Federal Aviation Administrator Michael Huerta unveiled the list of groups invited to participate in the Transportation Department and FAA’s recently announced Unmanned Aircraft Systems Registration Task Force Thursday. In a news release, the FAA said the “Task Force membership represents a range of stakeholder viewpoints, interests and knowledge of the objectives and scope.” Members include representatives from: Amazon Prime Air; Amazon Retail; Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International; Best Buy; CEA; GoogleX; GoPro; PrecisionHawk; Small UAV Coalition; departments of Commerce, Defense, Homeland Security, Interior and State; the Office of Management and Budget; and NASA. “The group will meet formally from Nov. 3-5 before developing recommendations on a streamlined registration process and minimum requirement on which unmanned aircraft should be registered,” the FAA said. Absent from the task force are privacy and civil liberties groups. “Interested parties who are not members of the Task Force may submit comments to the public docket,” FAA said. CEA Vice President-Technology Policy Doug Johnson said in a news release Thursday that CEA is honored to join the task force, saying a 63 percent increase in drone sales is expected this year alone. “UAS technology -- if allowed by government to thrive -- will be key to U.S. global technology leadership,” he said.

Global Tel*Link officials have been personally threatened "in apparent response" to FCC statements on its recent action inmate calling service (ICS) charges, GTL CEO Brian Oliver said in a letter posted in docket 12-375 Wednesday. He said law enforcement is investigating the threats, which are similar to those made against Securus executives (see 1510270065) after the agency capped ICS rates and limited fees (see 1510220059). “It appears these threats are being driven by press reports” of the FCC action “and the press releases issued by the FCC describing that action,” including state-specific releases, Oliver said. The agency’s Virginia release “contained inaccurate information, which was later corrected by the Virginia Department of Corrections,” he said, adding that GTL has worked to reduce ICS charges, introduce new calling and messaging technology, and provide streamlined payment options for users. “GTL’s proposals have been tailored to meet the needs of all stakeholders -- inmates and their families, correctional institutions, ICS providers, and the safety of the general public,” he said. “In an effort to ensure the safety of its executives and its employees, GTL urges the FCC to take all necessary steps to address any incendiary and erroneous press statements issued or planned." An FCC spokesman had no comment.

NTIA introduced a portal to make computer and Internet usage data readily available -- "an easy-to-use source for locating statistics and charting trends," an NTIA release said. NTIA Data Central is intended to speed dissemination and facilitate analysis of U.S. computer and Internet usage data periodically gathered by the Census Bureau on behalf of the Department of Commerce agency, said John Morris, associate administrator of NTIA’s Office of Policy Analysis and Development, on a Thursday press call. He said current data from the last survey show, for instance, that the number of Americans using a mobile phone to go online rose from 27.3 percent in July 2011 to 45.1 percent in July 2013. “We all intuitively know that just walking down the street,” but it’s useful to quantify, he said. NTIA has been publishing reports on the data, which come from Census Bureau surveys of 50,000 people and have been collected since 1994, Morris said, but the new portal will allow the agency to make the data available faster and in ways that are more user-friendly. He said he believes NTIA will receive the raw data from a July 2015 survey by year-end and it will try “mightily” to get the data on the website as soon as possible thereafter. NTIA expects to accelerate the data releases by about a year compared with the previous process, he said. Rafi Goldberg, an NTIA policy analyst, said the website provides data and analysis in different forms to accommodate the needs of different people: casual users, people who want to survey and break down data quickly, and serious researchers who want to plow through voluminous underlying data. The site features a Digital Nation Blog that will include periodic analysis, a Data Explorer page for quick looks at usage trends in chart form, and a Research Center with detailed data sets for deeper dives. Data Explorer allows users to chart granular trends by slicing and dicing data in many different ways through pulldown tabs, without having to manipulate the raw data themselves, Goldberg said. Mark Cooper, Consumer Federation of America research director, was impressed with the Data Explorer function at first glance. “This is really cool,” he told us. “The test will be, can you think of five interesting questions that you can answer in a couple minutes,” he said.

President Barack Obama signed into law Thursday HR-3819, a short-term transportation funding bill that will extend the Dec. 31 positive train control implementation deadline by three years. Many railroads have said they wouldn't have been able to meet the original deadline, citing problems in acquiring necessary spectrum and in past challenges of FCC siting approvals. The House and Senate unanimously signed off on the measure earlier this week. "Americans who depend on freight and commuter railroads for their livelihoods and critical deliveries can breathe a sigh of relief," Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., said in a statement. "This legislation prevents rail service disruptions that would have occurred had Congress not acted, while still ensuring that this critical safety technology is implemented as quickly as possible."

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Thursday denied a motion for a preliminary injunction brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, New York Civil Liberties Union and the New York Civil Liberties Union Foundation. The groups asked the 2nd Circuit to bar the government from collecting call records under the phone metadata program, to require the government to quarantine call records already collected under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, and to prohibit the government from querying metadata obtained through the program using any phone number or other identifier associated with them. The opinion said that the “appellants’ claims are not moot at this time, we decline to disturb the decision by Congress to provide for a 180-day transition period to put an orderly end to the telephone metadata program.” The court remanded the case, ACLU v. Clapper to district court. Congress’ Nov. 29 shut-off deadline “should be respected” since it “balanced privacy and national security by providing for a 180-day transition period” in the USA Freedom Act, said Judge Gerard Lynch in the 2nd Circuit’s ruling. “Its intent in passing the Freedom Act was clear.”

There's broad support for finding more spectrum for mobile broadband, including in the UHF band, as the World Radiocommunication Conference gets ready to start next week in Geneva, the GSM Association said Thursday. “The GSMA is particularly encouraged by the importance that many governments have placed on ensuring flexibility for the UHF (sub-700 MHz) band, which has historically been used for TV broadcasting and is increasingly critical for meeting rapidly growing demand for mobile broadband from citizens and businesses around the world,” said John Giusti, GSMA chief regulatory officer. “The way we view video content is changing and mobile broadband is playing an ever more significant role in providing consumers with video when and where they want it.” New digital broadcasting technologies mean some TV spectrum can be freed up for broadband, said Giusti, former acting chief of the FCC International Bureau. Giusti said GSMA sees movement on the UHF band in the U.S., as well as Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Canada, Colombia, Mexico, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand. “By planning ahead now, countries that identify mobile allocations at WRC-15 will ensure they have the flexibility to satisfy future mobile data demand of their citizens,” Giusti said. “The more countries that support a band, the greater the possibility for global harmonisation, offering substantial economies of scale, reducing interference along country borders and delivering cost benefits for consumers.” NAB fired back. “GSMA’s talking points are tired and simply don't reflect any facts on the ground," an NAB spokesman said. "If the GSMA is looking for underused spectrum, it should look at its own bands."

The FCC urged a court to dismiss or deny Neustar’s challenge to an order giving Telcordia conditional rights to be the next local number portability administrator. Neustar, the incumbent LNPA, was simply outbid by Telcordia, the commission said in its brief responding to Neustar’s opening brief (see 1509210040) in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (Neustar v. FCC, No. 15-1080). The FCC said it held an “open, transparent and lawful” bidding process involving an industry consortium and a federal advisory committee. “The Commission acted reasonably and within its statutory mandate ... in approving the recommendation of its Advisory Committee that the industry consortium negotiate with Telcordia to complete a contract for it to become the new Administrator,” the FCC brief said. “Neustar lost this competition not because of any error by the Commission but because its bid was substantially inferior to Telcordia’s.” (Parts of the brief were redacted.) The FCC said Neustar’s challenge was premature because Telcordia was still negotiating the contract and the agency decision wasn't final. The commission also said the Telcordia decision satisfied a statutory requirement for an impartial LNPA, which oversees individuals and businesses switching carriers 100,000 times a day while keeping their phone numbers. The FCC disputed Neustar arguments that Telcordia directors’ fiduciary duties to corporate parent Ericsson precluded its selection. “Those fiduciaries have the duty to ensure that Telcordia does not violate the law -- including the neutrality requirements,” said the commission, saying it imposed or endorsed numerous contract conditions: “Ericsson must create a voting trust, with trustees subject to FCC approval, and to place all of its Telcordia stock in that trust,” and Telcordia must have an independent board majority and segregate numbering administration from other operations, among other safeguards. The FCC also disputed as “absurd” a Neustar argument that the agency acted “arbitrarily or capriciously in refusing to consider Neustar’s 'second best and final offer,’" which wasn't mandated by a request for proposal. The FCC reasonably concluded “a ‘best and final offer’ is just that: final,” it said. The agency said it reasonably accounted for transition costs and said Neustar’s “inflated claims” were contradicted in the record and would have the effect of giving the incumbent an advantage.

Indonesia will need to address certain localization practices, especially in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector, to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) Global Policy Director Ed Brzytwa said in a blog post Wednesday. Indonesian President Joko Widodo met with President Barack Obama Monday and expressed his interest in joining the TPP. Brzytwa said Indonesia tends to favor local companies and industries over foreign competitors in the ICT space and will need to change certain practices, including a new data localization requirement, to join the TPP. "The data localization requirement will impose higher costs on local companies, especially on small and medium sized enterprises," wrote Brzytwa. "It will also raise costs for U.S.-headquartered companies operating in Indonesia, as well as Indonesian businesses and consumers, undermining Indonesia’s global and regional competitiveness." ITI would "strongly support" including an affirmative statement in Indonesia's Digital Economy 2020 vision that it will avoid and roll back all forced localization measures, Brzytwa said. ITI will engage with Indonesian officials to find more trade and investment friendly approaches in order to meet its objectives, he said.

Google, Microsoft and several cable, Wi-Fi and wireless networking industry representatives are pushing the FCC on creation of standards and tests to ensure Wi-Fi/LTE-U coexistence. "LTE-U has avoided the long-proven standards-setting process" and runs the risk of degrading Wi-Fi service, they said in an ex parte filing posted Wednesday in docket 15-105, pointing to CableLabs and Google interference testing. Meanwhile, the LTE-U specification lacks sufficient interference safeguards because of its unconstrained duty cycling, lack of coordination among LTE-U carriers and its impairment to consumer network selection, they said. The solution is for LTE-U backers "to work through internationally recognized, open and transparent standards-setting organizations" to help set those standards and tests, they said. The filing recapped a meeting between FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and representatives of Arris, Bright House Networks, Broadcom, CableLabs, Cablevision, Charter Communications, Comcast, Google, Microsoft, Ruckus Wireless and Time Warner Cable. Broadcom, Google and Ruckus also signed a letter to the FCC last week urging the agency to adopt "straightforward rules of [LTE-U] device eligibility" (see 1510220028). Scott Bergmann, CTIA vice president-regulatory affairs, responded that the wireless industry also relies heavily on Wi-Fi and is "committed" to innovation in unlicensed spectrum. "We should all welcome technologies that will help address the continued increase in consumer demands for wireless broadband anytime, anywhere," he said. "As testing has repeatedly shown, LTE in the unlicensed bands coexists with Wi-Fi and will benefit consumers."

Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and members of the FCC Connect2Health Task Force told the Beyond the Beltway series event in Detroit Wednesday of the value connected health services can have for individuals and communities. Clyburn and members of a panel cited challenges faced by many communities of a lack of digital inclusion, as well as the need for more investment in connecting individuals to the Internet. "Let's face the facts ... there are a lot of challenges to our communities in terms of opportunities," Clyburn said. "Just about every investment" in broadband expansion and various connected services, including connected health platforms, is going to pay some dividends, she said. Chris Gibbons, Connect2Health Task Force scholar in residence, said people are relying on more than just doctors and nurses to get well and stay healthy. Individuals value what doctors and healthcare providers have to say, but often they can't get to them, Gibbons said, saying the future of healthcare is going to look very different from how it does now. Gibbons also said the U.S. is making "no systematic improvement[s]" in all recognized disparities being measured over a 10-year period, and that environments are powerful determinants of opportunities in healthcare. Clyburn and FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler met with local leaders yesterday in Detroit (see 1510270062).