FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks wants funding to support smaller carriers as they find Huawei equipment in their networks and replace it with other providers' gear. “A lot of these small, rural telecommunications carriers are, in fact, operating on a very thin budget,” Starks said Thursday on NPR. It's "important" to "find a way to ultimately be able to help folks make sure that we take care of this security threat.”

Verizon said any bidirectional sharing of spectrum with federal agencies should be based on “negotiated secondary-market arrangements in which commercial or other nonfederal licensees voluntarily offer federal entities access to nonfederal spectrum on a shared basis.” The FCC sought comment on bidirectional sharing, as required by the Ray Baum's Act (see 1905010205). Comments were due Friday in docket 19-128. Don’t mandate sharing, Verizon said: “Policymakers should avoid prescriptive mandates or conditions that would undermine the exclusive-use commercial license framework.” The carrier said the process the FCC approved in April for sharing in the upper 37 GHz band demonstrates why mandates won’t work. The rules allow DOD to seek protection for additional sites following an auction of the band (see 1904120058). That decision is “a cautionary note,” Verizon said. “The FCC has added an element of uncertainty that may de-value the spectrum, negatively affect the auction of the Upper 37 GHz band, and limit its utility to support 5G investment. A better alternative would have been to permit DoD to enter into secondary market transactions with commercial licensees.”

The FCC is scheduled to publish in the Federal Register Friday updated reconfiguration procedures for the 39 GHz band. “In this document, the Wireless … Bureau, in cooperation with the Office of Economics and Analytics, adopts procedures to reconfigure and modify existing 39 GHz licenses in preparation for Auction 103, an incentive auction that will offer licenses the Upper 37 GHz, 39 GHz, and 47 GHz bands,” the notice says: The procedures “are a critical step toward offering new licenses in this incentive auction, and will enhance opportunities for both incumbents and new entrants to provide valuable 5G wireless, Internet of Things, and other advanced services.” The auction is to start Dec. 10.

The FCC Wireless Bureau sought comment on a request by Dynetics asking for modification of the agency’s freeze on applications in the 3100-3550 MHz frequency band. Dynetics sought the waiver “to reverse the severe unintended impact of the Freeze with respect to the ongoing deployment of technologically-superior Part 90 Radiolocation Service solutions in the lower 3 GHz band.” Dynetics seeks “a limited and very narrowly-tailored waiver” for operators of facilities “within the 16 critical infrastructure sectors defined by the United States Department of Homeland Security National Infrastructure Protection Plan.” Comments are due June 12, replies June 24 in docket 19-39.

CTIA applauds the FCC for wrapping up the world’s first high-band auction on Tuesday (see 1905280063), said Scott Bergmann, senior vice president-regulatory affairs. “We’re now one step closer to securing our nation’s 5G leadership,” he said Wednesday. “The 24 and 28 GHz bands will play a critical role in U.S. 5G deployments, and the conclusion of these auctions is an important milestone in the FCC’s 5GFast plan.”

The Utilities Technology Council reported on meetings with aides to all FCC members, except Chairman Ajit Pai, on the importance of the 6 GHz band (see 1905200048) to its members (see here, here, here and here). Critical infrastructure companies use the band for “safe, reliable and secure delivery of essential services,” UTC said in docket 18-295: “Owing to the criticality of these services, their microwave systems are designed, built, and maintained to operate at extremely high standards for reliability and low latency. Potential interference from unlicensed operations represents an unreasonable risk to the performance of these microwave systems in the 6 GHz band, and the parties explained that interference must be prevented rather than fixed after the fact.” The agency is examining Wi-Fi and other unlicensed use of the band (see 1903190050).

Gov. Bill Anoatubby and other Chickasaw Nation officials met FCC Chairman Ajit Pai on spectrum issues, said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 18-20: “The parties discussed the importance of the local priority filing window for tribal nations in the Transforming the 2.5 GHz Band proceeding and noted that there should be a similar opportunity for tribal nations to access spectrum in the” C-band.

The Department of Homeland Security's publishing a fact sheet earlier this month about its abilities under the Preventing Emerging Threats Act to counter threats from unmanned aircraft systems seems aimed at deterring rogue drone operations by making the agency's authority "crystal clear and better known," the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation blogged Tuesday. It said such activities as disrupting or seizing control have been "fairly common" by federal enforcement authorities though "not ... talked about openly." It said federal law enforcement authorities remain exempt from Communications Act bars related to jamming and spoofing.

The 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals should reject appeal of a lower court’s ruling including a finding that FirstNet is exempt from Freedom of Information Act requests (see 1903070016), the Commerce Department said in a Tuesday brief (in Pacer). Local news publication VTDigger seeks appeal of the decision by the U.S. District Court in Burlington, Vermont. “The district court correctly concluded that plaintiffs’ challenge to FirstNet’s response to its FOIA requests should be dismissed because Congress exempted FirstNet from the requirements of FOIA,” Commerce said. “Plaintiffs offer no basis for disregarding the statute’s plain text.” The court was right to conclude that Commerce and NTIA “reasonably concluded, and adequately explained, that they were unlikely to have any responsive records to plaintiffs’ FOIA requests based on the specific nature of the records sought,” the department said. “Where the agency can reasonably determine from the face of the specific request that it is unlikely to possess any responsive records, the ‘method[] which can be reasonably expected to produce the information requested,’ … may be no search at all.” The 2nd Circuit also should affirm the lower court’s finding that VTDigger lacked standing to claim the government violated Section 208 of the 2002 E-Government Act by failing to conduct and publish a privacy impact assessment for the FirstNet state plan portal accessed by state officials, the department said. “Plaintiffs have not explained why the failure to make a privacy impact assessment public would ‘present a material risk of harm to the underlying concrete interest Congress sought to protect’ in Section 208,” it said. “Even assuming arguendo that plaintiffs have standing to bring a Section 208 claim, there is no basis to remand the claim for additional review because the Nationwide Public Safety Broadband Network is not a government-owned and operated network and thus, is not subject to” Section 208 requirements.

The Rural Wireless Association's advocacy for reconsideration of geographic licensing for upper microwave flexible use service licenses in the 37, 39 and 47 GHz bands should have been brought in a timely filed petition to the spectrum frontier report and order, not in comments to a docket about developing auction procedures for the band, Hughes said in a docket 19-59 posting Tuesday. It said the RWA comments should be dismissed as a late-filed petition for reconsideration. RWA didn't comment.