The FCC Wireline Bureau Friday reminded recipients of funding through the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program that their next update to the FCC is due July 8. The last was due April 8. FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel wrote Congress last month urging full funding to close the more than $3 billion shortfall in the rip-and-replace program, which pays for replacing Huawei and ZTE communications gear and services (see 2405020071).

The FCC Public Safety Bureau said Tuesday covered 911 service providers must notify the FCC within 60 days after they completely cease operations, starting July 4. That comes following Federal Register publication of the Office of Management and Budget's review of the requirement, which was imposed as part of an FCC 2022 order (see 2211180070), the bureau said.

The carrier-neutral network operator (CNNO) segment had combined revenue of nearly $100 billion in 2023, responsible for $34.8 billion in capex, ResearchAndMarkets.com reported Monday. Revenue was up 5.1% over the previous year. “CNNOs play a crucial, complementary role in the communications sector and own and operate a large portion of the world's cell towers, data centers, and fiber networks,” the report said. It added, the telecom carrier of today “cobbles together its physical network from a mix of owned and leased or rented resources.” The five largest CNNOs by revenue in 2023 were China Tower, American Tower, Equinix, Level 3 and Crown Castle.

The State E-rate Coordinators’ Alliance reported on a series of meetings at the FCC with aides to Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and others to offer advice on the commission’s proposed $200 million cybersecurity pilot program for schools and libraries (see 2405160076). Commissioners will vote at their open meeting Thursday. “Our underlying premise, based on our day-to-day, year-after-year experiences working with applicants, is that they need to be informed of all the fundamental program requirements before they begin the application process, to flourish and succeed with the new pilot,” the alliance said in a filing posted Friday in docket 23-234. Potential negative effects “can be mitigated by addressing all the program parameters in the final Report and Order, at the beginning of the pilot, rather than relying on supplemental clarifications being issued later,” the group said. Also seeking tweaks were the Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition, the American Library Association, the Consortium for School Networking and Common Sense. “It is not immediately apparent that there is a need for funding floors or caps since this is a pilot program in which the Commission retains the authority to choose which applicants are going to receive funding,” the groups said. They said it’s also not clear how the FCC will choose which pilots to fund.

Intrepid Fiber Networks backed the FCC's proposal that bans bulk billing arrangements between ISPs and multi-tenant environment (MTE) owners (see 2405080043). Intrepid said in a letter Tuesday in docket 17-142 that such arrangements without an opt-out provision "force MTE resident consumers to pay for broadband, cable, and satellite service" from a specific provider. In addition, they act "as an impediment to new market entrants," Intrepid said. Some consumers are "being forced to purchase unwanted and unused services, leading to overall higher costs," it added. The company said bulk billing contracts result in consumers being "obligated to pay for increasingly outdated technology and network equipment."

Officials from trade association America’s Credit Unions (ACU) met with FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel about proposals for clamping down on robocalls. “The purpose of the meeting was to discuss how the Commission can best achieve a balance that protects consumers from unlawful calls and scams while also ensuring that credit unions are able to communicate with their members without undue litigation risk or the risk of having their lawful calls inadvertently blocked or mislabeled,” according to a filing posted Thursday in docket 02-278. The group opposed a National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) proposal seeking an automated “opt-out mechanism” on every call containing an artificial or prerecorded voice message. The NCLC proposal is “unnecessary” in light of commission rules, which provide “ample mechanisms for consumers to revoke consent,” ACU said.

More than half of telecom and IT engineers believe AI will improve network efficiency by 40% or more and 85% think carriers can monetize AI traffic on their networks, according to a Ciena survey released Wednesday. Carriers expect the financial services sector (46%), followed by media and entertainment (43%) and manufacturing (38%), to generate the most AI traffic, Ciena said. Respondents saw “multiple avenues to generate revenue from AI,” the report said: “Specifically, 40% believe it will be from opening their networks to third-party integrations; 37% believe revenue will come from security and privacy services; the same number (37%) believe it will come from new product offerings; 35% believe it will be from the creation of tailored subscription packages; and 34% believe revenue will be from differentiation on quality of service for connectivity.”

Petitioners iFixit, Public Resource and Make Community “seek to dramatically rewrite federal law and agency rules by destroying the copyright” to the standards development organizations’ standards, said 17 SDOs in an amicus brief Tuesday (docket 23-1311) in the U.S. Appeals Court for the D.C. Circuit. The brief is in support of the FCC. Petitioners allege that the FCC violated the Administrative Procedure Act when it amended rules incorporating four new equipment testing standards, and did so without the proper notice and comment protocol (see 2403280002). Using a procedure called “incorporation by reference,” they allege the commission informed the public that copies of the rules were available at its headquarters but didn't say that the rules could be read but not copied. The NPRM also said that copies of the proposed rules were available from the private SDOs that originally published them, the petitioners say. But they allege that these too couldn’t be copied and that they were available only after making a “substantial payment” to the sponsoring SDO. The petitioners ask that the D.C. Circuit compel agencies such as the FCC to post a copy of the SDO’s standard on the agency’s website, “where the electronic copy may be copied, downloaded, and further distributed without limitation,” the amicus brief said. According to the petitioners, this is necessary whenever an agency proposes to incorporate by reference such a standard in a final rule or regulation. But the result would be to make the SDOs’ works, “which indisputably are protected by copyright, available for mass infringement,” said the amicus brief. This would undermine the SDOs’ ability “to fund the creation of these works that yield enormous public benefits,” it said. Joining in the amicus brief were the American National Standards Institute, CTA, IEEE and the Telecommunications Industry Association. Consistent with their public-service missions and nonprofit status, SDOs make standards “easily accessible to the public for free, read-only viewing online,” said the amicus brief. Under the petitioners’ demands, the standards would be posted to an agency’s website “without regard to the SDO’s consent and without any remuneration to the SDO,” the amicus brief alleges. That argument is “contrary to federal law,” it said. The petitioners’ argument, if accepted, also “would undermine the infrastructure of U.S. innovation and the incentive system that are essential to our market-driven economy,” it said.

Microwave transmission equipment revenue declined 8% year over year worldwide in Q1, Dell’Oro Group said Monday. “This was a tough quarter” for the sector, said Jimmy Yu, Dell’Oro vice president: “We continue to believe the market environment will strengthen as the year unfolds, but the first half of 2024 is now projected to be much weaker than we initially anticipated.” Lower demand for mobile backhaul drove the decline, the report said. The radio access network equipment market continues to struggle, Dell’Oro said in a report last week. It called the market “a disaster.” The RAN market, including baseband and radio hardware and software, but excluding services, fell as much as 30% in 1Q, the firm said. “We’ve been monitoring the RAN market since … 2000, and the contraction experienced in the first quarter marked the steepest decline in our entire history of covering this market,” Dell’Oro Vice President Stefan Pongratz said. The top five suppliers in Q1, based on worldwide revenue, were Huawei, Ericsson, Nokia, ZTE and Samsung, the report said.

The FCC Enforcement Bureau told U.S.-based voice service providers that they may stop carrying Alliant Financial's call traffic following a cease and desist letter sent Monday to Alliant regarding an illegal robocall campaign. The bureau told providers in a public notice that Alliant appeared to originate a "substantial volume of unlawful robocalls related to purported debt consolidation loans." Alliant sent "prerecorded messages claiming to be from One Street Financial, Main Street Financial, and Alliant Financial," said a news release, saying about 78 million calls were placed to consumers between Nov. 1 and Feb. 24. The bureau noted that service members, veterans and their families "face an increased risk from campaigns of this nature." EB's move was part of the bureau's "Spring Cleaning" initiative. “There are scammers who try to exploit people working to get out of debt and veterans and military families are at a higher risk for this kind of fraud,” said Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. "We are putting these bad actors on notice that they can’t keep targeting people with this junk and taking advantage of their attempts to build a better financial future for themselves."