Comments are due at the FCC Sept. 30, replies Oct. 31, on the next phase of spectrum frontiers. The FCC approved an order allocating high-frequency spectrum for 5G in July, which included a Further NPRM (see 1607140052). “The Commission proposes to adopt service rules allowing flexible fixed and mobile uses in additional bands,” said a notice in Wednesday's Federal Register. “These bands potentially offer 17.7 GHz of spectrum that could be available for fixed or mobile use. By examining the suitability for mobile use of such a large amount of spectrum, the Commission takes steps to ensure that additional spectrum is available to allow the next generation of wireless technologies to flourish in the mmW bands.”

Federal judges denied Neustar's unopposed request to file new information on its challenge to a March 2015 FCC order conditionally selecting Telcordia to become the local number portability administrator. The denial came in an order (in Pacer) Wednesday by a merits panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which is scheduled to hear oral argument Sept. 13 in the LNPA case (Neustar v. FCC, No. 15-1080). The panel consists of Judges David Tatel, Harry Edwards and David Sentelle. "We have received the Court’s order and are looking forward to oral argument," said a spokeswoman for Neustar, the current administrator. In motions to file a supplemental brief and similar letter, Neustar sought to provide an update of developments at the commission since parties filed briefs last fall, including on a controversy over Telcordia's use of foreign nationals in software coding for the next LNPA system. The FCC said that work was "inconsistent" with a condition that such personnel be U.S. citizens, and it required Telcordia to start over from scratch (see 1604290056). Neustar last week also challenged the FCC's July order approving Telcordia's LNPA contract terms (see 1607250029).

With opportunistic public use of Wi-Fi channel 14 the core issue for FCC authorization of Globalstar's planned broadband terrestrial low-power service (TLPS), talks increasingly are focusing on details. Commissioner Mike O'Rielly is now the nexus of talks between the company and FCC, with the remaining talks with the company over more-robust channel 14 conditions, one wireless industry source told us. Those talks are at least in part about the size of exclusion zones around TLPS deployments. O'Rielly has been the focus of Globalstar lobbying for weeks. His office and Globalstar didn't comment Wednesday. An ex parte filing Tuesday in docket 13-213 recapped a conversation between Vice President-Finance, Business Operations and Strategy Tim Taylor and O'Rielly adviser Erin McGrath about a possible framework for opportunistic public use of channel 14. In a meeting with Edward Smith, an aide to Chairman Tom Wheeler, Michael Calabrese of New America’s Open Technology Institute said allowing of public access shouldn't be subject to a five-year waiting period once the FCC determines channel 14 operations won't interfere with unlicensed spectrum, in an ex parte filing Tuesday. It said the agency also should make sure of public access to an FCC-certified spectrum access system for getting onto channel 14, with conditions on a TLPS authorization requiring Globalstar make network operating system data available to SAS operators for enforcing minimum protection zones. "Making Globalstar the monopoly gatekeeper to public access ... is a clear conflict of interest," OTI said. The group said it opposed letting Globalstar block public access in any geographic area larger than needed to avoid interference. Excluding turf as large as census tracts when Globalstar is deploying Wi-Fi access points that cover far less territory "is nothing but a thinly veiled effort to make public access a meaningless condition," OTI said. Census tract exclusions also would be "an enormous waste of spectrum capacity" because it's magnitudes larger than the protection zone TLPS would need, it said. Public Knowledge previously said Globalstar TLPS exclusion zones should be no larger than census tract size.

The FCC media ownership order “should be released in the coming days,” the agency told the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a letter filed Wednesday. The FCC and the public interest petitioners from the Prometheus III case were ordered to engage in mediation to create a timetable to arrive at a definition of an eligible entity, and the letter meets a Wednesday deadline to inform the court about the proceeding's progress. The order, which the letter said was voted by the FCC Aug. 10 but has yet to be released, re-adopts the revenue-based standard for eligible entities, resurrects joint sales agreement rules vacated by the 3rd Circuit, and resolves the 2010 and 2014 quadrennial reviews. All that is as expected (see 1608110058). “The Commission believes the adoption of the order satisfies the Court’s mandate that the agency take 'final agency action on the eligible entity definition,'” Wednesday's letter said. Since the public interest group petitioners haven't yet been able to see the order, they aren't in a position to say whether it meets the 3rd Circuit's requirements, the letter said.

When the FCC issues a spectrum frontiers public notice on methodologies to be used to calculate population limits and details on earth station interference zones, the agency needs to consider reference population data, identification of appropriate propagation models, ensuring availability of information on upper microwave fixed use deployments for coordination purposes and methods of calculating aggregate population coverage in an UMFU license area, satellite officials told International Bureau staff including Chief Mindel De La Torre, said an ex parte filing Monday in docket 14-177. The satellite group also discussed FCC plans for tackling interference to protected satellite operations that might come from UMFU operations. Representatives of Satellite Industry Association, Inmarsat, O3b, EchoStar, Boeing, Iridium, SES, ViaSat, OneWeb, Intelsat, Lockheed Martin and DirecTV attended the meeting.

A court gave the FCC, DOJ and allies until Oct. 3 to respond to appeals of a three-judge panel ruling that upheld the commission's net neutrality and broadband reclassification order. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued an order (in Pacer) Tuesday granting respondents' unopposed motion for the extension from the previous Sept.12 deadline (see 1608170046). Alamo Broadband, AT&T, CTIA, NCTA, the American Cable Association, USTelecom, CenturyLink and Tech Freedom and other intervenors filed petitions for rehearing the case (USTelecom v. FCC, No. 15-1063) (see 1607290052).

FCC commissioners approved 5-0 an order making railroad police eligible to use various interoperability channels to communicate with public safety officers already using the frequencies (see 1509010044). The change had the support of both the railroads and public safety groups when the FCC sought comment last year (see 1511160026). The National Public Safety Telecommunications Council sought the rule change. “Promoting interoperability -- to ensure that emergency responders from different jurisdictions and disciplines can communicate with each other -- is a critical goal of the Commission’s public safety objectives,” said the order, Tuesday. The FCC is permitting railroad police to use VHF, UHF, 700 MHz narrowband and 800 MHz National Public Safety Planning Advisory Committee interoperability channels. The order had broad support, including from the Department of Transportation, the FCC said. “We agree with commenters that adoption of our proposal to give railroad police access to the interoperability channels is warranted,” the commission said. “Train derailments can result in significant passenger injuries and loss of life as well as property damage, and can require large, multi-jurisdictional responses.” The FCC said it expanded slightly the Federal Railroad Administration’s definition of railroad police officer to ensure the rules cover “Amtrak police, freight railroad police, commuter railroad police, passenger rail transit system police, and part-time railroad police officers.” But the FCC turned down a request by the American Petroleum Institute that the agency extend its railroad police proposal to oil and gas companies and other critical infrastructure industry entities: “API’s proposal is outside the scope of this proceeding, which is focused on railroad police eligibility to access the interoperability channels, and thus will not be further addressed here.”

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson told FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn a decision to regulate prices for business data services, “particularly fiber-based BDS, will deter incentives for the rapid deployment of 5G wireless technology in rural America,” said a filing in docket 05-25. Stephenson and other top AT&T officials met with Clyburn Friday, when the CEO was at the FCC to chair the initial meeting of the industry-led Robocall Strike Force (see 1608190034). A much longer AT&T filing posted Tuesday in docket 16-143 provided extensive arguments against heavy BDS regulation presented by ILEC economists and lawyers, who had a "constructive and wide-ranging discussion" at the FCC on economic analysis in the BDS proceeding. The filing on a meeting with FCC staffers and consultant Marc Rysman said recent market data contradict claims that ILECs exercise broad BDS market power. Even by 2013, non-ILECs earned more than half of BDS revenue, and the market is quickly transitioning from legacy TDM-based BDS to Ethernet-based BDS, and the most recently available Ethernet market share data from Vertical Systems isn't compatible with claims of broad ILEC market power, the filing said. Further data show CLECs and cable operators were delivering more than 60 percent of new connections in the first half of 2016. "These data also shine a spotlight on the absurdity of the CLECs' proposals to regulate ILEC Ethernet services, but not their own Ethernet services," it said. "Level 3, for example, would have the Commission regulate ILECs but not Level 3, notwithstanding that Level 3 has a higher market share than Verizon and CenturyLink, and only slightly lower market share than AT&T. Moreover, ILEC Ethernet market shares have consistently fallen since 2010, while those of the CLECs and cable MSOs [multiple system operators] have consistently increased." The data are "consistent with the more general metrics" from the FCC's 2013 data collection, which showed providers compete for customers at locations within a half mile of their networks, the filing said. The record shows that even in 2013 "at least two providers had deployed competing networks in more than 95 percent of MSA [metropolitan statistical area] census blocks with BDS demand, and that those census blocks cover 97 percent of the BDS connections and 99 percent of business establishments in MSAs." In another filing posted Tuesday on a meeting with FCC staffers, Windstream detailed its support for Incompas/Verizon proposals for "reforms that produce real and meaningful price reductions and prevent backdoor price increases."

The FCC Disability Advisory Committee meets Sept. 22, 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. EDT, in the FCC Commission Meeting Room, the agency said Monday in a public notice. The DAC last met in June (see 1606160023). Earlier this year, the DAC played a big role in getting the FCC to move forward on an NPRM that examines effectively ending text technology in favor of real-time text (see 1604280055).

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a 38-page Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review opinion from April that confirms that some government surveillance involving collection of phone numbers is legal. The opinion from the court (which often rules in secret) “confirms the legality of the government’s continued collection of post-cut-through digits (PCTD) using a pen register and trap and trace (PRTT) device, authorized pursuant to Title IV of FISA [the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act],” the ODNI said in a Monday blog post. “Title IV authorizes the government to use a PRTT device to seek and capture dialing, routing, addressing or signaling (DRAS) information. Title IV does not authorize the use of a PRTT device to seek the contents of a communication.” ODNI said it released the opinion in conjunction with DOJ. The FISA court of review “concluded that FISA authorizes and the Fourth Amendment does not prohibit collection of all PCTD obtained with a PRTT device to acquire non-content DRAS information, so long as the government is prohibited from using any incidentally collected content,” the blog post said.