Butterfly announced a portable virtual private network router said to turn a public Wi-Fi hot spot into a secure VPN.

Verizon workers could get wage increases if they OK a tentative agreement between the company and unions, Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers said Thursday. Verizon and the unions reached tentative agreement on a four-year extension to a contract that had been set to expire in August 2019. The deal builds on the unions' pact with the company after 2016’s seven-week strike (see 1605310032), and would provide an 11.2 percent wage increase over the additional four years covering about 34,000 Verizon call center workers, central office employees and field technicians, the unions said. “Since the end of the 2016 strike, we have seen a marked improvement in the relationship between CWA and Verizon,” which is reflected in the agreement, said CWA District 1 Vice President Dennis Trainor. CWA members plan to vote on the pact “in the next few weeks,” the union said. Verizon didn’t comment.

NTIA should collect and release data on broadband availability to anchor institutions such as libraries and schools, commented the Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition. Rather than determining only if a community is served, "focus on the quality (speed, latency, jitter, etc.)" of the connection, with "a sliding scale that evaluates whether the quality of the connection is sufficient to accomplish the user’s goal," SHLB said in a filing it released Tuesday. "Anchor institutions typically need between 100 Mbps and multi-gigabit connections." Others suggested ways NTIA could improve broadband data quality and accuracy, after the agency sought comment on how to spend $7.5 million to improve related mapping (see 1807170052).

Too many Americans are falling behind on access to high-quality healthcare and the FCC’s proposed USF pilot telehealth program will help (see 1807110053), Commissioner Brendan Carr said in a speech in Jackson, Mississippi, last week, posted Tuesday. Carr noted his mother is a nurse. “If adopted, this new program would target support to connected care deployments that would benefit low-income patients, including those eligible for Medicaid or veterans receiving cost-free medical care,” Carr said. “It would support a limited number of projects over a two- or three-year period with controls in place to measure and verify the benefits, costs, and savings.” Carr noted he has visited U.S. areas where healthcare is an issue, including the Mississippi River Delta.

The FCC took initial steps it believes will help pave the way for nationwide number portability, in an order released Friday and adopted 4-0 the previous day at commissioners' monthly meeting (see Notebook at end of 1807120033). The order eases an "N-1" rule to give carriers in call flows flexibility to determine which one will query a number portability database, and extended relief from long-distance dialing-parity duties to all carriers (ILECs received such forbearance in 2015). The Wireline Bureau announced a proposed North American Numbering Plan Administration fund of $7.06 million for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1. If the FCC takes no action, the proposed fund size and related industry contribution factor will take effect within 14 days, said a public notice Friday in docket 92-237.

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr will be in Mississippi Friday to discuss remote healthcare. In the morning, Carr will visit the diabetes telehealth program at North Sunflower Medical Center in Ruleville to see how the facility is using remote telehealth, his office said. In the afternoon, he will hold a news conference with Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Ridgeland.

Comments are due Aug. 10, replies Aug. 27 on Q Link Wireless' petition asking the FCC to direct Universal Service Administrative Co. to implement machine-to-machine application programming interfaces for its Lifeline national verifier, said a Wireline Bureau public notice in docket 17-287 and Thursday's Daily Digest (see 1807050046). "Q Link requests that the Commission order USAC to implement APIs immediately, prior to the 'hard launch' of the National Verifier in the first six states." Q Link and other Lifeline eligible telecom carriers seek the interfaces to exchange information with USAC, including to establish the eligibility of consumers for the low-income subsidy program.

Sprint asked the FCC to clarify or reconsider an IP captioned telephone service ruling authorizing automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology (see Notebook at end of 1806070021). While ASR advances are welcome, the declaratory ruling "defers the rate-related issues necessary to ensure 'efficiency' and relies on an inadequate record that falls far short of establishing that ASR is 'functionally equivalent,'" said the IP CTS provider's petition posted Tuesday in docket 13-24. "The Commission risks jeopardizing the health of the [Telecom Relay Service] Fund and 'puts the cart before the horse by introducing [ASR] into the IP CTS program before [the FCC] address[es] [its] most basic regulatory responsibilities,” Sprint said, citing Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel's concurring statement. "By effectively revising the Commission’s rules without affording parties notice and an opportunity to comment, the Declaratory Ruling is inconsistent with the Administrative Procedure Act."

Arlo has shipped more than 7.5 million connected devices, and its smart platform had over 1.9 million registered users as of April 1, said an S-1 SEC registration statement. Its Netgear spinoff was the consumer network connected camera systems market leader in the U.S. in Q1 with a 40 percent share by point-of-sale dollars, it said, citing NPD figures, and likely will remain a “controlled company” under the New York Stock Exchange rules, with Netgear as majority owner, said the filing. The document was signed by Matthew McRae, former chief technology officer of Vizio, named Arlo CEO in February. Patrick Lo will remain CEO of Netgear, it said. Revenue last year was $370.7 million, up from $184.6 million in 2016. Income from operations last year was $5.7 million compared with a $13.1 million loss from operations.

The FCC asked comment on a petition to clarify if life insurance agents may call their customers about life insurance policies while the policies are in effect and for 18 months after they expire. Comments on the petition by the Life Insurance Direct Market Association are due Aug. 6, with replies due Aug. 21, the Consumer Bureau said in a Friday notice in docket 02-278.