Regional working groups have meant better emergency communications amid disasters, but more needs to be done to increase cooperation, GAO reported Tuesday. While the Federal Emergency Management Agency “has encouraged collaboration among regional working-group leaders, cross-regional efforts have been limited,” GAO said. “Developing and implementing an appropriate ongoing mechanism for collaboration could enhance emergency communications capabilities, such as by helping group members address common challenges. Without ways for all members of these groups to collaborate across regions, members may be missing opportunities to share information and leverage the knowledge and experiences of their counterparts throughout the nation.” GAO recommended FEMA and members of the Regional Emergency Communications Coordination Working Group work together on an “ongoing mechanism to encourage nationwide collaboration.” The Department of Homeland Security said in an attached letter it supports that recommendation.

The FCC and others said the local number portability administrator migration from Neustar to iconectiv was completed Friday. “I’m pleased that, after years of hard work and extensive preparation, we have successfully transitioned to a new and less expensive LNPA,” said FCC Chairman Ajit Pai Tuesday, noting a "complex endeavor" to "ensure a seamless and on-time transition. Wireline Bureau Chief Kris Monteith cited an FCC "team effort," along with the North American Numbering Council and North American Portability Management, the industry consortium the agency charged with overseeing the transition. NAPM said Saturday it gave "Final Acceptance" of iconectiv's new number-portability systems in all U.S. regions and called the transition complete. “This final acceptance marks the completion of one of the most significant upgrades ever made to our nation’s telecommunications infrastructure,” said NAPM co-chairs Teresa Patton of AT&T and Tim Kagele of Comcast in a joint release with iconectiv. “Technological hurdles for this project were daunting,” said iconectiv CEO Richard Jacowleff. “As originally intended, the ability to seamlessly take your phone number to new service providers or devices has increased consumer competition and choice since it was first mandated in the United States." Neustar emailed: “As with every major technology transition, there are going to be issues that need to be addressed post cutover, especially as the system increases its volumes. In our role as a service bureau and local systems vendor we continue to work the issues in support of our customers and implement suggested workarounds as outlined in the latest iconectiv service update." Tuesday, NANC's chairman said it approved draft nationwide number portability and toll-free number modernization reports to the commission (see 1805290023).

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr will visit Nebraska, Iowa and South Dakota for a broadband tour that starts Tuesday and wraps up Saturday. In Milford, Nebraska. Carr will visit a feed lot with Quantified AG, known for its “Fitbit" for cows, said a Friday news release. He plans to climb a cell tower in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and see a plant where 5G components are made in Sioux City, Iowa. Carr will appear at a roundtable discussion on FCC issues with Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., and at a tower ribbon cutting with Sen. John Thune, R-S.D.

American Tower Corp. said executives met with FCC auction staff on the follow-up to the TV incentive auction and warned that problems are starting to develop. “The meeting was intended to update the staff regarding the steps ATC has undertaken to prepare for the repack of TV licensees following the Incentive Auction,” said a filing in docket 12-268. The American Tower program is “in high gear,” the company said. Projects have been “vetted for cost and scheduling efficiencies” and there has been a “continual undertaking to lock down external repack resources.” But American Tower said the “originally forecasted resources shortfall [is] starting to materialize.” The company said it has completed work on six stations on phase 1, with the first tower modification completed last month. American Tower is “currently securing local jurisdiction permits for 27 Phase 1, 2 and 3 stations.” For phase 1 all 13 applications have been received but for phases 5-10 43 applications have been received and 72 are pending, American Tower said. The company said 21 percent of stations that need to be repacked use its towers and it has 129 projects underway, with 15 partial applications in the queue and 82 yet to be filed. Most of its crews that can handle complex projects are “booked or committed to projects through 2019,” American Tower said. A “backlog of materials and shipping is starting to stretch our delivery dates” and a “backlog for antennas is rapidly growing.” Finding qualified RF engineers is also a looming problem, the company said.

Hamilton Relay objected to planned FCC authorization of automated speech recognition (ASR) as a reimbursable form of IP captioned telephone service (CTS) in a draft ruling on the tentative agenda for the June 7 FCC open meeting, which could draw further provider concerns, given their past advocacy (see 1805240010). "To make such a profound change, in the absence of appropriate notice and comment, not only violates the Administrative Procedure Act ... but amounts to an abrupt and unexplained departure from its prior practice and frankly could cause harm to the users of IP CTS," said a filing by the IP CTS provider posted Friday in docket 13-24. The FCC "did not seek comment on whether to authorize ASR as a compensable form of TRS [telecommunication relay service] in the 2013 [Further NPRM] or elsewhere. Moreover, although the Declaratory Ruling discusses the process for applying for certification to provide IP CTS by means of ASR, it appears to authorize currently certified providers of IP CTS to begin offering ASR services without subjecting such services to oversight ... This poses a risk of harm to users of IP CTS. For example, the draft item does not even acknowledge that 911 calls using ASR are an untested and potentially unreliable means of communicating with emergency officials." ASR "has much potential," but it needs more study and the FCC needs more data, the company said. Hamilton also criticized a draft order's proposed reduction in the IP CTS compensation rate from $1.95 per minute to $1.75 starting July 1. "An arbitrary 10% cut is very difficult for any industry to manage, especially in this situation given the very short nature in which this particular change will take place," it said, suggesting the FCC lacked adequate cost data. The provider "continues to favor competitively-based rates instead of the cost-based methodology" that it believes doesn't capture true service costs. Hamilton said a July 1, 2019 "rate cut to $1.58 per minute, as proposed in the draft item, would create serious market disruption and likely would adversely affect quality and availability of service." It urged the FCC "to establish a two-year interim rate of $1.75 per minute from July 1, 2018 to June 30, 2020, or until a permanent rate methodology has been implemented." Hamilton also filed opposition in docket 03-123 to an FCC public notice seeking modification or clarification of a protective order, and suggested its own changes.

FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly asked the CEOs of Amazon and eBay for those companies' help in cracking down on video set-top boxes that fraudulently carry the FCC's logo indicating they comply with the agency's equipment authorization or boxes that don't comply with those authorization requirements. In a letter to Amazon's Jeff Bezos and eBay's Devin Wenig dated Friday, O'Rielly said the FCC doesn't have an obligation to crack down on unauthorized set-tops, but many such boxes are being used in pirating of video content. He asked that the online retailers commit to removing from their sites any devices with fraudulent FCC logos or devices that haven't been certified if the agency brings those devices to the companies' attention, with supporting evidence. He also asked the companies to give the FCC names of device manufacturers, distributors and suppliers "if the situation arises." In a response letter Friday to O'Rielly that we obtained, Amazon Vice President-Public Policy Brian Huseman said it already "strictly prohibit[s] the sale of IP-infringing and non-compliant products," and it last year became the first online retailer to ban the sale of streaming media players that promote or facilitate piracy. It said it proactively scans product listings for signs of potentially infringing products and uses a variety of automated real-time tools and human reviewers to identify inauthentic goods. It said it will remove suspected listings and at times take action against sellers' entire accounts. That work has resulted in "tens of thousands" of illicit streaming device listings being blocked, plus several criminal referrals to law enforcement. Amazon said it would "appreciate the opportunity to collaborate further with the FCC" and if any noncompliant devices are identified, "we seek to work with you to ensure they are not offered for sale." eBay didn't comment.

The FCC said its Disability Advisory Committee will meet June 14, starting at 9:30 a.m., in the Commission Meeting Room. The DAC last met in October.

The FAA should establish a means for ensuring its management of small unmanned aircraft system (UAS) safety risks follow the applicable principles and requirements in the agency's policies, GAO said in a study Thursday. It said the FAA is only partially following principles of safety risk management in its policies on analyzing and assessing safety risks of UAS, implementing controls of those risks and monitoring the effectiveness of those controls. It said better risk management practices would help the agency decide whether more steps are needed to ensure airspace safety. It said the FAA lacks reliable information about the extent of unsafe use of small UAS, since the thousands of reports of potentially unsafe use it has collected offer limited information, though the agency also is trying to improve its data. In a letter dated March 9 included in the report, Assistant Transportation Department Secretary Keith Nelson said the FAA agrees it could improve documentation of its safety risk management activities for small UAS operations, and it concurred with the recommendation.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency and Harris County, Texas, said the FCC should mandate that carriers be able to transmit multimedia content in wireless emergency alerts. Comments are due Tuesday on a Public Safety Bureau notice seeking to update the record (see 1803280029) on feasibility of carriers including multimedia content in WEAs, and early filings are starting to appear in docket 15-91. “We must continue to look at ways to improve the WEA system to create a strong and adaptable tool,” Harris County said. “Pictures provide instant recognition and speak a universal language. Most importantly, they enable rapid response from every potential witness who could save countless lives through fast action. With the network upgrades to 5G, capacity for multimedia messages will be even greater, and we would be remiss not to advocate for multimedia capabilities for WEA to be in place as this upgrade occurs.” FEMA’s Integrated Public Alert and Warning System Office also backed the change in alerting rules. It's already “technically feasible” to include multimedia in alerts and the cost would be minimal to public safety, FEMA said. “Forthcoming improvements to provide targeted messaging, increase character count, provide a Spanish-language function, and test the system will increase WEA’s utility to local authorities,” said the Regional Disaster Preparedness Organization serving the Portland, Oregon, area. “However, additional multimedia enhancements are still needed to ensure emergency warnings are correctly understood by the public -- specifically the ability to send an image in a WEA message and provide alerts in languages other than English and Spanish.”

Tyler Barriss was indicted for allegedly phoning in bomb threats to the FCC and FBI in December, said a release Thursday of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia. It said Barriss, 25, of Los Angeles, was indicted on two counts of making hoax bomb threats, one of which led to the evacuation of the FCC's meeting room during the high-profile Dec. 14 meeting at which commissioners adopted a net neutrality rollback order (see 1712140039). According to government evidence, Barriss made threats by phone that explosives were in the building and set to detonate, the release said. The meeting was halted and the room evacuated, but no explosives were found, it said. A similar threat was made Dec. 22 to the FBI after work hours; again, no explosives were found. A grand jury indictment against Barriss was unsealed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. "Barriss currently is detained in Wichita, Kansas, where he faces state and federal charges for his role in a Dec. 28, 2017, 'swatting' that led to a fatal shooting by law enforcement. 'Swatting' refers to a hoax intended to cause law enforcement to respond to a particular location," the release said. The FCC didn't comment.