Chairman Ajit Pai said the FCC hopes to hold an auction of the 28 GHz band in November, followed immediately by a 24 GHz auction. But Pai, at the Mobile World Congress, Monday, said doing so relies on Congress passing legislation by May 13 giving the agency the ability to handle upfront payments. On a third band, NTIA Administrator David Redl said Monday his agency will study the 3450-3550 MHz band for wireless broadband. It sits just below the 3.5 GHz Citizens Broadband Radio Service frequencies, a focus of the commission.
Chairman Ajit Pai said the FCC hopes to hold an auction of the 28 GHz band in November, followed immediately by a 24 GHz auction. But Pai, at the Mobile World Congress, Monday, said doing so relies on Congress passing legislation by May 13 giving the agency the ability to handle upfront payments. On a third band, NTIA Administrator David Redl said Monday his agency will study the 3450-3550 MHz band for wireless broadband. It sits just below the 3.5 GHz Citizens Broadband Radio Service frequencies, a focus of the commission.
More net neutrality petitions for review emerged after Thursday’s Federal Register publication of the FCC’s December "Restoring Internet Freedom" order (see 1802220049). In addition to previously reported lawsuits, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit got petitions from Mozilla (in Pacer), Vimeo, National Hispanic Media Coalition and New America’s Open Technology Institute. California’s Santa Clara County filed a petition (in Pacer) at the 9th Circuit.
Movements to end 911 fee diversion in New Jersey and Rhode Island continue as FCC commissioners amplify rhetoric on the issue and after another commission report showed several states still using 911 fees charged on phone bills for things not directly related to 911. But governors in violating states haven't pledged changes and the state-level efforts -- spearheaded by industry and county officials in New Jersey and a state representative in Rhode Island -- are not new. Continued misuse of the fees is “incredibly disappointing” and “jeopardizes the future of the 911 system,” warned National Emergency Number Association Director-Government Affairs Trey Forgety. Funding is a key challenge to implementing NG-911, GAO said in a report released Friday.
The National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America recently called on CBP to address several holes that still remain in ACE. “While CBP has made great strides over the last few years in development of ACE, we are still in need of additional critical development to make ACE functional,” the trade group said in a white paper. An attached “Priority List” lays out the specific needs of the trade community and where CBP is in addressing them. The group raised similar issues in a Feb. 9 letter to Brenda Smith, executive assistant commissioner in the CBP Office of Trade, obtained by International Trade Today
NARUC praised Energy Department creation of a new office on Cybersecurity, Energy Security and Emergency Response. "The issues under CESER’s purview are critical to the operation of a safe, reliable and resilient grid needed to support the nation’s energy infrastructure," said the state telecom regulators group Wednesday.
The FCC took away lessons from a 911 outage in March affecting AT&T wireless (see 1703090017), said Public Safety Bureau Chief Lisa Fowlkes at a National Emergence Number Association conference Wednesday. It's of "critical importance" to apply "network reliability best practices, which could have prevented or lessened the impact,” she said. “The outage also revealed the need for closer coordination between service providers and 911 call centers during outages. We are committed to working with the 911 community, industry, and other stakeholders to apply these lessons.” Fowlkes stressed the importance of 911 location accuracy rules approved by the FCC three years ago. “They are having an impact, and their impact will increase,” she said. “The rules set the floor, not the ceiling. We encourage the public safety community to work with industry to make 911 location even better, and we are ready to be partners in that.”
FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said USF contributions should assess broadband because subsidies target broadband and the current long-distance voice revenue base is unsustainable. The current approach is much like a game of Jenga, she said at NARUC Wednesday, tracking written remarks: "We keep removing pieces from the base, and keep adding more to the top. Eventually, that tower will come tumbling down." She hopes a federal-state joint board will propose changes, but if not, it could invite new, outside experts to analyze the situation and provide fresh ideas.
FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said USF contributions should assess broadband because subsidies target broadband and the current long-distance voice revenue base is unsustainable. The current approach is much like a game of Jenga, she said at NARUC Wednesday, tracking written remarks: "We keep removing pieces from the base, and keep adding more to the top. Eventually, that tower will come tumbling down." She hopes a federal-state joint board will propose changes, but if not, it could invite new, outside experts to analyze the situation and provide fresh ideas.
President Donald Trump’s administration again proposed to cut federal funding to CPB in its FY 2019 budget proposal, placing it among the 22 entities it’s aiming to zero out for federal funding in a bid to “bring Federal spending under control, and reduce deficits by $3.6 trillion over the budget window.” The administration also proposed Monday expanding FCC authority to do spectrum auctions and eliminating accrued interest on future deposits in the Rural Utilities Service borrowers’ cushion of credit accounts. The budget largely maintains the funding levels the FCC, FTC and NTIA proposed in the Trump administration’s FY 2018 request, all of which are down from the year’s funding levels under continuing appropriations (see 1705230041). The White House also released its infrastructure legislative proposal, which would streamline the permit review process for small cells and Wi-Fi deployments (see 1802120001).