The National Capital Region is “blanketing social media” and doing a flurry of local media interviews before Thursday’s regional test of the Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) system, District of Columbia Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency Director Chris Rodriguez, said in a Friday interview. The District will join 19 other nearby jurisdictions in a test from 10 to 11 a.m. (see 1803280055). “Our job as homeland security professionals is to provide lifesaving information to the public in an actual emergency,” he said. “We take that responsibility and that duty very seriously, and we need to practice that capability, because the last thing we want to do is in a real emergency be using this capability for the first time.” Users in the District will get an alert saying it’s a WEA test and no further action is required, he said. “We’re not going to do the Hawaii thing,” said Rodriguez, referring to the false alarm about a missile headed for the Pacific island state (see 1803160042). The District has about six or seven layers of review before a message is sent, he said. “No one person can send out a wireless emergency alert,” but the process still takes under a minute, he said. “We want to make sure that when the public hears from us, the public knows that it’s an emergency.” While HSEMA tests WEA every month internally, Thursday will be “the first coordinated regional test” of WEA to the general public, Rodriguez said. Success will be to “very quickly disseminate wireless emergency alerts to the public,” he said. Alerts will go out in phases over a half-hour period, with each jurisdiction taking turns hitting "send" about every 15 seconds, Rodriguez said. Alerts will go to anyone with a phone in the area, including out-of-town visitors, because WEA is based on proximity rather than area code, he said. HSEMA is coordinating with Destination D.C. to help get word out about the upcoming test through hotels and tourism organizations, a HSEMA spokeswoman added. Some users may get multiple alerts because the 20 jurisdictions overlap in some places, the director said. After the test, the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments will gauge public reaction with an online survey, he said.

Local governments can protect consumers online with municipal broadband networks, the American Civil Liberties Union said Thursday, releasing a report on benefits of public internet projects. With the Republican-led FCC rescinding net neutrality and ISP privacy rules, “Americans need an internet provider that they can trust and is accountable to the public, not profits,” ACLU said. “Municipal governments can provide this by offering broadband service themselves and implementing the net neutrality and privacy protections that are no longer required of private companies by federal policies.” Municipal broadband often provides faster and cheaper service than private networks, ACLU added. Local governments with public broadband networks “should make sure that access is consistent with free speech values and respects net neutrality principles,” ACLU said. “That means enacting strict anti-censorship rules and establishing clear oversight processes to enforce these principles.”

A draft NPRM on rules potentially barring the use of the USF to buy equipment or services from companies that “pose a national security threat” to U.S. communications networks or the communications supply chain wouldn’t necessarily mean a blanket ban. Smaller wireless carriers said they must buy equipment from Chinese providers Huawei and ZTE and don’t have good alternatives (see 1803260037). “One bright-line approach would be to prohibit use of USF funds on any purchases whatsoever from companies that have been identified as raising national security risks,” the FCC says in the draft. “Would such a rule be most appropriate here? Another approach would be to limit the scope of the proposed rule to equipment and services that relate to the management of a network, data about the management of a network, or any system the compromise or failure of which could disrupt the confidentiality, availability, or integrity of a network.” The FCC asks about a phased-in schedule for the ban and whether an effective date should be later for smaller USF recipients. The FCC also asks about potential waivers. “Should we establish a separate process from our general waiver provision for waivers of our proposed rule?” it asks. “If we provide such a waiver process, how should it function? Should we require a higher standard than good cause for granting waivers, such as ‘extraordinary circumstances?’”

Neustar said the FCC can't force it to accept a manual contingency rollback to its existing local number portability administrator system if a cutover to incoming LNPA iconectiv (Telcordia) fails. If the FCC is inclined to act, it should delay a planned initial April 8 cutover from Neustar to iconectiv in the Southeast region, said the incumbent's filing posted Tuesday in docket 09-109. The FCC didn't comment Wednesday, but the Wireline Bureau issued a public notice on a webcast set for next Wednesday at 3 p.m. EDT to be hosted by LNPA transition oversight manager PwC; it will focus on preparations for the planned Southeast region cutover. Neustar said the FCC would be acting "unlawfully" if it or the Wireline Bureau "were to interfere with or circumvent negotiations on a contingency rollback solution," which are ongoing. Neustar believes an automated contingency rollback is the only solution and "sufficient testing" is needed, but North American Portability Management and others believe "a manual rollback will suffice and insist that only limited testing is necessary," the filing said. "To the extent the Commission is inclined to take some action, it should extend the April 8, 2018 cutover deadline, which is an arbitrary date selected by the NAPM and Telcordia and blessed by the FCC. A reasonable extension of this deadline would allow the parties to continue negotiating an acceptable resolution that will safeguard all interested parties and protect the public from the catastrophic interruption to our nation's telecommunications system that could occur should the cutover to the new LNPA not go as smoothly as is hoped. However, what the Commission cannot do is inject itself into or otherwise short-circuit the parties' negotiations by, for example, purporting to require Neustar to facilitate a manual rollback or declaring that Neustar's failure to do so would implicate [its Master Services Agreement]." Neustar said such an FCC action would violate FCC rules and decades of precedent, contravene the Federal Arbitration Act due to an MSA arbitration clause and exceed the agency's authority.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' transfer of net neutrality litigation to the D.C. Circuit Wednesday produced modest initial reaction among parties we queried. The 9th Circuit cited the lack of opposition in making the decision (see 1803280030). "The benefit to all parties is that the DC Circuit judges are better equipped than any other circuit to understand and manage case like this. Beyond that, as always, in the end it is a crapshoot," emailed Andrew Schwartzman, who's representing the Benton Foundation, one of the petitioners that challenged the FCC's "internet freedom" order in the D.C. Circuit. "The transfer is not surprising, given the DC Circuit’s past experience in these cases specifically and with FCC-related rule challenges generally," emailed Enrique Armijo, academic dean and associate professor of Elon University School of Law. "I think D.C. Circuit makes the most sense, and hopefully we can get a quick decision," emailed Doug Brake, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation telecom policy director. "The big lines of this doctrine are already pretty clear: the FCC gets wide deference to interpret this ambiguous statute. It’s a little disappointing we can’t really expect any bombshells out of this case -- I wish we could fast-forward to serious discussions on [Capitol] Hill." Both Armijo and Brake had predicted a transfer, while some said they believed a transfer would speed court review but doubted it would tilt the outcome either way (see 1803090051). Others didn't comment Wednesday, including the FCC and counsel for Mozilla, which sought the transfer and is the lead petitioner in the D.C. Circuit. Meanwhile, comments are due April 27 at the Office of Management and Budget and FCC on broadband ISP disclosure duties under the Paperwork Reduction Act, said a notice in the Federal Register Wednesday. The "internet freedom" order's repeal of Title II net neutrality regulation under the Communications Act won't take effect until after ISP information-collection requirements in a transparency rule are finalized. Once OMB approves, the FCC will publish a final FR notice on the effective date of the order.

Edge providers such as Facebook and Google have reached “an inflection point” where it’s time for them to face stronger government oversight, said NCTA President Michael Powell in an appearance on C-SPAN’s The Communicators, set for telecast Saturday. Facebook and Google are “big enough,” “intrusive enough” and “incentivized enough to potentially do things that would be harmful to society” that they “deserve regulatory scrutiny,” Powell, a former FCC chairman, said. It’s no longer possible for consumers to do anything to protect themselves from having their data exploited by such companies, Powell said. Facebook and Google are so large and so pervasive that only they can address the data and privacy problems with their platforms, he said. “I don’t think a consumer can meaningfully withdraw from social media,” Powell said. “Consumers have no way to protect themselves.” The recent concerns about Facebook’s privacy and data collection issues were “predictable and inevitable,” Powell said. Facebook’s advertising model is essentially “precision propaganda,” said Powell. Concerns about companies that primarily derive profits from data collection “will dominate regulatory discourse going forward,” he said. The “asymmetry” of regulations that target ISPs but not edge providers will have to be addressed, he said. “It’s no good to lock the front door if you leave the back door wide open,” he said. Powell conceded cable companies also are trying to take advantage of data collection, but he said every industry is, and cable doesn’t have access to the sheer mass of data that Google and Facebook can tap. Unlike edge providers, cable companies have relationships with their subscribers and have operated under privacy and data rules for years, Powell said.

A federal court rejected as untimely a T-Mobile lawsuit against a local zoning board that denied the carrier's wireless antenna application in Wilmington, Delaware. It's untimely under the Telecom Act and Delaware state law because the carrier filed it before issuance of the board’s written decision, the U.S. District Court in Wilmington said in a Monday order (in Pacer). The court granted the zoning board’s motion for summary judgment and denied a T-Mobile cross motion. The T-Mobile complaint was untimely even though the carrier filed it after an oral decision and T-Mobile later filed an amended complaint after the board’s written decision. The amended complaint “cannot save the action because it was also filed outside of the thirty day window,” wrote Judge Eduardo Robreno. T-Mobile declined comment.

The FCC released its tentative agenda for the April 17 commissioners’ meeting, and as indicated in a Monday blog post by Chairman Ajit Pai (see 1803260028), it contains proposals on rural call completion and rural business data service (BDS) actions, and a public notice on the 28 GHz and 24 GHz band auctions. Along with the tentative agenda, the agency released draft versions of the items proposed for the meeting. The FCC proposes to use its standard simultaneous multiple-round (SMR) auction format for the upcoming auction of the 28 GHz band and a clock-auction format for the 24 GHz band, the draft 5G PN said. “By initiating the pre-auction processes for Auctions 101 and 102, we take another important step to promote the deployment of fifth-generation wireless, the Internet of Things, and other advanced spectrum-based services at frequencies above 24 GHz,” the FCC said in the notice. “In doing so, we help ensure continued American leadership in wireless broadband, which represents a critical component of economic growth, job creation, public safety, and global competitiveness.” Differences between the bands dictate the need for different auction formats, the FCC said. "For example, the similarities among blocks in the 24 GHz band facilitate using a clock auction with generic blocks, which will speed up the bidding relative to license-by-license bidding, which is needed when blocks in the band are less uniformly available, as in 28 GHz," the FCC said. The agency said it will offer a total of 5,986 licenses through the two auctions. The agenda also includes an NPRM on barring USF recipients from using risky international suppliers, a proposal to streamline commercial satellite authorization, and media deregulation items on broadcast ancillary services and cable channel listings. As expected, the broadcast ancillary services item doesn’t include changes to broadcast notice rules.

The U.S. national space strategy released Friday by the White House promises "regulatory reforms that will unshackle American industry" and keep the nation "the leading global provider of space services and technology." The strategy put out on the White House website said "securing the scientific, commercial, and national security benefits of space is a top priority for this Administration." It said "any harmful interference with or attack upon critical components of our space architecture ... will be met with a deliberate response at a time, place, manner, and domain of our choosing." It said the four pillars of the President Donald Trump administration's strategy are more-resilient space architectures, stronger military and defense options, "improve[d] foundational capabilities, structures, and processes," and fostering a "conducive domestic and international environment." Under the fourth pillar, the White House said it plans to streamline regulations, policies and procedures to the benefit of the U.S. commercial industry, while pursuing bilateral and multilateral engagements.

FCC employee Sharon Stewart and the agency continue settlement discussions on her hostile work environment lawsuit (see 1803050003), though they haven't reached an agreement to settle, said a docket 15-57 report (in Pacer) filed Friday with U.S. District Court in Washington. The sides were granted additional time to continue settlement talks, with another joint status report due April 23, said a court minute order. An unrelated discrimination complaint brought last year in the same District Court by a now-retired FCC employee, Alexander Chan (see 1709220047), was dismissed earlier this month. In that docket 17-921 order, Judge Timothy Kelly of Washington said Chan didn't respond to two court orders about an FCC motion to dismiss. But the court didn't dismiss Chan's claim with prejudice, as the FCC sought, saying the agency didn't give a rationale for going that far.