The National Lifeline Association (NaLA) and others supported bids for relief from Lifeline minimum service standards by TracFone and NTCA. Initial comments were due Thursday in docket 11-42 (see 1807310069). NTCA sought, on behalf of RLECs, temporary waiver from updated FCC Wireline Bureau Lifeline minimum standards for fixed broadband service that take effect Dec. 1 (see 1807240014). TracFone is seeking a Section 54.408(b) waiver or a ruling it could comply with minimum service standards by giving customers "a specified quantity of 'units' per month" (see 1807260028). “A necessary step towards achieving Chairman [Ajit] Pai’s stated goal of empowering consumers who participate in the Lifeline program is to eliminate the paternalistic … minimum service standards, which imposed the judgment of Washington regulators over that of consumers,” NaLA said. WTA supported the NTCA ask. “As NTCA notes, there is a difference in price when considering different broadband speed tiers,” WTA said. The Missouri Public Service Commission supported TracFone. “TracFone’s proposal may simplify program requirements for ETCs [eligible telecom carriers] by giving companies greater flexibility in offering a plan to meet Lifeline’s minimum standards,” the PSC said. “This flexibility is needed because, as an example, Missouri presently is experiencing more companies leaving the Lifeline program than entering it. TracFone’s proposal may remedy this scenario by encouraging existing ETCs to remain in the Lifeline program as well as by encouraging new companies to join.”

Video programming distributors must make televised emergency information accessible to those with disabilities, said an FCC reminder public notice Thursday. Rules require video emergency information provided in newscasts or interrupting newscasts to include aural descriptions on the main audio feed, and such information must be accompanied by a tone on the main audio and available aurally on the secondary audio feed if it occurs during a non-newscast, the PN said. MVPDs must pass through emergency information on a secondary audio stream, the PN said. Emergency information provided via audio must be accompanied by closed captions, the PN said. The FCC will monitor complaints of violations of this requirement and “review them for possible enforcement action,” the PN warned. Consumers can complain about such violations on the FCC’s website.

FY 2018 regulatory fees adopted this week (see 1808290061) are due Sept. 25, but some entities are exempt, the FCC said in a fact sheet Thursday. Entities include those whose FY 2018 annual regulatory fee bill is less than $1,000, plus noncommercial educational FM station licensees and full-service NCE TV licensees if they operate solely on an NCE basis. Nonprofit entities may be exempt.

President Donald Trump urged firing CNN head Jeff Zucker and NBC News head Andy Lack, on Twitter Thursday. Trump said CNN's "hatred and extreme bias of me ... has clouded their thinking and made them unable to function." He said "Little Jeff Z has done a terrible job, his ratings suck, & AT&T should fire him to save credibility!" He said CNN is "losing everything all because they chose to be the DNC's puppet." Trump said other networks are acting similarly, with NBC News "being the worst." The "good news is that Andy Lack(y) is about to be fired(?) for incompetence, and much worse," he said. AT&T didn't comment.

Skyway Towers said tribal review of tower projects continues to slow deployment, as it expects commissioners to vote on related issues as soon as next month (see 1808300028). Skyway thanked the FCC for the work it has done in cutting regulatory red tape, but said a March order is slowing some projects. The order cuts red tape for tribal reviews of projects off tribal lands and makes clear applicants “have no legal obligation to pay upfront fees” when seeking tribal comment on proposed deployments (see 1803220027). “Other industries,” from fast food chains to gas stations, can build outlets “without being required to have those proposed sites reviewed by the tribal nations,” Skyway said. “By contrast, our industry must submit the very same locations for analysis by the tribes,” the tower company said in a filing posted Thursday in docket 17-79. “Recent actions by the Commission attempting to remedy the problem have actually slowed deployment.” Skyway said since the March order, some tribes disbanded offices they once had to review sites and “off-loaded the burden of those reviews to the Commission staff.” The FCC and groups representing the tribes didn’t comment. “WIA strongly supported the FCC’s efforts to lower barriers to wireless infrastructure deployment in its March order by addressing a number of outdated and unreasonably burdensome tribal review processes,” said Wireless Infrastructure Association President Jonathan Adelstein in response. “Moving forward, we remain confident that the commission is implementing the new process effectively to encourage investment and deployment of wireless infrastructure.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee should “expeditiously” consider the final two nominations to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, 31 groups wrote committee leadership Wednesday. The Center for Democracy and Technology, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Electronic Privacy Information Center, New America’s Open Technology Institute, Public Knowledge, R Street Institute and TechFreedom signed. University of Virginia law professor Aditya Bamzai and former FCC Enforcement Bureau Chief Travis LeBlanc are expected to round out the five-member board, which currently has one sitting member. The committee in February advanced to the floor President Donald Trump’s nominee to chair the board, Adam Klein, former law clerk to late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia (see 1803290050). The committee in June advanced two other nominees: former White House Deputy Chief Technologist Edward Felten and Jane Nitze, former clerk to Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor (see 1806210043). The full Senate hasn't acted on those nominations.

Commissioners adopted the FCC FY 2018 regulatory fee schedule and rejected direct broadcast satellite arguments against hiking the DBS regulatory fee, said an order released Wednesday. The fee assessment will collect $322 million, the agency said. It rejected DBS arguments against the rate hike (see 1806220017) in the past and was doing so again for the same reasons. It said starting with FY 2019, it will assess full-power TV fees based on population covered by the station's contour instead of designated market areas, and will use the TVStudy database for that. The agency is amending rules on collection of delinquent debts so it no longer can assess its administrative costs for collecting delinquent regulatory and application fee debt, effective Oct. 1.

Marriott International agreed to pay a $504,000 fine for violating FCC rules on wireless license transfers, the Enforcement Bureau said. EB investigated transfer of licenses to Marriott from Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide, said a consent decree Tuesday. Marriott voluntarily disclosed what happened and sought FCC approval after the fact for 63 transfers of control of 65 non-common carrier licenses and authorizations, the bureau said. “As admitted in the application filings, Starwood ‘did not timely file applications seeking prior Commission consent due to an administrative oversight that occurred during a larger transaction involving both U.S. and substantial non-U.S. assets’ before completion of the 2016 acquisition of Starwood by Marriott,” the bureau said. “Marriott admits that it failed to obtain the Commission’s approval prior to the transfer from Starwood, will implement a compliance plan” and pay the fine, the bureau said. Marriott didn’t comment.

Leslie Martinkovics, the 2017 U.S. ITU Association chairman, is now a board member, and chair is Amy Alvarez (see 1808240011) ... Besides .web and .gay, Donuts has four other new top-level domains in contention: .hotel, .spa, .cap and .music (see 1808270001).

Initial comments are due Oct. 28, replies Nov. 27, in docket 18-122 on the FCC’s C-band NPRM. Commissioners approved the item 4-0 in July (see 1807120037). “The Commission seeks comment on various proposals for transitioning all or part of the band for flexible use, terrestrial mobile spectrum, with clearing for flexible use beginning at 3.7 GHz and moving higher up in the band as more spectrum is cleared,” says a notice for Wednesday's Federal Register. “The Commission also seeks comment on potential changes to its rules to promote more efficient and intensive fixed use of the band on a shared basis starting in the top segment of the band and moving down the band.”