Thursday, June 27, 2019
Headlines Daily Digest
Today's Events (Beltway tip: You do not have to dress like Harold Feld to participate in PrivacyCon 2019)
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President Trump signals US government ‘should be suing Google and Facebook’
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The House Small Business Committee's Subcommittee on Contracting and Infrastructure held a hearing focused on improving broadband mapping in rural areas across the country. The hearing featured testimony from rural broadband carriers on the challenges that they face and ways broadband mapping can be improved going forward.
“UniTel continues to strive to provide great service to its customers in rural Maine,” said Beth Osler, Director of Customer and Industry Relations at UniTel, Inc. in Unity, Maine. “However, as long as broadband maps remain unreliable and riddled with erroneous, overly broad coverage claims, we will not be able to maximize our efforts to reach all unserved areas or to sustain services in areas where funding is needed to do so.”
“Some of the challenges we have encountered as a small business include difficulty finding staff time to identify and apply for grants, insufficient staff to meet reporting requirements, and inaccurate data in federal broadband maps subsequently impacting federal grant funding,” said Dan Stelpflug Director of Operation, Engineering & Technology at Allamakee Clayton Electric Cooperative in Potsville, Iowa. “We hope the Congress will encourage the FCC to continue working with small carriers toward mutually agreeable resolutions to issues like ours.”
“All small businesses know the importance of basing decisions on reliable data,” said Tim Donovan, SVP of Legislative Affairs at the Competitive Carriers Association. “To close the digital divide, and provide connectivity for millions of Americans living in rural areas, policymakers must take actions to deliver coverage maps that are based on reliable, real-world coverage data. With improved parameters in place, a robust data collection will promote the inclusion of rural communities in today’s digital economy.”
The Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Development received 53 applications requesting more than $635 million in loan-grant combination funding in the first round of the USDA ReConnect Pilot Program. The USDA made $200 million available for loan-grant combination projects in the first round of funding. The applications came from rural areas across 33 states, representing 1,099 farms and 859 businesses. Though the loan-grant application process is closed, the government will still accept applications for low-interest loans through July 12.
Gov. Janet Mills (D-Maine) signed a bill aiming to protect internet customers. The amended bill says internet service providers that are contracted by the state have to agree to provide “net neutral service.” The law defines “net neutral service” as providing internet service without blocking lawful content or favoring some websites to benefit others. Maine would also require such providers to agree they won’t inappropriately “throttle,” or slow down, internet traffic based on content.
Cities across Texas stand to lose millions of dollars due to a new law that slashes fees telecom providers pay to them. But before the savings go into effect in 2020, it’s likely cities will challenge the legislation in the courts. The bill would slash right-of-way fees telecom providers pay cities to supply cable and phone service. For years, companies paid cities two separate fees to run phone and cable TV lines in right-of-ways — even when delivered over the same line. The bill changes that practice and allows providers to only pay the higher of the two fees.
Supporters of the bill, like Walt Baum, the president of the Texas Cable Association, said it’s necessary to end an “outdated double tax” on companies. But Bennett Sandlin, executive director of the Texas Municipal League, said he thinks the legislation violates sections of the Texas Constitution. “The use of public land is a privilege, not a right,” Sandlin said. “They could certainly decide to run those wires through people’s backyards, but they would pay a lot more. They have to pay for that rental of public space.“
The main objective of this report is to increase awareness of the state of broadband availability in the nine counties that are part of the Southeastern Indiana Regional Planning Council (SIRPC) region and its implications.
Meteorologists and other experts are urging the Federal Communications Commission to drop a spectrum-sharing plan that they say could interfere with transmissions of weather-satellite imagery. The dispute is over the 1675-1680MHz frequencies and is separate from the other FCC/weather controversy, which involves the 24GHz band and has pitted the FCC against NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the US Navy.
The American Geophysical Union (AGU), American Meteorological Society (AMS), and National Weather Association (NWA) told the FCC in a filing that its plan for 1675-1680MHz should be scrapped because of the "likelihood of interference with the reception of weather satellite imagery and relayed environmental data to receive-only antennas that members of America's weather, water, and climate enterprise use." The 1675-1680MHz band is used today by NOAA for government-owned satellites that transmit data to antennas on the ground, but the Ajit Pai-led FCC has proposed rules that would force federal government users to share the spectrum with wireless broadband services. The FCC is targeting the 1675-1680MHz band in part because it is adjacent to 1670-1675MHz, which is already allocated for wireless services.
Reallocation of the spectrum is needed for "the nation's wireless networks [to] keep pace with ever-increasing demand for wireless broadband," the FCC plan said. The FCC is taking public comments on the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking until July 22 before making a final decision. If the FCC gives final approval to the plan, the commission would use an auction to sell licenses in the 1675-1680MHz band to wireless-network operators.
Rep Doris Matsui (D-CA), vice chair of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, released the “WIN 5G Act”. This draft legislation proposes a consensus-based, compromise approach to rapidly and equitably reallocating spectrum between the frequencies of 3.7 GHz-4.2 GHz, commonly referred to as the “C-band”. It also incorporates a framework to reallocate spectrum between 3.45 GHz-3.55 GHz for commercial wireless use, provides research and development resources for commercializing additional spectrum, and creates and funds an all-new Rural Broadband Deployment Fund.
Specifically, the WIN 5G Act requires the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to designate C-band satellite operators to serve as a transition facilitator that will craft a transition plan for C-band spectrum. The transition plan will include how much spectrum will be made available in the continental United States, together with determinations that: 1) end users will continue to receive comparable quality of service after repurposing for terrestrial mobile use; and 2) that the amount of spectrum proposed is the maximum amount that can be made available. The transition facilitation plan will also include technical, frequency migration, and end-user protection plans and will be submitted to the FCC within 6 months. The FCC will then have 90 days to review the plan to ensure it is adequate.
To ensure the transition facilitator also proposes to make the maximum amount of spectrum it can feasibly make available, the FCC would, within 6 months, auction the spectrum, allowing the transition facilitator to recover an escalating amount of the proceeds from the auction based on how much spectrum is cleared for mobile wireless use. It also creates an opportunity for the transition facilitator to receive an additional incentive payment if they submit a sufficient transition plan on the first instance and begin to procure new satellites necessary for C-band distribution capacity not more than 30 days after the plan is found to be sufficient by the FCC.
The WIN 5G Act also:
- Allows the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), in consultation with National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), to use existing – otherwise unused – resources in the Spectrum Relocation Fund to support research-related activities that examine the feasibility of federal spectrum users relocating or sharing spectrum with non-federal users.
- Requires, within 6 months, agencies operating on 3.45-3.55 GHz to submit a Pipeline Act study to assess whether that spectrum could be made available for commercial use.
- Requires, after a finding that the 3.45-3.55 GHz band can be made available for commercial wireless services, that this band be identified for auction and reallocated for commercial use.
- Requires NTIA to consult with the FCC and relevant federal agencies on whether spectrum subject to a plan could be made available on an unlicensed basis, if a study reveals it could not be made available for auction on a licensed basis.
- Allows, if spectrum frequencies auctioned for non-federal use is the result primarily of NTIA’s research and development, OMB to transfer funds from that auction to go to independent research and development intended to improve the efficiency of federal spectrum use to make available frequencies that have not previously been identified for reallocation and auction.
- Establishes a new Rural Broadband Deployment Fund to be used by the FCC to expand rural broadband access with proceeds generated by the auctions required by the WIN 5G Act.
The Federal Communications Commission granted Verizon a partial waiver of FCC rules which prohibits Upper 700 MHz C Block licensees from “locking” handsets that are used in the band. In order to allow Verizon to better combat identity theft and other forms of handset-related fraud, this waiver will permit Verizon to lock a customer’s handset for 60 days from the date it becomes active on Verizon’s network. The FCC denied, however, Verizon’s request that the commission issue a Declaratory Ruling finding the handset unlocking rule already permits such temporary locking.
If you’re wondering why Verizon needs this permission in the first place, it dates back to the FCC’s 2008 auction of 700MHz spectrum, which saw Verizon come away with the prized “C block.” The rules of that transaction required Verizon to unlock the phones it sold for use on any carrier that devices could support. Ever since, Verizon has adhered to the policy and, as a result, has been less restrictive than AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint. Those other carriers each lock new phones to their networks either for a set length of time, until a device has been fully paid off, or both.
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-MS), Committee, Communications, Technology, Innovation, and the Internet Subcommittee Ranking Member Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Rep Doris Matsui (D-CA), and Rep Brett Guthrie (R-KY) introduced the “Supplementing the Pipeline for Efficient Control of The Resources for Users Making New Opportunities for Wireless (SPECTRUM NOW) Act”. This bill facilitates the speedy deployment of 5G by allowing government agencies to become more efficient and effective in their spectrum use and requiring key mid-band frequencies be made available for commercial wireless use. The bill creates a pathway for agencies to modify their operations on federally-held spectrum to make those frequencies available for commercial wireless broadband use. Congress passed the Spectrum Pipeline Act in 2015, which broadened the scope of expenses that could be supported by the Spectrum Relocation Fund (SRF). Current law allows federal agencies to perform research and development, engineering studies, economic analyses, and other planning activities that could lead to spectrum being repurposed for commercial use, but it limits the resources within the SRF that these federal agencies can actually access for this research and planning.
The SPECTRUM NOW Act allows agencies that have submitted a plan under the Spectrum Pipeline Act to access the existing, otherwise unused SRF funds that they currently cannot in order to study the possibility of increasing their spectrum efficiency and relocating or sharing their spectrum with commercial users. Without this fix, federal agencies that have currently identified spectrum that could be repurposed would be unable to conduct the engineering research that would result in the spectrum being made available for commercial wireless use. The bill:
- Improves Federal agencies’ ability to study making spectrum available for commercial wireless use.
- Requires a plan be submitted to repurpose the 3450 MHz – 3550 MHz band for commercial wireless use. This band is adjacent to the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) band, which is expected to be auctioned next year.
- Creates a timeline for formal identification and auction of the 3450 MHz – 3550 MHz band, provided the study required by the SPECTRUM NOW Act determines it can be made available for commercial use.
- Requires the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to consult with the Federal Communications Commission and the relevant federal agency on whether spectrum subject to a plan could be made available on an unlicensed basis, if a study reveals it could not be made available for auction on a licensed basis.
- Updates an annual report by NTIA on the implementation of relocation or sharing arrangements of federal spectrum.
The public-private partnership touted two years ago as a way to bring Sacramento to the forefront of a new digital frontier is being called an example for other cities of what not to do, by the Communications Workers of America.
President Donald Trump said the US government “should be suing Google and Facebook and all that,” then wagered that “perhaps we will,” in a new broadside against Silicon Valley at a moment when it already faces heightened antitrust scrutiny in Washington.
President Trump did not detail the exact basis for such lawsuits, which he raised after assailing European regulators for their investigations into US tech companies. But the president’s comments during an interview on Fox Business came just weeks after federal competition regulators at the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission divvied up scrutiny of Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google, a move that could suggest the government is in the early stages of an investigation into those tech giants. President Trump also swiped at Google, claiming the search and advertising giant is “trying to rig the election.” He then claimed that Twitter has made it “very hard” for users to find and follow him. But President Trump did not provide new evidence for his latest allegation that the companies exhibit bias against conservatives, which Google and Twitter long have vehemently denied.
“You may need legislation in order to create competition,” President Trump said in response to a question about how his administration might proceed.
In a letter of inquiry sent by the Federal Communications Commission's Media Bureau to Sinclair Broadcast Group General Counsel David Gibber, the FCC asks for documents releated to Sinclair's aborted effort to buy Tribune TV stations and whether Sinclair mislead the FCC about who would actually be controlling the stations it was spinning off as part of the deal. The FCC is investigating "whether, in light of the issues presented in the HDO, Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. (Sinclair or Company) was the real party-in-interest to the associated WGN-TV, KDAF, and KJAH applications, and, if so, whether Sinclair engaged in misrepresentation and/or lack of candor in its applications with the Commission."
"This is a big deal. The worst thing you can do to the FCC is lie," said Benton Senior Counselor Andrew Schwartzman. "This is the only way to lose a license for a broadcaster. Sinclair needs to prove they didn't lie, or that they didn't mean to and won't again."
The FCC wants deal-related documents from the company no later than July 9.
Benton (www.benton.org) provides the only free, reliable, and non-partisan daily digest that curates and distributes news related to universal broadband, while connecting communications, democracy, and public interest issues. Posted Monday through Friday, this service provides updates on important industry developments, policy issues, and other related news events. While the summaries are factually accurate, their sometimes informal tone may not always represent the tone of the original articles. Headlines are compiled by Kevin Taglang (headlines AT benton DOT org) and Robbie McBeath (rmcbeath AT benton DOT org) — we welcome your comments.
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