Election Day hasn't brought sweeping telecom regulation changes in state races, although there will be a revamp in one state. And a key state regulator will continue in her job.
Voters greenlit a sequel to the California Consumer Privacy Act, as expected. Opponents conceded Wednesday.
The FCC could be ignoring wireless RF dangers due to industry influence, a New Hampshire commission reported Sunday to Gov. Chris Sununu (R) and House and Senate leaders. CTIA and two others disagreed with 10 members on the commission, whose 15 recommendations included a national study, required warnings and new restrictions on wireless deployments. “Some balance can be struck to achieve the benefits of technology without jeopardizing" health, the majority said.
The FCC should end more than a decade of indecision about giving states access to the network outage reporting system (NORS), said current and former state commissioners in interviews last week. NARUC will vote at its annual meeting Thursday-Friday and Nov. 9-11 on proposed resolutions asking the FCC to grant a 2009 California Public Utilities Commission petition to share NORS information and urging state legislatures to authorize commissions to reduce intrastate inmate calling service (ICS) rates to cost-based prices. NARUC will consider the resolutions just days after a presidential election that might change control of the FCC in 2021.
More than broadband disparity delays precision agriculture, said an FCC Precision Agriculture Task Force member. Many talented agriculturists, scientists and engineers work on precision ag, but “what seems to be lacking is overall coordination across all entities,” said Fifth Estate Growers farmer Andy Bater. “Everyone is rowing awfully hard, but the precision agriculture boat would move faster if the oars dipped into the water at the same time.” It needs “coordination and funding at a scale seldom seen in modern times, a Manhattan Project-level effort,” he said. The task force reviewed three interim reports Wednesday, as well as recommendations from working groups on mapping and analyzing connectivity on agricultural lands, current and future connectivity demand for precision agriculture, and spurring precision ag adoption and connected-farm jobs. It discussed but didn’t plan to vote on the work of a fourth WG about speeding broadband deployment on unserved agricultural lands. With the task force one year into a two-year charter, Wednesday’s virtual meeting was a “midterm report,” with recommendations preliminary, said Chair Teddy Bekele, chief technology officer for Land O’Lakes. The task force will spend most of next year tightening and seeking synergy among recommendations, he said. Among preliminary recommendations, the connectivity WG suggested asking the FCC to include $500 million from the $9 billion 5G Fund for edge computing, private wireless systems and precision ag applications. It should also provide incentives, with accountability, for providers to cover fields and pasturelands with high-speed, low-latency wireless coverage, the subgroup said. “Getting connectivity ... to just a farmhouse is a bridge halfway on this initiative. We absolutely need to cover every acre of land,” said Connectivity WG Chair Daniel Leibfried, a technology director at John Deere. Apply the broadband serviceable location fabric to the Agriculture Department's National Agricultural Statistics Service and U.S. Geological Survey national land cover database to map coverage in cultivated land and agricultural areas, suggested the Mapping WG. Do drive testing and "ground truthing" to check coverage, it said. The subpanel will talk next year about adding a topological layer to maps, said WG Chair Michael Adelaine, South Dakota State University vice president-technology and security. “Terrain could be very impactful.”
Don’t spend state USF money where there's at least one unsubsidized provider, cable and wireless industries commented Monday in docket UM 2040 at the Oregon Public Utility Commission. Don't give support to any census block with at least one unsubsidized provider of voice or that was awarded federal or state high-cost or broadband funding, said the Oregon Cable Telecommunications Association. “The presence of an unsubsidized competitor should render an area ineligible for high cost support,” CTIA commented. The Oregon Telecommunications Association disagreed. Requiring OUSF only in areas without unsubsidized competition is "a premise that has no basis in statute,” it said. State law requires support "be provided to eligible telecommunications carriers in an amount that is equal to the difference between the cost of providing basic telephone service and the bench mark less any explicit compensation received by the carrier from federal sources specifically used to recover local loop costs and less any explicit support received by the carrier from a federal universal service program.” The Oregon Citizens’ Utility Board urged “a clearer understanding of competition from unsubsidized services and their potential impact on subsidized services.”
Giving laptops and hot spots to students who lack good internet won’t solve distance learning problems exacerbated by COVID-19, state and local officials said Monday. The California Senate Education Committee and the Special Committee on Pandemic Emergency Response jointly held a hearing Monday about online learning gaps. Earlier in the day at the virtual Mountain Connect conference, Chattanooga public and private officials said they’re using municipal broadband to provide free fiber internet to students in low-income households.
The Supreme Court should broadly read the Telephone Consumer Protection Act to protect consumers from unwanted robocalls, said an amicus brief Friday by a bipartisan coalition of 37 states and Washington, D.C. The AGs urged the court to uphold the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ decision in Duguid v. Facebook. Facebook’s “cramped interpretation would hamper State efforts to enforce the TCPA and to protect consumers from illegal calls” and “allow robocallers to easily evade the statute’s prohibitions,” the states said. The Electronic Privacy Information Center and a group of legal scholars and technical experts said the type of autodialer used makes no difference in whether TCPA applies: It's "an important tool to limit the overwhelming privacy invasions caused by these unwanted automated calls, and the ban should be interpreted in a way that actually limits mass dialing without user consent.” Capitol Hill Democrats also urged the Supreme Court to uphold the 9th Circuit ruling (see 2010220064). The court received other amicus briefs supporting the 9th Circuit decision by Columbia University professor and former FCC Chief Technology Officer Henning Schulzrinne and two consumers. Facebook filed a motion Friday to allocate 15 of its 30 minutes at Dec. 8 oral argument to DOJ, supporting Facebook.
Election watchers expect California to revamp its state privacy law through a Nov. 3 ballot vote. The replacement for the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) could have national ramifications, experts told us. If voters agree, the proposed California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), or Proposition 24, would take effect Jan. 1, 2023. “The one-two punch here for the biggest platforms would be CPRA passing and Democrats sweeping the elections,” said Cowen analyst Paul Gallant.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied en banc rehearing to utilities and local governments challenging 2018 FCC wireless infrastructure orders on small cells and local moratoriums. Challengers may opt to appeal to the Supreme Court. A three-judge panel in August mostly supported the FCC decisions, prompting September requests for rehearing by the full circuit (see 2009290047). Circuit Judges Mary Schroeder, Jay Bybee and Daniel Bress voted to deny one petition by American Electric Power and Southern Co., and supported denying another petition by the American Public Power Association, said Thursday’s order (in Pacer). Bress voted to grant the petition by Portland, Oregon, and other locals, but Schroeder and Bybee recommended denying it. “We were pleased Judge Bress voted to grant rehearing, but disappointed the Ninth Circuit did not take up the petition,” emailed Joseph Van Eaton, who represented Portland and several other localities. APPA is "reviewing the decision and conferring with members and counsel on next steps," a spokesperson said. The FCC is pleased the court denied rehearing and won’t disturb the agency’s 5G infrastructure actions, a spokesperson said. Thursday's decision "reaffirms a great win for the industry that will provide certainty and will help expedite 5G across the country," said a Wireless Infrastructure Association spokesperson. AEP didn’t comment.