The Competitive Carrier Association filed in opposition to NAB’s FCC petition for reconsideration of the post-incentive auction transition plan, CCA said in a news release Wednesday. “NAB has tried before -- and failed before both the FCC and the DC Circuit Appeals Court -- to delay new broadband investment in the 600 MHz band, and I strongly encourage the Commission to reject any attempt to push back” the congressionally based 39-month repacking time frame, said CCA President Steven Berry. The NAB petition is “nearly 1,000 days past the deadline” to challenge the 2014 auction order, CCA said. The transition plan was issued as a public notice in January (see 1701270064). The NAB petition “wrongfully claims that the FCC failed to perform a comprehensive analysis in determining repacking timelines and procedures,” CCA said, calling it ”nothing more than a regurgitation of its former baseless arguments.” The planned 39-month repacking time frame “will benefit consumers, the industry and the economy, and I strongly encourage the FCC to dismiss NAB’s petition to avoid any further delay,” Berry said. NAB didn’t comment.

Litigation and assigning legal blame when things go wrong with IoT devices, including autonomous vehicles and drones, are complex issues, with tort law not necessarily having caught up with technology, said experts at a Chamber of Commerce event webcast Wednesday. Litigation isn't a great way to improve security or to help the complex ecosystem figure out who should be doing what, said Wiley Rein's Megan Brown. "The decision-makers are not expert, far from it. And there's a lot, currently, of definitional uncertainty in what we're even talking about in the Internet of Things." She said the litigation system is "anathema" to collaboration and a speedy response and could have a "chilling effect" on companies and innovators to continue to improve security. She said fear of litigation could affect collaboration on a product within a company where communication isn't privileged or subject to confidentiality. States need to develop modern standards for evidentiary rules and approaches and the public needs to be better educated on basic cyber hygiene and products, she said. VMware Deputy General Counsel Laurie Hane said existing legal instruments are "blunt," not nuanced and don't account for IoT complexities. NSS Labs CEO Vikram Phatak said things will get worse before they get better because consumers will lose confidence in the products. He said he favors more transparency in the process, and in the future there may be fewer IoT players who may be held to a higher standard. Companies using drones worry about different legal issues. Vice President and Counsel Kevin Frederick said State Farm uses drones for things such as roof inspections and in catastrophes because they a safer and more efficient. He said drones are going to crash, hit things and potentially injure people, but he said his company's concern is the absence of or inconsistent law on privacy, nuisance and trespass. This is complicated due to federal and state laws on authority over drones and potential violations, he said. Roger Nober, executive vice president-law and corporate affairs, said his railway, BNSF, uses drones to inspect tracks and bridges. His company worries about missing something in the large amount of data collected that could cause an incident, he said.

Similar to how scientists embrace "pragmatic skepticism," antitrust enforcers should be wary of adopting "antitrust scholarship," said acting FTC Chairman Maureen Ohlhausen at the Antitrust Writing Awards event Tuesday. Enforcers can be wrong about the future and should use regulatory humility, which is "about understanding and internalizing the limits of our own knowledge when we wield the considerable powers entrusted to us," she said in prepared remarks. Since being named acting chairman, she has given speeches about leading the commission to investigate and enforce real rather than merely theoretical harms (see 1702170026 and 1702020020). Ohlhausen said she's willing to hear new theories but also would want to get as much "probative, reliable information" as possible and would be "pretty hesitant to embrace novel theories that conflict with the answers that the well-established antitrust toolkit already provides." Acknowledging she might get criticized for being too cautious and not creative enough, she said there is a "free market for new ideas in this field. ... The process is not always neat and tidy, but eventually the best ideas emerge from the rough and tumble world of critical skepticism intact."

The Incentive Auction Task Force released a public notice Wednesday on receiving payments for winning bids in the incentive auction and repacking reimbursement for full-power and Class A TV stations and multichannel video programming distributors. Those entities will use forms 1875 and 1876 to give the FCC the information necessary to make the payments, the PN said. Those receiving payments will also need to update their information in the updated commission registration system, the PN said. “The Commission does not control the precise date on which the U.S. Treasury makes each reimbursement payment or when each reimbursement payment is received in the account identified by the Eligible Entity or becomes available to the account holder.”

Securus received special temporary authority from the FCC Office of Engineering and Technology to test technology contraband interdiction systems (CIS) equipment in Crawfordville, Florida. Last week, commissioners approved rules and a Further NPRM targeted to speeding deployment of CIS (see 1703230056). “Contraband cellphone use is among the highest public safety issues for the Florida Department of Corrections and Securus has been contracted to test and deploy Managed Access Systems (MAS) to combat this problem,” said an application by Securus approved by OET Tuesday. “This STA is necessary to support expedited testing of new antenna types and locations as well as new software to support LTE, GSM, UMTS and CDMA that incorporates more advanced support for white listing, improved stability and other urgently needed features. Test results are needed to support long term carrier spectrum leases, which will replace this STA upon system acceptance.”

Two tech associations are applauding President Donald Trump's creation of the White House Office of American Innovation (OAI) that will led by son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner. In a news release Monday, Kushner said OAI will bring a "creative and strategic approach" to people's problems. Software & Information Industry Association Senior Vice President-Public Policy Mark MacCarthy said in a Tuesday statement that OAI will prioritize technological innovation at the highest level. He said it's important for "policies to keep pace with the rise of big data, the Internet of Things, and more recently, the emergence of Artificial Intelligence." In a Monday statement, Information Technology Industry Council President Dean Garfield said bringing innovation and data-driven efficiencies into government operations is welcome. "Fresh thinking can spark new solutions to old problems, an approach that is deeply engrained in the tech industry," he said.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said he will look into a nationwide number portability report and recommendations of the North American Numbering Council. At a meeting of NANC Tuesday, Pai was asked about potential commission action on the NANC's May 2016 findings, which cited hurdles to nationwide number portability and proposed the FCC do a detailed inquiry on cost, payment and tax issues, possible uniform 10-digit dialing, potentially negative fallout for state regulators and other matters (see 1605170007). “I’ll be candid, we haven’t yet taken a look at it," Pai said. "We’re still somewhat green on the job, just a couple months, so we’re still getting our bearings, meeting with various bureaus about some of the things that have been outstanding. But I will be happy to take a look and we’ll see what action we might be able to take.” Pai hailed NANC as ensuring “impartial administration" of the North American Numbering Plan. “Numbering resources are a finite and scarce resource," he said. "It’s also a critical aspect of our nation’s communications infrastructure. So making those resources available on an efficient and timely basis to communications service providers is essential to a vibrant and dynamic communications marketplace.” He said he appreciated the group's historic role and current focus "on matters such as local number portability, including the first transition of the LNP [administrator] since 1997; an examination of the feasibility and the obstacles to nationwide number portability; an annual evaluation of the vendors who provide number administration services, and changes to the annual numbering contribution factor. So you’re not just doing make-work; this is serious and complex work. ... Despite the fact that you labor in some highly technical thickets, your recommendations, your expertise help us navigate through those thickets and at the end of the day help the American telecom consumer have a much more efficient and seamless experience. They may never know about your work in this room in going forward, but they’ll all benefit from it in the years to come.”

Fifty-nine percent of pay-TV subscribers in U.S. broadband households are bothered that advertisers use personal viewing data to tailor advertisements, said Parks Associates in a release Monday. Forty percent of pay-TV subscribers also “worry about the safety and use of their personal data when they use an online video service,” while 34 percent of U.S. pay-TV subscribers said they trust online video services more than they trust their current pay-TV provider, the researcher said. Such concerns are likely to increase after the FCC and the Senate’s recent action on ISP data privacy, Parks said. “A majority of consumers are concerned about the safety and privacy issues created by these practices, so advertisers and pay-TV providers need to be transparent about their data collection and protection of consumers’ information,” the firm said. “Privacy fears are a major factor in broadband consumers’ online media experiences.”

The FCC warned consumers of what it’s calling “can you hear me?" scams. Commissioner Mignon Clyburn mentioned the scams last week as she and colleagues voted on taking up illegal robocalls (see 1703230035). “The scam begins when a consumer answers a call and the person at the end of the line asks, ‘Can you hear me?’” the agency said in a Monday consumer alert. “The caller then records the consumer's ‘Yes’ response and thus obtains a voice signature. This signature can later be used by the scammers to pretend to be the consumer and authorize fraudulent charges via telephone.”

The FCC should approve the takeover of Neustar by a new owner, Aerial Investors, a company run by Golden Gate Capital, said Neustar, Golden Gate (also called Golden Gate Private Equity) and Hux investment in a reply posted Monday in docket 95-116. They noted only three parties commented on Neustar's approval request: North American Portability Management, Telcordia/iconectiv -- which is replacing Neustar as local number portability administrator (LNPA) -- and Betty Ann Kane, chairman of the D.C. Public Service Commission and the North American Numbering Council, speaking on her own behalf (see 1703100049). "The NAPM does not object to Neustar’s request," the reply said. "Although Telcordia and Ms. Kane raise questions about Neustar’s new owners and the transition of the [LNPA] responsibilities, such questions are misplaced and do not justify any delay or conditioning of the Request’s approval." The reply said none of the initial comments "question the neutrality of Neustar and its ultimate controlling owner, Golden Gate Capital," as post-acquisition they "satisfy all three prongs" of FCC rules. Other arguments raised are "misguided" or "beyond the scope of this proceeding," the reply said.