The FCC Technological Advisory Council will meet Sept. 24 at agency headquarters, the commission said in last Tuesday's Federal Register. The meeting in the Commission Meeting Room is to start at 1 p.m. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler chaired the TAC before he was named to the commission.

The California PUC asked the FCC for a 30-day extension to file comments on Lifeline USF overhaul proposals, adding to the joint call by three telco trade associations on Friday for such an extension (see 1507310061). The current deadlines are Aug. 17 for initial comments and Sept. 17 for replies, the CPUC said. The CPUC said in a filing posted Monday to docket 11-42 that it needed more time because it runs a Lifeline program that's more comprehensive than the FCC's, "and is accordingly, more complicated to manage." The CPUC also said it needed more time to write comments on the potential interplay between the federal and California Lifeline programs. CTIA, ITTA and USTelecom said an extension was warranted because of the complexity of the FCC proposals to cover broadband and restructure the program's administration, and because the initial comment deadline fell in the middle of the traditional summer vacation period.

USTelecom, CTIA and the Independent Telephone & Telecommunications Alliance asked the FCC to extend the comment deadlines by 30 days in the rulemaking to revamp Lifeline USF subsidies to cover broadband and make administration of the program more efficient. Instead of initial comments being due Aug. 17 and replies Sept. 15, they would be due Sept. 16 and Oct. 15, the telco associations said Friday in their request. The groups said the extension was warranted because the reform proposal was "unusually complex" and the current initial deadline fell during the traditional summer holiday period.

The FCC gave 911 service providers flexibility to comply with certification rules intended to ensure emergency communications reliability, provided they explain how they're still reducing the risk of network failure. The FCC order issued Thursday was in response to a request from Intrado that the commission clarify or partially reconsider a 2013 decision requiring 911 communications providers to certify annually they're taking reasonable measures to provide reliable service through "911 circuit diversity, central office backup power, and diverse network monitoring." That order was intended to address 911 failures during the 2012 derecho storm in the east. In clarifying its rules Thursday, the commission said ensuring 911 reliability is a critical statutory public-safety mandate but implementation may vary by service provider or location. "Specifically, we clarify that ... Covered 911 Service Providers may implement and certify an alternative measure for any of the specific certification elements, as long as they provide an explanation of how such alternative measures are reasonably sufficient to mitigate the risk of failure," the order said. "We believe that this should include an explanation of how the alternative will mitigate such risk at least to a comparable extent as the measures specified in our rules." Commissioner Mike O'Rielly said he recognized the importance of reliable emergency communications but added the FCC must do better at getting things right the first time. "The philosophy seems to be act now, fix later," he said in a statement, noting he had dissented from the 2013 order and a follow-up NPRM in April that he said seeks "to expand the needlessly burdensome requirements." While the FCC should act swiftly, he said, it shouldn't do so by writing rules that aren't "fully cooked," which burdens providers that pass costs along to consumers: "For industry to comply, these rules must be relatively stable, not stuck in a continuous cycle of being reconsidered or altered." He said he nevertheless supported the current clarification because it provides "necessary flexibility" to certifying compliance.

The Association for Telecommunications Industry Solutions released task force findings on the challenges facing public safety applications as communications systems migrate to IP-based networks, an ATIS release said Tuesday. "Today, there are a broad range of critical public safety-related applications provisioned on legacy copper networks," ATIS said. "These include alarm circuits to local fire and police departments, circuits to airport towers and alarms, circuits monitoring railroad crossings, as well as those for sensors at gas and power company locations. The ATIS findings offer insight into the solutions needed to advance the all-IP transition for these technologies." A PowerPoint presentation detailing the task force's findings is available here.

Verizon will begin offering the Internet-only HBO Now to its broadband and Verizon Wireless customers, the companies said Tuesday. The service is free for 30 days to Verizon broadband and FiOS Internet customers, they said. HBO content also will be available through Verizon's upcoming over-the-top video service. Verizon is the latest digital distributor of the streaming service, with others including Amazon and Google (see 1507160047).

The FCC wants comment on AT&T's push for regulatory actions to facilitate real-time text (RTT) as a replacement for text telephony (TTY) services that traditionally provide the deaf and others with access to voice communications. Initial comments are due Aug. 24 and replies Sept. 8 on a public notice issued Friday by four FCC bureaus in docket 15-178. The notice seeks comment on AT&T's petition asking the FCC to open a rulemaking aimed at writing rules to shift the text market serving the hearing- and speech-impaired from TTY to RTT solutions in an IP-based environment. It also asks about the telco's petition to temporarily waive rules requiring covered service providers to support TTY services until the new rulemaking is done or AT&T deploys RTT (expected in 2017), whichever comes later. AT&T believes RTT provides service superior to "obsolete" TTY (see 1506150036). AT&T recently asked the FCC for expedited review of its waiver petition so it could compete with rivals that are rapidly deploying IP-based Wi-Fi calling services. AT&T said it needs the waiver to provide its own Wi-Fi calling service. "The failure to grant a waiver on an expedited basis risks placing AT&T at a long-term competitive advantage," the telco said. The FCC public notice seeks comment on whether it should waive the rules for AT&T individually or for all covered entities.

The National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) released the first draft of a step-by-step guide to show healthcare providers how to better secure smartphones and mobile devices to protect patient information, a National Institute of Standards and Technology news release said Friday. The draft, first in a series of publications meant to teach businesses and organizations how to improve cybersecurity, instructs medical IT personnel on ways to decrease the risks of patient information theft by increasing the security of mobile devices used to transmit the data, said NIST. "This guide can help providers protect critical patient information without getting in the way of delivering quality care," said NCCoE Director Donna Dodson. NIST also said the use of mobile devices to "store, access and transmit electronic healthcare records is outpacing the privacy and security protections on those devices." The NCCoE requests comments on the draft be submitted to the center by Sept. 25.

Cybersecurity is becoming an increasingly dominant issue for teleport and satellite service providers, the World Teleport Association (WTA) said Tuesday in a report. Cybersecurity is becoming an increasingly important issue to teleport and satellite providers because 94 percent of them have reported a security breach in the last 12 months, WTA said. “Today’s teleport is a data center with antennas, and both large and small operators have to develop an approach to cybersecurity that is appropriate, not only to the threats they face, but to the concerns of their customers and the resources they can bring to the problem,” said WTA Executive Director Robert Bell in a news release. “Whether the adversary is a hacker or an employee who gives away a password by mistake, constant vigilance has become the new requirement.”

In the first six months of 2015, Verizon received almost 150,000 “demands for customer information from U.S. law enforcement,” wrote Executive Vice President-Public Policy Craig Silliman in a blog post Monday announcing the release of Verizon's transparency report for the period. Verizon received 149,810 requests, vs. 148,903, in the first half of 2014, said the report. Verizon also said it received between 0 and 999 national security letters from the FBI in the first half of 2015, affecting between 2,000 and 2,999 customers. Due to a required six-month delay in reporting Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act information order requests, Verizon said it received between 0 and 999 FISA orders for content in the second half of 2014, affecting between 2,000 and 2,999 customers. The telco has a legal obligation to provide customer information to law enforcement, but protecting customer privacy remains a “bedrock commitment at Verizon,” Silliman said. He added that Verizon “carefully” reviews each request received and sometimes requires law enforcement to “narrow the scope of their demands or correct errors in those demands before we produce some or all of the information sought.” It continues to receive a large number of demands, but the overall number of customers affected remains very small, he said.