM proposes modifying the leased access rate formula, tying rates to the tier on which the programming is carried. It seeks comment on whether changes in technology and the distribution market have left its leased access rules on shaky First Amendment grounds.

The National Tribal Telecommunications Association has "significant concerns with the broadband testing protocols" in July's order on measuring speed and latency at recipients of high-cost USF support for fixed locations, NTTA wrote the FCC on Tuesday. The group backed some NTCA and rural broadband advocate WTA fears on broadband performance testing. Testing protocols aren't "ready and will not be ready in time for testing to begin" in Q3, NTTA wrote, in a letter posted Wednesday in docket 10-90. "NTTA shares NTCA’s and WTA’s concerns about the requirement for carriers to test outside their networks, speeds and tiers to be tested, incompatible CPE [customer premises equipment], and the starting date." NTTA didn't immediately answer our questions. Other telecom groups have USF speed/latency worries (see 1905140019). The commission will "be addressing the issue in the near future," emailed a spokesperson.

Forward-thinking telecom companies can help facilitate disruptive changes to healthcare from broadband and digital health technologies, FCC Associate General Counsel Karen Onyeije said Monday during an FCBA event. She said cross-sector collaboration is crucial: “Think of the bedfellows we need to make.” The FCC plans to release an update on a broadband and opioid study in the next four to six weeks, said Onyeije. She's also chief of staff for FCC’s Connect2Health Broadband Task Force, which is designed to think five to 10 years out. Her agency is working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to map the use of broadband as a social determinant of health, and they’ve created a conceptual model that includes opioid overdose data and mortality data in the hopes that it could help healthcare entrepreneurs identify those at risk and intervene sooner. “How do we play to where the puck will be?” Onyeije said. She cautioned that if not done correctly, the move to digital health could exacerbate health disparities because the technological advances won't be available to those who need them most. David Siddall of DS Law said that medical body area network (MBAN) technology is a classic case of spectrum sharing. When MBAN developers sought spectrum, they spent three years negotiating a sharing and interference mitigation arrangement with trade groups in the flight testing industry. The spectrum-sharing arrangement in place allows for use of the products in most U.S. hospitals, although Siddall noted that in larger cities, there might not be enough spectrum to cover all the hospitals. “The solution is more spectrum, but spectrum doesn’t grow on trees,” he said. Given the right spectrum, MBAN devices could be used to monitor patients in the home or ambulances, as well, he said. The first MBAN devices (wearable, bandage-size monitors) have yet to launch. Siddall believes product developers want to coordinate the technology with European standards first.

The type of LECs USTelecom asks the FCC to remove some unbundled network element rules from are incumbent providers (see 1905130050).

The FCC failed to adequately respond to major hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico in September 2017, Free Press stated Tuesday. The nonprofit shared the FCC’s initial response to the group’s Freedom of Information Act request for copies of consumer complaints after the hurricanes. The FCC didn’t hold wireless and wireline carriers accountable for not building resilient networks or not responding quickly enough or sufficiently during hurricanes Irma and Maria, Free Press said. The FCC should form an independent commission to investigate, it said. “The disaster can’t be separated from the history of more than 100 years of U.S. colonialism in Puerto Rico,” said the report, “a history of wealth extraction, systemic racism and economic exploitation that left the islands’ critical infrastructure -- including the communications networks -- fragile and vulnerable.” It’s not fair that the FCC did a rigorous investigation of what happened after Hurricane Michael in Florida (see 1905090045) but not Irma and Maria in Puerto Rico, Free Press added. The commission disagreed with the report card. “It’s terribly misleading to claim that establishing a commission would be a more effective use of time and resources than the work we did and continue to do,” a spokesperson emailed. “This includes the analysis and report we already did on the hurricane, and the creation of the Uniendo a Puerto Rico Fund to provide short, medium and long-term funding to restore, harden and improve telecommunications networks in Puerto Rico. FCC staff and senior leadership have spent significant time working with local leaders to do everything we can to help in the recovery, resiliency, and eventually improvement of communications services for these hard-hit Americans.”

The FCC will deliver its report to Congress on the TV ratings system Wednesday but won’t release the report publicly until 48 hours later, an FCC spokesperson told us. Wednesday is the due date for the report, which was required in the 2019 Consolidated Appropriations Act. It was provided to eighth-floor offices ahead of its release but was put out by the Media Bureau on delegated authority, requiring no commissioner votes, the spokesperson said. Parents Television Council President Tim Winter declined to comment on the report before he has seen its contents but said the bulk of the record supports improving the TV ratings system. PTC is widely seen as the impetus behind the directive from Congress, and the group delivered 1,400 petitions to the FCC calling for change last week (see 1905070046). Little action is expected to result from the report (see 1903010046).

FCC Chief Information Officer Christine Calvosa has left the agency, an agency official confirmed Monday. Calvosa replaced David Bray when he left the post in 2017. In February she went from acting to permanent CIO (see 1902040022).

Seeking an OK to combine, T-Mobile and Sprint urged the California Public Utilities Commission to enforce 50 voluntary commitments the carriers said they made over the course of the state's lengthy review. The carriers listed its pledges in an appendix starting on page 105 of a Friday reply brief in docket A.18-07-011. In that and other closing arguments, positions appeared largely unmoved from the opening round (see 1904290065). Reject arguments of opponents including the Communications Workers of America and consumer advocates who “have dug in their heels,” the companies said: “Intervenors seem intent on condemning Californians to the status quo, where AT&T, Verizon Wireless, and the cable companies dominate the wireless and broadband markets.” The combining firms urged prompt OK of the wireline part of its transfer in a separate reply. CWA urged denial: “Applicants have failed to provide evidence of verifiable, merger-specific public interest benefits.” The CPUC "Public Advocates Office opposes the proposed merger because it is not in the public interest,” PAO said. Alleged public benefits from 5G are “not unique to this merger,” with the record showing Sprint and T-Mobile would deploy 5G individually without the deal, it said. The Utility Reform Network understands technical benefits of combining networks for the companies, but the carriers didn’t show how that translates into direct benefits for consumers, TURN replied. The Greenlining Institute urged the CPUC to reject the carrier’s procedural attempt to split review into two proceedings "despite the fact the Commission consolidated Joint Applicants’ wireline and wireless applications, because those applications involved related questions of law or fact.” The California Emerging Technology Fund, which signed a pact with the carriers that included $35 million for CETF (see 1905080024), now “enthusiastically and wholeheartedly” supports the deal. Ion Media, meanwhile, told the FCC in a letter posted Monday in docket 18-197 it supports the deal. “The deployment of 5G networks promises to create a new alternative for video distribution for consumers all over the United States,” Ion said: “The New T-Mobile’s network, which is expected to deliver coverage, speeds, and capacity far superior to what either T-Mobile or Sprint could offer on their own, will enhance ION’s ability to provide the highest quality entertainment to consumers, at home and on the go.” But Dish Network told the FCC it shouldn’t approve the transaction because Sprint might otherwise fail as a company. “At no point during this proceeding have the Applicants attempted to assert that Sprint meets the definition of a failing firm under the Department of Justice’s Horizontal Merger Guidelines,” Dish said. “This is because -- as Sprint’s own statements demonstrate -- the company cannot make such a showing.”

The recently renewed FCC Consumer Advisory Committee (see 1904120044) meets June 3 at 9 a.m. in the Commission Meeting Room to discuss CAC members’ roles and responsibilities and issues to address, said Friday's Federal Register.