Jonathan Make

State attorneys general lost the only Republican colleague who had joined them in challenging T-Mobile's buy of Sprint. Texas' Ken Paxton's office reached a settlement with T-Mobile that he said Monday morning is "resolving the state’s antitrust claims against the proposed merger."

NARUC's board OK'd two resolutions asking the FCC delay telecom-related changes, meeting attendees told us. One resolution asked the agency to delay sharing 6 GHz frequencies with unlicensed devices including for Wi-Fi until automatic frequency coordination (AFC) can be proven to ward off interference. Critical Infrastructure Committee Chair Gladys Brown Dutrieuille and Telecom Committee Chair Karen Charles Peterson worked out an agreement about making a further change to the last sentence of the item before the board met, as some had expected (see 1911180050), said NARUC General Counsel Brad Ramsay in an interview Thursday. The sentence now says the association, referring to critical-infrastructure industries, recognizes "the criticality of utility and other CII communications in the 6 GHz spectrum band," and asks the FCC to "modify its proposal to not allow unlicensed operations in the 6 GHz band unless and until such time that it has tested and proven that its AFC system works as intended to protect license holders, including utility and other CII systems, and it is demonstrated that unlicensed operations will not cause harmful interference to license holders as determined by the FCC." Utilities Technology Council CEO Joy Ditto said the item "sends a strong signal to the" FCC "it must first ensure it can protect the mission-critical communications networks located in the 6 GHz band before it allows unlicensed users access to the band. Ensuring that the numerous critical-infrastructure communications networks, including utilities, public safety, oil and gas, telecommunications companies, and many others, are protected from interference is absolutely essential if the FCC is to proceed with this plan.” NARUC's board also okayed asking the FCC to set automatic speech recognition standards for IP captioned telephone service before allowing ASR reimbursement, as expected (see 1911150011). The FCC declined to comment.

SAN ANTONIO -- Verizon in particular and cable and telco industries generally took heat from consumer advocates and others for what they contend are lagging service quality and/or rising prices. The providers don’t face enough competition, aren’t building out broadband as quickly as possible and/or don't always meet their commitments, the advocates and others said in interviews Tuesday. They spoke on the sidelines of the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates conference in the same hotel as NARUC, and on a panel (see 10:05 a.m. Tuesday).

SAN ANTONIO -- The FCC seems poised to allow unlicensed devices including Wi-Fi to use at least part of the 6 GHz band that utilities and some others occupy to monitor infrastructure like power grids. Even though utilities and state telecom regulators have concerns about that approach, the federal regulator seems ready to act in coming months, said stakeholders on all sides that we spoke with on the sidelines of NARUC.

Jobs remain an issue in T-Mobile's buying Sprint, stakeholders agreed. They differ on whether the deal would lead to more employment or hurt unionization. At the Capitol Forum Thursday and in Q&A with us, those for and against the deal expanded on existing policy positions. Topics included rollout of attorneys general backing the transaction after reaching pacts for the combined company to locate jobs in their states.

Concerns mounted Friday about a draft order to bar companies that may pose a national security threat to U.S. interests from having USF money paying for their equipment when used in American telecom networks. Wireless and wireline interests sought changes. Huawei, which could be subject to the ban, retorted. And a professor whose report was cited in the draft expressed some surprise at that inclusion, while defending his report from the company's criticism.

FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly renewed his criticism of Lifeline's administrator, and Commissioner Geoffrey Starks expressed concern about problems with federal electronic certification of customers for the telecoms service for the poor. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said his agency wants to work with states on making database connections. The regulators spoke in Q&A with us after commissioners' meeting Friday. Earlier last week, states worried some could be dropped from Lifeline rolls when their jurisdictions began mandatory use of the national verifier after Wednesday's hard launch.

The FCC won't extend by a few weeks comment deadlines on an NPRM about improving low-power FM technical rules. REC Networks, "the original proponent of the LPFM rulemaking proceeding," made a "late-filed Extension Request ... submitted only five days before the comment deadline," said Media Bureau Chief Michelle Carey's order, released Friday. She said the group doesn't "present any emergency or other persuasive reason." Comments remain due Oct. 21, replies Nov. 4, on docket 19-193. REC's request was posted there Thursday. It sought more time because MB took eight days from "when the NPRM was published in the Federal Register to the time when the public notice was issued," emailed founder Michelle Bradley Friday. "Reaching out to LPFM stations is somewhat like reaching out to consumers, you have to be more proactive." MB denied her motion "on a technicality because I filed it too late for their standards, yet the Media Bureau can be 8 days late on informing the public of a comment deadline period," Bradley added.

The FCC should "process and grant the applications" involving Terrier Media Buyer, lawyers for that company, Cox Enterprises and NBI asked officials. The deals relate to Cox selling its radio and TV assets to Terrier, an affiliate of Apollo Global Management, representatives for the companies told us. Northwest Broadcasting also is involved. The attorneys "discussed the status of the Terrier Media applications, the public interest showings contained in the applications, the markets included in the applications, and the implications, if any, of the Third Circuit’s recent decision in Prometheus Radio Project v. FCC." Last month's ruling was the FCC's fourth appeals court loss on quadrennial updates to media ownership rules (see 1909230067). Terrier Media representatives discussed why the 3rd Circuit's decision shouldn't "affect the Commission’s review of the pending applications," emailed that company's spokesperson Friday. The deals are in the public interest and got DOJ approval, so Terrier's "confident" the FCC will OK "these transactions," she added. "We are working through the implications, if any, of the recent 3rd Circuit court decision with respect to our pending sale of" Cox Media Group to an Apollo affiliate to form the new CMG, a Cox Enterprises spokesperson emailed Friday. Lawyers for the broadcasters had one meeting with FCC General Counsel Tom Johnson, Media Bureau Chief Michelle Carey, an aide to Chairman Ajit Pai and others. Terrier Media (see 1908300037), seeks to buy TV and radio licenses and permits controlled by Northwest or by Cox and potentially to be up to fully foreign owned. It's buying all of Northwest's TV stations, the Terrier representative confirmed to us. The Cox deal is for all of CMG's stations other than two radio outlets, she said. The lawyer who made the filing posted Friday in dockets including 19-196 didn't answer questions about what specifically was discussed about the transactions. All the Terrier rep would tell us is that foreign ownership didn't come up.

House Science Committee Chair Eddie Bernice Johnson hopes for a return to bipartisanship including on technology, and for more tech stakeholder responsibility in preventing the spread of false or unfair information. "We’re in competition with the rest of the world," not each other, she told C-SPAN. Legislation on tech has been "bipartisan," the Texas Democrat told The Communicators, online Friday. On election concerns and deepfakes, she said, "I hope we’ll see much of that [partisanship] begin to come to an end." The U.S. should "keep pace and hopefully sometimes will lead" against China on artificial intelligence, she said in an appearance to have been televised over weekend. America isn't devoting as much time and money in AI research as China is, she said. Education is needed, including for what she described as blue-collar professions. It's "not too soon" to train people about autonomous vehicles, Johnson said. "Autonomous vehicle travel is probably right here on the horizon." On the spread of misinformation on tech platforms, "we’ve got to be a little more aggressive in making sure there’s responsibility there," and industry is starting to show it's working on this, the congresswoman said. The likes of Facebook and Twitter should act if the president uses them for falsehoods, she recommended. "We ought to have a freedom of responsibility" and not just of speech, she said, in seeking more responsibility. "Many of these platforms are very aware that much of these materials are … unfair." The White House, Facebook, Twitter and the Internet Association didn't comment. Johnson isn't sure "how much privacy we can depend on." Everyone wants to keep things private, yet the majority use the "technologies that remove privacy," she said: "We cannot run away from" this challenge of "protecting the public." She'll "never give up," she said when asked whether privacy legislation could be adopted before next year's elections.