The FCC has adopted three Telecommunications Relay Services items circulated for a vote June 6, an FCC official told the FCC’s Disability Advisory Committee at a virtual meeting Tuesday. DAC didn’t act on any reports or take substantial action at the meeting. The FCC acted on T-Mobile Accessibility’s push for more sustainable TRS compensation rates (see 2206240047), said Eliot Greenwald, deputy chief of the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau’s Disability Rights Office. “We hope to be able to release those items very soon,” he said. “One item adopts a new compensation formula for IP relay,” he said: Another “addresses some of the issues that have arisen regarding pandemic waivers related to” the video relay service, including interpreters “working from home and calls from abroad to the United States. The third one addresses the contribution base for VRS and IP relay.” The IP Captioning Files Transmittal Working Group has called in experts to offer insights and is putting together a “drafting subcommittee of the willing” for an upcoming report, said Chair Kyle Dixon, NCTA deputy general counsel-program network policy. The WG was asked to “identify issues and best practices associated with the delivery and receipt of captioning files or full-length programming distributed online” he said. The WG will also “suggest solutions to increase the amount of captioned programming,” he said. The goal is to get the full WG a draft next week, he said. Lyle Ishida, chief of the CGB Consumer Affairs and Outreach Division, updated DAC members on the FCC’s affordable connectivity program. He wants to “deputize all of you to supercharge awareness of the program using your existing contacts and your influence to help low-income households within the disability community,” he said.

FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks warned of the potential effects from the Supreme Court’s expected decision (see 2206240061) in West Virginia v. EPA, in remarks Monday at an Ericsson broadband conference. “The Court’s ruling could alter the larger legal landscape of federal efforts to address climate change, and even our core understanding of administrative law,” Starks said. The batch of opinions released Monday didn't include the decision, which is now expected Wednesday. Broadband deployment must be “vibrant, innovative, and inclusive” but also “environmentally sustainable,” Starks said. He emphasized the importance of spectrum efficiency. “We need to squeeze the most out of a finite resource while at the same time building networks that draw less power,” he said: “Bandwidth efficiency and energy efficiency are both must-haves if we want to manage spectrum in the public interest.” Industry has made a “strong start” with 5G, Starks said. “We know that through beamforming, micro-sleep, and other power-saving techniques, migrating to 5G can drive a 10-fold reduction in the amount of energy required to transmit a given amount of data -- even as it also packs more users, more data, and more throughput into each unit of bandwidth,” he said. “This is the type of jump in efficiency that can make wireless innovation both cost and climate sustainable, and we must continue to reach for it as traffic demand picks up,” he said.

An expected Supreme Court decision in West Virginia v. EPA appears likely to overturn the Chevron doctrine and fundamentally alter how the FCC and other regulatory agencies operate, New Street’s Blair Levin told investors Friday. If SCOTUS rules as he expects, “the decision would cause a massive shift in authority from the expert agencies to the courts, which, because of the many different courts that may decide any matter, will result in long-term uncertainty and unpredictability as to regulations,” he said: “If agencies don’t get deference, courts then will occupy the high ground of decision making. ... The new regulator for each sector will be the over 670 district court judges, the courts of appeals judges in the 13 Circuits and the Supreme Court.” While many investors think all regulation is negative, they should consider a more nuanced view of the potential impact, Levin said. “There is now a significant chance that any FCC process (approximately 9-15 months) is merely a preliminary step in a process that a Court of Appeals (whose panel will not be known for some time and that may take an additional several years for its process to play out) will be the principal decision maker,” he said. Some experts say what the court will do remains to be seen (see 2206150059) and note the court hasn’t cited Chevron deference in a case since 2016 (see 2206170069).

The FCC is undertaking a revamp of its electronic International Bureau filing system (IBFS), per documents we obtained from the agency via a Freedom of Information Act request. IBFS is used for satellite and international telecommunications applications filings. Contractor Incentive Technology Group, part of digital tech consultancy ICF, didn't comment Friday. The work is "expected to take a couple years," an agency spokesperson emailed. Per agency paperwork we obtained, contractor responsibilities are to "modernize IBFS system and its supporting subsystems" through such steps as custom web interfaces and integrations with existing FCC platforms. It didn't give specifics. An agency Performance Work Statement from December said the agency has been working for more than a year on modernizing the legacy IBFS system and that work lately has focused on such areas as developing international high frequency requirements and on doing defect remediation. The agency said among contractor responsibilities are loading legacy system data -- including legacy satellite, earth station, IHF and Telecommunications and Analysis Division submarine cable data and attachments -- to the new IB production environment.

Comments are due Aug. 8 on the FCC’s tentative findings for its biennial report to Congress required by the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act, said a public notice (docket 10-213) listed in Thursday’s Daily Digest. The agency tentatively found that telecom and consumer electronics companies "have continued to include people with disabilities in product and service design and development.” The comments received by the agency show videoconferencing providers such as Zoom “have introduced accessibility innovations over the past two years, but we tentatively find that commenters have identified several accessibility issues for further exploration.” The FCC must submit final findings to Congress by Oct. 8.

The FCC Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council met for less than an hour Wednesday, getting brief updates from each of its working groups.. The council's next action will come in September when it's expected to vote on the first of a series of reports. The FCC headquarters has reopened for visitors, but groups like CSRIC continue to meet online. Suzon Cameron, FCC designated federal officer, said the next meeting is also expected to be virtual. “Our specific objectives are to identify the challenges facing ORAN for security and interoperability and so on and how do we deploy and secure the open RAN,” said Mike Barnes, Mavenir chief product security officer and co-chair of the Promoting Security, Reliability and Interoperability on Open Radio Access Network Equipment WG. The Managing Software & Cloud Services Supply Chain Security WG is on target to submit a report on best practices in September, said T-Mobile’s Todd Gibson, interim co-chair. “The goal here for us is to really present something novel,” he said: “We don’t want to regurgitate what’s already been produced from the various sources, but try to layer in and contribute to the community providing some novel recommendations.” Some are already using Wi-Fi to make an emergency call, said Mark Reddish, APCO government relations manager and co-chair of the 911 Service Over Wi-Fi WG. “Our group’s focus is really on how to expand current capabilities,” he said: “For example, there could be enhancements in the number of situations in which a 911 call could be completed over Wi-Fi, enhancements to the location information that’s used for routing the call and describing the location of the caller, call prioritization, security issues.”

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued revised protocols Tuesday for in-person oral arguments beginning with the July court sitting and until further notice. The new rules "clarify and expand the testing or medical documentation available" to arguing counsel allowing them to enter the court. Before entering the National Courts Building, the Federal Circuit will require counsel and attendees to present documentation of (1) a negative polymerase chain reaction COVID-19 test administered in the 72 hours before oral argument, (2) a negative rapid antigen test administered within the 24 hours before oral argument, or (3) a positive test result from one of the above forms of testing from a sample taken during the previous 90 days along with a signed letter from a licensed healthcare provider or public health official saying the party has been cleared for travel. The court also updated its certification of compliance form.

Inflation is running “at a faster clip” than AT&T expected, and is the biggest concern for the immediate future, AT&T Chief Financial Officer Pascal Desroches warned at a Credit Suisse financial conference Tuesday. Desroches said AT&T may have to consider raising prices for its service plans for a second time this year (see 2205030066). “We built in a fairly healthy level of inflationary expectations into our budget,” Desroches said: “With that said, it's running harder than we thought, and you saw one of the things that we did recently was to raise prices in response. … We're seeing inflation in labor, supplies, energy, transport.” The AT&T executive expressed optimism about the C-band, with the next phase of deployment looming. “Our network is reliable, consistent, and it's better than it's ever been and getting better every day,” he said. He noted the nearly $40 billion of mid-band spectrum the company bought in the 3.45 GHz and C-band auctions: “We expect to deploy that over the next 18 to 24 months and as we deploy, the network will only get better.” Churn was low during the COVID-19 pandemic, as many consumers benefited from stimulus payments, Desroches said. Churn could rise due to inflation, he said. “As I look at the inflationary expectation over the next several quarters, it's hard for me to envision that that's not going to impact the consumers negatively and that we and others will see some pressure,” he said. Wireless competition isn’t increasing, Desroches said. The market has “been competitive for some time” and “remains competitive,” he said. AT&T has been targeting segments of the population that are underserved, he said, citing FirstNet and outreach to Hispanics. “We are being very surgical,” he said. “We have stepped up our investment [in wireless] to match the competitors and that has helped enormously,” he said. Other markets are also growing, Desroches said: “You're seeing kids getting phones at an earlier age. You have older people getting phones that never had them. You're seeing all of a sudden a separation of your work life from your home life, so people [are] getting multiple devices.” New business formation has also been “really strong” since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, he said. AT&T recently eliminated HBO Max from its premium unlimited wireless plan as a free perk for new customers. Desroches said the carrier is trying out other included features, such as hot spot data, to bring in more customers. “It’s really not anything against HBO Max,” he said: “It’s us trying to drive deeper penetration to different portions of our customer base.”

U.S. internet service costs in May were up 2.5% year over year, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index unadjusted data released Friday. It said residential phone service costs increased 4.7% year over year, but wireless service was down 0.7%. Cable and satellite TV service rose 5.8%. BLS said May prices overall were up 8.6% year over year before seasonal adjustment, with airline fares and new and used vehicles being major drivers of inflation.

DirecTV's U-verse TV topped the 2022 rankings of subscription TV services, and Verizon Fios had the highest customer satisfaction among ISPs, in the American Customer Satisfaction Index study for telecommunications providers, released this week. Verizon, followed closely by AT&T, had the highest customer satisfaction among landline phone providers. Topping the streaming service satisfaction surveys was the Microsoft Store, followed closely by Disney+. ACSI said results came from 23,605 email interviews done between April 2021 and March 2022.