Frontier Communications will try harder to meet Connecticut service-quality standards, the carrier said Tuesday at the state’s Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURA). Frontier filed exceptions to a PURA draft decision finding that the carrier violated two of five service quality metrics (see 2406180045). The carrier "plans to implement new processes and expanded and targeted resources to improve the two metrics at issue,” and will expand reports it gives PURA. However, pointing to a 74% reduction in its Connecticut landline count since 2015, Frontier argued that service quality metrics haven’t kept up with market changes. The Department of Public Utility Control, as PURA was then known, proposed updating the service standards for that reason back in 2009, Frontier said. "Assessing fines and penalties against Frontier for on average barely missing two metrics that require close to perfection for the last 10 years when these regulations were to be revised and replaced would be unfair and anticompetitive,” the carrier said. The Connecticut Office of Consumer Counsel, which originally called for the PURA investigation, applauded the regulator’s draft decision. It “reads as the first action in a sequence of actions leading the largest telephone company in Connecticut ... back into full compliance with regulations established in support of state goals,” wrote OCC: An expected follow-up PURA proceeding to set penalties "will be the action which ensures that the vital communication service Frontier provides to Connecticut is reliable and meets the basic needs of its customers."
Country of origin cases
Vodafone and other wireless carriers have a ways to go to deploy 5G and are in no hurry to get to 6G, David Lister, Vodafone 6G research lead, said Monday during a 6G workshop streamed at the Technology & Innovation Centre at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland.
Petitions asking the FCC to reconsider authorizing radio geotargeting are “procedurally defective” and request changes that would affect all FM boosters, Geobroadcast Solutions (GBS) said in an opposition filing posted Friday (docket 20-401). REC Network’s recon petition asks the agency to prevent boosters from exceeding the signal strength of other nearby radio stations, while the Press Communications petition asks the agency to ban program-originating boosters in “embedded metros” -- radio markets located within the boundaries of a larger market. Neither petition “shows a material error or omission” in the original order and so the FCC should reject them, GBS said. REC’s request would create a technical standard that would apply to all FM boosters and is outside the bounds of the geotargeted radio proceeding, GBS said. “To the extent that REC wishes the Commission to adopt a new rule to protect [low-power] FM stations from all FM boosters, a petition for reconsideration is clearly not the proper vehicle,” GBS said. The FCC “carefully considered and addressed concerns pertaining to stations in embedded markets in the Order,” and the Press petition doesn’t introduce new facts, GBS said. “The Commission should continue pressing forward with program-originating boosters and dismiss the petitions,” GBS said.
The House Commerce Committee will mark up an updated draft of the American Privacy Rights Act on Thursday, the office for Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., confirmed Friday, as expected (see 2406140036). Ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., and several members have sought changes to the bill, particularly on children’s privacy. The latest draft includes a new section with language from the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act 2.0, a change the bill sponsors, Reps. Kathy Castor, D-Fla., and Tim Walberg, R-Mich., have sought. The new draft includes updated definitions related to contextual and targeted advertising. Absent from the latest draft is a section about civil rights and algorithms that was included in the original draft proposal.
Five broadcasters filed for 21 new FM boosters to use for geotargeted radio, said GeoBroadcast Solutions in reply comments filed Monday (docket 20-401). GBS didn’t name the broadcasters but said the boosters are in geographically diverse markets, including Seattle; Jackson, Mississippi; and Fort Duchesne, Utah. “Our understanding is that more broadcasters will file soon,” GBS said. It told the FCC that interference safeguards for content-originating boosters that NAB and REC Networks proposed are “unnecessary or attempt to reopen technical issues already resolved in the Report and Order.” GBS also said the FCC doesn’t need to require geotargeted radio broadcasters to provide special notifications to the Federal Emergency Management Agency or other emergency alert participants. FCC rules requiring reporting to the emergency test reporting and state emergency alert systems already make that information available to FEMA and other EAS participants, GBS said. REC Networks said it remained skeptical about geotargeted radio technology and warned that it will hurt the radio industry. Content-originating FM boosters are “merely a way for GBS to take advantage of small minority broadcasters through their ‘zero up front’ method of financing the project” taking “minority station revenues off the top,” REC said. “Our bigger concern is to address the fact that FM Boosters provide absolutely no co-channel protection to incumbent facilities.” Minority-owned Roberts Radio told the FCC that the technology will create revenue for similar companies, but said the agency should eliminate EAS equipment requirements for FM boosters and allow more geotargeted content per hour. Increasing the three-minute-limit per hour to six would “double the effect of this opportunity, and still represent less than half the advertising time available on most commercial FM stations,” Roberts said. FM boosters used in geotargeted radio don’t need their own EAS equipment because they can repeat the signal from their main station, Roberts said. “Requiring program originating booster operators to install EAS equipment will impose significant and wholly unnecessary financial and technical burdens on the broadcasters that employ them.”
The FCC Enforcement Bureau denied a petition for reconsideration of a $25,000 forfeiture against Jupiter Community Radio, operator of WJUP-LP Jupiter, Florida, an order in Tuesday’s Daily Digest said. The original forfeiture order was issued for violations including failure to make the station available for FCC inspection and to maintain emergency alert system equipment. Jupiter appealed that order in 2022 seeking a reduction in the fine, saying that it was unable to pay and that it had addressed the issues with its EAS equipment. In April 2024, Enforcement Bureau agents tried to inspect the station but found it off the air, the order said. “An agent contacted Jupiter’s president to arrange an inspection of the Station’s facilities, but the president was uncooperative at the time and did not return the agent’s follow-up calls seeking access to the Station’s facilities to conduct an inspection,” Tuesday’s order said. Jupiter didn’t submit sufficient documentation to demonstrate an inability to pay, the EB said. “Coupled with Jupiter’s continued unwillingness to permit Bureau agents to inspect the Station, we find that the public interest does not favor granting the relief that Jupiter seeks.”
The FCC is increasingly leaning toward an "object-years" regulatory approach to space safety, experts say. But some warn of flaws in the approach. The agency is seeking input, due June 27, on its orbital debris open proceeding about using a 100 object-years benchmark -- a cap on the total cumulative time to deorbit failed satellites -- for assessing the risk of a constellation's derelict satellites (see 2405240005).
State lawmakers may be more inclined to pursue broadband affordability policies in the wake of recent FCC and court rulings as well as last month's ending of the federal affordable connectivity program (ACP), multiple telecom experts said last week. Connecticut Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff (D) told Communications Daily he hopes “these developments will lead to stronger support in 2025” for an affordable broadband proposal that failed this year. However, some anticipate ISPs will likely object, and fiscal constraints could limit states' efforts.
CTIA and other commenters raised concerns about an FCC notice seeking comment on rules for implementing multilingual wireless emergency alerts. Comments were due last week in dockets 15-91 and 15-94 on a notice from the FCC Public Safety Bureau (see 2405130047).
The FCC Media Bureau reaffirmed its dismissal of a petition from Alabama's Athens State University for a construction permit for a new low-power FM station. In a letter Thursday, the bureau said its staff correctly dismissed the application for not meeting co-channel and first-adjacent channel spacing requirements. It also rejected ASU's request for a waiver based on typographical errors in the application. "We agree that providing new locally-originated service is a laudable goal, however, the loss of LPFM service to Athens, unfortunately, was caused by Petitioner’s mistake, not by an erroneous or harsh Bureau approach to its Application," the bureau said.