The California Public Utilities Commission will weigh more disaster relief rules for communications providers in response to problems during recent public safety power shutoffs (PSPS), CPUC President Marybel Batjer said at a Wednesday hearing livestreamed from San Francisco. Many local officials and telco customers couldn’t attend the hearing due to another power shutoff Wednesday, the sixth in two months, she said. Commissioner Cliff Rechtschaffen dismissed carriers’ arguments they couldn’t anticipate extended power shutoffs.
Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
What is the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)?
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is the U.S. federal government’s regulatory agency for the majority of telecommunications activity within the country. The FCC oversees radio, television, telephone, satellite, and cable communications, and its primary statutory goal is to expand U.S. citizens’ access to telecommunications services.
The Commission is funded by industry regulatory fees, and is organized into 7 bureaus:
- Consumer & Governmental Affairs
- Enforcement
- Media
- Space
- Wireless Telecommunications
- Wireline Competition
- Public Safety and Homeland Security
As an agency, the FCC receives its high-level directives from Congressional legislation and is empowered by that legislation to establish legal rules the industry must follow.
Latest News from the FCC
It's good news that FCC Chairman Ajit Pai will seek a public auction of the C band next year, rather than endorse the C-Band Alliance plan (see 1911180065), Comcast said the day after the announcement Monday. Others said questions remain, though the FCC is likely to follow the outlines of Senate legislation introduced Monday. The Pai approach “will ensure that this valuable spectrum is put to use expeditiously for 5G in a manner consistent with the public interest, while also preserving the C-Band as a critical input for the delivery of video services,” Comcast told the FCC Tuesday, in a docket 18-122 filing.
SAN ANTONIO -- Verizon in particular and cable and telco industries generally took heat from consumer advocates and others for what they contend are lagging service quality and/or rising prices. The providers don’t face enough competition, aren’t building out broadband as quickly as possible and/or don't always meet their commitments, the advocates and others said in interviews Tuesday. They spoke on the sidelines of the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates conference in the same hotel as NARUC, and on a panel (see 10:05 a.m. Tuesday).
The Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council will hold its third meeting Dec. 10, said a Tuesday notice in the Federal Register. The meeting begins at 1 p.m. in the Commission Meeting Room.
SAN ANTONIO -- The FCC seems poised to allow unlicensed devices including Wi-Fi to use at least part of the 6 GHz band that utilities and some others occupy to monitor infrastructure like power grids. Even though utilities and state telecom regulators have concerns about that approach, the federal regulator seems ready to act in coming months, said stakeholders on all sides that we spoke with on the sidelines of NARUC.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai will circulate an order seeking approval of a public auction of 280 MHz of C-band spectrum in 2020, for a vote early in the new year, FCC officials said Monday. The order won't be on the agenda for the Dec. 12 commissioners’ meeting. The decision is considered a huge loss for the C-Band Alliance, which pressed for a private auction (see 1911150046). President Donald Trump called Pai Oct. 30 to find out more about the C band but didn’t express a view the FCC should hold a public auction, FCC officials said. Pai unveiled the decision in a letter Monday to leaders in Congress.
West Virginia pole attachment rules should let states opt out of automatically adopting changes to federal rules, Public Service Commission staff replied in docket GO 261. The PSC is weighing rules after the state reverse pre-empts FCC authority (see 1911080016). Staff agreed with an opt out suggested by fiber company Segra, but disagreed with the West Virginia Cable Telecommunications Association’s suggestion to tweak wording of a rule on the utility’s burden when arguing a proposed rate is below its incremental costs. Don’t adopt changes proposed by power companies, including the FCC definition for pole attachment, telecom rate formula and self-help remedy, staff said. In other Thursday replies, WVCTA, CTIA and Frontier Communications also opposed the utilities’ ideas.
Reed Smith hires from Arent Fox Sarah Bruno as partner-global intellectual property, tech and data, and Casey Perrino as associate-data privacy and security counseling ... Subject Matter adds Bill Ghent, ex-The Lugar-Hellmann Group, to government relations team, including tech focus ... K2 Intelligence names former Rep. Dan Donovan, R-N.Y., senior adviser.
State and federal officials vote this week on policies to advance IP captioned telephone services that offer speech captioning through internet-based communications for use by the deaf or hard of hearing. NARUC members at their conference in San Antonio will consider a resolution that would ask the FCC to adopt service quality standards for all IP CTS providers before migrating to exclusively automated speech recognition (ASR) services (see 1911050040).
Jobs remain an issue in T-Mobile's buying Sprint, stakeholders agreed. They differ on whether the deal would lead to more employment or hurt unionization. At the Capitol Forum Thursday and in Q&A with us, those for and against the deal expanded on existing policy positions. Topics included rollout of attorneys general backing the transaction after reaching pacts for the combined company to locate jobs in their states.