A virtual field hearing on lessons from Hurricane Ida and other recent disasters appears likely to dominate the FCC’s Oct. 26 meeting, with two panels to start at 11 a.m. EDT, said a notice in Wednesday’s Daily Digest. One panel will offer “first-hand accounts from public safety and communications industry stakeholders responding to disasters with the goal of exploring what works, what doesn’t, and what lessons can we learn from their experiences,” the notice said: It will discuss “steps that have been, could be, and should be taken to build resiliency into networks to improve their availability and accessibility for all affected communities.” The second panel is expected to explore the voluntary wireless network resiliency cooperative framework, launched by industry in 2016, and includes a speaker from CTIA. At their last meeting, commissioners approved an NPRM on making networks more resilient during disasters (see 2109300069).
The 3.45 GHz auction continued to rise to $16 billion Wednesday, after surpassing in the second round of the day the $14.77 billion reserve price needed to close (see our news bulletin here). Experts said which major bidders stayed in, and whether Dish Network or Verizon dropped out, won’t be clear until after it closes. “Contrary to our expectations, bidders moved back into a few more large markets, causing price growth to re-accelerate to 6-7% per round from the 5% it was growing at when bidding concluded yesterday evening,” New Street’s Phillip Burnett told investors Wednesday. Some 16 MHz of excess demand nationally still “must settle before the auction can close,” he said: “We would still expect price growth to decelerate materially once bidding in large markets settles (which is likely to happen today or tomorrow).” The auction could still reach New Street’s $25 billion forecast, but that seems unlikely, he said. Potential failure loomed after one large bidder appeared to drop out in round 10, blogged Sasha Javid, BitPath chief operating officer. Speculation has focused on both Dish and Verizon exiting, he said: “While speculation of which bidder dropped out … will continue until the final bidding data is released, this large drop in demand followed by a subsequent steep drop in Round 22, certainly made auction failure plausible. It was only demand in a few of the largest markets that pushed proceeds across the reserve price.” The FCC and carrier groups declined to comment.
The FCC 3.45 GHz auction hit $13.24 billion Tuesday, after five more bidding rounds. That’s short of the $14.77 billion reserve price needed for a successful close. After a rough patch last week (see 2110140059), the auction now seems more likely to hit the reserve, New Street’s Philip Burnett told investors Monday: “However, with the elasticity of demand being unpredictable and with demand in many large markets near enough to supply that a single bidder dropping out could end bidding it that market, it is still too soon to call it.”
FCC acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel circulated a proposed rulemaking aimed at curbing illegal and unwanted robotexts, said a news release Monday. If adopted, the rulemaking would “explore steps to protect consumers from illegal robotexts, including network level blocking and applying caller authentication standards to text messaging,” and require mobile wireless providers to block illegal text messages. “Ensuring the integrity” of texting “is vitally important,” Rosenworcel said: “It’s time we take steps to confront this latest wave of fraud and identify how mobile carriers can block these automated messages before they have the opportunity to cause any harm.”
The FCC's 3.45 GHz auction closed at $6.53 billion Friday, up from $4.25 billion Thursday amid concerns the sale could fail (see 2110140059) after one round Thursday when a bidder dropped 20 MHz of demand in more than 50 large markets. “We don’t know whether a national carrier simply realized they won’t be able to win 40MHz in large markets and reduced demand, or if a financial bidder dropped out (though we suspect the latter),” New Street’s Philip Burnett told investors: “With at least 16 rounds remaining until the auction minimum is reached and excess demand having halved since the auction started, our confidence that the auction will close is waning.” Excess demand is decreasing, “but in a more traditional way,” emailed BitPath Chief Operating Officer Sasha Javid: “Bidders are leaving the very biggest markets of New York and Los Angeles and moving into smaller markets. Nevertheless, it will be the very biggest markets that will drag auction proceeds above the reserve price should this auction succeed in closing.” Except for C band and a few other auctions, “I always worry about a spectrum auction until it crosses the closing threshold,” former Commissioner Mike O’Rielly told us. 3.45 GHz “was made more difficult by the overinflated agency cost estimate and the flawed spectrum cap per market of 40 MHz,” he said: “I remain optimistic that those bidding will ultimately make it succeed because failure would be extremely detrimental.” The auction has to exceed a $14.77 billion reserve price to close.
Some FCC precision agriculture task force working groups have started submitting their final reports for the consolidated report to the commission, members said during a virtual meeting Thursday. The mapping and analyzing connectivity WG report will include a $4 million cost estimate it received to do a more granular survey, said Chair Michael Adelaine of South Dakota State University. The examining current and future connectivity demand WG submitted its report to be consolidated into the final report, said Chair Dan Leibfried of John Deere. "It does look we have a little bit of conflict" in the draft consolidated report about recommendations on higher speeds, Leibfried said. Task force Chair Teddy Bekele of Land O’Lakes agreed and asked the subpanel to identify what parts of the consolidated report will need to be updated. The encouraging adoption of precision ag WG finished its report, said Chair Mike McCormick of the Mississippi Farm Bureau Federation: "We're really happy with where we are." Accelerating broadband deployment WG Vice Chair Heather Hampton-Knodle of American Agri-Women said its report had no changes.
The FTC on Oct. 21 will deliberate over whether to publicly share evidentiary findings from an agency study on the privacy practices of major ISPs, the commission announced Thursday. Publishing of the findings is subject to a commission vote. In 2019, the FTC issued Section 6(b) orders to AT&T, Comcast, Google Fiber, T-Mobile, Verizon and advertising affiliates. Staff will present study findings at the virtual open meeting, which is set to begin at 1 p.m. EDT. Speaker registration and comments are due Monday.
Different antitrust interpretations of the FTC and Sherman Acts create a “dangerous” enforcement divide between the FTC and DOJ, ex-FTC Chairman Tim Muris told a NetChoice panel Wednesday. Companies can expect different sets of rules based on agency, he said. Noting all chairs take over with their own agendas, ex-FTC acting Chief Technologist Neil Chilson, now a researcher at Stand Together, said Chair Lina Khan’s approach seems to be to “move fast and break things.” Khan has taken procedural measures, limited bipartisan potential and given herself more power, said Muris, noting Democrats made it easier for the agency to pursue rulemaking. It’s a move away from consensus antitrust enforcement, said ex-acting Chairman Maureen Ohlhausen, now at Baker Botts. This embracing of more rulemaking and regulation is a departure from the consumer welfare standard, said Ohlhausen: Some people feel antitrust has become too difficult to enforce, so this is a sidestep, creating questions about dual enforcement. The three panelists led the agency under Republican presidents. The agency didn't comment.
The Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) asked the FCC to act on rules allowing use of 5030-5091 MHz by drones, in comments posted Wednesday in RM-11798. Others stressed dynamic spectrum access in the band. The FCC initially took comment on the band in 2019, responding to a request by AIA (see 1912270039). In August, the Wireless Bureau asked for comments for a record refresh (see 2108230034). “The record overwhelmingly demonstrates support for permanent access to the 5030-5091 MHz band to provide [unmanned aircraft system] command and control,” AIA said. “AIA agrees with the Bureau that the time is ripe to address the technical, operational, and regulatory questions that AIA’s Petition poses.” The UAS industry needs to "access the entire band as soon as practicable" and the regulatory regime should be "appropriate for aviation safety spectrum,” Boeing said. It wants to “condition license eligibility for UAS operators on use of certificated pilots,” under a “dynamic frequency assignment model that prioritizes efficiency” and no "altitude restrictions.” The band is “central to successful domestic/international UAS development and advancement, particularly for larger UAS” operating in FAA-controlled airspace, said Aviation Spectrum Resources. It supports a “flexible spectrum access model developed and guided by the end user community in conjunction with the FAA.” Federated Wireless said its spectrum access system (SAS) technology “can dynamically assign any number of bands for UAS communications, depending on the mission and the needs of the UAS and the operator, including the 5030-5091 MHz band." SAS systems can "provide authoritative and virtually real-time decisions on requests to transmit or assign usage rights, enforce the use of authorized devices, and monitor spectrum assignments and, in some cases, actual usage,” the Dynamic Spectrum Alliance said. The Commercial Drone Alliance also supported a rulemaking.
FCC 3.45 GHz auction bids climbed to $2.24 billion Tuesday, after 15 rounds. The auction has to raise almost $14.8 billion to close and cover expected sharing and relocation costs for federal users.