Schurz Communications and Long Lines Communications want Long Lines to be able to keep serving its customers under Schurz's direction while Schurz's application for approval of indirect transfer of control is pending, they said in a docket 22-249 special temporary authority (STA) request Monday. Schurz took control of Long Lines in 2015, and Long Lines has continued operating as a cable ISP and LEC holding company, but the two didn't get FCC approval for transfer of domestic Section 214 authorizations because they didn't know agency approval was needed, they said. Granting the STA will allow Long Lines rural Iowa customers to continue receiving communications services without interruption, Schurz and Long Lines said.

Though DOJ announced it plans to pursue creating regulations that would require state and local government websites be accessible to people with disabilities, it's "hard to be confident that new regulations will happen," disability rights lawyer Lainey Feingold blogged Monday. Noting a similar effort DOJ undertook in 2010 that never came to fruition, Feingold said her experience with delayed regulations "make[s] optimism a challenge." Justice announced last month it intends to publish an NPRM "to amend its Title II ADA regulation to provide technical standards to assist public entities in complying with their existing obligations to make their websites accessible to individuals with disabilities." It said it expects to issue an NPRM in April.

Tech occupations across all industry sectors increased by an estimated 239,000 positions in July, according to CompTIA's analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data. July’s unemployment rate for tech occupations was 1.7% in July, it said. Tech industry employment had a net gain of 12,700 workers in July, the 20th straight month of employment growth, said CompTIA Friday. Tech industry employment jumped by 143,700 jobs in 2022's first seven months, an increase of 55% from January-July a year earlier, it said.

Communications providers need to act to secure emergency alert system equipment against online attacks, warned the FCC Public Safety Bureau in a public notice Friday. The PN stems from an Aug. 1 Federal Emergency Management Agency advisory warning of a vulnerability in EAS encoders and decoders. If they aren't updated to the most recent software versions, the vulnerability "could allow an actor to issue EAS alerts over the host infrastructure (TV, radio, cable network).” The advisory warned the vulnerability may be presented as a proof of concept at the upcoming DEFCON 2022 conference in Las Vegas, Thursday to Aug. 14: “In short, the vulnerability is public knowledge and will be demonstrated to a large audience in the coming weeks.” The Public Safety Bureau warned broadcasters about the vulnerability in April and “again urges all EAS Participants, regardless of the make and model of their EAS equipment, to upgrade their equipment software and firmware to the most recent versions,” the PN said. Providers should keep their equipment updated and change default passwords, the PN said. FEMA “is working with the FCC to provide any assistance necessary, and share information with our broadcast partners to help correct this issue,” said a FEMA spokesperson. “This vulnerability does not directly impact any of FEMA’s systems.”

Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., referenced the Spectrum Innovation Act (HR-7624) during a Tuesday hearing as the bill he wanted the Commerce Committee to “go further” than, as panel members work on their own spectrum legislative package (see 2208020076).

CompTIA CEO Todd Thibodeaux used his state of the industry remarks at the ChannelCon 2022 conference in Chicago Wednesday to unveil Project Agora, a CompTIA initiative to support “anyone interested in starting, staying and succeeding in a career in technology,” said the association. "Our challenge is to convert more career intent people to tech intent," said Thibodeaux, a former CTA executive. "We need to tell better stories, more consistently, about how truly great it is to work in tech. The way we get the talent we need is by fighting for it." A CompTIA job-seeker trends survey found one in four U.S. workers was actively seeking a new job or pursuing other career options during Q2 2022, said the association. “While tech is among the top five industries job seekers were considering, it ranked behind several other sectors, including sales, real estate, healthcare, hospitality and finance,” it said. “A lack of confidence in technical skills, concerns about the cost and the time it will take to learn those skills and perceptions about the tech industry culture are factors that contribute to reluctance to consider tech as a career option.”

The FCC should recognize the increasing competition of the video marketplace and that the market for local programming goes beyond local broadcasters, said NAB and the affiliate groups of all four major networks in comments for the FCC’s biennial state of competition report (docket 22-203). “The FCC’s focus here and in pending rulemaking proceedings should be on measures increasing the broadcast industry’s competitiveness in today’s marketplace,” said NAB. “It is long past time for Commission action to classify vMVPDs as MVPDs for purposes of the retransmission consent rules,” the affiliate groups also said. “The newer distribution channels are still developing,” said MPA. “Regulation would hinder this experimentation, chill growth, increase costs, and reduce choices.” The musicFIRST Coalition and Future of Music Coalition jointly said the agency should reject NAB’s proposal to “eviscerate current numerical limits on the number of FM stations that one entity can own in a given market.” The groups also disagree with NAB over congressional legislation on performer licensing fees. “The upcoming report should not repeat the music industry’s predictable and unsuccessful talking points from a legislative debate over copyright policy,” NAB said. The agency should reject requests to treat fixed and mobile broadband services as separate complementary services and to define broadband at the 1 Gbps level, said NCTA. USTelecom said the FCC should “ease legacy regulatory hindrances” to broadband deployment. The agency should resume reporting on the practice of phone locking, said Public Knowledge, Consumer Reports and the Open Technology Institute. “Phone locking harms competition, frustrates users, and creates e-waste,” the groups said. SES Americom and O3B Limited jointly said the agency should “refrain from adopting requirements for its funding programs that specify a latency threshold of 100 ms.” Rural Media Group said the agency should launch a proceeding on “the dearth of access to rural news and agricultural programming.”

CTA sided with Microsoft in its dispute with NAB over how often narrowband devices should have to check a database to operate in the TV white spaces (TVWS). The Open Technology Institute at New America and Public Knowledge also backed Microsoft arguments. In January, commissioners approved 4-0 an order requiring other white space devices (WSDs) to check the database at least once hourly. After NAB and Microsoft clashed as the order was before commissioners, the FCC decided to further explore the rules for narrowband IoT devices in a Further NPRM (see 2201270034). Replies were due Monday in docket 14-165. “With demand for IoT applications and services expected to skyrocket in the coming years, using white spaces more efficiently and effectively in rural areas to address opportunities in sectors such as agriculture can help to achieve this goal,” CTA said: “CTA therefore supports the Commission maintaining its current rule for narrowband WSDs which will facilitate the deployment of narrowband IoT devices in rural areas, while providing existing licensees the same level of protection from harmful interference.” NAB’s objections “stem not from any genuine technical concern but solely from the desire to ‘get Big Tech’ and undermine the use of unlicensed spectrum,” OTI and PK said. Against a dearth of evidence of harmful interference “the Commission must balance the public interest benefits of allowing narrowband WSDs to lower costs and improve productivity in less densely-populated areas for farming, ranching, remote sensing, environmental monitoring and a variety of other innovative uses,” the groups said. NAB filed a one-paragraph comment, noting only 211 devices currently use the white spaces nationwide. “The risk that narrowband WSDs will cause harmful interference to licensed wireless microphones is very low,” Microsoft said, responding to concerns raised in the initial comment round (see 2207050059). “The Commission’s conservative narrowband WSD technical rules combined with the paucity of spectrum in urban and suburban areas, will effectively limit commercial narrowband WSD use cases to those that can be successful in exurban and rural areas such as precision agriculture and remote sensing,” the company said.

The FCC’s 2.5 GHz auction started slower than other recent 5G auctions and had little upward movement Monday, after three rounds. The auction hit $115.3 million Monday, after opening Friday at $103.5 million (see 2207290045). “Demand at the start of this auction is very tepid, with excess demand as a percentage of aggregate demand starting at roughly 37%, which puts this auction at the low end of prior auction starts,” blogged Sasha Javid, BitPath chief operating officer, about the start of the auction. “Perhaps this slow start is not surprising,” he said. “This 2.5 GHz auction is far from a typical spectrum auction.” The FCC is selling overlay licenses, which means many winners will have to negotiate with educational broadband service incumbents “if they want to use their entire license,” Javid said: “By my estimate over 80% of the MHz-POPs in these overlay licenses are encumbered (including both incumbents and all pending tribal licenses). This could explain why both Los Angeles and Cook County (Chicago), the two most populated counties in the country have demand below supply at the county level.” Another factor, some 27.5% of the U.S. doesn’t have any licenses available for sale, he said. “This is because the FCC decided against selling overlay licenses in any county where every category of license was fully-encumbered when measured by area,” he said. T-Mobile holds long-term leases with most incumbents EBS licensees and “has an information asymmetry advantage over other auction participants. … Because these leases are confidential, other bidders will not know how long they may be precluded from accessing or re-leasing parts of their licenses currently encumbered by these T-Mobile leases.” New Street’s Jonathan Chaplin predicted in a weekend note to investors the auction will likely hit $3.4 billion, less if Congresses approves a 15% book alternative minimum tax on spectrum licenses (see 2204050083). He predicted the auction will likely end in September. “We have a long way to go,” Chaplin said: “The spectrum is useless to Verizon, AT&T and Dish [Network]; their only interest in the auction is pushing up the cost for T-Mobile. Smaller carriers and [wireless ISPs] may actually have a use for some of the licenses, but these companies won’t have the resources to outbid T-Mobile for any licenses that T-Mobile views as important." But Digital Progress Institute President Joel Thayer noted widespread interest in bidding. “It's a credit to the FCC's ability in shepherding this proceeding along and I'm glad to see that we are going to unleash 2.5 GHz,” Thayer emailed: “This auction is particularly going to be helpful for T-Mobile to be an even stronger alternative to the ‘big two,’ which is great for consumers.” Thayer sees Verizon and AT&T as potentially more interested in 12 GHz, a band being looked at for 5G. Two more rounds are on tap Tuesday.

Global semiconductor revenue growth is expected to slow to 7.4% in 2022, down from 2021's actual growth of 26.3%, and lower than the 13.6% growth in 2022 that Gartner had projected in previous forecasts, reported the research company Wednesday. Though the chip shortages are abating, the global semiconductor market “is entering a period of weakness, which will persist through 2023 when semiconductor revenue is projected to decline 2.5%,” said Gartner Vice President Richard Gordon. “We are already seeing weakness in semiconductor end markets, especially those exposed to consumer spending. Rising inflation, taxes and interest rates, together with higher energy and fuel costs, are putting pressure on consumer disposable income. This is affecting spending on electronic products such as PCs and smartphones.” Gartner reduced its 2022 semiconductor revenue forecast by $36.7 billion from its previous outlook, to $639.2 billion, as economic conditions are expected to worsen through the year. “Memory demand and pricing have softened, especially in consumer-related areas like PCs and smartphones,” said Gartner.