AT&T agreed to pay a civil penalty of $25 million under a consent decree with the FCC after data breaches by the company’s vendors in an apparent cellphone unlocking scheme exposed the personal information of more than 280,000 company customers in the U.S., the Enforcement Bureau said Wednesday. It was the largest penalty the FCC has handed out for privacy and data protection, a senior agency official said during a call with reporters.
The FCC published a list of prohibited written presentations made at the FCC on its net neutrality rules between Feb. 20 and March 12, the sunshine period on the order. FCC rules prohibit making any presentation, “whether ex parte or not, to decision-making personnel concerning any matter listed on the Commission’s Sunshine Agenda from the day after the Sunshine Agenda is released until the Commission releases the text of a decision or order relating to that matter or removes the item from the Sunshine Agenda,” the FCC said Friday. Among those who filed prohibited communications at the agency were the New Networks Institute, the Consumer Federation of America and Protect Internet Freedom, the notice said.
Industry groups are upset over an FCC policy statement creating what they call “draconian” treble damages for amounts owed to USF and other funds. CTIA, Comptel, NCTA and USTelecom filed petitions for reconsideration and a stay, saying the statement violates notice requirements and the “inflexible” triple damages violates the Communications Act. ITTA filed comments supporting the joint petitions.
The FCC is aware “our story is not done” on its municipal broadband pre-emption order, given Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery’s legal challenge to the order, said Daniel Kahn, Wireline Bureau Deputy Competition Policy Division Chief, during a commission webinar Monday. Slatery, a Republican, sued the FCC March 20 in the 6th U.S. Court of Appeals over the order, which pre-empted municipal broadband restrictions in North Carolina and Tennessee at the respective requests of Wilson, North Carolina, and the Electric Power Board (EPB) of Chattanooga (see 1503240059). North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper, a Democrat, is considering whether to join Slatery’s lawsuit, a spokeswoman said. The FCC webinar also addressed the commission’s new NPRM on implementation of Section 111 of the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act (STELA) Reauthorization and implementation of the FCC’s net neutrality order.
USTelecom last week became the first of the major trade associations to challenge the FCC’s net neutrality rules (see 1503230066), but challenges by CTIA and NCTA also are expected, industry officials said. USTelecom is expected to file an additional appeal after the order is published in the Federal Register, which is when the other major trade groups also are expected to file. Net neutrality opponents say there are good reasons the 2015 order, which reclassifies broadband as a common carrier service, will be more broadly challenged than the 2010 order.
Release of the FCC net neutrality order brought limited clarity to how the rules and the commission’s accompanying reclassification of broadband as a Communications Act Title II service will affect state telecom regulation, state telecom lawyers and observers said in interviews last week. That lack of clarity largely stems from continued uncertainty about whether the net neutrality rules -- and particularly Title II reclassification -- will survive legal scrutiny, lawyers said. Alamo Broadband and USTelecom filed lawsuits Monday seeking reviews of the net neutrality order at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, respectively (see 1503230066). The order faces continued scrutiny on Capitol Hill (see 1503200048).
House Communications Subcommittee lawmakers pressed FCC officials on details of the broadcast TV incentive auction, focusing on whether stations will participate and whether the commission’s funding for the efforts will be enough. The officials said the agency is ready to tackle the issues with the resources at hand.
Comments are due May 11, replies May 26, on a Feb. 9 NPRM on how the FCC can promote efficiency and flexibility in 800 MHz mid-band spectrum. The deadlines came after the NPRM was published in Wednesday's Federal Register. “The Commission seeks comment on whether to create new, full-power 12.5 kilohertz interstitial channels in the 800 MHz Mid-Band,” the notice said. “The Commission also seeks comment on appropriate interference protection criteria for interstitial channels, including a proposal from the Land Mobile Communications Council (LMCC) to amend the rules to adopt new ‘Interstitial 800 MHz Coordination Procedures.’”
The Association of Federal Communications Consulting Engineers (AFCCE) asked the FCC to seek comment on a proposed order, allegedly circulated by the FCC Enforcement Bureau, to close more than half the regional enforcement offices (see 1503110054). The group also asked the FCC to release a consultant report that recommended the office closures. The field offices are the FCC’s “eyes and ears,” the group said. “The ubiquitous presence of field offices and agents uniquely positions the Commission to resolve interference and unauthorized radio transmission cases,” it said. “Many of these cases involve safety-of-life services.” Increased spectrum sharing makes the field staff even more critical, AFCCE said.
State and local 911 stakeholders urged the FCC in filings on the commission’s 911 governance NPRM (docket 14-193) to not usurp state and local jurisdiction on 911 issues in its pursuit of revised rules that will curb 911 outages like the April 2014 multistate event. The FCC’s rulemaking proposal followed that widespread outage, which the FCC later determined was caused by a software error at an Intrado 911 call processing center in Englewood, Colorado (see 1410170057). Carriers and public safety groups urged the FCC to consider a consensus proposal from the groups that would curb 911 outages without requiring the implementation of new rules (see 1503240049).