Overbuild requirements on Charter Communications' broadband network will use company resources better used for improving service to existing customers or expanding service to unserved potential ones, NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield told Commissioner Mike O'Rielly and Commissioner Ajit Pai's chief of staff, Matthew Berry, in separate meetings, said an ex parte filing Friday in docket 15-149. NTCA, the American Cable Association and Competitive Enterprise Institute petitioned the FCC to reconsider the overbuild conditions (see 1606100043). Bloomfield said overbuilding in areas that can't support competition or even a sole broadband network could lead to services being pared in those markets or to companies exiting altogether. If Charter is the sole provider in a market, she said, it's under no obligation to ensure quality or affordability, just "to build," she said.

The FCC corrected regression analysis in consultant Marc Rysman's white paper on the business data service market, a modified version of which was recently released along with other documents to factor in updated cable BDS competition data and peer reviews of the study (see 1606290045 and 1607070006). Nine tables and some associated text in Attachment 3 titled "Competitive Effect of Cable Network Infrastructure" suffered from an inadvertent coding error and were revised, but the revisions don't change the findings in Attachment 3, said a Wireline Bureau public notice in docket 16-143. It noted all of the documents are on the commission's BDS peer review webpage.

Part of Ligado's LTE network plans -- specifically its use of 1627.5-1637.5 MHz -- should come with license conditions to reduce potential interference to Iridium's satellite downlinks, Iridium said in an FCC ex parte filing posted Wednesday in docket 11-109. Iridium's proposed conditions include reduced out-of-band emissions from Ligado's mobile terminals into Iridium's adjacent spectrum at 1617.775-1626.5 MHz, and exclusion zones around airport facilities to prohibit Ligado user terminals near aeronautical mobile-satellite route service communications. Iridium said its interference worries involve unwanted emissions within its band, not receiver overload from Ligado's in-band emissions -- which was the source of GPS industry conflicts with Ligado. The filing recapped a meeting between Iridium representatives including Chief Legal Officer Thomas Hickey and FCC staffers from the Wireless and International bureaus and the offices of General Counsel and of Engineering and Technology. A Harris Corp. engineer also participated. Ligado didn't comment Thursday.

Local number portability administrator Neustar detailed its major concerns with the FCC proceeding to shift LNPA duties to Ericsson-owned Telcordia Technologies. "At every phase, Neustar has been disadvantaged by arbitrary decisions behind closed doors that tipped the scales in favor" of Telcordia, said a Neustar letter posted Thursday in docket 09-109. "The Commission is now poised to embrace a decision with all of the transition risk but none of the 'cost savings over the existing contract,'” it said, citing a 2015 LNPA selection order. "One option available to the Commission in March 2015 would have been to retain Neustar as the LNPA at its best offer price, which would have resulted in significant cost savings over Neustar’s existing contract, but with none of the transition risk. Given the extraordinary transition delays and security violations, however, the FCC now appears committed to choosing a result in which the American people realize no cost savings over Neustar’s existing contract but accept all of the transition risk." The FCC LNPA transition is a "raw deal for consumers -- a decision that carries significant national security questions and transition risk to critical telecommunications infrastructure that Americans depend upon every day for reliable communications," the company said. Neustar said it would be "arbitrary and capricious" for the FCC to approve a proposed Telcordia master services agreement as LNPA without addressing its concerns.

Five telcos announced an alliance on business data services (BDS) to "preserve critical network infrastructure and competition in the business broadband market." CenturyLink, Cincinnati Bell, Consolidated Communications, FairPoint Communications and Frontier Communications are forming the Invest in Broadband for America coalition, in light of the FCC's "recently proposed sweeping and questionable new regulations on the special access market and incumbent providers," said a joint release Thursday. The carriers noted they joined with AT&T recently on a motion to the FCC "to strike the 'irretrievably flawed' data framework underlying" the regulatory proposals, after updated data showed greater cable competition than the agency believed. “First and foremost, it is crucial that the FCC get the data right on competition in the marketplace before flying blindly into a major policy decision,” said CenturyLink Senior Vice President-Policy and Government Relations John Jones.

More satellite operators are saying amen to ViaSat's contention that the draft FCC spectrum frontiers proposal is seemingly "upending" the rules under which satellite service long has been deployed in the 28 GHz band. In a filing posted Thursday in docket 14-177, Lockheed Martin said it backed the ViaSat's main points. Pointing to its own earlier argument about the spectrum frontiers proceeding not going far enough into the international implications of aggregate interference from upper microwave flexible use (UMFU) service to satellite receivers (see 1606240026), Lockheed Martin said any FCC action "that impinges upon established FSS (fixed satellite service) rights here and abroad [would be] both arbitrary and capricious." Lockheed Martin also said multiple technical and policy matters need to be debated before FCC action on UMFU and satellite operations in the 28 GHz band. And in a separate filing posted Thursday, SES and O3b jointly applauded ViaSat's letter and argument that terrestrial wireless interests "have blatantly and repeatedly mischaracterized [FCC] decisions on which FSS operators have reasonably depended in developing and deploying satellite networks." They said an aggregate interference limit on skyward emissions from mobile terrestrial networks would give UMFU licensees more flexibility than specific operational parameters, but "one approach or the other must be employed" to forestall space station receiver interference. They also called "unnecessary and unwarranted" the CTIA-pushed idea of backdating the grandfathering of existing earth stations to the release of the Spectrum Frontiers NPRM (see 1607060046). In its filing, ViaSat said the agency for decades has given satellite co-primary allocation in the 28 GHz band under the U.S. table of frequency allocations, that it has held licensing priority over mobile wireless in the band for nearly as long, and the proposed mobile wireless plan for 28 GHz "would undermine the settled expectations and legal rights of 28 GHz satellite operators." ViaSat said the spectrum frontiers NPRM could mean roving mobile devices operating near satellite earth stations claiming interference protection from the station and trying to require it to cease operating in the 28 GHz band, while mobile operators wouldn't have any incentive to prevent radiofrequency energy from their base stations or user terminals away from orbital arcs, causing satellite receiver interference. ViaSat said any FCC order should let satellite operators complete deployment of their authorized 28 GHz networks and "reasonably ... deploy" additional 28 GHz networks in the future while guaranteeing network operation is protected from introduction of new mobile wireless services in the band.

The FCC Wireless and Media bureaus designated Louis Libin chairman of the Frequency Coordinating Committee for the 2016 political conventions and 2017 presidential inauguration, the agency said in a public notice. It referred to him as the single point of contact for coordination for the Republican and Democratic conventions happening this month and the presidential inauguration in January. “By this action, we facilitate the ability of broadcasters and cable network entities to cover these important events,” the PN said: “This designation will allow for advance coordination of terrestrial auxiliary broadcast frequency usage within a 100 kilometer radius, and within a 150 kilometer radius for any mobile operations aboard aircraft, around the following locations” of the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, where the Republican convention is happening; the Wells Fargo Center and the Philadelphia Convention Center in Philadelphia, where Democrats are holding their convention; and the Capitol building and White House.

Correction: The $4,000 that the Center for Responsive Politics marked as a T-Mobile PAC donation to the presidential campaign of Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., was retracted (see 1606270078).

FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Pa., urged communications providers to better inform potential customers of add-on fees so they know their full costs from the get-go. Consumers sign up for phone, internet and/or pay-TV service at an advertised price but then discover their monthly bills are higher due to taxes, government-imposed fees and company-imposed fees, Clyburn and Doyle wrote in The Hill Wednesday. "These fees are not optional. They are a standard part of subscribing to the service," they wrote. "Over the course of a two-year contract, these 'below the line' fees can easily cost you several hundred dollars. This practice isn’t prohibited, but as far as we’re concerned, it’s misleading." Consumers "should know exactly what they will pay" before they sign up for service, they wrote, noting the FCC released a "consumer broadband label" in April to help give consumers understand broadband fees and terms of service. "We believe that providing comparable information for other telecommunications services would increase the price transparency of those markets," they wrote. "We are calling for the nation’s communications providers to lead the way and voluntarily improve transparency and disclosure of these 'below the line' fees so that when consumers sign up for service, either online or in-store, they won’t have to wait for their first bill to learn what their total monthly costs will be." AT&T, Comcast and Verizon didn't comment.

June's net neutrality decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit doesn't support the FCC argument that providing common-carrier services turns a cable system into a Communications Act Title II facility exempt from local Title VI regulation, said Montgomery and Anne Arundel counties, Maryland, and Dubuque, Iowa, in a filing (in Pacer) Tuesday before the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. They and the FCC disagree about the significance of that decision in their appeal of a 2007 FCC order that extended to incumbent cable operators many limits put on new entrants and a 2015 order clarifying that franchising regulations don't apply to state laws on cable TV or to state-level franchising authorities (see 1605020030). The USTelecom v. FCC ruling "concerns the classification of a service, not the facilities transited by the service," the municipal interests said. Since entities providing common carrier services via cable systems are often different parties than cable system operators themselves, the FCC is on shaky ground because USTelecom suggests the FCC may be constitutionally barred from imposed common carrier obligations on a provider "not simply holding itself out as a 'neutral indiscriminate conduit,'" the municipal interests said in reply to an FCC brief (in Pacer) filed in June after the USTelecom decision. In it, the FCC argued the D.C. Circuit in its USTelecom decision rejected the municipal interests' argument that the NARUC test for determining common carriage is dispositive and instead sided with the FCC that broadband providers, including those that also offer cable services, are common carriers when they provide telco services. That lines up with the FCC stance that a cable operator's facility is a common-carrier facility when it provides common-carrier services, the agency said: "The D.C. Circuit's analysis, while not binding on this Court, is thorough and persuasive."