Jockeying by fixed satellite service (FSS) operators and allies to elevate the rights of secondary satellite services are "thinly-veiled attempts to confuse and delay the Commission's deliberative process" for 5G sharing in the 28 GHz band, CTIA said in a filing Friday in docket 14-177. The group said it and its members have worked with the FSS industry and made progress, but the Satellite Industry Association's push for a three-party technical meeting (see 1606020035) when FSS operators haven't been providing information requested by terrestrial wireless operators would only delay the rulemaking process. It also said the record contains sufficient information for an FCC decision. CTIA said the FCC should follow through on plans to adopt new technical and licensing rules for the 28 GHz and 37-40 GHz bands at its July open meeting that include spectrum sharing technical requirements. It said the agency should affirm terrestrial fixed and mobile services have primary status in the 27.5-28.35 GHz bands: "The secondary status of FSS incumbents is a bedrock principle of this proceeding." SIA didn't comment. In an ex parte filing in the docket Friday, EchoStar recapped a meeting between Senior Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Jennifer Manner and Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel about FSS and upper microwave flexible use (UMFU) sharing in the 28 GHz and 37-40 GHz bands. Manner said that under domestic and international tables of allocations, FSS is co-primary and satellite operators in the 28 GHz band have used that as the basis for coordinating their gateway earth stations, making co-primary protection necessary. EchoStar also said 28 GHz sharing can limit future gateway deployments outside urban cores but FSS operators need access to urban infrastructure and flexibility in earth station placement. It said the FCC needs to let FSS do good-faith coordination with UMFU operators to site earth station deployments.

The FCC redesigned Electronic Comment Filing System will go online 8 a.m. Monday, and the current ECFS was planned to have been offline starting just before midnight Friday (see 1606080060). “The legacy system will no longer be available after the modernized system goes live -- and ECFS will be unavailable over the weekend,” an FCC spokesman emailed Friday. Details about the new system are on the FCC website here.

Union workers voted to ratify four-year Verizon contracts reached after their 45-day strike on the East Coast, the Communications Workers of America said in a news release Friday. CWA said workers “overwhelmingly” supported the new contracts (see 1605310032). The votes were conducted by union locals between May 31 and June 17, with local votes done through mass membership meetings, mail-in ballots, or walk-in voting at various polling places near work locations, the union said. “It was a tough strike, but this contract, which secures good jobs in our communities and preserves workers’ standard of living shows what can happen when we stand together,” said Ed Mooney, CWA vice president, District 2-13.

North American Portability Management urged the FCC to deny Neustar's motion to order Telcordia to show why it shouldn't be disqualified as the next local number portability administrator. NAPM said Neustar, the current LNPA, is simply trying to delay the transition to Telcordia. "For each day that Neustar is able to delay transition, Neustar holds on to additional revenue of at least $1.4M, and the public loses out on approximately $1M in savings," said NAPM, the commission's LNPA overseer, in a filing Thursday in docket 09-109. Neustar and the FCC didn't comment Friday. Neustar's show-cause motion suggested Ericsson-owned Telcordia made misrepresentations to the FCC about the use of U.S. citizens to develop software code for Number Portability Administration Center (NPAC) systems (see 1606020050). Telcordia denied it assured the FCC over a year ago it would, as LNPA, use only U.S. citizens to work on the code, but said the commission interpreted an "ambiguous statement" to that effect (see 160613004). Telcordia also noted it had agreed with the FCC to discard the preliminary work anyway and had started coding anew (see 1604290056). In a reply Wednesday, Neustar said Telcordia's response showed a public review is needed because Telcordia didn't deny it (1) misled the FCC, (2) violated a 2015 LNPA selection order or (3) failed to disclose the violation "until after the NAPM and/or the Commission discovered it." In its Thursday filing, NAPM urged the FCC to approve Telcordia's LNPA master services agreement (MSA) and deny Neustar's motion. Telcordia "committed to building the NPAC in America from the ground up using only U.S. citizens"; the proposed "MSA requires Telcordia to build the NPAC in America from the ground up using only U.S. citizens"; and NAPM with FCC oversight "will ensure that the NPAC delivered by Telcordia [is] in fact built in America from the ground up using only U.S. citizens," NAPM wrote. "Telcordia has not made any misrepresentations to anyone, and Neustar's filings have no basis in fact or applicable law." NAPM also submitted a lengthier rebuttal to Neustar's motion.

The Patent and Trademark Office has acted to help inventors and entrepreneurs, including those who merge fashion with technology within the wearable industry, said PTO Chief of Staff Vikrum Aiyer at a Fashion Innovation Alliance event Wednesday evening. Other speakers included Reps. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., and Suzan DelBene, D-Wash. Aiyer said PTO created a multilateral forum with other countries to specifically focus on design patents and keep pace with new inventions, implemented a new fast-track program to get patent applications fully resolved within 12 months and is developing an intellectual property assessment tool to help people better understand their strategy. He said the Department of Commerce, DOD and the White House launched a national research and development hub for "advanced textiles and revolutionary fabrics" in April. He said such wearables are "going to be quite game changing for our entire economy." Fashion Innovation Alliance CEO Kenya Wiley said the social and economic value of fashion tech is "increasing rapidly. By the end of 2019, the wearables market will be worth $25 billion." She said companies and entrepreneurs need strong intellectual property protections and policies to guard their brands and protect their inventions. DelBene said that "there's incredible opportunity [in the IoT industry] as we think about devices that can provide us with important information, are connected, but also can look good and are stylish and really make a statement."

The 3rd Generational Partnership Project signed off on band 70, with the next step being creation of 3GPP specifications to allow development of LTE band 70 devices and infrastructure, Dish Network said in a news release Thursday. Band 70 -- made up of Dish's AWS-4 and H block spectrum and unpaired AWS-3 spectrum -- "packages together what would otherwise be underutilized spectrum," said Dish Executive Vice President-Corporate Development Tom Cullen. Dish earlier this month said it was opting to reverse its 20 MHz of AWS-4 from uplink to downlink, which some said could make it or its spectrum more valuable for takeover (see 1606020031). In a note to investors Thursday, analyst Jonathan Chaplin of New Street Research said with the 3GPP approvals of bands 70 and of 66 in December (see 1512100062), Dish seems increasingly likely to sign a deal to monetize its spectrum holdings in the next 12 to 18 months. He said any discussions likely won't start until after the incentive auction.

The FCC should move with care as it considers rules for federal debt collection that are at odds with the protections consumers receive under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), said a filing by the staff of the FTC Consumer Protection Bureau. The FTC said in a news release Thursday its commissioners approved the filing. “FTC staff recommends that the FCC proceed with caution, and only incrementally, with any expansion of permissible robocalling,” the filing in docket 02-278 said. “We also recommend that the FCC attempt to harmonize its rules as much as possible with existing laws governing debt collection and telemarketing.” The FTC staff said the FCC should allow such calls: “(1) only to those regarding debts in ‘default,’ (2) only to persons who actually owe the debts, (3) only to collect government debt and no other type of debt, and (4) only for collection purposes.” The FTC comment was on a May rulemaking on rules that would provide an exception to the TCPA for companies hired by the federal government to collect funds that are owed the government (see 1605090037).

When the DOJ challenges a merger, one of its goals is proving the risk of injury to competition regardless of whether the new entity gives rise to a presumption of antitrust harm, said acting Associate Attorney General Bill Baer in remarks made available online of his talk at the American Antitrust Institute's annual conference. Baer said the U.S. "is in the midst of a merger wave, with the number, size and complexity of mergers among the highest they have been" in the last 10 years. "We will not bring a case based on the presumption where a holistic view of the evidence shows an anti competitive effect is unlikely," Baer said, saying market share alone might not illustrate all the likely anti-competitive effects of a transaction. Baer walked through DOJ thinking on numerous merger reviews. He said Comcast's attempted buy of Time Warner Cable would have given Comcast too much power over content providers relying on interconnecting to its network and too much ability and incentive "to thwart disruptive innovators such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Sling TV." Baer highlighted the increased competition in the wireless industry after DOJ's rejection of AT&T's buy of T-Mobile in 2011. The case informed how the agency looked at subsequent proposed mergers, he said. When T-Mobile sought approval to buy MetroPCS, the agency concluded it would benefit consumers more than reduce competition, and post merger MetroPCS rolled out its low-price plan across T-Mobile's footprint, he said. Conversely, he said, when faced with Sprint's proposed buy of T-Mobile, "we made clear such a deal involved an unacceptable risk-reward proposition for consumers." Baer also said the DOJ antitrust suit against Bazaarvoice after its buy of consumer review site rival PowerReviews shows antitrust laws apply equally even in new markets: "We made the point that even non-reportable, consummated deals can risk competition." Baer also said Bazaarvoice shows DOJ assessments of competitive effects look beyond quantitative analyses to such evidence as testimony and party documents, pointing to documentation from executives indicating the PowerReviews deal revolved around eliminating a chief competitor.

The FCC International Bureau is giving extra time for replies on Ligado's application for its proposed terrestrial LTE network. In a public notice Wednesday, the bureau said it granted Garmin's request for three extra business days, extending the reply deadline to June 21. Garmin in its motion for time extension Tuesday said the original deadline, June 16, left only 10 days for preparation of replies and was "insufficient given the volume of the record and the significance of the issues."

Dish Network and Tribune Broadcasting continue to blame each other for the blackout of 42 Tribune channels in 33 markets on Dish. Tribune in a news release Wednesday said the direct broadcast satellite company "has been totally unresponsive in negotiating a new contract" since receiving a proposal from Tribune Sunday. “We repeatedly offered Dish an extension through the end of August, more than 60 days, for precisely this reason -- they drag their feet in negotiations,” Tribune said. “Dish rejected every offer, which demonstrates a total disregard for their customers and our viewers.” NAB Associate General Counsel Scott Goodwin in a blog post Wednesday said Dish was "trying to manipulate the regulatory process," deliberately stalling negotiations and rejecting Tribune's offer for an extension so as to make a case for the FCC requiring interim carriage. "These just happen to be exactly the same rule changes DISH and its pay-TV brethren have been pushing for at the FCC, rule changes that DISH hopes will effectively eviscerate any broadcaster leverage in retrans negotiations," Goodwin said. In its own statement Wednesday, Dish said it "offered to extend the contract so that consumers would have continued access to the Tribune channels while negotiations continued. Tribune rejected our offer. Only Tribune can cause a channel blackout. Rather than continuing to negotiate in good faith, Tribune chose to remove their channels from DISH. Rather than negotiate in the press, we suggest that Tribune respond to our last offer with a meaningful and fair offer for our customers." The blackout began Sunday (see 1606130018).