The FCC’s August infrastructure order “correctly and lawfully concluded that state and local moratoria on the deployment of telecommunications facilities violate Section 253(a) of the Communications Act,” the Wireless Infrastructure Association said, posted Tuesday in docket 17-84. Those seeking reconsideration failed to provide grounds, WIA said. The FCC has broad authority to interpret Section 253 and did so correctly, it said. The ruling isn’t a taking violation of the Constitution because it didn’t require localities to grant wireless siting applications or diminish property value, WIA said. A local group seeking recon, the Smart Communities and Special Districts Coalition, says wireless carriers didn’t respond substantively to its petition (see 1811190044). Energy companies responded to telecom industry opposition to a Coalition for Concerned Utilities petition to reconsider pole-attachment rate and process changes in the order (see 1811130048). “Pole attachments issues are complex, with many interested parties, issues and moving parts,” CCU replied. “To achieve our common goals, one set of attachers should not benefit at the expense of another," CCU said, and "newly-imposed regulations must be reconciled with conflicting regulations and the Pole Attachment Act, efficiencies should be added to speed deployment, and unnecessary roadblocks to future broadband deployment should be eliminated.” The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association agreed with utilities it’s dangerous to allow a self-help remedy or overlashing without sufficient oversight. Utility pole owners should be able to recover costs including for overlashing reviews and preparing make-ready estimates, NRECA said. Don’t “adopt a presumption in favor of providing ILECs with regulated rates for newly renewed joint use agreements and the Commission should not cap the rate at the pre-2011 Telecom rate in the event that a utility rebuts the presumption,” replied the Edison Electric Institute and Utilities Technology Council.

C-Band Alliance, Intelsat, SES and Auctionomics dismissed concerns about a "windfall" from freeing up part of the C-band for 5G as misplaced, meeting chiefs of the FCC International and Wireless bureaus and Office of Engineering and Technology, and with Media Bureau and Office of Strategic Planning, recounted a docket 17-183 posting Tuesday. In the related docket 18-122, others petitioned for more time for replies on the NPRM on opening the C-band to terrestrial use. The C-band interests said with mid-band spectrum so vital to 5G, the alliance met with small and rural mobile operators and their associations about their needs. Intelsat and SES said they determined they could cut the proposed guard band from 50 MHz to 20 MHz through newly designed and optimized band-pass filters, validated by over-the-air tests with live satellite signals in the presence of adjacent 5G transmissions. The C-band interests said the sooner there's visibility on an order, the sooner a commitment of "very significant funding" to satellite manufacturers for additional satellites that will need to be built and launched for that transition. The C-band interests said SES and Intelsat -- with either one or the other out of the room -- discussed methods and tools to be used to repack customers, and plans to add more satellites and ensure satellite reception through filters and mitigation techniques. In the request for extension for replies, the Dynamic Spectrum Alliance, American Cable Association, Competitive Carriers Association, Public Interest Spectrum Coalition and Wireless ISP Association said two more weeks, to Dec. 11, would help promote a more complete record. They said the 30 days for replies "was already very tight," given the Thanksgiving holiday, and issues raised are particularly complex. The alliance, in a coming reply, said delay "will slow the U.S. in the race to 5G" and the NPRM came out nearly four months ago: That's plenty of time to "evaluate the issues and anticipate opposing arguments." It said the petition coming days before the Nov. 27 reply deadline instead of closer to the Oct. 29 comment deadline "screams of gamesmanship and strains credulity."

State and local challengers to FCC net neutrality pre-emption said responses of the commission and its defenders "erroneously dismiss the record evidence of potential harm to the public -- from consumer protection to public safety to government services -- as sufficiently addressed by market forces." The "post hoc argument that market forces may protect public safety was not presented in the Order and cannot cure the Commission’s failure to fulfill its statutory duty to consider public safety," replied (in Pacer) officials of California's Santa Clara County and the state Public Utilities Commission, New York State's attorney general and others to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Friday in Mozilla v. FCC, No. 18-1051. They disputed arguments the order's "sweeping preemption provisions" were authorized by FCC broadband jurisdiction, saying the commission "must instead identify affirmative statutory authority for preemption, which it has failed to do." The FCC "may not rely on conflict preemption as a source of regulatory authority, and its views on the matter are premature and invalid," they said. Intervenor Digital Justice Foundation replied (in Pacer) that it's not procedurally barred from challenging the order's "arbitrary-and-capricious transparency rule," saying the FCC didn't respond to the substance of its arguments. Others replied earlier (see 1811160051).

Bid commitments reached $103.8 million Monday in the 28 GHz auction (see 1811140063), with provisionally winning bids on 2,220 of 3,072 licenses, said the FCC's dashboard. Four rounds are scheduled for the first time Tuesday, with bidding to then take a break for Thanksgiving and resume on Monday, Nov. 26.

Congress will need to decide how much it’s willing to disrupt competition when crafting privacy legislation, FTC Commissioner Noah Phillips said in an interview for C-SPAN's The Communicators, to have been televised Saturday: While lawmakers want to protect consumers, they must keep in mind that regulatory schemes can harm competition and entrench incumbents. “That may be worth it,” Phillips said. “It may be that the problem we’re solving is such that we’re willing to take a little competition out of the market, but it’s something that we need to keep in mind.” Determining these “value judgments” should come first before deciding whether the FTC needs better privacy authority, he said. “That a firm is large under our law doesn’t necessarily make it a bad firm. It doesn’t make its conduct illegal,” he said. Sometimes, firms illegally protect their position in the market, and that’s something the FTC should monitor, he noted. Phillips warned against using antitrust law to address claims that platforms are favoring content based on ideology, noting he's not sure his agency has a role there.

The FCC Public Safety Bureau seeks comment on communications service outages caused by Hurricane Michael and the FCC’s response, said a public notice Friday. With 36 questions on several areas of focus, comments are due Dec. 17. The PN seeks comment on how service providers, 911 call centers and broadcasters prepared for and responded to the hurricane, and how FCC actions affected matters. The PN specifies areas of Florida that were slower to have their service restored, an issue previously highlighted by Chairman Ajit Pai (see 1810160056). “While the restoration of communications services in most areas affected by Michael proceeded at a normal speed, the recovery was much slower in Bay County and Gulf County,” the PN said. “One week after Michael made landfall, more than one-third of cell sites in those two counties were still out of service.” The PN asks if service providers implemented best practices, and for details about fiber cuts, and the wireless resiliency cooperative framework. The PN seeks comment on how the storm affected public safety answering points, and whether wireless and broadcast emergency alerts were effective. It asks about the agency’s use of the disaster information reporting system during the storm: “What DIRS information proved most useful to first responders? Are there extraneous or unnecessary data points contained in DIRS that detract from its overall usefulness?” Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel previously sought hearings on the FCC’s hurricane response, and said in a statement that the PN is a good start, though not enough by itself. “Seeking comment is a correct first step,” Rosenworcel said. “We also need for the FCC to make a commitment to do a timely report. It took a year for this agency to issue a report on the 2017 hurricane season. That’s unacceptable,” she said. “We have to do better.” The FCC didn’t comment on that.

Bid commitments in the FCC's 28 GHz band auction reached $54.8 million Thursday, with provisionally winning bids on 2,093 of the 3,072 licenses, auction results show. Three rounds are scheduled for Friday, after two were held on both Wednesday and Thursday. A third round (see 1811140063) was eliminated Thursday due to inclement weather.

Research presented by Carnegie Mellon University's Alessandro Acquisti at a recent FTC hearing involved grants-related projects funded by the Sloan Foundation and National Science Foundation (see 1811060053), while Google funded unrelated research.

Outgoing Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., told us Thursday he “most likely” will seek the Communications Subcommittee chairmanship, confirming earlier information from a Senate GOP aide (see 1811150019). Thune, elected Wednesday as the chamber's majority whip, had been debating whether to seek the gavel of the Communications or Surface Transportation sub (see 1811020048 and 1811140055). Thune is relinquishing the Senate Commerce chairmanship at the end of this Congress. Senate Communications Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., is likely to succeed him. Thune emphasized Wicker, if selected to lead Senate Commerce, ultimately will decide who leads the subcommittees. Lobbyists said Thune is likely a lock to take the Communications gavel given his seniority within the GOP caucus. Commerce policymaking in the Senate is largely conducted at the full committee level, but the Communications gavel would give Thune a continuing substantial influence on telecom and tech measures, lobbyists said. Communications ranking member Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, lauded Thune's interest in chairing the subcommittee. Thune “likes to get things done, and he and I have a good working relationship,” Schatz told us. "I look forward to continuing that partnership." The two senators have been working for more than a year to advance the Streamlining the Rapid Evolution and Modernization of Leading-Edge Infrastructure Necessary to Enhance Small Cell Deployment Act (S-3157), among other matters. The bill aims to implement a “reasonable process and timeframe guidelines” for state and local small-cell consideration (see 1806290063). S-3157 faces headwinds because of opposition from state and local governments (see 1810040055). “I think we can do something meaningful” on privacy legislation given momentum there, but “I'm not too sure” about the potential for progress on net neutrality, Schatz said. Thune, Wicker and other lawmakers also see privacy legislation as a 2019 priority (see 1811140053). “The first order of business needs to be” work on “ambitious” privacy legislation, but Senate Communications also should continue focusing on rural broadband deployments, the push for improvements to FCC broadband coverage maps and telehealth, Schatz said.

Tyler Barriss, 25, pled guilty to phoning in "hoax bomb threats" to the FCC and FBI in Washington and dozens of other crimes, said the U.S. Attorney's Office for Kansas Tuesday. A Dec. 14 threat disrupted the FCC meeting where commissioners adopted 3-2 a net neutrality reversal order (see 1712140039). Chairman Ajit Pai said he's "deeply grateful" to law enforcement and FCC security officials. Barriss, of Los Angeles, faces 20 years or more in prison, said U.S. Attorney Stephen McAllister, with sentencing set for Jan. 30: In a Dec. 28 "swatting" incident in Wichita, Kansas, Barriss admitted making a hoax call that resulted in police surrounding a house where they believed there was a hostage situation, shooting dead an innocent man.