The FCC Enforcement Bureau said it reached a $3.4 million settlement with Verizon, ending the commission’s investigation into the telco’s role in an April 2014 multi-state 911 outage. Verizon is the 911 service provider in 11 counties in northern California, nine of which were affected by that April outage. The bureau separately issued an order Wednesday fining Oklahoma telco Hinton Telephone $100,000 following an Enforcement Bureau investigation that showed the telco failed to direct 911 calls to local public safety answering points (PSAPs).
The Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council (CSRIC) unanimously voted Wednesday to approve Working Group 4’s report on recommendations on communications sector cybersecurity risk management, which was meant to adapt the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework. Working Group 4 released its report almost a year after CSRIC formed the working group as part of FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s push for the agency to increase its focus on cybersecurity as a public safety issue (see report in the March 21, 2014, issue). Wheeler said Wednesday, at what he called CSRIC IV’s “graduation ceremony,” that Working Group 4’s report would be “crucial to where we as an agency and we as industries and government have got to go” on addressing cybersecurity risk management. Wheeler continued to emphasize what he sees as the importance of the private sector leading on cybersecurity but noted that the FCC will continue to coordinate and play an oversight role. CSRIC also adopted Working Group 3’s report on expanded security best practices for Emergency Alert System stakeholders and Working Group 7’s report on updates to the prioritization of earlier CSRIC best practices.
The Department of Commerce’s Internet Policy Task Force sought public input Friday on possible cybersecurity-related topics that the IPTF could address via a consensus-based multistakeholder process. Topics the IPTF would tackle would largely veer away from securing critical infrastructure, a topic that federal agencies have recently focused on, “in hopes of improving security and user trust in the digital economy while also promoting U.S. innovation,” NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling said in a statement. The IPTF’s cybersecurity work would complement cyber initiatives that focused on critical infrastructure, including the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s development of its Cybersecurity Framework, NTIA said. The topics could include the cyber vulnerability disclosure process, botnet mitigation, the Internet of Things, managed security services and combating malware, the IPTF said in its request for comment (RFC).
Telecom deregulation advocates are following up recent successes in four states that passed statutes deregulating aspects of wireline and VoIP services by renewing their push for passage of similar legislation in the Idaho and Minnesota legislatures. Both states are considering bills that would prohibit VoIP regulation: Idaho’s S-1105 and Minnesota’s HF-776/SF-895. Minnesota is also considering HF-1066/SF-736, legislation that would let ILECs be regulated the same as CLECs. None of those bills advanced as far as statutes that passed or were enacted in Kentucky, North Dakota, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Thirty-two states deregulated wireline service by the end of December, while three others and the District of Columbia significantly limited wireline oversight, said National Regulatory Research Institute Principal Researcher Sherry Lichtenberg.
The FCC released its municipal broadband pre-emption order Thursday, quietly posting it after its earlier rollout of the high-profile but no-less-controversial new net neutrality rules (see 1503120053). The order, as anticipated, targeted the specific portions of the North Carolina and Tennessee state laws that the Electric Power Board of Chattanooga and Wilson, North Carolina, had sought pre-emption from. In the order, the FCC defended its Telecom Act Section 706 authority to pre-empt state barriers to broadband deployment and countered pre-emption opponents’ assertions that pre-emption violates the 10th Amendment and Supreme Court precedent in Nixon v. Missouri Municipal League. The FCC’s release of the pre-emption order is seen as another step toward anticipated legal challenges in federal courts, which industry lawyers have said couldn’t begin in earnest until the order’s language went public (see 1503110060).
Additional cities have “already committed” to become interveners in a lawsuit filed Monday against the FCC’s new wireless tower siting review rules, said Best Best municipal telecom and wireless lawyer Gerry Lederer in an interview Wednesday. The suit, filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit by Los Angeles and additional cities in California, Texas and Washington (see 1503100034), alleges that the rules, contained in the FCC October wireless facilities deployment order, are unconstitutional and misinterpret the 2012 Spectrum Act. Montgomery County, Maryland, filed an identical suit in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Friday. Best Best lawyer Joseph Van Eaton filed both suits, while Lederer is in charge of recruiting additional cities to join as interveners.
Preparations for much-anticipated state challenges to the FCC’s pre-emption of municipal broadband laws in North Carolina and Tennessee appear to be largely in a holding pattern until the commission releases the text of its pre-emption order, industry lawyers said in interviews. Spokeswomen for North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper, a Democrat, and Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery, a Republican, said separately that the AGs were considering whether to seek petitions for review and would review the order once it’s released. Baller Herbst lawyer Jim Baller, who represented the Electric Power Board of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Wilson, North Carolina -- the two entities that petitioned the FCC for pre-emption -- said he hasn’t received any further information on when the commission might release the order.
Los Angeles was among four California cities that joined with municipalities in Texas and Washington Monday in the second lawsuit against the FCC's October wireless facilities deployment order. They told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit that the order’s wireless tower siting rules are unconstitutional and misinterpret the 2012 Spectrum Act. The order is “arbitrary and capricious and an abuse of discretion; and otherwise contrary to law,” the cities said in their joint petition for review. The other petitioning cities are: Bellevue, Washington; Ontario, Redwood City and San Jose, California; McAllen, Texas; and the Texas Coalition of Cities for Utility Issues. Montgomery County, Maryland, made the same arguments in a petition for review it filed in Richmond Friday with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The lawsuits respectively asked the D.C. Circuit and 4th Circuit to vacate the new tower siting rules and “grant such other relief as the Court may deem appropriate.” The FCC didn’t comment. Montgomery County and the cities had jointly objected to the wireless tower siting rules in a Feb. 3 FCC filing. The localities had asked the FCC to “significantly revise” the siting rules because the current set of rules would “lead to a wide range of serious problems in local communities that it is impossible to believe Congress could have intended." The FCC voted unanimously for the rules, as part of the commission’s implementation of the 2012 Spectrum Act. They were meant to speed up wireless tower siting decisions. The rules reduced the shot clock for siting approval from 90 days to 60 days in exchange for a promise from CTIA and PCIA to work with local jurisdictions on streamlining, though many localities had urged prior to the commission vote against shortening the shot clock (see 1410170048). The two groups and local government groups jointly released a model ordinance and siting application review checklist Thursday (see 1503050056). PCIA President Jonathan Adelstein responded to the Montgomery County lawsuit, saying in a statement Monday that “we hope that this lawsuit will not detract from that goal, since PCIA supports the FCC’s rationale behind its Infrastructure Order and its guidelines for implementation.” PCIA is “working closely with cities, counties, and municipalities to make the implementation of the FCC’s new wireless facility siting regulations smooth and efficient,” Adelstein said.
Comcast and other telcos associated with the Comcast/Time Warner Cable deal have objected jointly to many of the 25 conditions included in the California Public Utilities Commission’s proposed decision (see 1502170059) on the deal, saying the commission’s review exceeded its jurisdictional authority and relies on a “flawed” analysis of the state’s telecom market post-deal. Comcast and associated telcos said they plan to work with the CPUC through the ex parte meeting process “toward a set of conditions that address concerns identified by the Proposed Decision -- including conditions that Comcast would agree to voluntarily.” Public interest groups that have been opposed to Comcast/TWC also registered objections to the CPUC’s proposed decision, with many saying the commission should outright reject the deal in part because it will be difficult to enforce the proposed conditions. Dish Network also urged the CPUC to reject the deal. The telcos and public interest groups made similar arguments during an all-party meeting with the CPUC Feb. 25 (see 1502260060).
The FirstNet board voted unanimously Monday to seek comment on proposed new interpretations of elements of its role under the 2012 Spectrum Act related to states that opt out of FirstNet deployment and management of a state’s radio access network (RAN) in favor of a state-run RAN. FirstNet believes that Congress intended to give states the option to customize their RANs to local needs but didn’t intend exercise of that option to “also deny substantial funding to many other states,” FirstNet Chairwoman Sue Swenson said during the meeting.