President-elect Donald Trump's transition operation named four more members to its DOJ landing team Wednesday: Strayer University General Counsel Lizette Benedi Herraiz, a former deputy assistant U.S. attorney general; Dechert attorney Steven Engel, a former U.S. deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel; Frost Brown attorney Thomas Wheeler; and Stefani Carter & Associates principal Stefani Carter, a former Texas prosecutor. They join others previously named (see 1611180020 and 1611220049). Trump earlier announced said he will nominate Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., as attorney general. He also named new landing team members for such agencies as the Defense and Transportation departments.

AT&T said it would opt into Lifeline broadband forbearance relief allowed by the FCC in its overhaul of the low-income subsidy program. "AT&T has long supported universal access to broadband for all Americans," said Senior Vice President Joan Marsh in a blog post Wednesday. "And through our Access from AT&T low cost broadband program, we are making broadband a reality for low-income consumers for $10 a month or less. We believe that, at this time, Access from AT&T is a better way for AT&T to address broadband adoption than by participating in the new Lifeline broadband program." Meanwhile, FCC staff gave guidance to eligible telecom carriers on filing procedures for invoking broadband regulatory forbearance under the overhaul order. "The Commission forbore from requiring Lifeline-only eligible telecommunications carriers (ETCs) to offer Lifeline-supported BIAS [broadband internet access services]," said the Wireline Bureau order in docket 11-42 listed in Wednesday's Daily Digest. "It also forbore from requiring other ETCs (high-cost recipients) to offer Lifeline-supported BIAS in areas where they do not receive high-cost support or do not commercially offer broadband services that meet the Lifeline minimum service standards. Starting December 2, 2016, Lifeline-only ETCs and high-cost recipients are obligated to offer Lifeline-supported BIAS throughout their designated service areas, except to the extent that they have elected to avail themselves of forbearance relief from the obligation to provide Lifeline-supported BIAS. To elect forbearance relief from their obligations to offer Lifeline-supported BIAS, Lifeline-only ETCs and high-cost recipients must submit forbearance notifications to the Commission. This Public Notice provides additional guidance on the forbearance notification process and responds to certain questions staff have received."

Comments are due Dec. 8, replies Dec. 19, on petitions for reconsideration of the FCC's technology transitions order. The petitions were filed by NTIA (see 1610140061) and the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates and others (see 1610120035). The Federal Register published a commission public notice Wednesday, triggering the deadlines.

President-elect Donald Trump cited a new goal to restrict new federal regulation. “I will formulate a rule that says for every one new regulation, two old regulations must be eliminated,” Trump said in a video about his Day 1 priorities, released Monday evening. His campaign proposals on regulatory overhaul were expected to have a likely influence on the FCC if implemented in certain ways (see 1610190038). Free State Foundation President Randolph May welcomed the opportunity of unified GOP government to take on FCC rules. “It’s undeniable that the Obama administration’s FCC has been on a regulatory binge, adopting a number of major overly burdensome and unduly costly new rules, despite the lack of evidence of market failure or consumer harm,” May wrote in an opinion piece for The Washington Times, published Monday, calling the net neutrality order one example and questioning agency actions on the set-top box proceeding and on zero rating: “Certainly, the mere existence of the agency’s investigation into these free data plans or others has a chilling effect as service providers weigh whether to risk offering other innovative plans that might be popular with consumers.” Trump also will ask the DOD and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to put together a “comprehensive” plan to protect vital infrastructure from cyberattacks and issue a notification of intent to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, he said in the video. “My agenda will be based on a simple core principle -- putting America first,” he said. Transition spokesman Jason Miller told reporters Tuesday this is “a partial list of some of the Day 1 actions” expected for the Trump administration.

Concerns about Boeing's proposed non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) downlinks in the 37/39 GHz band have "foundational errors and significantly flawed assumptions," the company said in a filing Monday in docket 14-177. When the proper data are used, Boeing said, they support the idea that the company's NGSO system in the 37/39 GHz band will have emission levels within acceptable levels to protect terrestrial services and upper microwave flexible use service (UMFUS). Boeing said technical assertions by Straight Path Communications, T-Mobile, Nokia, Samsung and CTIA are based on incorrect equations or modeling. Boeing said T-Mobile had unjustified concerns that UMFUS devices with multiple antenna arrays might get more satellite downlink interference since there would be no additional satellites transmitting above the horizon. Boeing said Straight Path's concerns about fixed satellite service downlink interference neglect "the transient nature of NGSO interference" and include assumptions that satellites will always operate at peak transmission levels rather than only in response to rain events. Boeing urged enforcing equivalent power flux density limits. It said the lack of legitimate challenges to its technical analysis and findings means the FCC should authorize NGSOs to operate in the 37/39 GHz band to provide broadband services opportunistically to satellite end user receivers. T-Mobile and Straight Path didn't comment Tuesday.

Citing possible harm to newscasters, NAB urged the FCC to reject a proposal to make available for private land mobile radio (PLMR) use frequencies on the band edge between industrial/business (I/B) and broadcast auxiliary service (BAS) spectrum. NAB and others commented Tuesday on an NPRM to expand access to PLMR spectrum (see 1608180045). “The Commission should not adopt this proposal, as it creates an unacceptable risk of harmful interference,” NAB said in docket 16-261. "BAS operations are critical to the operation of broadcast stations, and BAS spectrum is already severely constrained in many markets and at many news events. The proposal to expand I/B spectrum at 450 MHz would compound the reduction in BAS spectrum that will already occur as a result of the incentive auction. This would be contrary to FCC and ITU regulations and would significantly impact broadcasters’ ability to provide news coverage with negligible benefit to PLMR users.” The commission previously decided not to assign a channel for PLMR operations that would overlap BAS spectrum, NAB said. “The NPRM provides no analysis to show how such BAS and IB uses can co-exist without interference occurring and no explanation as to why the Commission’s previous decisions were in error and should be changed. Abruptly reversing course with no justification would be arbitrary and capricious and contrary to law as well as poor spectrum policy.” But the National Association of Manufacturers and MRFAC, a certified frequency coordinator for private land mobile bands, jointly supported adding UHF channels between PLMR and BAS spectrum, saying "access to additional frequencies would help relieve spectrum congestion affecting manufacturers." Manufacturers also supported a proposal in the NPRM by the Land Mobile Communications Council to amend the rules to allow 806-824/851-869 MHz band incumbents in a market a six-month period to apply for expansion band and guard band frequencies before the frequencies are made available to applicants for new systems. That would "very much facilitate the improvements sought in manufacturers' radio systems, an essential factor in the growth of U.S. manufacturing productivity,” NAM and MRFAC said. APCO also supported a priority window for incumbents. “A shorter window such as three months would not afford public safety enough time to secure buy-in from stakeholders and the necessary funding,” it said. The Florida Public Safety Bureau, part of the Department of Management Services Telecom Division, supported an FCC tentative conclusion to expand conditional authority to 800 MHz public safety pool frequencies 10 days after the application is submitted to the FCC. "This would provide public safety agencies the opportunity to meet their communications needs prior to receiving radio station authority; but, after the applications succeeds through the frequency coordination process,” it said. "Public safety agencies typically experience a lengthy process that includes planning, budgeting, purchasing and implementing their radio systems. Providing conditional authority will avoid delays mid-stream of their process to await issuance of a radio station license that could potentially compromise their budget and spending authority.”

President-elect Donald Trump named several individuals to landing teams that will help smooth the transition for several agencies and departments. R Street Institute senior fellow and financial systems studies director Alex Pollock was named to the FTC team, and William Gaynor, president of Rock Creek Advisors, and former Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert to the Department of Commerce group. Other Tuesday announcements include: Joel Leftwich, staff director on the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, to the Department of Agriculture team; James Carafano, vice president of foreign and defense policy studies at the Heritage Foundation, and Secure Identity & Biometrics Association CEO Michael Dougherty, to the Department of Homeland Security team; Jones Day attorney James Burnham, to the DOJ group; Nancy Butler, former vice president-government and federal relations for professional and technical services firm AECOM, to the group working on the Department of Transportation; and Geof Kahn, policy director at the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, to work on the Office of the Director of National Intelligence transition.

Robocalling and unwanted texts are a global problem requiring international coordination, FCC Enforcement Bureau Chief Travis LeBlanc said in a Monday blog post. In the U.S., more than 200,000 consumers complain to the commission each year about unwanted calls, including robocalls and telemarketing, and about 2.4 billion robocalls are made monthly according to the Robocall Index, he wrote, saying such calls "are used to perpetrate criminal fraud, phishing attacks, and identity theft" all over the world. "Those responsible for sending unwanted calls and texts often operate from outside of the United States, too often allowing them to evade our enforcement," said LeBlanc. He said the FCC works with international law enforcement partners and other regulatory agencies to combat illegal calls and texts and hold perpetrators accountable. Earlier this year, the agency signed a memorandum of understanding with members of the Unsolicited Communications Enforcement Network, a global network of "robo-cops" that share intelligence and best practices (see 1606140041). LeBlanc noted the commission last week signed a robocalling MOU with Canadian regulators (see 1611170054), and will continue to work with other federal and state agencies domestically.

IT experts assisting Neustar in the local number portability administrator (LNPA) transition said they're "increasingly concerned" that North American Portability Management and PwC -- NAPM's transition oversight manager (TOM) -- aren't sharing information on transition governance, risk and scheduling. "The failure to share this information has the potential to significantly delay project completion," said Michael Krieger, Priscilla Guthrie and Roger Loeb in a Neustar filing posted Monday in docket 09-109. "Although the requisite transition planning documents may exist, they have not, to date, been shared with Neustar. Without such communication and transparency, this project does not appear to be on a path to meet even the high-level milestones provided by the NAPM and the TOM in the most recent timeline." It cited a webcast in which PwC anticipated completing the LNPA migration to Telcordia's iconectiv by May 2018, with various milestones along the way. "This concern is compounded by the failure of the NAPM’s monthly transition reports to the FCC to provide a comprehensive and balanced assessment of the transition’s status. Without significant changes to the current transition process, it is reasonable to conclude that the transition will not be completed until sometime in 2019," they wrote. NAPM and PwC didn't comment. Separately, Neustar said in a release last week that the Canadian Local Number Portability Consortium picked the company to be the LNPA in that country through 2028.

The FCC shouldn't permit states to amend or supplement alternative FirstNet plans if opting out of federal radio access network (RAN) plans for the national public safety network, FirstNet and APCO said in separate reply comments Monday in docket 16-269. The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission and others said in initial comments that states should be able to file amendments and supplemental information (see 1610210049). But FirstNet said Monday it could cause delay. “In essence, this would give States multiple chances to develop and propose a plan that demonstrates compliance with the interoperability criteria established by the Interoperability Board and FirstNet, thereby delaying network implementation and frustrating Congress’s intent to ‘speed deployment’ of the nationwide public safety broadband network,” FirstNet said. “Such a process would add uncertainty to network planning, deployment, and sustainability.” APCO agreed, saying the statute didn’t include a provision for amendments. “Not only would permitting amendments or supplements be inconsistent with Congress’ intent, it would delay the statutory process for states to submit alternative RAN plans and undermine the need for a swift deployment of the network,” the public safety group said. “Time is of the essence for this much-needed network.” FirstNet and APCO also agreed states opting out must award a contract within 180 days of opting out. "While FirstNet recognizes that it takes some effort by an opt-out State to award a contract within the 180 days required by the Act, the FCC’s interoperability determination cannot be based on a draft proposal,” the network said. The authority voiced sympathy to concerns that states receive appropriate notice from FirstNet about interoperability requirements, but it said the law prevents the FCC from setting deadlines for FirstNet. The organization plans to finish an interoperability compliance matrix “after it has developed a solution with its future network partner, which is a virtual necessity as the establishment of network policies is inevitably reliant, at least to a degree, upon the network architecture, infrastructure, equipment and other considerations related to FirstNet’s future network partner,” the network said. “FirstNet will make every effort to ensure that States receive the network policies and interoperability compliance matrix as expeditiously as possible.”