Jonathan Make

The FCC boosting some standards for what type of broadband is eligible for Lifeline government subsidies caused some stakeholder confusion in the hours after Thursday's release at 3:13 p.m. EDT. Some state telecom and industry representatives were puzzled why the otherwise routine-looking staff action came as a CTIA et alia petition is pending (see 1906280012). The agency replied that the action was previously mandated. The Wireline Bureau public notice came a day after NARUC members approved a resolution asking the FCC to not make such changes (see 1907230040). The PN noted it's delivering on what a 2016 order envisioned.

INDIANAPOLIS -- USF stakeholders scrutinized Viasat participation in an FCC auction of subsidies for voice and broadband to underserved rural America because they said the satellite provider indicates it could struggle to provide high-quality phone service. Viasat was such a major participant by some metrics it might have skewed the results, some said on a NARUC panel Tuesday and in follow-up interviews. The company seeks some related changes from the FCC. With the agency's members likely to vote next week on rules for the next high-cost auction, one consultant suggested Viasat not be included.

INDIANAPOLIS -- A now-combined state telecom commissioners' resolution asking the FCC to halt changes to the billion-dollar-a-year phone and broadband program for the poor passed its NARUC committee unanimously, in minutes. Such quick passage, while not atypical, shows lack of controversy among industry and state regulators for waiting on Lifeline revamps, attendees told us. There was no public discussion immediately before the vote and no one abstained, another sign stakeholders are on the same page, they noted.

An NCTA representative used a NARUC panel on wireless 5G and cable's 10 Gbps plan (see 1901070048) to poke some fun at carriers' 5G, saying his industry could do better in marketing broadband like 1 Gbps. After moderator and Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Cable Commissioner Karen Charles Peterson introduced Monday's panel (see listing for 2:45 p.m.) as on 5G v. 10G, NCTA Vice President-External and State Affairs Rick Cimerman gently corrected it to 5G and 10G. The cable rep said in Indianapolis that the two standards complement, rather than compete, with each other. "It's been 5G mania, maybe we should hear a little bit about the next iteration for us," he said: For 10G, the "G stands for something." While 5G can deliver data at 1 Gbps, it's not meant to connote 5 Gbps. "The marketing geniuses at CTIA and the wireless industry" are emphasizing 5G, while cable has "not helped people properly understand that we are now a gigabit nation," Cimerman said. CTIA research shows demand for smartphones/mobile devices and data usage is surging, noted that group's Ben Aron, director-state regulatory affairs. Answering a commissioner's question about whether 5G will boost prices, Aron noted the price consumers pay per voice minute is going down like a hockey stick numerical-graph figure. "The same could be said for data, it's cheaper today than previously," he said. "The capital expenditure has been pretty consistent" by carriers yearly in recent times, so for 5G, he continued, "folding in this network deployment isn’t really that shocking to the system." On pole attachments, which Cimerman noted NCTA that day filed data with to the FCC (see 1907220055), Peterson said providers need to attach equipment to poles for 5G. CTIA has "seen the interest in poles, certainly on the wireless side, an uptick," Aron said in general about telecom providers seeking such access.

Mississippi and Vermont officials see many problems with the FCC's mobile wireless coverage challenge process where stakeholders can claim the agency's estimates of broadband availability are wrong. Despite the commission's trying to fix things and meeting with stakeholders in his state, the process seems doomed, "an almost utter waste of time," said Mississippi Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley. "We utterly failed after a ton of work to try to" provide updates, said Presley, who has been critical of the process (see 1811010031). "You can’t get a signal with a SWAT team and a search warrant. It’s just not there," he said of access in some areas. The FCC app didn't fully work, and it took the federal commission about two months to make some fixes, the commissioner said. "The app would not record places that had no service" as he personally observed them, he told NARUC's meeting in Indianapolis Monday. "If you’re in an area with no service, it never recorded the GPS coordinates." No challenges from the thousand-some Mississippi residents who participated "made the cut" at the FCC, he recalled. "If that is not a process designed to fail, then I don’t know what a process designed to fail is." Presley wonders "do we really want to have an honest, effective challenge process or is this just window dressing?" The FCC declined to comment. Vermont's tests faced other problems, said Department of Public Service Telecom Infrastructure Specialist Corey Chase. The FCC needs testers to examine square kilometer blocks, which would be about 25,000 in Vermont, he said: Some 25 percent of those blocks lack roads. “Which really slows your process down if you are driving. It’s also really dangerous" constantly turning on and off roads, the telecom staffer told the panel (see listing at 4 p.m.). "We thought of doing what Mississippi did, developing a brigade, but frankly, there wasn’t enough time" to get citizens to participate, said Chase. Though Vermont challenged slightly more than half of the blocks, because many didn't meet a test threshold, most such places weren't successfully challenged, he said. Those benchmarks can be "silly" and the FCC may not say why one's submission was rejected, he said: "What we’ve seen here is propagation maps are the result of thousands of assumptions" rather than actual data Vermont submits.

INDIANAPOLIS -- As they extend broadband to hard-to-serve areas, some with subsidies from states and the FCC, ISPs are aiming to upgrade speeds, working in public-private partnerships and getting pole space from electric cooperatives and others. Some providers are doing this using multiple technologies, including fiber and licensed and unlicensed spectrum, they said on a NARUC panel Monday. They said state telecom commissions are generally easy to work with and one speaker identified some challenges at the federal level.

INDIANAPOLIS -- There are alternatives to Congress and the FCC requiring carriers and others to remove from their networks equipment made by Chinese telecom gear makers, NARUC was told. Though some state commissioners later expressed skepticism, industry panelists (see 1:30 p.m. event listing) largely backed monitoring networks of U.S. companies for cyberattacks, including from Huawei or ZTE, and testing all equipment before installation for vulnerabilities. Stakeholders generally want testing and monitoring across the board, not limited to one company or manufacturers based in one country.

State commissioners hope the FCC takes note of coming NARUC resolutions (see 1907100028) on delaying some further changes to a billion dollar federal subsidy for poor people to get phone and broadband services. In interviews before their Sunday-Wednesday meeting to consider two such draft proposals, some expressed optimism the federal regulator might make changes midway through program revisions begun under the last presidential administration. Another telecom resolution, advocating no overall USF budget, lacks a sponsor and won't move forward unless it adds one, stakeholders noted this week.

Requiring Lifeline providers to use a federal database to check if consumers are eligible for government-subsidized, carrier-provided phone and broadband services is causing more concerns from states, as they lose the ability to run their own checks. NARUC members will vote at their July 21- 24 meeting on asking the FCC to halt activation of the national verifier (NV) in any more states this year, and separately on recommending the agency not cap the overall USF. NV rollout prompted concerns subscribers are being dropped from carriers' customer rolls over difficultly verifying eligibility even though they may indeed be eligible (see 1907080009).

Videogame makers conceded console technological protection measures (TPMs) and other design decisions can impact repairs, commenting April 30 to the FTC's right-to-repair proceeding. The agency posted comments Monday in part after our Freedom of Information Act request for all such comments. The FTC, which hadn't fulfilled our FOIA request, didn't comment on whether the filings just released are all of them. "TPMs and other design choices reflect a necessary weighing of multiple risks," said the Entertainment Software Association, which noted its members include Microsoft, Nintendo of America and Sony Interactive Entertainment. "As a practical matter, the use of TPMs tends to limit the ability to make certain types of repairs to consoles and other products to authorized parties." ESA noted the Digital Millennium Copyright Act prohibits "tampering with the digital locks that copyright owners use to protect this software." "Despite these design decisions" of component integration and cutting manufacturing costs and prices as well as energy use, consoles "generally do not require proprietary tools to open or repair them," the group said in docket FTC-2019-0013. "Compatible tools, such as tri-wing screwdrivers, are inexpensive and widely available." On adhesives, which other commenters that released their filings raised concerns about, console makers sometimes use them "to optimize product design and for safety reasons," ESA said. "Adhesives serve an important safety function in preventing access to lithium-ion batteries, which present special safety considerations (both for repair and proper disposal)." Batteries also came up in the proceeding (see report in this issue.) Consumer Reports, whose comments also were just posted, "does support right to repair generally," a spokesperson emailed when we asked about CR's principles on this matter. "We have been advocating for bills in multiple states." Many states recently introduced such legislation, but some consumer tech interests oppose them (see 1903190031). ESA couldn't immediately provide us with its own right to repair principles, beyond its intellectual property concerns. CR has "developed a model state law, and are working to help enact effective right-to-repair laws in a number of states, including co-sponsoring a bill currently under consideration in California," it said: "Adverse reliability reports" to the product research and ratings provider "demonstrate the common consumer experience of having products break and need repair, and the importance of having convenient and affordable options to obtain repair." CR's model state law is here. Last week, a representative of the group testified for a New Jersey digital right-to-repair bill. It would "require manufacturers to make basic technical information and repair protocols available to independent repair shops and consumers, so consumers can more easily and cheaply get their digital devices repaired, and in some cases, fix the devices themselves," the group's spokesman noted.