Lawmakers in both houses are gearing up to scrutinize the false alarm about a possible ballistic missile headed for Hawaii that caused panic there Saturday. Senate Communications Subcommittee ranking member Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, told us Wednesday he's strongly considering legislation aimed at fixing faults in the emergency alert system. The Senate Commerce Committee is aiming for a hearing next week focused on the incident, two Capitol Hill aides said. The House Communications Subcommittee also is planning a to-be-scheduled hearing that will examine the false alert in the context of other public safety telecom issues. The FCC is investigating, as are Hawaii officials (see 1801160054).
Level 3 and ExteNet threatened to sue the Maine Public Utilities Commission over pole-attachment licensing requirements they deem too burdensome. Commissioners voted 3-0 Friday to amend pole attachment rules as directed by the legislature (see 1712060035). The order in docket 2017-00247 didn’t streamline certification for Level 3 and ExteNet, declined state lawmakers’ pleas for prescriptive rules and refused local governments’ requests for free access to poles for municipal broadband. The commission agreed to CLECs' and lawmakers' requests to apply to all pole riders “Oxford rules” that the state’s biggest ILEC opposed. Oxford rules include the right to attach equipment below an ILEC’s facilities when higher space isn’t available.
Senators debated whether to invoke cloture on legislation reauthorizing Section 702 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act authority Tuesday, despite pushback from senators seeking stronger privacy protections and urging the Senate to have a fuller debate on the bill’s privacy implications. "What unites our bipartisan coalition is we strongly oppose this end run around our Constitution," Ron Wyden, D-Ore., told reporters. Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.; Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.; Steve Daines, R-Mont.; and Rand Paul, R-Ky., joined Wyden in pushing for additional privacy protections to be added to the bill, in a news briefing earlier Tuesday.
A draft FCC order would give $500 million in new funding to cooperatives and other small rural carriers, and set "strong new rules to prevent abuse of the high-cost program," the agency said Tuesday. The item circulated by Chairman Ajit Pai to colleagues proposes changes intended to improve the high-cost USF program's "effectiveness and efficiency in promoting rural broadband deployment, including the use of a Tribal Broadband Factor to enable better access on Tribal lands," said a release. It contains a report and order, an order on reconsideration and an NPRM, an FCC official told us. An agency spokesman confirmed the tribal broadband factor proposal is in the NPRM.
The FCC anticipates getting at least one non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) satellite constellation application approved this quarter, and the review for most applications being done potentially this year, an official told us. In some cases, the licensees aren't in a hurry, with constellation plans still being worked on, the official said, adding there hasn't been strong pressure from the industry to accelerate that process.
Wireless industry lawyers see no wiggle room on FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's position that the agency won’t hold any spectrum auctions until Congress approves legislative language that would allow auction deposits to be sent directly to the Treasury Department (see 1710240065 and 1710250026). The stance raises questions about when the FCC will hold the first auction of high-frequency spectrum, which is a key building block of 5G. AT&T and other industry players want an auction of the 28 GHz and 37-40 GHz bands by December (see 1711150022).
State attorneys general and others challenged the FCC net neutrality regulatory repeal in different federal appellate courts Tuesday, to preserve their venue rights due to lingering uncertainty about the judicial timetable despite the regulator's clarification. Twenty-two state AGs (including from the District of Columbia), Public Knowledge, Mozilla and New America's Open Technology Institute (OTI) said they filed separate petitions for review in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Free Press filed in the 1st Circuit, where the group said it's headquartered. State net neutrality legislation is moving forward, while more U.S. senators signed onto a Congressional Review Act resolution to undo the FCC's rescission of the rules.
The FCC is investigating a false alarm warning about a possible ballistic missile headed for Hawaii that caused panic there Saturday. The warning was sent as a wireless alert to cellphones in the state as well as by broadcasters and wasn’t retracted for 38 minutes. Chairman Ajit Pai said Sunday the FCC is investigating and called the false alarm “unacceptable.” Public safety officials told us Tuesday other that states are likely to look at their alerting protocols. Wireless customers got the following warning at just before 8:10 a.m. Hawaii time: “BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.” The House Communications Subcommittee said Tuesday it plans a hearing.
The NextRadio FM-listening smartphone app is enjoying a “very good” Q4, between Samsung’s agreement to unlock the FM chips in its Galaxy phones and JVCKenwood’s CES announcement adopting NextRadio for the connected car, said Emmis Communications CEO Jeff Smulyan on an earnings call.
Alibaba's Taobao.com mobile commerce site, the Pacific Mall in Markham, Ontario, and online sites like Convert2mp3.net and ThePirateBay.org are among prominent physical and virtual marketplaces that facilitate or ignore rampant piracy and counterfeiting, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) said Friday in its annual notorious markets report. Citing growth of illicit streaming devices globally, USTR added several apps and portals that link such devices to illicit content -- TVPlus, TVBrowser and Kuaikan -- to the list. It said closer cooperation between governments and stakeholders is needed to tackle such video streaming piracy. Alibaba and mall management didn't comment.