Ookla found “significant internet performance disparities for both Wi-Fi and mobile” at airports, it said in a survey released Tuesday. The report noted that connectivity is now something travelers expect.
The FCC Wireless Bureau on Tuesday sought comment on a CTIA petition asking the commission to extend a temporary waiver that allows use of the interim volume control testing method for hearing-aid compatibility compliance (see 2507020051). Comments are due July 18, replies July 28, in dockets 23-388 and 20-3. Without further action, the current waiver would expire Sept. 29. “We seek comment on whether we should grant CTIA’s petition to extend use of the temporary volume control standard beyond the upcoming … expiration date and, if so, for how long,” the bureau said.
Oliver Semans, executive director of the Coalition of Large Tribes (COLT), asked the FCC to reconsider its plan not to offer a tribal priority window for the AWS-3 auction (see 2507030049). “I understand it is late in the process for the AWS-3 auction, which is fast approaching, but I write to express the importance of spectrum access to the COLT member tribes,” said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 25-59. The 2.5 GHz priority window was “a great success among" them.
Various groups opposed Verizon’s proposed purchase of UScellular spectrum licenses, as the regional carrier seeks to sell off most of its spectrum holdings. The Verizon deal is contingent on a larger transaction with T-Mobile, in which it's buying “substantially all” of UScellular’s wireless operations for about $4.4 billion (see 2405280047). Verizon agreed in October to buy UScellular’s 850 MHz, AWS and PCS licenses for $1 billion (see 2410180004). Petitions to deny were due at the FCC on Monday in docket 25-192.
Comments are due July 23 in docket 25-210 on Consolidated Communications’ application to discontinue legacy voice services in 18 exchanges in Vermont, said a public notice in Tuesday’s Daily Digest. The application will be granted automatically Aug. 8, unless the FCC notifies the company otherwise.
The FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau established the total funding requirement and approved contribution factors for the interstate telecommunications relay services (TRS) fund for a one-year period ending June 30, 2026. The FCC previously took comments (see 2506090018). Contribution factors determine the amounts that carriers and other covered service providers must contribute to the fund.
The FCC, Congress and others have been considering alternative funding mechanisms for USF, and now that the program's legality has been affirmed, they can move forward, Parks Associates analyst Kristen Hanich wrote Tuesday. The U.S. Supreme Court last month upheld the constitutionality of USF's contribution scheme (see 2506270054). With only 25% of U.S. internet households receiving phone service, USF "must evolve in order to meet the needs of Americans for the next 30 years," she said.
Wireless carriers urged the FCC to move with caution in response to a Further NPRM on wireless location accuracy, which commissioners approved 4-0 in March (see 2503270042). The FNPRM probes ways to improve accuracy and whether providers should be required to deliver vertical location information to 911 call centers measured in height above ground level (AGL), instead of height above ellipsoid (HAE). The notice also asks about ways to ensure that more public safety answering points receive dispatchable location (DL) as part of calls to 911. Reply comments were due Monday and mostly posted Tuesday in docket 07-114.
The FCC should expand the payor base of regulatory fees, said NAB and Telesat in comments filed in docket 25-190 by Monday’s comment deadline. NAB and satellite industry commenters were broadly supportive of the agency’s proposal to reclassify 61 indirect full-time equivalents (FTEs) as direct FTEs and collect $390,192,000 in fees, but some said industries that benefit from FCC processes should bear part of the fee burden.
As humans head to the moon and Mars, they're on the verge of being able to launch an interplanetary internet, raising policy questions about that network's architecture and governance, space and internet experts said Tuesday at the Internet Society's Interplanetary Networking Special Interest Group seminar. The group's founder, internet pioneer Vint Cerf, said there needs to be thought and planning now about those policy issues and the agreements and institutions to tackle them.