Globalstar's latest terrestrial low-powered broadband service demos still fall short of justifying FCC approval for its proposed TLPS because the company hasn't made clear whether it addressed problems "that rendered previous demonstrations unreliable," said the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), Microsoft, NCTA and Wi-Fi Alliance in a joint ex parte filing posted Friday. Globalstar has done pilot demos of its TLPS service in Chicago and at Washington School for Girls in Washington, D.C., pointing to them as evidence it poses no interference threat to Wi-Fi or Bluetooth (see 1511190028). In their Friday filing, ESA et al. said previous filings by such parties as NCTA and the Bluetooth Special Interest Group raised numerous red flags about Globalstar's demonstrations, such as running transmitters at notably low power levels, using unrepresentative equipment, testing an 802.11 TLPS implementation when not having committed to using the 802.11 standard and failing to test for TLPS effects on latency or jitter. The ex parte letter recapped a meeting between Chairman Tom Wheeler aide Edward Smith and members of the ESA group. During the meeting, the letter said, ESA et al. also said a mitigation plan involving Globalstar addressing interference complaints after the fact "is unworkable." In a statement Friday, Globalstar Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Barbee Ponder said, "The benefits of TLPS are being shown daily at the Washington School for Girls, as the students there now have a wireless network utilizing substantially more spectrum than would otherwise be available. Representatives from numerous Commission offices have attended this deployment and observed these benefits that have been recognized recently by public interest groups. Those with nothing more than competitive interests at stake have no reason to ever do anything other than complain."

The FCC proposed a USF contribution factor for Q1 of 18.2 percent of interstate and international telecom revenue, the Office of Managing Director said in a public notice Friday in docket 96-45. That was as projected by industry analyst Billy Jack Gregg (see 1512040003). The proposed contribution factor will be deemed approved if the agency doesn't act on it within 14 days, the PN said. U.S. interstate and international (long-distance) revenue from end-users was projected to be $14.9 billion next quarter, continuing a long-term downward trend. Total USF support is projected to be $2.2 billion next quarter, with high-cost, rural support at $1.25 billion, followed by school and library E-rate discounts at $603 million, low-income (mainly Lifeline) support at $396 million and rural healthcare at $73 million. FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly voiced concern about the rising USF assessments on telecom carriers, and issued a warning about assessing broadband. "After hovering around the 16% mark throughout 2014 and 17% this year, the USF contribution factor tacked onto a portion of everyone’s telecom bills jumps past 18% to kick off 2016," he said in a statement Friday. "And with an unrestrained expansion of Lifeline plus an expansion of USF fees to broadband consumers at the top of many wish lists, who knows how much deeper Americans will have to dig into their pockets by next December? The entire situation is clearly unsustainable but the solution cannot be to capture broadband services in this morass."

Global wireless standards body 3GPP approved band 66, which includes Dish Network’s AWS-4 downlink spectrum, plus AWS-1 and paired AWS-3 spectrum, Dish said Thursday in a news release. “Band 66 is a win for the public who will be able to take advantage of the innovations and increased data throughput that a single AWS band class will deliver,” said Tom Cullen, Dish executive vice president-corporate development.

Monthly robocalls to U.S. phones jumped 43 percent in November to 980.8 million, estimated YouMail in its latest National Robocall Index released Thursday. The company said it provides intelligent cloud-based telecom services and compiles the data based on callers blocked and/or reported as spam by millions of its subscribers. New York continued to be the most-targeted city, with 45 million robocalls received, followed by Atlanta (42.1 million), Los Angeles (38.8 million) and Houston (29.7 million), it said. Columbus, Ohio, was the city generating the most traffic with 40.7 million robocalls originating there, followed by Atlanta with 19.8 million. Fifteen of the top 20 robocallers were debt collectors, with a “major credit card company,” and “company trying to collect on student loans” leading the way, YouMail said. Congressional efforts to curb robocalls, including through a Do-Not-Call Registry, “have been largely ineffective,” said the company, which noted robocallers can place thousands of calls in seconds from overseas, outside U.S. jurisdiction. It noted the FCC adopted an order last summer (see 1506180046) that increased potential fines for "spammers and spoofers" and allowed telcos to offer "robocall-blocking services to consumers."

FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly said “a funny thing is happening on the way to enacting a reverse auction for a key portion of the high-cost Connect America Fund (CAF).” Some people -- he didn't say who -- want commission staff “to select winners and losers with an inappropriate bias against certain technologies,” instead of devising a “program based on competitive forces and free-market principles,” O’Rielly wrote in a Thursday blog post. “Such manipulation would be the surest way to produce greater inefficiency, overpay for service and leave many consumers unserved. Further, this would set bad precedent and undermine future Commission universal service efforts. Accordingly, I suggest that we reject this approach, focus on the sound, broad principles that everyone should support, and then turn to implementing the details.” O'Rielly listed five principles for the auction to follow: "maximize coverage," "no categories," "open to all technologies," "multi-round auction" and "no overbuilding." O'Rielly recently warned against designing the auction -- for CAF Phase II areas where price-cap incumbent telcos didn't accept model-based support -- in a way that would contain a bias for fiber over wireless (see 1511170063). A draft order was circulated among commissioners in late September (see 1509250057).

President Barack Obama said Thursday that he will renominate FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez. She has held the position since March 4, 2013. Before then, she served as a commissioner since April 5, 2010.

It's crucial for government, the private sector and others to "regularly engage to understand the impacts of encryption on national security, public health and safety, economic competitiveness, privacy, cybersecurity, and human rights around the world," the White House said in an official response Wednesday to a "We the People" petition signed by more than 100,000 people who said they don't want encrypted devices undermined by back doors. Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer Ed Felten and Michael Daniel, special assistant to the president and cybersecurity coordinator, wrote that encryption is also part of a larger discussion on fighting terrorism. "That is why, in his address to the nation on Sunday, the President reiterated the Administration’s call for America’s technology community and law enforcement and counter-terrorism officials to work together to fight terrorism. American technologists have a unique perspective that makes them essential in finding new ways to combat it," they wrote. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which said it set up the petition, said Wednesday "really strong encryption" means "without compromises. It means encryption without so-called exceptional access capabilities. It means encryption without backdoors." However, EFF said, FBI Director James Comey and others want law enforcement access to encrypted devices.

Reserving vacant channels for unlicensed use would be “devastating” to low-power TV and translator stations and make aspects of ATSC 3.0 impractical, said the Advanced Television Broadcasting Alliance Executive Director Louis Libin and Sinclair Broadcast Senior Vice President-Strategy and Policy Rebecca Hanson in a meeting with FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly Tuesday, according to an ex parte filing in docket 12-268. “Elevating unlicensed (which does not even have an allocation in the broadcast band) to supra-primary status would be arbitrary and capricious absent a full record,” said the filing: “The proposal would severely limit full power stations’ ability to enhance and expand service.”

The Collaboration on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) Communication Standards working group of the ITU met Monday to review recent developments in ITS, including ITS-related results of the World Radiocommunication Conference and activities of the U.N. Economic Commission for Europe concerning automated vehicles. Attendees also discussed a report from the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), which attempts to provide a taxonomy for the various levels of motor vehicle automation. Barbara Wendling, Volkswagen of America safety regulatory policy manager, said SAE is pushing for widely recognized standards in the ITS space, because “it doesn’t serve the community well to have competing standards.” Representatives of Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) introduced a draft recommendation to increase security measures for remote software updates of ITS devices. Masashi Eto, an NICT researcher, said the remote updating of automated vehicle software poses many security risks, and proposed a structure to limit potential breaches. The structure would include increasing the amount of message filtering and adding additional security protocols and notification measures to ensure tampering can be detected. Russell Shields, Ygomi chairman and ITS World Congress board member, echoed Eto's concerns of software vulnerabilities in connected vehicles, saying it's “one of the most critical security risks” in ITS, and it can be hard to limit the introduction of malware into a car, since it's not difficult to physically access a vehicle. “This is a major, open issue that we are trying to solve," he said. Eto said the draft recommendation is under consideration by the Collaboration on ITS Communication Standards committee.

John Leibovitz, deputy chief of the FCC Wireless Bureau and a key policymaker in pushing the envelope on wireless issues at the commission, is leaving the agency effective Wednesday. Leibovitz was a holdover from the Julius Genachowski FCC. Leibovitz, who also was a special adviser to Chairman Tom Wheeler on spectrum issues, led Wireless Bureau development of the rules for the AWS-3 and TV incentive auctions. He was also a leader of the spectrum team on the National Broadband Plan. He played a major role on such issues as the reallocation of the 3.5 GHz band as a shared spectrum band. Industry officials said he is viewed as a one-man spectrum think tank within the agency. Leibovitz announced his departure Tuesday in an email to FCC staff. “Most of you know me as a ‘spectrum guy’ and I am very proud of the many ways we have evolved wireless policy to meet future needs,” he said. “I am also proud that we have been able to work across bureaucratic lines as one team. We have not always agreed on every detail, but by and large folks have listened, debated, and deliberated to develop practical, forward-thinking policies. And we have implemented them!” Every FCC rule “was drafted by practical people who grappled with the challenges of new technologies, new industries, and new ideas,” Leibovitz reminded colleagues. “You are continuing a proud tradition if you respect the past and engage with it, but are not captive to it. A spirit of innovation and occasional daring (tempered with humility and modesty) is essential if the FCC is fulfill its public interest mission in an ever-changing world. Also, it helps to have a good sense of humor.” Leibovitz did not say where he is headed after he leaves the FCC.