Brett Glass, owner of Wyoming wireless ISP Lariat, warned FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez that reregulating broadband under Title II of the Communications Act will be negative for small WISPs. “I recounted the difficulties that our company had encountered during the Commission’s previous attempt to regulate ISPs under Title II, which all but put us out of business by depriving us of investment, as well as the serious impacts that increased regulatory burdens … had already had upon our small, local business,” said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 23-320. If the FCC moves ahead with revised rules, it should “take into account the limited resources of small and local ISPs and very real danger of driving them out of business via excessive regulation and micromanagement, leaving consumers with fewer choices and no local ones with high quality, personalized service and technical support,” Glass said.
The Wireless ISP Association urged the FCC to seek comment before imposing net neutrality rules on broadband internet access service providers with fewer than 250,000 subscribers. “The draft item does not adequately consider the extent of the burdens being placed on small BIAS providers by these compliance obligations,” said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 23-320. “We noted that, in addition to the rules and restrictions the draft item proposes, BIAS providers are already spending time and resources to comply with a host of other regulatory obligations -- creating broadband labels, submitting Broadband Data Collections and responding to challenges complying with digital discrimination rules, and responding to State [broadband equity, access and deployment program] challenges -- all in the same calendar year.” The group met with aides to FCC Commissioners Nathan Simington and Anna Gomez.
NextNav proposed that the FCC reconfigure the 902-928 MHz band “to enable a high-quality, terrestrial complement” to GPS for positioning, navigation and timing services. NextNav noted it’s the largest licensee in the band. The undocketed petition for rulemaking was filed and posted Tuesday. “Reconfiguring the band plan and adopting rules that enable flexible use will also provide 15 megahertz of low-band spectrum for use by mobile wireless networks, a significant addition to the low-band spectrum pipeline,” the company said. Without GPS, “essential economic and security functions would be significantly impaired or disabled entirely,” NextNav said: “Yet GPS does not work well indoors or in urban canyons, and GPS signals are subject to jamming, spoofing, and other targeting events.”
Competitive Carriers Association representatives laid out the group’s primary concerns about a proposed 5G Fund, now before FCC commissioners (see 2403260052), in a meeting with an aide to Commissioner Anna Gomez. CCA cares about “mapping issues relevant to 5G Fund eligibility, including the need for clarity on which dataset will be used for purposes of 5G Fund eligibility and the need for a meaningful and user-friendly mobile challenge process prior to determining eligible areas,” said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 20-32. CCA also emphasized “eligibility issues” and “the timing of the trigger to shift from legacy support to 5G Fund support to eliminate any potentially harmful funding gaps consistent with Congressional instruction.”
Representatives of the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) met with various FCC offices on the group’s push to use the 6 GHz band (see 2305260032). Members “discussed the progress the Bluetooth industry is making towards developing methods for Bluetooth sharing with other unlicensed devices in the lower 6 GHz band,” the SIG said in a Monday filing in docket 18-295. They discussed standards development work with the IEEE, European Telecommunications Standards Institute and other standards groups. The group is considering filing a petition for rulemaking, the filing said. The group met with Chief Ron Repasi and others from the Office of Engineering and Technology and aides to Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and Commissioners Brendan Carr and Anna Gomez.
The Alaska Remote Carrier Coalition (ARCC) offered its perspective to the FCC Wireless Bureau on performance testing for the mobility portion of the Alaska Connect Fund required under FCC rules. ARCC said the filing follows up on a meeting with bureau staff March 14 (see 2403180022). “As the Bureau is aware, the extensive geography and rugged terrain served by ARCC wireless members, including both off-the-road network areas as well as many areas with environmentally sensitive tundra, require creativity and flexibility on the part of the testing carrier,” said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 10-208. “This challenge is complicated by areas with inaccessible federal land holdings that still must be tested under the Commission’s protocols.” ARCC noted that drive testing by Copper Valley under the plan’s rules cost the carrier more than $100,000.
Advocacy groups urged the FCC to take several steps to revise incarcerated people's communications services (IPCS). The United Church of Christ Media Justice Ministry, Worth Rises, the National Consumer Law Center, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Amalgamated Policy Research, Public Knowledge and the Wright Petitioners told Wireline Bureau and Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau staff that a model carrier approach would best fulfill the Martha Wright-Reed Just and Reasonable Communications Act's requirement to use "industry-wide average costs" to calculate new rates. The model carrier approach "is in the public interest" and "avoids subsidizing inefficient carriers and unnecessary costs," the groups said in a filing posted Tuesday in docket 23-62. The coalition asked the commission to preempt site commissions and allow states to cap intrastate IPCS rates lower than the FCC's rates. The groups also sought a 30-day transition period for providers to implement the new rates.
The FCC is asking the 11th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court to deny the Insurance Marketing Coalition’s April 3 motion to stay portions of its Dec. 18 order implementing rules under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act to target and eliminate illegal robotexts, pending the disposition of the coalition’s appeal to vacate the order (see 2312220059). The commission filed its opposition Monday (docket 24-10277).
Proponents of revised net neutrality rules are urging FCC commissioners to further tighten provisions on 5G network slicing, one of the more contested items in the proposed rules (see 2404050053). But officials on both sides said it’s not clear how many changes will be made to the order, prior to an expected 3-2 vote next week. Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel may need to make some concessions because the rules likely won’t pass without support from her fellow Democrats Geoffrey Starks and Anna Gomez.
FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel Monday urged the Office of Management and Budget to reclassify 911 communicators as first responders in the federal employment classification system. The letter marks National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week, which is this week. “Our Nation’s 911 operators are among our most vital first responders,” the letter argues: “The professionals who take these calls to set emergency response in motion operate with extraordinary skill in a pressure-filled environment.” Rosenworcel noted her long-standing advocacy of reclassifying the status of 911 communicators (see 1908140017) and that many states have taken that step.