The lack of any traction in the TV white spaces despite a big push from Google and the company’s backing away from Google Fiber should demonstrate a hard truth to the firm -- building a network isn’t easy, said Joan Marsh, AT&T vice president-federal regulatory, in a Tuesday blog post. Google deployed a fiber network in parts of seven of the 1,100 interested cities and now “appears to be pivoting toward using wireless technologies to defray the costs of fiber deployment and to bridge the last mile gap between utility poles and customer home,” Marsh wrote. Google has made a lot of excuses, she said. “It will also no doubt continue to seek favoritism from government at every level.” But Google’s experiments in broadband offer a story with a moral, she said. “Building reliable, ubiquitous high-speed broadband connectivity is tough,” Marsh wrote. “It takes an enormous commitment of capital and resources and a highly-skilled and capable work force. Yet AT&T has been at it for over 140 years. Between 2011 and 2015, while Google Fiber was cutting its teeth on fiber, AT&T invested over $140 [billion] in its network, building to over one million route miles of fiber globally and deploying ultra-high-speed fiber-fed GigaPower broadband services, reaching over a hundred cities.” Google didn't comment.

FCC staff is “actively engaged in constructive conversations with all stakeholders” on set-top boxes, Chairman Tom Wheeler told House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., in response to a letter questioning commission set-top efforts. The FCC is talking to “content creators, minority and independent programmers, public interest and consumer groups, device manufacturers and app developers, software security developers, and pay-TV providers of all sizes-on how to ensure that consumers have the competition and choice they deserve,” Wheeler said. Those conversations touched on “a wide range of issues,” including the pay-TV backed set-top plan, Wheeler said. “I am hopeful that these discussions will yield straight-forward, feasible and effective rules for all.”

Upcoming meetings of FCC committees include the Disability Advisory Committee and Task Force on Optimal Public Safety Answering Point Architecture, with the first 9 a.m.-3:30 p.m. Sept. 22, and the second the next day 1-4 p.m., said commission items (see here and here) appearing in or set to be in the Federal Register. The federal advisory committee gatherings will be in the Commission Meeting Room.

The FCC says it won't appeal its municipal broadband setback at the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals (see 1608100049). "The FCC will not seek further review of the Sixth Circuit's decision on municipal broadband after determining that doing so would not be the best use of Commission resources," a commission spokesman emailed Monday. A three-judge 6th Circuit panel reversed the federal agency's pre-emption of two state laws preventing localities from extending their muni broadband efforts to surrounding communities (State of Tennessee, State of North Carolina v. FCC, Nos. 15-3291/3555). Most attorneys we talked to were dubious of FCC appellate prospects, with some skeptical the agency would even appeal (see 1608110014).

Industry "cutovers" to a new network outage reporting system (NORS) platform will occur in two steps, with CenturyLink, T-Mobile and Verizon to move to a new production system Wednesday, and other covered communications providers to migrate by the end of September, said an FCC public notice (DA 16-985) Monday. "When a company is moved to the new production system, the company’s NORS users will be required to file all outage reports using the new platform and will not be permitted to use the current platform. Before a company is moved to the new platform, NORS users from that company should continue to make all required filings under Part 4 in the current version of the NORS system," the PN said. It said the remaining companies will be migrated in the second step, to be "completed as soon as possible, but no later than" Sept. 30. "The current NORS platform will not be available for filing of formal NORS reports after the completion of the second step," it said. Covered communications companies include wireline and wireless telcos, cable telephony and other interconnected VoIP providers, satellite telecom providers and Signaling System 7 providers.

The District of Columbia lost 911 service for 100 minutes over the weekend due to an equipment failure, D.C. officials said at a Sunday news conference. The 911 service went down at the district's primary 911 facility at 11:35 p.m. Saturday and wasn't restored through a backup facility until 1:15 a.m. Sunday, said Chris Geldhart, director of D.C.'s Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency. During the outage, the district posted 10-digit numbers for making emergency calls, which started coming in at 12:25 a.m., he said. They totaled 30 emergency service calls, five police calls and five fire calls, officials said. Geldhart said officials are confident they know what happened -- boxes that route electric power to 911 systems inside the primary facility stopped working -- but are still investigating why it happened. Officials ruled out computer hacking or malicious attack as the cause, he said. Karima Holmes, director of the D.C. Office of Unified Communications, said the outage wasn't related to a recent 911 outage affecting Sprint systems in Montgomery County, Maryland, and other Washington-area jurisdictions (see 1608170012). The D.C. 911 service is "fully functional" and both the primary and backup facilities will remain in operation for the time being, she said.

The FCC should require pay-TV carriers to adopt the NPRM proposal or develop an apps-based approach with third-party set-top makers, said Amazon in a meeting Tuesday with aides to Chairman Tom Wheeler, and with FCC Chief Technologist Scott Jordan and staff from the Office of Media Relations and the Office of General Counsel. “In the interest of fostering consumer choice and spurring innovation in how consumers search, navigate, and consume their content, we urge the Commission to consider a solution that blends the two proposals," said Amazon in a filing posted Friday to docket 16-42. This approach would be secure, keep content protected, and give “customers choice in the short-term,” the company said. Various companies have been making and responding to filings in the docket as commission staff consider revising the NPRM's plan (see 1608260048). Requiring small cable providers to comply with new rules for either an apps-based set-top proposal or one based on the NPRM would be prohibitively expensive, the American Cable Association said in meetings last week with aides to Chairman Tom Wheeler, and staff from the Media Bureau and offices of Media Relations and General Counsel. For either plan, small cable providers would have to offer their video through IP, which greatly increases the cost, ACA said. “ACA continues to believe that the Commission should exempt smaller MVPDs (those with one million or fewer subscribers) from complying with any new navigation device rule.” Numerous smaller cable companies, such as Dumont Telephone (see 1608220064) have also written to the FCC warning of the cost problems from the set-top plans, according to numerous filings in the docket.

AT&T disputed an FCC Enforcement Bureau-proposed $106,425 fine, denying it overcharged two Florida school districts and violated a "lowest corresponding price" (LCP) rule under the E-rate USF subsidy program. The bureau's arguments are "factually wrong," "deviate from the FCC's own rules and existing precedent" and continue a "troubling pattern of 'rulemaking through enforcement,'" said Joan Marsh, vice president-federal regulatory, in a blog post Friday. Marsh said the bureau was wrong to assume AT&T should have provided rates based on one-year contracts when the school districts never asked for those and instead bought services month to month, which she said the commission recognized as a valid basis for price distinctions in a 1997 order. She said the bureau was wrong to fault AT&T for not providing rates as if the school districts belonged to a Florida E-rate consortium, which pools the purchasing power of state agencies and organizations and which the districts chose to avoid. The bureau also took "the extreme position" that the LCP obligation applied even if the service was not purchased through the E-rate Form 470 competitive bidding program, a view she said the FCC never before had articulated and was at odds with the program. Finally, Marsh said the bureau disregarded procedures by ignoring a statute of limitations that had expired and the lack of FCC jurisdiction to adjudicate disputes over intrastate services. She said the company was filing its response to a July 27 notice of apparent liability (see 1607280028).

U.S. District Court in San Francisco should permanently enjoin the California Public Utilities Commission from disclosing sensitive broadband subscriber data to third parties for the same reasons the court issued a temporary ban, ISPs suing the state commission said Thursday. AT&T, Comcast, CTIA, Verizon and other industry plaintiffs want to stop the CPUC from enforcing a May 3 ruling compelling ISPs to disclose subscriber data to The Utility Reform Network (TURN) or other third parties as part of a state investigation of market competition. In May, the court issued a preliminary injunction against the CPUC (see 1605240014). NARUC said a permanent injunction could disrupt the authority of state commissions, and likely would be appealed (see 1607290037). In a response to opposition (in Pacer) filed Thursday, the ISPs said “the CPUC and intervenor TURN largely recycle the same arguments the Court considered and rejected when it entered a preliminary injunction.” The defendants argue the FCC hasn't pre-empted CPUC authority to collect Form 477 data, but that doesn't matter in a case about whether the CPUC may disclose that data, they said. The state agency can't work around FCC disclosure regulations by asking providers rather than the FCC for the data, they said. ISPs rejected the argument the Form 477 disclosure regulations address only public disclosures through the Freedom of Information Act. The FCC Form 477 agreement requires that provider-specific Form 477 data obtained by state commissions not be shared with any individuals who aren't direct employees, the ISPs said. "The Form 477 Agreement has the force of law and itself preempts the CPUC's Disclosure Order." Even if the agreement lacks force of law, it's "due substantial deference as an authoritative interpretation of the FCC's Form 477 regulations and orders," they said. “All agree that such regulations and orders have the force of law and preempt any contrary state law.”

Securus asked the FCC to stay new rate caps in a recent inmate calling service order, arguing the company is likely to win a court challenge on the merits because the rates are below its service costs, not based on "credible analysis," and don't account for "market realities." The order (see 1608040037) "essentially has adopted the same rates that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit already stayed, merely adding unenforceable lip service to correctional facility costs without resolving the core issue -- contract-based site commissions -- that ICS carriers consistently have raised in this proceeding," the ICS provider said in a petition Thursday in docket 12-375. Without a stay, the company said it would suffer "irreparable and immediate harm" if the rates take effect. The ICS provider asked for a commission decision by Sept. 20.