General Communications agreed to pay $2.4 million to settle an FCC investigation into five 911 wireless service outages in parts of Alaska from August 2008 to April 2016, said the Enforcement Bureau Wednesday in a release. It said GCl also agreed to strengthen its 911 service provision procedures and "adopt robust compliance measures" to ensure adherence to FCC rules. "Americans should be able to reach 911 at any time, whether they live in New York City or a village in Alaska," said bureau Chief Travis LeBlanc. A bureau order approving a consent decree said GCI failed to (1) deploy sufficient safeguards to ensure 911 call completion, (2) timely notify emergency call centers in three outages, and (3) timely submit outage reports on four of the outages. "To settle this matter, GCI admits that it violated 911 service reliability and outage notification and reporting rules, will implement a compliance plan, and will pay a $2.4 million civil penalty. In assessing the civil penalty, the Bureau has taken into consideration the fact that four of the five outages took place in remote locations in Alaska," the order said. GCI is happy to conclude the process "after discovering, resolving, and self-reporting these wireless outages" to the commission, a spokeswoman emailed us: "All known outages have been corrected, and GCI recently completed an extensive internal audit and implemented new procedures and checks to better prepare us in detecting and repairing outages. GCI continues its commitment to work with the public safety community to ensure that 911 is reliable throughout Alaska.” The FCC said the settlement followed several major 911 enforcement actions in 2015: a $17.5 million settlement with T-Mobile in July (see 1507170031); a $16 million settlement with CenturyLink and $1.4 million settlement with Intrado in April (see 1504060050); and a $3.4 million settlement with Verizon in March (see 1503180022).

BlackBerry is phasing out the BlackBerry Classic, said Chief Operating Officer Ralph Pini in a blog post Tuesday. “We are updating our smartphone lineup with state of the art devices,” said Pini, turning attention to BlackBerry 10 and Android devices. The BlackBerry Classic, “an incredible workhorse,” exceeded expectations but long surpassed the average lifespan for a smartphone in today’s market, Pini said. BlackBerry will give customers “something better” that maintains BlackBerry’s “legacy in security,” he said.

The FCC released a pleading cycle Tuesday on AT&T’s proposed buy of 700 MHz licenses in New Mexico from Fuego Wireless. The companies proposed that AT&T buy three lower 700 MHz B-block licenses and a single C-block license. The FCC also sent follow-up questions to both companies. “Applicants maintain that the proposed transaction would provide AT&T with additional spectrum that would enable it to increase its system capacity to enhance existing services, better accommodate its overall growth, and facilitate the provision of additional products and services in four Cellular Market Areas,” the FCC said. With the buys, AT&T would have 24 MHz of contiguous, paired 700 MHz spectrum in all but one of the 19 counties covered, the notice said. The spectrum covers Las Cruces, Catron, Santa Fe and Lincoln, all in New Mexico, the FCC said. “Post-transaction, AT&T would hold 100 to 175 megahertz of spectrum in total, including 18 to 55 megahertz of below-1-GHz spectrum, in these four CMAs,” so the deal is slated to get a more intense review, the FCC said. Petitions to deny are due July 26, oppositions Aug. 2, replies Aug. 9. AT&T must answer several pages of questions in the information request.

The launch of 5G could start a new “Golden Decade” for the information and communications technology (ICT) sector, former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt said in a letter to the agency. Hundt said the U.S. had the first tech boom after Congress authorized spectrum auctions in 1993. Average income, productivity, GDP and labor force participation increased, he said. “Everything that was supposed to go down went down: unemployment, monopoly rents, and the federal deficit,” Hundt said. “Between 1995 and 2003 American investors put almost $1 trillion into a total rebuild of the communications platform in America.” The spectrum frontiers order before the FCC is critical, as is finding new ways to facilitate spectrum sharing, he said. “It is not inconceivable that 5G can jumpstart a similar wave of investment, innovation, and economic success,” Hundt said. "Even secular stagnation, the bête noire of macroeconomists today, can become another worry allayed. Once again ICT can lead the way to an increasing standard of living for all Americans, and from this heartland of creative destruction waves of economic growth can spread around the world.” The filing was posted in docket 14-177. The spectrum frontiers order is scheduled for a vote at the FCC's July 14 meeting (see 1606240026). Hundt has done work for Ligado Networks, which is seeking to convert satellite spectrum to terrestrial use for wireless broadband.

The FCC, at most, should impose ownership thresholds rather than hard caps in rules for high-frequency spectrum, AT&T said in comments filed Tuesday. An FCC fact sheet said the order, to get a vote July 14, will impose limits on high-frequency spectrum holdings -- imposing restrictions limiting carriers to buying 1250 MHz of spectrum in the bands in the initial auctions and a threshold of 1250 MHz for case-by-case review of secondary market transactions (see 1606240026). AT&T offered comments in a letter in docket 14-177. “While the industry needs clear guidance on what level of aggregation will be permissible in the bands -- particularly given the secondary market activity that has already been announced -- hard caps are a blunt instrument that deny the Commission the discretion to permit higher levels of aggregation where it finds no competitive harms,” AT&T said. “Caps also limit consideration of performance factors and other unique circumstances that may be relevant to the still-emerging 5G competitive landscape.”

FirstNet is evolving to serve what will be its primary customers, first responders, said Richard Reed, the new chief customer officer, in a Friday blog post. He spoke to the board earlier in the past week (see 1606290077). “To prepare for a customer-centric operating environment, we are re-designing the User Advocacy office to encompass all of our external-facing programs, responsibilities, and activities,” Reed wrote. “This new component, called the Chief Customer Office (CCO), will be the focal point for our stakeholder interactions and responsibilities going forward.” The CCO will wrap together outreach, consultation, state plans, coordination with the Public Safety Advisory Committee and communications, he said. “The office will also encompass future customer service programs that we plan to develop, such as product management, marketing, training, and more.”

ATIS said it's developing the North American requirements and high-level architecture specifications for an LTE-based earthquake early warning system (EEWS) on cellular networks. “This effort was spawned in support of California's proposed EEWS and is anticipated to initially focus more broadly on a solution for the west coast of North America,” ATIS said in a news release. “The work will address use cases, end-to-end system requirements and architecture, mobile device behavior requirements, and security considerations. It will also include an analysis of existing standards to determine if additional enhancements may be required.” The FCC recently sought comment on how quickly carriers could transmit warnings (see 1605100054).

Shure explained its opposition to an FCC order extending the Section 15.2031 prohibition on standard antenna jacks and connectors to wireless mics. “Wireless microphones are not practical candidates for aftermarket power amplifiers and as such do not create concerns regarding human safety or interference due to designs utilizing standard connectors,” Shure said. “Application of the Part 15 antenna connector rule to unlicensed wireless microphones would significantly inhibit manufacturing, raise consumer costs, and cause user confusion, thus complicating the transition of wireless microphones to the new 600 MHz band plan as a result of the broadcast Incentive Auction.” Body-worn wireless mics are often affixed “on or under the performer’s clothing or costume, mounted on an instrument, or, in theatrical productions frequently hidden in the performer’s hair,” the company said. “The microphone is then connected by a cable to a compact, body-worn transmitter that is also often concealed. The microphone and transmitter system must maintain an extremely small form factor to avoid restricting the performer’s freedom of motion.” There is little possibility anyone would affix a high-gain antenna to a Part 15 wireless mic, Shure said in docket 14-165.

A Commerce Department Inspector General audit of FirstNet found that the authority needs to do a better job of managing interagency agreements (IAAs). The audit gave FirstNet a mostly clean bill of health but said its processes on IAAs should be improved. The FirstNet CEO should “develop and document procedures to explain the roles and responsibilities of FirstNet offices involved in the IAA closeout process and identify internal standards for initiating and executing closeouts,” the IG said. The CEO also should document procedures that explain the steps to effectively track FirstNet IAAs, the audit said. The IG said FirstNet responded to its recommendations and that response was attached to the report. “FirstNet agreed with our findings, noting that they have either already implemented, or are in the process of implementing, corrective action to address the … recommendations,” the IG said.

The FCC released an order making an additional change to its Part 5 experimental radio service (ERS) rules, which were substantially updated in a May 2013 order. In that order, the FCC decided not to expand the eligibility for medical testing experimental licenses to entities other than hospitals and health care institutions. Last year, a Further NPRM examined changes to the rules (see 1507080050). Medtronic pressed the FCC to act on new rules that would make medical device manufacturers eligible for medical testing experimental licenses (see 1510290037). The medical device maker said changing the rules would help “ameliorate the disparity between those medical device manufacturers eligible for Medical Testing Experimental Licenses and those eligible for Program Experimental Licenses." The latest order said only Medtronic filed comments on the rule change. Nonetheless, commissioners agreed: “Because clinical trials conducted under the medical testing experimental license or as a market trial may be tested in these restricted bands, there is no reason to impose greater frequency restrictions on program licensees conducting basic research on the same devices,” the FCC said. “This rule change also will establish parity between all qualified medical device manufacturers and developers -- whether they are health care institutions or medical device manufacturers -- as to permissible frequencies of operation for conducting basic research and clinical trials with RF-based medical devices.”