The FCC plans a virtual field hearing on the impact of Hurricanes Fiona and Ian during the Nov. 17 open meeting, said a news release Wednesday. The meeting will focus on “coordination between the communications and power sectors in response to these disasters” and “provide an opportunity to gather new information and lessons learned so that U.S. networks are better prepared for future storms like Tropical Storm Nicole,” said the release. Thursday’s disaster information reporting system release for Nicole showed 175,903 cable and wireline subscribers without service, and 0.9% of cellsites down in affected counties in Florida Wednesday. The report also showed two FM and 1 AM station down. The Wireless Bureau granted emergency waivers to Federated Wireless, Google and CommScope of the agency’s rules on the Citizens Broadband Radio Service to facilitate communications during the storm. “The FCC is monitoring the storm as it progresses,” said Wednesday’s release.

AT&T protested granting T-Mobile additional mid-band licenses in the 2.5 GHz band because of the carrier’s already huge position in the band. T-Mobile dominated the recent auction, winning 7,156 licenses for $304.3 million, about 90% of the available spectrum (see 2209010060). AT&T filed the protest earlier this week in the FCC’s universal licensing system, asking the agency to reject T-Mobile’s long-form application for the licenses. “T-Mobile already far exceeds the Commission’s spectrum screen in many areas and holds far more spectrum than even T-Mobile thinks it needs,” AT&T said: “Its spectrum holdings are particularly disproportionate in the mid-band frequencies that the Commission has deemed ‘critical’ to any provider’s ‘5G buildout due to its desirable coverage, capacity, and propagation characteristics.’” T-Mobile’s extensive holdings “threaten long-term competition for mobile broadband services, as T-Mobile openly acknowledges in its investor presentations,” AT&T said. Commission orders have “reflected too little attention to T-Mobile’s acknowledged plan to dominate mid-band spectrum to the detriment of competition,” AT&T charged. T-Mobile “was permitted to acquire spectrum-rich Sprint in 2019 and exceed the spectrum screen in hundreds of localities, all without any spectrum divestitures or even a market-by-market analysis of the potential harm to competition,” AT&T said: “Since the merger, T-Mobile has acquired substantial C-Band and 3.45 GHz assets even as it told investors that it did not need that new mid-band spectrum to compete, and it completed those purchases, too, without effective regulatory scrutiny.” The FCC also “rejected proposals by AT&T and others to open the 2.5 GHz band to genuine bidding competition, opting instead for T-Mobile’s preferred approach,” the filing said. T-Mobile didn't comment.

The FCC activated the disaster information reporting system for 34 counties in Florida for Tropical Storm Nicole, said a public notice Wednesday. Reports are due starting Thursday. The alert includes Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties, the state’s three most populated. The agency also issued public notices on emergency contact procedures for licensees that need special temporary authority, priority communications services, and on 24-hour availability of FCC staff. The Public Safety Bureau sent a reminder to entities working to clear debris and repair utilities to avoid damaging communications infrastructure.

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, back from a whirlwind trip to Taiwan last week (see 2211020037), said the trip was a success. His goal, in part, was to “play a small role in continuing to deepen the partnership and ties between the U.S., particularly coming on the heels of last month’s Communist Party confab in Beijing,” Carr said in an interview Monday. Chinese leader Xi Jinping “continues to saber rattle and put force on the table when it comes to Taiwan,” he said: “In my view, a free and democratic Taiwan is vital to U.S. economic interest and to our national security interests. I think it’s important for all of us to continue to show support.” That support “helps Taiwan show strength and that’s a good thing for stability,” he said. Carr also said he met with officials at the National Communications Commission, the Ministry of Digital Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, after meeting virtually with the country’s regulators earlier in the year. “It’s important to continue to collaborate and share our two countries’ approaches when it comes to cybersecurity and network resiliency, undersea cable issues,” he said. “I focused a lot on those issues when I was there,” he said. Carr said he spent part of one day in Hsinchu, home to Taiwan’s semiconductor industry. More than 90% of more advanced chips are “manufactured right there on the island,” he said. “The role that Taiwan plays in our semiconductor industry right now and our supply chain is irreplaceable,” he said. There probably won’t be another place to get that type of advanced chipset “for probably decades to come, in terms of the breadth and depth and long-term investments necessary,” he said. The $54.2 billion Chips and Science Act, signed into law in August (see 2208090062), will help build manufacturing facilities in the U.S., but “the reality is you can’t replicate the advanced nature of the work that’s in Taiwan outside of Taiwan at this point in time,” he said. As soon as Xi calculates that China’s military capacity is greater than that of Taiwan, plus its allies, the Chinese leader will “probably make a move on Taiwan,” Carr said. “The more we can do to show our collaboration and partnerships with Taiwan, the more likely it is that we achieve cross-[Taiwan] Strait peace,” he said.

The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts launched a public database of federal judges' financial disclosure reports and periodic transaction reports, it said Monday. The reports "will be continuously added as they are prepared for release," it said.

T-Mobile is weighing how to respond to a $3.59 million penalty from the California Public Utilities Commission, a spokesperson said Thursday. Commissioners unanimously approved a decision that day saying T-Mobile misled the California Public Utilities Commission about its CDMA transition (see 2211030064). “We continue to completely disagree with the conclusions that the CPUC’s decision reaches and are considering our options for next steps,” the T-Mobile spokesperson said. “We stand by our prior statements to the CPUC. We are so proud of the incredible work our team did to rapidly migrate customers and sunset the legacy Sprint CDMA network -- just as we said we’d do.”

Free Press said the FCC should “investigate all of the factors that contributed to communication outages in Puerto Rico and Florida” after Hurricane Fiona and Hurricane Ian, that made landfall in September. Free Press urged the commission “to investigate whether the lack of communications contributed to the death toll.” It also asked the FCC "to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the current state of telecommunications infrastructure in Puerto Rico to better understand the failures that occurred during this latest storm and other prior storms and emergencies.” Though an FCC report about outages after Hurricane Michael in 2018 “was far from comprehensive, it did fault the carriers and these other parties for their failures to coordinate,” said the Free Press filing, posted Thursday in docket 21-346: “The Commission failed to conduct a similar examination after Hurricane Maria, which devastated Puerto Rico in 2017 and became one of the deadliest disasters in our nation’s history.”

NAB has concerns about the FCC’s recently launched proceeding on the potential for expanded use of the 12.7 GHz band (see 2210270046), NAB said in a filing posted Wednesday in docket 22-352. NAB officials met with an aide to Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. As the notice of inquiry “acknowledges, broadcasters currently use spectrum in this band for Broadcast Auxiliary Services (BAS) operations,” NAB said: “As the Commission knows, protection of licensed mobile operations can pose particular challenges -- yet licensed mobile BAS operations are critical to broadcasters’ ability to cover live events and breaking news.” NAB hopes the FCC will “reserve just 55 MHz of the 6 GHz band exclusively for licensed mobile use until real-world data is available to justify the removal of such reservation.” A set-aside “would effectively serve as a pilot program to test the coexistence of unlicensed operations and licensed mobile operations and address our ongoing concerns regarding the potential for harmful interference to licensed mobile operations in the 6 GHz band,” the group said.

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, long a critic of China, said Wednesday he's in Taiwan for a series of meetings. Carr said this is the first time a commission member has visited that nation. “Over two days, Carr will meet with his Taiwan counterparts, including officials at the National Communications Commission, the Ministry of Digital Affairs, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs” and “convene meetings with stakeholders in the tech and telecom sectors,” said a news release: “Events will focus on collaboration in the areas of network resiliency, cybersecurity, and 5G, as well as the benefits that Taiwan and America realize from strong, bilateral ties.” Carr also is holding meetings in Hsinchu, the center of Taiwan’s semiconductor industry.

The White House unveiled workforce development commitments including by telecom companies and unions Wednesday. AT&T, Corning and Communications Workers of America “are partnering to expand training and create a good jobs pipeline, including by bringing former broadband technicians back into the sector and encouraging companies engaged in AT&T and Corning training programs to attend additional safety courses,” the White House said. AT&T and CWA formed “a task force to design broadband apprenticeship programs, work with community colleges to expand career options for current employees, and streamline tuition reimbursement for AT&T’s union employees,” it said. Lumen will spend about $80 million annually to hire 1,000 employees, “many of them in union jobs,” for expanding fiber. Also, the carrier “will provide hundreds of in-person, hands-on technical training sessions,” the White House said. Charter Communications pledged to increase employee tuition assistance to $10,000 a year and will recruit at three more military bases, said the administration: NTCA and CWA will partner “to make registered apprenticeship more accessible to NTCA member companies. The Fiber Broadband Association and the Wireless Infrastructure Association signed a “a collaborative workforce development agreement to promote registered apprenticeship, develop curriculum, establish industry-recognized credentials and certifications, and articulate career pathways in the broadband industry,” the White House said. “With significant investment from the Biden Administration and strong commitments in place from our industry partners, we can make these highly skilled and technical careers within reach for many more workers, including former technicians who are on the sidelines due to years of job cuts,” said CWA President Chris Shelton. “It is critical not only to diversify our workforce and offer opportunities for economic mobility and job security, but to meet the nation’s urgent need for high-speed fiber broadband in every home.”