The FCC issued a notice of inquiry Tuesday on creating a C4 FM class, likely indicating an eventual rule on the matter isn’t an agency priority, a broadcast attorney told us. Though the NOI seeks comment on creating the new class, the agency likely would have to issue an NPRM before proceeding to an order, the attorney said. When Chairman Ajit Pai in February announced that a C4 item had been circulated on the eighth floor, he described it as an NPRM (see 1802060049). A C4 class would allow owners of Class A FM stations to upgrade their stations, and was first suggested by Pai before he was appointed chairman. Since the C4 stations would have primary status, some broadcasters worried the new class would threaten the many translators authorized under the Pai-supported AM revitalization (see 1802140060). “We would be reluctant to adopt any proposal in this area that would have a significantly negative impact on FM translators and LPFM stations,” the NOI said in two places. The NOI seeks comment on how the new class could work without impacting translators, and without increasing the noise floor on the FM band. The full commission, including outgoing Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, approved the NOI (see 1805180042).

Recent FCC and DOJ commentary "bodes well" for regulatory OK of T-Mobile buying Sprint, with more clarity coming soon, Macquarie Research wrote investors Tuesday. After a speech last week, Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim reportedly told journalists he sees no magic number of carriers for the wireless market, and FCC Chairman Ajit Pai earlier indicated he would "keep an open mind on wireless consolidation," the analysts said. The market is "clearly competitive," the analysts said, with Comcast adding 577,000 Xfinity mobile subscribers in about 10 months, Charter Communications slated to launch wireless service in 2018 and Altice and Cox doing likewise in 2019. The American Antitrust Institute said T-Mobile/Sprint should be dead on arrival at the Justice Department because it would create an oligopoly. It “would further reduce the number of rivals from four to three, stoking even higher concentration in the national U.S. wireless market and contributing to growing concerns over a broader systemic decline in competition, market entry, and equality in the U.S. economy,” AAI said Tuesday. An AT&T executive last week said the carrier is unlikely to oppose the combination (see 1805300037). T-Mobile didn't comment.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said he's “raising the bar” on his expectations for the Advisory Committee on Diversity and Digital Empowerment. That was part of remarks Monday at the committee’s supplier diversity workshop. The workshop paired communications industry companies with minority-owned suppliers and service providers. Pai praised the committee for taking concrete action quickly to improve diversity by creating the event. “Now that I’ve seen what you can do, I’m adjusting my expectations,” he said. Pai expects the committee to “make more real-world connections for small businesses, including those owned by women and minorities” and make “recommendations on how to bring more diversity to Silicon Valley,” he said. “We expected tangible results,” Pai said. “Today’s event is a tangible result.”

The FCC shouldn't eliminate FM subcaps or incentivize broadcast incubators with ownership waivers but should be more robust in enforcing equal employment opportunity and pirate radio rules, said the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters and the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council in meetings Wednesday with Chairman Ajit Pai, Commissioner Mike O’Rielly, aides to Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Brendan Carr, and Media Bureau Chief Michelle Carey, said a filing posted Monday in docket 14-50. The FCC should consider eliminating only AM subcaps, “which could encourage more AM ownership,” MMTC and NABOB said. “Elimination of the FM subcap would lead to a rapid deterioration in the AM service and undermine the Commission’s AM revitalization efforts.” The agency is seen likely to relax subcap rules as part of the upcoming 2018 quadrennial review (see 1805220053). If the FCC lets companies that incubate new entrants into broadcasting receive ownership waivers, it “would be certain to embroil the program in the media structural ownership litigation,” the groups said. The FCC can act to eliminate cronyism by better enforcement of EEO rules, the groups said. “The agency should reform its audit program so it can verify that hiring decisions are made after jobs are posted, and not before.” The FCC should pursue legislation granting it more power to enforce the rules against unlicensed broadcasting, said MMTC and NABOB. “The Commission should make it clear that it will enforce the law equally throughout the nation regardless of the race of a neighborhood’s residents.”

FCC staff is working with Universal Service Administrative Co. to prepare a national verifier of Lifeline eligibility for launch, said Chairman Ajit Pai in an update to Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., posted Friday in commission docket 18-5. "USAC continues to focus on addressing [Federal Information Security Management Act] compliance to ensure the National Verifier will be a secure system," Pai wrote. "USAC has completed several steps in this process and is making significant strides toward completing all FISMA requirements." He said commission staff and USAC are working to finalize dates, and stakeholders will be given advance notice about the launch once the dates are finalized. Both "continue to work on the expansion of the National Verifier in additional states to minimize the impact of the initial delay and are close to finalizing data sharing agreements in two additional states," Pai wrote.

The FCC is willing to investigate alongside the Department of Homeland Security if “particularized evidence” of unlawful use of cellsite simulators, often called StingRays, is found, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai wrote Friday to Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y. (see 1806010056). Engel, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and other lawmakers repeatedly pressed the FCC to investigate StingRay use in the U.S. and particularly Washington, D.C., with mounting evidence of activity from DHS. Pai told Engel, ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, DHS “has taken the lead in assessing the potential threat from certain uses of cell-site simulators,” and the agency identified the technology as “an existing and emerging threat.” If "we had particularized evidence that certain devices were being unlawfully used within the United States, we would of course investigate the matter alongside our federal partners and take all appropriate enforcement actions,” Pai wrote, noting DOJ and the FBI also are addressing the issue. Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel responded that “cell phone surveillance devices have been detected in Washington near the White House. Today the @FCC declined to investigate. This makes no sense.” An FCC spokesman declined further comment.

Removing barriers to broadband deployment, such as pole attachment permitting and costs, needs to be an FCC and congressional priority, said American Cable Association President Matt Polka in an interview on C-SPAN’s The Communicators that was to be broadcast over the weekend and was posted online. Added TDS Senior Vice President-Corporate Affairs Drew Petersen, "It's not a glamorous issue," but such attachments can cost close to $40 per pole in rural areas requiring multiple poles, adding up to a significant financial hurdle to deployment. While 5G holds big promise, it likely won't be deployed in rural and suburban areas for years, said Petersen, an ACA board member. Polka said continued deployment of broadband -- including obtaining the financing and recouping costs -- is the biggest challenge facing cable ISPs. He said the FCC Communications Act Title II broadband service rollback opened the door to companies being more innovative in how they recoup those costs. He said as the country considers infrastructure-related spending or proceedings, broadband needs to be kept in mind. Petersen said TDS' most expensive portion of business is its fiber footprint, followed by access to video content. He said it has seen "some" cord cutting, though subscription VOD is largely complementary. TDS, which operates in 31 states, is expanding video subscriber numbers through bringing in IP-based video via its fiber network, Petersen said. Since cable operators are increasingly broadband-centric, whether "American Cable Association" is an outdated name "is a question we ask ourselves all the time," Polka said: "Our members are broadband forward" and ACA's board considered a name change a couple years ago, though it opted to keep the moniker because of its familiarity. Asked about AT&T buying Time Warner, Petersen said the urge to grow through deals is understandable, but smaller MVPDs and their subscribers end up paying higher prices for content to make up for the favorable terms and conditions big, merged companies are able to secure. Polka said Sinclair/Tribune should be denied even with divestitures of some stations.

The need for FCC regulations, relevancy and function is "fading" like “a snowman in springtime,” due to the rise outside the agency's jurisdiction of the “app economy,” Commissioner Mike O’Rielly blogged Friday. Since services like Facebook and Netflix are increasingly competing or replacing more traditional FCC licensees, the FCC should relax regulations, O’Rielly said. Many focuses of FCC attention “need to be scrapped immediately,” he said. “Why, for instance, should the Commission spend one more minute adjusting the wireline separations accounting rules?” Licensees shouldn’t be thought of as incumbents “based on legacy notions of competition instead of marketplace realities,” he said. The current commission has relaxed regulations in many areas, “but there is capacity to do more if entities would do the work to make the proper showings,” the commissioner said. “If an existing FCC regulatee is in the voice, video, or data business, they should be knocking down our doors to demand fundamental and colossal relief.” The alternative to relaxing more regulations would be to “advocate for new Congressional powers to regulate these services,” but that’s “futile and unnecessary,” O’Rielly said.

The FCC extended comment deadlines into late summer on a USTelecom petition for incumbent telco forbearance relief from unbundling discounts and other wholesale duties. Instead of comments being due Thursday and replies June 22, they will now be due Aug. 6 and Sept. 5, respectively, said a Wireline Bureau order Friday in docket 18-141, partially granting various requests. The bureau also issued a protective order. Many parties, from other telecom associations to state utility regulators, sought more time, and some also opposed the deregulation that USTelecom sought (see 1805210049). The ILEC association was OK with an extension (see 1805220056).

The American Public Power Association decried “process and outcomes” of the FCC Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee, in a letter to BDAC Chair Elizabeth Bowles posted Wednesday in docket 17-83. BDAC has no representative for public power utilities, and it shows, APPA said. “While BDAC purports to be a representative body, its composition is so overwhelmingly comprised of private industry representatives that there can be no real suggestion that the ‘model’ codes developed by BDAC are consensus documents that reflect the input and views of all stakeholders.” The committee also has taken heat for having few local representatives (see 1805020059). Pole attachment recommendations in the draft model codes “would have significant detrimental operational and financial impacts on utility operations,” the association said. “These measures would compromise the safety and reliability of electric distribution infrastructure and would subsidize the private communications industry at the expense of public power utility customers.” The draft municipal code “arbitrarily and capriciously seeks to impose a single set of pole attachment regulations on all public power utilities in clear contravention of … Section 224 of the Communications Act,” it said. APPA opposed creating a centralized register of network support infrastructure in each state as unnecessary and burdensome. A state code proposal to require public entities including power utilities to make publicly owned dark fiber available to private entities at cost-based rates is “one-sided and overly intrusive,” it said. An FCC official noted that National Rural Electric Cooperative Association CEO Jim Matheson is a BDAC member on the State Model Code and Competitive Access to Broadband Infrastructure working group.