Seven industry and public safety organizations submitted a proposal to the FCC recommending key principles for guiding efforts to deploy and operate next-generation 911 systems with effective governance and accountability, said a news release from Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions. For the IP transition, the recommendations said efforts should be made to accelerate the continued development and implementation of NG-911 standards and systems, while assuring reliability. On governance, providers of 911 services must be accountable for the reliability of their services and vendor contracts, the filing said. On NG-911 reliability, the transition to NG-911 must be accomplished in a manner that doesn't undermine the availability, reliability and resiliency of the system, it said. ATIS is one of the seven organizations that submitted these principles. Others are the National Emergency Number Association, National Association of State 911 Administrators, Industry Council for Emergency Response Technologies, USTelecom, Commission on State Emergency Communications and the Texas 911 Alliance. The principles included in the proposal are designed to help the FCC address the issues about governance, accountability and reliability that exist in today’s evolving 911 systems and services, ATIS said in docket 13-75.

Businesses regulated by the Wireless Bureau are being undercharged by $26.6 million for regulatory costs, and the FCC needs to fix the problem before finalizing FY 2015 fees, NAB and the Satellite Industry Association said in an ex parte filing posted Tuesday in FCC docket 15-121. The problem is that auction-funded full-time employees (FTEs) are not counted in apportioning those FTEs, resulting in entities regulated by the International, Media and Wireless bureaus subsidizing costs that should be charged to wireless licensees, NAB and SIA said. "The impact on the fees ultimately paid is substantial." SIA previously argued its case individually, with CTIA objecting as it argued the wireless industry pays more than its fair share (see 1507060063). "The data relied on by CTIA clearly prove that [Wireless Bureau-regulated] entities are being under-assessed for regulatory fees," NAB and SIA said. "Auction revenues fund less than one indirect FTE for each [Wireless Bureau] FTE [though] the actual indirect-to-direct FTE ratio for the commission as a whole is much higher." According to NAB and SIA math, entities regulated by the International Bureau should pay $19.2 million, $2.1 million less than proposed; Media Bureau entities should pay $106.5 million, down $11.6 million; Wireline Bureau entities should pay $118.2 million, $12.9 million less; and Wireless Bureau entities should pay $95.9 million, instead of $69.3 million. “Through regulatory fees and spectrum auction proceeds, the wireless industry accounts for more than 36 perc ent of the FCC’s total 2015 budget, which is more than any other industry segment," CTIA Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Scott Bergmann said in an email Tuesday. "CTIA continues to support the Commission’s efforts to ensure that regulatory fees appropriately reflect the work conducted by agency staff. That’s why we urge the FCC to reject any proposals that target regulatees of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau for a disproportionate share of regulatory fees.”

The time has come for a national review of how administrative agencies work and how the process too often breaks down, wrote Jon Blake, a retired communications lawyer from Covington Burling, Tuesday on an American Enterprise Institute blog. “With 70 years of experience in administrative law under its belt, our country should now be able to revivify and, where appropriate, reform the understanding of the mutual roles played by the four components of the administrative process,” Blake wrote. “So, convening at this time a special commission, like the old Attorney General’s Committee, to make recommendations for improving the performance of all four components in the administrative process could at the very least reconnect them to a common vision of how the process should work.” Members should include former and current agency heads, and representatives of the White House and Congress, he suggested. Regulatory humility is key to all components of the system -- the agencies themselves, Congress, the courts and the executive branch -- but is too often missing, Blake said. “A lack of humility in all four components is difficult to police,” he wrote. “Agencies can overreach in their intrusions into the marketplace, Congress can overreach in its oversight, legislators vis-à-vis agencies, and courts can overreach in second-guessing agency decisions, often based on technological innovation and consumer trends with which they are all too unfamiliar.”

The Rainbow PUSH Coalition wants greater tech industry openness with data about hiring diversity. "It's time to take stock of what has been done" since the start of PUSH Tech 2020, the organization's campaign to have a number of tech companies release workforce diversity data and their EEO-1 reports, Rainbow PUSH said in an open letter. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission website said those reports were due Sept. 30. That data "exposed the virtual exclusion of blacks and Latinos from the boardrooms, C-suites and workforces of technology companies," Rainbow PUSH said. Now, the organization is advocating that companies also detail the number of new hires made over the past year and what percentage were African-American or Latino, detail the gender and racial makeups of their boards and top leadership, make public the affirmative action plan provided to the federal Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, describe new diversity and inclusion policies and practices, and list any new training or incentives to current workers to help reach company goals. Rainbow PUSH said it hopes to receive the information by Sept. 30, as it plans to use it as the foundation for a PUSH Tech 2020 report. "Companies must set specific, quantifiable diversity and inclusion goals, targets and timetables," Rainbow PUSH President Jesse Jackson Sr. said in the open letter dated Thursday and released to us Tuesday. "Without them, the ability to measure and be accountable for progress will be difficult." The letter said an attempt last year by the group to get such information from 25 tech companies was unsuccessful: "The response was overwhelming. Iconic Silicon Valley companies previously went to court to prevent the release of their data." Among companies getting the new letter were Airbnb, Amazon, Apple, Broadcom, Cisco, Google, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Pandora, Qualcomm, Twitter, Uber, Yahoo and Yelp. The Internet Association, which according to its website includes some of those companies as members, had no immediate comment Tuesday.

AT&T asked the FCC to clarify broadband ISP duties to collect and disclose information under the 2015 net neutrality order's transparency rules. In a filing posted Tuesday in docket 14-28, AT&T said the commission should clarify that it didn't intend a rule change when its order said broadband providers must disclose actual "relevant information" to consumers at the point of sale, and not simply provide a Web link to such disclosures, as the agency had said they could do under 2011 guidance. If the FCC changed its rule, "it would impose a new collection requirement and enormous new burdens on the industry that could not be justified under the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA), and which plainly was not part of the Commission’s May 20, 2015 Public Notice," AT&T said, adding that if the FCC intended a change, it must publish a new public notice seeking comment. AT&T also said the commission should clarify that a requirement for collecting new information on mobile broadband performance wouldn't apply "until the planned Measuring Broadband America program for mobile services is in place and available as a safe harbor, to avoid forcing mobile providers to incur substantial costs implementing measures that may become moot or unnecessary." AT&T said mobile providers measure performance in different ways, so their current data wouldn't provide customers useful information. Finally, AT&T said the FCC should clarify that broadband providers will have at least a year, after the Office of Management and Budget approves any new FCC information-collection rules, "to implement the many system changes, and new methods and procedures, necessary to comply." In recent comments, AT&T and others said the FCC was dramatically underestimating the cost of industry compliance with its new rules (see 1507220048).

The FCC Tuesday posted the incentive auction procedures public notice and revised Part 15 unlicensed rules, both approved by the FCC last week. The PN confirms that bidding is to start March 29. “This Public Notice is organized from the perspective of potential bidders, with separate sections for the reverse and forward auctions, each ordered consistent with the overall sequence of procedures in the incentive auction,” the PN said. It was approved 3-2 (see 1508060029). “We modify our rules to allow for more robust service and efficient spectral use without increasing the risk of harmful interference to authorized users,” the Part 15 order said. “We also codify in Part 15, rules for the operation of unlicensed wireless microphones in the TV bands.” The order included a late compromise on medical telemetry used at hospitals (see 1508060025).

The FCC issued a notice of inquiry launching its latest broadband deployment review, under Section 706 of the Telecom Act, which commissioners approved Thursday (see 1508060049). The 38-page item seeks comment on whether and how to include mobile terrestrial and fixed satellite services in its annual assessment of whether “advanced telecom capability” (i.e., high-speed broadband) is being deployed to all Americans on a reasonable and timely basis; previously it had just looked at fixed terrestrial broadband deployment. If the commission finds broadband isn't being deployed to all Americans fast enough, it's mandated to take immediate steps to remove barriers to deployment. The NOI included several suggestions that mobile and fixed broadband services weren't substitutes for each other. There are “a number of factors indicating that mobile and fixed broadband appear to be different services … and that each currently appears best suited to serve different consumer needs,” the FCC said. “We seek comment on whether to treat access to both fixed and mobile broadband as necessary components of advanced telecommunications capability.” The FCC also sought comment on keeping its 25/3 Mbps broadband speed definition for terrestrial fixed service -- and extending it to fixed satellite service -- while setting a lower speed definition for mobile terrestrial service. It also inquired about possible latency and service consistency benchmarks. Commissioner Ajit Pai, who partially dissented, said in his statement: “The Notice is filled with page after page of new conditions, novel tests, and nebulous qualifiers designed to give the agency plenty of ways to ensure a negative finding when the pen hits the paper.” This year, the FCC used a negative broadband deployment finding to help justify its net neutrality and broadband reclassification order. The next report is expected in February.

The FCC needs stronger interference complaint procedures, and T-Mobile arguments to the contrary would "perpetuate a status quo that frustrates the commission's ability" to enforce mitigation and prevent interference, Sirius XM said in a filing posted Monday in RM-11750. It responded to T-Mobile's saying last month that an adjudication process is unnecessary for interference disputes since it would "impose substantial burdens on the FCC and private parties without resulting in benefits beyond the FCC’s current interference dispute resolution rules." A better interference resolution process is "needed and ... long overdue," Sirius XM said. "Existing procedures fall short." FCC rules lack a clear mechanism for a victim of interference to enforce the obligation to resolve the problem against the offending party, and interference victims have less-than-optimal ability to identify the parties responsible and to seek resolution, Sirius XM said. "Cooperation between parties is essential and the commission needs effective mechanism to ensure such cooperation." T-Mobile arguments overlooks "significant harms that can be caused by delays in the existing interference complaint process [and] the lack of transparency in the current interference complaint paradigm," Sirius XM said.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler disputed criticisms of how the agency handled Dish Network’s use of designated entities and bidding credits in the AWS-3 auction by Dish CEO Charlie Ergen. Ergen said during a financial call Wednesday that Dish did exactly what it understood it was entitled to do based on guidance from the FCC before that auction (see 1508050042). “I liked the part of his earnings call where he talked about the best FCC in 30 years,” Wheeler said during a Thursday news conference. “The rules haven’t changed. The rules were the rules when [Dish] went in and they made their decision based on knowing what the rules were.”

Officials were still trying on Wednesday to figure out what caused a massive cellphone outage that knocked out service to customers in the Southeast on the AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon networks Tuesday. A fiber cable was reported to have been cut in western Kentucky along the Tennessee/Kentucky border, said Buddy Rogers, Kentucky Emergency Management public information officer. He didn't have any other specifics about the circumstances but said emergency services providers and other officials remained in contact through the Department of Military Affairs' radio communications system -- which is a statewide two-way radio system -- satellite radio/phones and other communications systems and devices. No issues were reported to the state emergency operations center in Kentucky while services were being restored, nor were there any requests for state-provided resources, Rogers said. Sprint and Verizon tweeted about the issue as it was happening, updating customers about what was going on. Sprint said the issue was caused by a local exchange provider, and both Verizon and Sprint said they were aware of a connection issue in Alabama, Kentucky and Tennessee that engineers were working to resolve. A Sprint spokesperson said services had been restored Wednesday. An AT&T spokeswoman said wireless and wireline service was restored for all customers in parts of the Southeast affected by a "hardware-related network issue." Neither Verizon nor T-Mobile commented. The Jeffersontown Police Department in Kentucky posted on its Facebook page that the 911 systems were down and gave an alternate number to call for help. A few hours later, it said 911 lines were back in service.