The FCC should focus on both affordability and availability in its Telecom Act Section 706 reports, the Broadband Council said in comments posted Wednesday in docket 25-223. Commissioners approved a notice of inquiry 3-0 last week, with initial comments due Sept. 8 (see 2508080046). “Availability can only be realized by adoption,” the council said. "Serving a banquet to a family with no teeth has not fed the hungry. If the household does not have the ability, for whatever reason, to adopt the broadband service, the fact that it is available is immaterial.”
The FCC should require trade associations to provide “actual evidence” when they accuse local governments of obstructing broadband development, said the Minnesota Association of Community Telecommunications Administrators in an ex parte letter posted Wednesday in docket 17-84. The agency should require filers to include the names of all jurisdictions cited and provide notice to all named jurisdictions to allow them to respond, the group said. Filings that don’t include such information shouldn’t be considered, it added. “Relying on such unfounded claims results in poor public policy.” FCC rules “must be based on reality, not fallacy. This requires the opportunity for parties to respond to allegations asserted in the record.”
Somos representatives met with FCC staff on “the next steps” that the telecom industry can take to combat unwanted robocalls, said a filing this week in docket 17-59. Somos discussed how standards can be advanced “to ensure end-to-end verification of calls which would allow enterprises, and possibly later individuals, to exercise the Right to Use (RTU) their name, phone number, logo, and other identifying information, while making sure that those not authorized to use that information are prevented from doing so.”
Telephone Consumer Protection Act lawyer Eric Troutman on Tuesday labeled last week’s FCC Enforcement Bureau order removing 185 noncompliant voice service providers from the Robocall Mitigation Database (see 2508060041) a “massacre.” The order was “insane,” Troutman said. “This means the FCC literally just shut down 185 telecom companies with a flick of the wrist. … Short and sweet and fatal.”
The FCC Public Safety Bureau announced Monday that the agency's 911 reliability certification system is open for filing annual certifications, which are due Oct. 15. All covered service providers "must annually certify as to their compliance with circuit auditing, backup power, and network monitoring reliability measures,” the bureau said. “If a CSP does not conform to the elements of any of these reliability measures, the CSP must certify [as] to reasonable alternative reliability measures or explain why the requirements do not apply to its network as appropriate.”
Members of the Ad Hoc Broadband for Rural Health Group complained to the FCC about their difficulty understanding the rules for the rural health care program’s Healthcare Connect Fund (HCF). They met with aides to Commissioners Anna Gomez and Olivia Trusty and agency staff, said a filing Friday in docket 25-133.
An FCC order conforming certain rules “to reflect the rules that are actually in effect,” resulting from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision invalidating the agency's latest net neutrality order (see 2501020028), becomes effective Friday, according to a Federal Register notice released Thursday. The order also addresses the 8th Circuit's 2002 Iowa Utilities Board II decision.
The FCC’s "Build America Agenda," outlined by FCC Chairman Brendan Carr last month (see 2507020036), will mean faster broadband deployment, Commissioner Olivia Trusty said in a speech Wednesday in Mississippi. She spoke at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, noting that faster broadband is key to telehealth.
Foothills Connect, which notified the FCC early this year that it wouldn't meet its Rural Digital Opportunity Fund first interim buildout milestone in Kentucky (see 2501220004), told the agency this week that it's "making substantial progress" on closing the milestone gap. In docket 19-126 Tuesday, Foothills said it's still struggling with delays beyond its control in getting right-of-way approvals and obtaining easements. It also cited workforce issues related to hiring qualified construction contractors.
As states race to meet NTIA's Sept. 4 deadline to submit their revised final BEAD plans under the agency's new rules, the future of the program's non-deployment funding is in “uncharted territory,” wrote CCG Consulting President Doug Dawson in a blog Wednesday. Dawson raised questions about whether NTIA can ignore Congress’ directive to spend the full $42.5 billion on both broadband infrastructure and non-deployment initiatives (see 2507300011). Although NTIA didn't definitively eliminate non-deployment uses for BEAD funding, Dawson noted that some in the industry believe the agency might “kill all non-deployment funds as a way to take credit for ‘returning’ money to Treasury,” while others remain hopeful NTIA will allow certain projects. He warned that the shift could also lead to “significantly less BEAD funding for fiber and more for satellite and fixed wireless broadband” after the agency removed its fiber-first preference. "It’s one thing for the White House to issue executive orders that countermand Congressional spending," Dawson wrote: "It’s a whole lot fuzzier if an agency like NTIA can directly ignore Congress."