A May 15 roundtable on best practices for preventing false emergency alerts will include opening remarks from FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, and discussions on emergency alerting training and partnerships between emergency alerting stakeholders, said a Public Safety Bureau public notice in Thursday's Daily Digest. Scheduled speakers include Ryan Hirae of the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency and Chris Leonard of the Hawaii Association of Broadcasters. The roundtable is part of the bureau’s response to the January false missile alert in Hawaii. The discussions will include participants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, trade associations and state emergency entities, the PN said.

In an address that drew parallels between the civil rights movement and telecommunications policy, Mignon Clyburn in her final speech Wednesday as an FCC commissioner said communications networks should be "totally free of discrimination" and that not extending them to rural areas or low-income urban areas is "antithetical to our values." She urged reinstitution of Title II regulation of the internet, saying the FCC's 2015 net neutrality rules were "based on well-reasoned and time-tested common carriage principles," especially since broadband is "on par with" water, electricity and telephones as a component of critical national infrastructure. She said the "broken inmate calling regime" is "as close as it gets" to evil. She said inmate calling isn't just a financial issue but touches on problems of mass incarceration, and seeking change goes hand in hand with promoting rehabilitation and reducing recidivism, she said. Clyburn also said the momentum is in the wrong direction in recent years on media consolidation and diversity. The response, she said, is, "We fight harder. We shout louder. We escalate." A lot of what the FCC does is technical and not followed by the public, but "it is a doorway to larger battles of equity taking place across this country," Clyburn said. The speech at Washington's First Congregational United Church of Christ (UCC) was sponsored by organizations including Common Cause, Color of Change, National Hispanic Media Coalition and the UCC Office of Communication. Among those in attendance were Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, former Commissioner Michael Copps; Free Press President Craig Aaron; Public Knowledge President Gene Kimmelman; and Clyburn's father, Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C.

The FCC and other agencies must improve public comment processes being undermined by mass fake submissions and stolen identities, Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said at a New America event Wednesday. The net neutrality proceeding had half a million comments from Russian email addresses, almost 8 million nearly identical comments from email domains associated with FakeMailGenerator.com and a million comments "using mail merge techniques designed to falsely make them appear like unique submissions," she said, according to written remarks. "Fake comments and stolen identities are pouring into proceedings across Washington." The FCC's "internet systems are ill-equipped to handle the mass automation and fraud that already is corrupting channels for public comment," she said. "It’s only going to get worse. The mechanization and weaponization of the comment-filing process has only just begun. We need to do something." She said the FCC failed to work with state authorities that found residents had their identities stolen. "We should be asking how did this happen? Who orchestrated it? Who paid for it? We should be investigating -- and the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation should be involved," she said. "Every agency should consider simple security measures -- like CAPTCHA or two-factor authentication -- that can enhance security without decreasing public participation."

Broadband deployment gains are occurring, with coordination, mapping and sustainability critical ongoing issues, speakers said on a National Regulatory Research webinar Wednesday. "We're seeing a lot of positive progress," said Danna Mackenzie, executive director-Minnesota Office of Broadband Development. The state is more than 90 percent of the way to bringing 25/3 Mbps broadband "border to border," she said. "There's a lot of progress," agreed Joe Tiernan of the Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Cable, Competition Division. He said about two-thirds of unserved housing units are being targeted for broadband deployment by industry, backed by state and local authorities, or being examined for municipal projects. NTCA Senior Vice President Mike Romano said almost 90 percent of his members' customers have 10/1 Mbps available and two-thirds have 25/3 Mbps available, but deploying to the remaining unserved areas gets harder due to low density and high costs: "We've got a big job left." He said key is to keep "chipping away" and putting resources where needed. Romano said Rural Utilities Service loan and grant programs, FCC USF mechanisms and state initiatives help broadband providers deploy, but the "biggest challenge" is making sure everybody knows what others are doing. Close coordination among agencies is needed to ensure multiple networks aren't funded in areas where the economics don't allow even one, he said. Romano and others said improving broadband mapping is another key. Steven Rosenberg, FCC Wireline Bureau chief data officer, provided an overview of the commission's interactive broadband map for fixed service, which is based on Form 477 data submitted by industry. He expects the map to be updated in "coming weeks" to incorporate June 30, 2017, data that is still being vetted. The FCC is waiting for one large ISP to "clean up" submissions, he said. Romano said the 477 census block data is a "good starting point" for mapping efforts. More granular data can be provided through geolocating and geocoding, but that can increase costs and burdens, so balance is needed. It gets even trickier to synthesize the data into a map with multiple providers, Rosenberg said. Romano said there will continue to be a need for "challenge processes" to dispute claims an area is served or unserved. Deployment is just one piece, as networks have to be maintained and upgraded, he said. "These networks aren't self-sustaining. ... Sustainability is a big piece."

FCC staff denied 14 requests for review of Universal Service Administrative Co. Lifeline decisions on duplicative support in the low-income program. The Wireline Bureau upholds "USAC’s decision to combat program waste by recouping funds from eligible telecommunications carriers who impermissibly enrolled and then sought funding for the same customer more than once," said an order Monday in docket 11-42. Petitions were filed by Assist Wireless, Boomerang Wireless, Easy Wireless, Global Connection, Head Start Telecom, iWireless, Nexus Communications, Telrite and True Wireless. "Petitioners have not presented sufficient evidence indicating that the subscribers at issue were separate eligible Lifeline subscribers and not duplicates," said the bureau. "Nor have Petitioners presented any evidence that they investigated any of the nearly identical or substantially similar records flagged by USAC prior to seeking compensation or that they had in place internal procedures designed to flag such records for investigation." Representatives of some of the providers didn't comment Tuesday. Separately, the National Lifeline Association told bureau staffers of "the nearly complete lack of support in the record for [an NPRM] proposal to ban resellers from the Lifeline program," said an NaLA filing. NaLa cited other "troubling proposals in the NPRM that could effectively eviscerate the Lifeline program’s ability to address the affordability aspect of the digital divide," including to require resellers to pass through the full $9.25 monthly subscriber subsidy to underlying carriers. It said instead of "perpetuating the paternalistic mandatory family-sized service plans" and phasing out support for voice services, the FCC should allow consumers to choose among voice and data options, including bundles. NaLa said the new national verifier will help prevent program abuse but criticized the FCC's 2017 decision not to institute an application programming interface, which it said would force USAC to screen all applicants, wasting resources. Telrite, Boomerang and Global Connection petitioned to extend by 30 days a May 30 deadline for recertifying the Lifeline eligibility of certain subscribers in Puerto Rico.

Many IoT players are interested in an alliance on device security, Russ Gyurek, Cisco director-Innovation Labs, told a CTA event in Santa Clara, California, last week. “I’ve talked to dozens of companies. Nobody has said this is a bad idea. So I’ve got right now about 30 companies that are willing to be founders or start this. I don’t want it to be just another alliance. It needs to be very little cost and have a mission of driving this.” The proposal, which doesn’t yet have a name, is based heavily on manufacturer usage description specifications and bootstrapping remote secure key infrastructures protocol that is in the final stages of standards-setting at the Internet Engineering Task Force, said Gyurek. The alliance would promote self-certification. Cisco plans demonstrations at next month’s Cisco Live conference in Orlando, he said. “We’ve had a couple of discussions with service providers in that respect. They’re very interested in this, especially as 5G starts to become more online, because 5G promises massive IoT.”

Without FCC input and guidance on how it would view potential fixes to Dish Network de facto control issues, the court-ordered process giving the designated entities a chance to fix those control issues (see 1708290012) could end up "as nothing more than a 'gotcha' process" aimed at having Northstar Wireless and SNR Wireless fail, the two say. In a Universal Licensing System filing Friday, they said the remand proceeding needs changing or it could result in further litigation and thus legal uncertainty about the AWS-3 licenses SNR and Northstar won but weren't granted. The two say they are in talks with investors about fixing the Dish control issues and plan to submit their cure filings to the FCC by June 8. They say FCC guidance "is appropriate and legally required" since the agency's 2015 order sets out its de facto control concerns but doesn't say how to address them. They said the FCC's not taking part in discussions on de facto control issues is contrary to agency precedent and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit's decision. They contend the agency already has standards on good faith, character and candor and those provide benchmarks for assessing the conduct of parties in the negotiation process. SNR and Northstar say that they have made notable changes to their structures and agreements (see 1804040004) shows the are acting in good faith. They say if a DE applicant won't be allowed to engage with agency staff to cure de facto control issues after an auction, the agency needs to rule on the applicants' qualifications for bidding credits before the auction. The FCC didn't comment. A draft item on the DEs' applications for new AWS-3 licenses is on circulation (see 1804200058). The filing recapped a meeting of SNR and Northstar representatives with outgoing Commissioner Mignon Clyburn.

AT&T is considering filing a petition seeking cert at the Supreme Court on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimous ruling that the FTC has jurisdiction over the non-common-carrier activities of common carriers, such as the company (see 1802260031). AT&T’s update came in a status report in case No. 14-cv-04785-EMC submitted to U.S. District Judge Edward Chen in the Northern District of California, who's presiding over an FTC lawsuit alleging AT&T promised millions of wireless customers unlimited data, then throttled the speeds they got. The company said it no longer throttles unlimited customers once they hit monthly data allotment. “AT&T intends to file a petition for certiorari in the Supreme Court” by the May 29 deadline, said the update. AT&T and the FTC are “preparing to engage in direct settlement discussions,” the document said. “Though the parties share an interest in exploring whether the case can be resolved through settlement, they do not propose resuming [alternative dispute resolution] at this time.”

Sunday’s local number portability administrator transition succeeded in the Midwest, Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions, North American Portability Management (NAPM) and observers said Monday. “The NPAC maintenance window has closed, and NPAC users in the Southeast, Midwest, Northeast, and Mid-Atlantic regions may now submit porting transactions to the iconectiv NPAC,” NAPM said Sunday. An iconectiv spokesman emailed: “All went well.” Neustar isn't aware of any big problems from the cutover but is monitoring "as it appears from our vantage point that activity remains lower than usual," a spokesman emailed. NARUC General Counsel Brad Ramsay said he understands it was a smooth process with only some minor issues. Multiple state utility commissions we contacted in affected regions reported no problems. The first regional NPAC migration from incumbent Neustar to iconectiv succeeded April 8, and the final three regions (Southwest, Western and West Coast) will be cut over May 20, with final acceptance for the new LNPA set for May 25 (see 1805020018).

The USF contribution factor could drop in Q3 from 18.4 percent to 17.3 percent of carriers' U.S. interstate and international (long-distance) telecom end user revenue, if revenue holds steady and there aren't demand adjustments, said industry consultant Billy Jack Gregg's quarterly email update Thursday. He based his estimate on the Universal Service Administrative Co.'s projection that Q3 USF demand would be $1.86 billion, $103.3 million less than in Q2, and $31.4 million less than in Q3 2017. If the industry revenue base stays constant, that will produce a contribution factor of 17.3 percent, he said, but that base has been trending down and a new decline would produce a higher factor. Projected revenue in Q2 was $12.81 billion, the lowest ever, and USAC's Q3 projected revenue is due out by month's end, he said. In addition, if projected Q3 high-cost fund demand is subsequently adjusted upward by $125 million to comply with an FCC budgeting mandate in a March rural telco support order, the USF contribution factor will be 1.1 percent higher than currently projected, he said.