FCC consumer education efforts about the repacking and channel rescanning are focused on local markets, but broadcasters aren’t depending on the agency to get the word out, and public TV stations are looking to take on consumer outreach for all, said FCC and industry officials in interviews.
The FCC will investigate the nationwide CenturyLink outage that disrupted 911 service for many Americans, Chairman Ajit Pai said Friday. At our deadline, the carrier was still working to resolve the multistate outage that began Thursday (see 1812270050). The National Emergency Number Association (NENA) said the outage shows urgent need to fully deploy next-generation 911. NARUC and state consumer advocates applauded FCC action.
Many in the communications policy world have battle scars from the last prolonged federal shutdown, 16 days in 2013 when former Commissioner Mignon Clyburn was acting chairwoman. Then, the FCC, unlike some other federal agencies, largely shuttered its website, leading to widespread complaints. The FCC has been funded for the first days of this closure, but that ends Wednesday. The agency isn’t saying at this point if it will take its electronic comment filing and other licensing systems offline, with a public notice planned for Wednesday. The expectation among industry and FCC officials is that the 28 GHz auction won't reopen Thursday as planned and the website will be largely shuttered.
Text-to-911 adoption is growing, but more work lies ahead, with many state-and-territory deployments not stretching across the entire jurisdiction, emergency number officials told us last week. “We’re absolutely headed in the right direction,” but funding is necessary as well as "many, many 911 centers" and "we need to try to accelerate that,” said NG-911 Institute Executive Director Patrick Halley in an interview. Ahead of most, Maine and Massachusetts completed statewide text-to-911 rollouts this month.
The FTC has funding to operate through 11:59 p.m. EST Friday, a spokesperson said Thursday. The agency previously said it would operate through at least mid-day Friday if there were a lapse in funding (see 1812210048). The agency’s latest contingency plan shows it operating at about 23 percent in a shutdown. Employees working Friday can complete shutdown responsibilities before the end of the work day, the spokesperson said.
The Office of the U.S Trade Representative issued its first list of product exclusions from the 25 percent Trade Act Section 301 tariffs on Chinese imports, granting full or partial exemptions for nearly two dozen 10-digit Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheadings, said a notice posted Friday at the agency’s website. The exclusions apply retroactively to July 6, the date the first tranche of tariffs took effect, and will remain in effect until one year after the USTR’s notice is published in the Federal Register.
Congressional hearings with executives from Facebook, Twitter and Google spurred criticism that lawmakers lack the expertise to properly question Silicon Valley. In interviews, tech-minded House lawmakers from both parties dismissed the criticism, though some said their colleagues should be better educated.
ESPN emailed Fios TV customers Wednesday warning they risk losing access to the channel if Disney and Verizon can't come to terms on a new contract when the current one expires New Year's Eve.
The Wireless ISP Association and the Utilities Technology Council jointly told the FCC the record shows overwhelming support for their joint request asking the FCC to waive requirements that 3650-3700 MHz licensees complete the transition to Part 96 citizens broadband radio service rules by April 17, 2020 (see 1812040002). Reply comments were due at the FCC Friday. CTIA and NCTA were among the commenters opposing a blanket waiver.
The FCC’s case-by-case top-four rule is a “nebulous promise” that leaves small and mid-market stations in “regulatory limbo,” said a group of broadcasters in an opening brief filed Friday (see 1812210070) in the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals as part of the legal challenge of the FCC’s 2014 quadrennial review. The Multicultural Media Telecom and Internet Council and National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters filed a brief (in Pacer) challenging the incubator order and FCC inaction on diversity rules, and anti-consolidation groups filed a joint challenge of the agency’s eligible entity definition and ownership rules. Together, the legal challenges are expected to create uncertainty about FCC’s media ownership policy and the 2018 quadrennial review throughout 2019, broadcast attorneys told us.