In an opinion piece in The Hill Wednesday, FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly wrote that the ITU is suffering from mission creep and staffing problems, and a failure to take seriously the candidacy of Doreen Bogdan-Martin as director of its Telecommunication Development Bureau "would be a grave mistake" and could boost the case of those who want the U.S. to leave the ITU or limit its financial support. O'Rielly said many ITU member states are trying to make it a global regulator of new technologies, such as the internet, that are outside its core mission or jurisdiction. A possible fix would be allocating a minimum of 80 percent of all ITU spending or events to spectrum policies, he said. O'Rielly also said there's too little oversight of staffers, leading to them picking the projects to pursue, hiring technical consultants and framing debates, and there needs to be better procedural safeguards and more detailed budgeting information. He also said more decisions should be made by member states rather than on a delegated basis. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and NTIA Administrator David Redl endorsed Bogdan-Martin (see 1803130029).

The FCC should allow Educational Broadband Service licensees to apply for additional open spectrum, said America’s Public Television Stations and CPB in an ex parte filing in docket 18-120 Wednesday. “The current licensing scheme has enabled public television stations to provide distance learning services to millions of Americans, including those in remote areas of the country,” APTS said in a release. The FCC should “issue new EBS licenses to qualified educational entities, most assuredly including local public television stations,” said APTS CEO Patrick Butler in the release. The "extraordinary technological achievement" of the new ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard "will allow public television stations with EBS licenses to offer extraordinary new educational possibilities,” he said.

Huawei Technologies attacked the Telecommunications Industry Association's defense of an FCC proposal to bar USF subsidy support for products from companies seen as posing a national security threat. TIA's reply comments "misrepresent the record, are full of distortions and unproven accusations against Huawei, and fail to confront the statutory, administrative, constitutional, and factual deficiencies" in the proposed "national security blacklist," said Huawei's 50-page filing posted Tuesday, in docket 18-89, with 401 pages of exhibits. "As an example, TIA’s hodgepodge of reasons that the Chinese Government allegedly has undue influence over Huawei arbitrarily rests on speculation and is belied by both the law and the facts. As another example, TIA completely ignores both the statutory limits on the Commission’s USF authority and the lack of expertise in and responsibility for national-security issues that are necessary for any rulemaking in this context." TIA's comments and reply in the proceeding represent the TIA Public Policy Committee's views, noted Huawei, citing TIA footnotes. "The composition of that committee is undisclosed. Even Huawei, which is a member of TIA and has a representative on the board, has not been informed of the identity of the committee members." TIA's comments weren't "reviewed or approved by all of its members, or even by all members of its board," Huawei said. "While TIA claims that it submitted comments 'on behalf of its membership comprising hundreds of global manufacturers and vendors of ICT equipment and services,' ... this contradicts its own statements in the footnotes cited above, and it is not clear that its comments here are supported by more than a handful of such companies. TIA continues to refuse to disclose the identity of its members or other entities backing its Comments, who may be competitors of Huawei." TIA said Wednesday it's still reviewing Huawei’s filing. "That said, all commenters in this docket agree that protecting U.S. telecommunications networks is critical," emailed a spokesperson. "TIA continues to support the Commission taking carefully targeted action to address this pressing national security issue."

The FCC granted a waiver to an Alaskan E-rate applicant and invited others to seek relief due to similar application processing problems. Pribilof School District of St. Paul Island sought more than $300,000 in E-rate support to provide satellite internet access to 65 low-income students on two islands in the Bering Sea. Following a "series of errors" in the Universal Service Administrative Co.'s rollout of the E-rate Productivity Center (EPC), "Pribilof filed its application for funding and its subsequent waiver request after the applicable deadlines," said a unanimous commission order in docket 02-6 Wednesday. "[W]e grant relief to Pribilof and give an opportunity for relief to other similarly situated applicants whose applications were rejected because of failures of the EPC platform during funding year 2016." It directed the Wireline Bureau to initiate a process giving other FY 2016 applicants 60 days "to demonstrate that they experienced the same special circumstances as Pribilof and that a waiver would be in the public interest." Commissioner Mike O'Rielly's said his "concern has been the misguided position that information provided by USAC on the EPC news feed constitutes notice to an applicant of a funding decision and sets the deadline to appeal the decision." He thanked Chairman Ajit Pai for making revisions "to clarify that items posted on the EPC news feed are merely informational in nature." He recommended the FCC "take the next available opportunity to codify a rule that any funding decision be communicated by letter and distributed directly to the applicant’s designated contact(s), preferably by electronic means." Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel lauded the decision.

The FCC announced allocation of an initial $64.2 million in extra USF support to help telecom providers restore broadband and voice service in hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Providers will receive $51.2 million in Puerto Rico and $13 million in the Virgin Islands, with 60 percent going to fixed network operators and 40 percent to mobile network operators in both jurisdictions, said a Wireline Bureau public notice in docket 18-143 and Wednesday's Daily Digest. The top recipients are: Puerto Rico Telephone (Claro), $16.4 million of fixed and $5.7 million of mobile support; AT&T, $1.65 million in conditional fixed support and $12 million in mobile support spread over both jurisdictions; Liberty Cablevision, $11.1 million in conditional fixed support in Puerto Rico; Virgin Islands Telephone (Viya), $6.9 million in fixed support, and Vitelcom Cellular (Viya Wireless), $126,576 in conditional mobile support; T-Mobile, $4.4 million, and PR Wireless, $3 million, in mobile support in Puerto Rico; and WorldNet Telecom, $1.3 million in fixed support in Puerto Rico. Providers receiving conditional support must show in two months they have received relevant eligible telecom carrier designations. The short-term funding was part of a May order and NPRM proposing $900 million in additional and repurposed USF support for the islands over the mid-to-long term (see 1805290028). Hughes Network Systems said initial comments on the NPRM "overwhelmingly" demonstrate that satellite services "must be" part of the islands' broadband infrastructure and "should" receive USF support. The FCC "must take these comments into account and address the issues in its proposal that prevent the participation of satellite operators in this [USF] proceeding, including the arbitrary selection of the June 2017 Form 477 data filing as a cut-off date for participation; the unjustified application of latency requirements; and the decision to award funds using non-transparent, anti-competitive, subjective processes," said Hughes' reply Wednesday. "Failure to do so will result in the residents of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands being denied access to truly resilient and reliable broadband services."

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is looking at possible changes to or revocation of its 2014 decision that employees given access to an employer's email system for work purposes have a presumptive right to also use it for non-work activity related to union organizing and bargaining. In a notice last week inviting comment by Sept. 5, NLRB said it also wanted input on the standard to be applied to evaluate policies governing the use of employer-owned computer resources other than email.

The 2019 World Radiocommunication Conference Advisory Committee's Informal Working Groups 3 and 4 scheduled teleconference meetings for Sept. 4 and 19, and Informal Working Group 1 scheduled one for Sept. 18, said an FCC International Bureau public notice posted Friday.

The FCC issued a notice of inquiry on creating a "connected care" pilot program adopted at its Thursday meeting 4-0, with Commissioners Mike O'Rielly and Jessica Rosenworcel expressing some concerns, including about the agency's legal authority (see Notebook at end of 1808020034). Comments are due Sept. 10, replies Oct. 10 on a possible $100 million budget, a potential requirement that broadband participants be facilities-based eligible telecom carriers, and other issues, said the text released Friday and in Monday's Daily Digest.

NTCA encountered stiff resistance and USTelecom got some backing on their petitions for reconsideration of parts of an FCC rural call completion (RCC) order, in comments posted in docket 13-39, mostly on Friday. CTIA, ITTA, NCTA, Sprint, USTelecom and Voice on the Net (VON) Coalition opposed, while WTA supported, NTCA's request for revisiting a commission decision to not require covered originating providers to file their RCC monitoring procedures with the agency. CTIA said such a filing requirement isn't necessary to achieve regulatory objectives and would unduly increase burdens. Sprint said the request "was risky and burdensome," won't generate benefits and isn't supported by any new information. NTCA offered "no compelling evidence" for why its proposed requirement would mitigate "any remaining [RCC] problems," said USTelecom. ITTA said the FCC "properly places the focus of rural call completion troubles on unidentified intermediate providers" and seeks to address them through registration and quality-of-service requirements. The FCC decision was "sensible" and consistent with its efforts to eliminate "regulatory underbrush," said NCTA. The VON Coalition said the change would add a "costly burden without any countervailing benefit." Backing the petition, WTA said, The monitoring rule "is a step in the right direction, but will lose a substantial portion of its effectiveness if the Commission is unable to inspect, require modification, and monitor these call completion procedures." ITTA and NCTA supported USTelecom's petition, which sought reconsideration of rules requiring (1) that covered originating providers directly monitor intermediate providers beyond those they're directly interconnected with, and (2) contractual restrictions to ensure quality call completion though the call path. NTCA previously opposed the petition (see 1807180035). The FCC "should abandon the covered provider monitoring requirements, or at least curtail them substantially," said ITTA. "Moreover, as USTelecom argues -- and NTCA fails to refute -- these requirements are fraught with pragmatic obstacles, and are unsupported by the record in this proceeding. They also will lead to profound confusion, and threaten to defeat the Commission’s goal of facilitating enforcement where necessary."

An FCC Office of Inspector General report shows that a May 2017 breakdown of the FCC’s electronic comment filing system was caused by the sheer volume of commenters on net neutrality rather than a distributed denial-of-service attack (see 1806050046), according to statements from Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel. Pai initially blamed the ECFS failures on such an attack, and said Monday the report shows then-FCC Chief Information Officer David Bray provided “inaccurate information” to his office about the cause of the issues. “The Inspector General Report tells us what we knew all along: the FCC’s claim that it was the victim of a DDoS attack during the net neutrality proceeding is bogus,” said Rosenworcel. Pai said he's ”deeply disappointed” that Bray provided his staff with incorrect information. “I’m also disappointed that some working under the former CIO apparently either disagreed with the information that he was presenting or had questions about it, yet didn’t feel comfortable communicating their concerns to me or my office,” Pai said. The report, which hasn’t been publicly released, also “debunks” theories that Pai or his office knew the information from Bray about the alleged DDoS attack was false but were allowing the story to spread for political purposes, Pai said. According to Pai’s statement, the report shows Bray twice told Pai’s Chief of Staff Matthew Berry that “external folks deliberately trying to tie-up the server” caused the ECFS problems. Pai emphasized that Bray was hired during his predecessor former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s administration, and in part blamed the incident on the prior leadership. “It has become clear that in addition to a flawed comment system, we inherited from the prior Administration a culture in which many members of the Commission’s career IT staff were hesitant to express disagreement with the Commission’s former CIO in front of FCC management,” Pai said. He said he will make it clear that IT staff should speak up if incorrect information is being provided to FCC leadership, and the report “highlights the need for the FCC to revamp ECFS.” He praised Congress for approving a request for funding for an ECFS redesign (see 1807110044). “It’s unfortunate that this agency’s energy and resources needed to be spent debunking this implausible claim,” Rosenworcel said. An FCC spokesperson told us the OIG would decide when to release the report. The OIG report is separate from a Government Accountability Office report requested by lawmakers on the same issue. The OIG,Wheeler and Bray didn’t comment.