The FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau and the Public Safety Bureau scheduled a June 21 webinar on wireless emergency alerts and the emergency alert system, said a public notice Wednesday. The webinar will focus on how the systems work, “who is eligible to initiate alerts, and the targeting of messages to particular geographic areas,” the PN said. “The webinar will help ensure state and local governments are ready and able to utilize these alerting systems when they are needed” and allow participants to ask questions of staff, the PN said.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit will livestream audio of all oral arguments starting in the 2018-19 term except those involving classified or sealed matters, the court said Wednesday. It said it has been live audio streaming arguments on request since October (see 1712190060) and Chief Judge Merrick Garland said livestreaming all will bring additional transparency. Argument will be available via the court's website under Live Audio Streaming. It said audio recordings will continue to be posted by 2 p.m. the day of argument. UHF discount oral argument earlier this month was streamed (see 1804200059).

FCC actions to help Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands are "expected shortly," an agency official said Wednesday. A combined order and NPRM to enhance USF subsidy support for the islands is going through the process of "scrubbing" and commissioners writing their statements, the official said. Chairman Ajit Pai told the Senate Appropriations Financial Services Subcommittee May 17 (see 1805170073) that the commission approved his proposals to provide additional short-term funding for restoring the islands' communications networks damaged by hurricanes Irma and Maria, and longer-term support for expanding broadband access.

Antitrust law's consumer welfare standard can play a role in addressing competitive threats posed by new developments in technology such as digital markets and platforms, said DOJ Antitrust Division Chief Makan Delrahim Tuesday at the Jevons Institute Colloquium in Rome, according to prepared remarks. Outputs are difficult to measure for companies like social media networks, but other indicators of consumer welfare -- innovation, choice and quality -- deserve more attention in looking at digital markets' competitive effects, though they can be difficult to quantify, he said. Innovation is inherently disruptive, and competition policy should encourage existential threats to incumbents from new entrants, he said. Elimination of choice isn't inherently suspect, but a merger that would give the combined entity incentive and ability to undermine innovative competitors offering new product choices could be grounds for enforcement action, he said. When it comes to media and technology companies, quality "is best captured as the entire customer experience," he said. Delrahim said there should be consideration whether "net promoter score" -- the measurement of whether customers or users are likely to recommend or bad-mouth a product -- or other benchmarks can measure quality as a byproduct of competition.

A court gave net neutrality litigants until June 20 to propose briefing formats, noting its concerns about potential duplicative briefing. "The parties are strongly urged to submit a joint proposal and are reminded that the court looks with extreme disfavor on repetitious submissions and will, where appropriate, require a joint brief of aligned parties with total words not to exceed the standard allotment for a single brief," said an order (in Pacer) Monday of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Monday in Mozilla v. FCC, No. 18-1051. "Whether the parties are aligned or have disparate interests, they must provide detailed justifications for any request to file separate briefs or to exceed in the aggregate the standard word allotment." Petitioners have been working on a joint briefing proposal, an involved attorney told us Tuesday.

The FCC rejected a reconsideration petition and stay request by Prometheus Radio Project against an order relaxing siting rules for FM translators (see 1705310054), said an order Tuesday. The petition was denied 4-0 vote, with Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel concurring and Commissioner Mignon Clyburn not participating. Clyburn remains at the FCC after announcing she was leaving, and has voted some items on circulation though she skipped voting in the May monthly meeting (see 1805180042). Prometheus argued the FCC didn’t properly give notice that it would eliminate the 40-mile limit on translator siting, and that it ignored potential consequences for low-power FM. The FCC said Tuesday the order gave notice the FCC could change the limit and that comments in the proceeding show many broadcasters expected such a change. Prometheus didn’t provide sufficient evidence that LPFMs would be threatened by the new translator citing rules, the FCC said. The agency said the public interest benefits of the rule change “were significant and that nothing in the record, including Prometheus’s February Ex Parte, demonstrated harm to LPFM stations that would outweigh these benefits.”

An FCC regulatory fee item set new undersea cable tiers and proposed $322 million in industry payments for FY 2018. "We adopt new tiers for assessing regulatory fees for submarine cable systems," said an order and NPRM Tuesday in docket 18-175 Tuesday. The order creates a sliding scale of five tiers for undersea systems, with those having capacity equal to or greater than 4,000 Gbps paying "16 payment units," down to systems with capacity less than 50 Gbps paying 1 payment unit. "We also decline to adopt a new regulatory fee for international [Communications Act] section 214 authorizations and we retain the optional bulk rate calculation for determining the number of subscribers in multiple dwelling units used in the calculation of cable fees," the order said. The NPRM seeks comment on regulatory fees for FY 2018, including an incremental increase in the DBS fee rate. "We also seek comment on a new methodology for broadcast television regulatory fees for FY 2019, and a tiered rate structure for international bearer circuit fees," the item said. "The Commission previously sought comment on a proposal for tiers in the Further [NPRM] attached to the FY 2017 Report and Order, and we seek additional comment on this issue." Comments are due June 21, replies July 6.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai began a "Piedmont digital opportunity" road trip Monday through Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, concluding Friday. Pai will visit a telehealth facility, schools, a farm and a tech incubator, and have roundtables with Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., and North Carolina Lt. Gov. Dan Forest (R), said an agency release Sunday. He's scheduled to speak at a Wireless Infrastructure Association event in Charlotte Wednesday. Pai and former FCC Chairman Newton Minow (1961-63) Monday called for expanding rural high-speed internet access to increase the availability of telehealth solutions and narrow the digital divide. "While the benefits of digital health care are clear, we’ve been too slow to embrace its potential," they wrote in the Boston Globe. "The most crucial step in seizing the opportunities of digital medicine is making sure that every community has high-speed Internet access." They noted FCC efforts through auctions of $6.5 billion in Connect America Fund rural subsidies for fixed and mobile broadband services; a rural health care subsidy program in which demand exceeds a $400 million annual cap, with the commission "exploring whether to increase the size of the program and how to ensure that every dollar is stretched as far as possible;" and a Connect2Health Task Force collaboration with the National Cancer Institute on a broadband study in Appalachia. They also cited a need to address regulatory barriers to telehealth services such as state licensing.

FCC information collection for network change disclosure, not discontinuance, rules was approved by the Office of Management and Budget for three years, says a corrected FCC announcement in docket 17-84 for Tuesday's Federal Register (see 1805140021).

The Supreme Court won’t hear an Oklahoma mayor’s complaint against AT&T involving alleged bribery at the Oklahoma Corporation Commission and a state court. The Supreme Court denied certiorari Monday on the petition by Nichols Hill Mayor Sody Clements -- a former OCC employee -- and other Oklahomans against Southwestern Bell, now known as AT&T. In 2015, petitioners objected at the OCC to “intrinsic fraud” by AT&T “to obtain ill-begotten orders and judgments from the OCC and the Oklahoma Supreme Court,” the petition said. The OCC dismissed that complaint with prejudice, preventing petitioners from seeking further review. In its application for cert, petitioners said the commission and state court “simply went too far in resolving this grievance -- by abridging the Petitioners’ United States Constitutional right to further petition for redress of grievances by the State’s summary dismissal ‘with prejudice’ of Petitioners’ application to reform a bribed legislative matter.” The petitioners are disappointed, but this request was “one tiny part” of the matter, Clements said in an interview. “We are not going away.” The case has never been heard on the merits but instead “shuttled” from one court to another due to technicalities, and AT&T has yet to deny the bribery charges, she said. AT&T applauded the rejection. “At least seven times over the last 25 years, the Oklahoma Corporation Commission and the Oklahoma Supreme Court have consistently found no compelling basis -- legal or otherwise -- to reopen this case,” a spokeswoman said. “After the truly remarkable amount of consideration and review this issue has received, it’s time to put it to rest.”