CTIA sued to strike down a Berkeley, California, ordinance that requires retailers to make "unsubstantiated and false statements about the alleged effects of cellphones, which would contradict the findings from independent health and scientific organizations," said the association in a Monday news release. Berkeley's City Council May 26 unanimously adopted an ordinance, Requiring Notice Concerning Radio Frequency Exposure of Cell Phones, No. 7,404-N.S., the filing said. The ordinance says the disclosures and warnings that accompany cellphones generally advise consumers not to wear them against their bodies, but the disclosures and warnings often are buried in fine print and not written in easily understood language, or are accessible only by looking for the information on the device itself, the lawsuit said. The ordinance requires cellphone retailers to give all customers who buy or lease a cellphone a notice that warns of the dangers as follows: "To assure safety, the Federal Government requires that cell phones meet radio frequency (RF) exposure guidelines. If you carry or use your phone in a pants or shirt pocket or tucked into a bra when the phone is ON and connected to a wireless network, you may exceed the federal guidelines for exposure to RF radiation. This potential risk is greater for children. Refer to the instructions in your phone or user manual for information about how to use your phone safely." The FCC has said it's confident the federal government's conservative health and safety standards for cellphones fully protect public health, CTIA said. Leading global health organizations such as the American Cancer Society, National Cancer Institute, World Health Organization and the Food and Drug Administration all concurred that wireless devices are not a public health risk, it said. "Berkeley's Ordinance plainly violates the First Amendment," said CTIA's representing counsel Theodore Olson, of Gibson Dunn. "The ordinance also unlawfully interferes with FCC regulations and contradicts the federal government's determination -- based on extensive scientific evidence -- that cellphones approved for sale in the United States do not pose a public health risk. It is unconstitutional to force cellphone retailers to communicate false, misleading and inflammatory information about their products. It is unfortunate that Berkeley would incite unfounded public anxiety and fear about a product that is so important to its citizens' everyday lives." The association had previously won a fight against San Francisco’s cellphone labeling law (see report in the Sept. 11, 2012, issue). The Berkeley City Council did not have an immediate comment Monday.

Correction: A declaratory ruling allows Pandora to acquire a station even though it couldn't prove it had less than 25 percent foreign ownership, and requires it to seek FCC approval to go over 49 percent foreign ownership (see 1506020035).

AT&T voluntarily committed to file periodic reports to the FCC to verify that it isn't using Connect America Fund USF subsidies to support new broadband service enabled by its proposed takeover of DirecTV, said an AT&T ex parte letter posted Tuesday in docket 14-90. AT&T noted it was so confident of deal-related savings and synergies that it already had committed to expand and enhance high-speed Internet service to 15 million customer locations, mostly in areas where it currently doesn't offer broadband access, the filing said. AT&T said it wouldn't use CAF support to pay for these deployments, though it would use those funds to go beyond the 15 million-location commitment. "To allow the Commission to monitor AT&T’s broadband deployment, AT&T will voluntarily commit to submit to the Commission, for four years following the date the merger closes, periodic progress reports on the status of its broadband deployment commitment," the filing said. "These reports will verify that locations built to fulfill AT&T’s merger commitment are not funded with CAF. AT&T will submit its first progress report within six months after the merger’s closing. Thereafter, AT&T will submit a progress report 90 days after each anniversary of the merger’s closing." Meanwhile, Comptel met with FCC officials Friday about their concerns with the AT&T/DirecTV deal, said an ex parte filing also posted Tuesday. Comptel backed transaction conditions proposed by Cox and the American Cable Association to prevent AT&T/DirecTV from entering into programming contracts with "unreasonable volume discounts" that disadvantage competitors or from using its influence with programmers to interfere with the rates, terms and conditions they offer to competitors. Comptel also said it backed interconnection conditions proposed by Cogent and others, and said the FCC should bar AT&T/DirecTV "from charging terminating access fees or using broadband data caps" in a way that would harm the development and availability of online video programming.

NTIA missed an opportunity in not assessing which approaches to broadband adoption were the most effective while various Broadband Technologies Opportunities Program projects were in progress, GAO said in a report released Tuesday. “NTIA and FCC have limited information about the performance of their broadband adoption efforts and have not established goals articulating the outcomes these efforts should achieve,” GAO said. “Because BTOP has concluded, NTIA missed an opportunity to evaluate which grantees’ approaches were the most effective.” The FCC and NTIA both have programs to address broadband adoption barriers, “but it is unclear what outcomes they intend to achieve with these efforts because FCC’s strategic plan and NTIA’s performance plan do not clearly communicate the agencies’ desired outcomes for their efforts to address broadband adoption barriers,” GAO said. NTIA said in response it would “seek to develop outcome-based measures if it received funding for broadband adoption grants,” GAO said. The FCC also responded. “FCC states that to the extent that its strategic plan is unclear on the role of broadband adoption in FCC’s efforts, it is prepared to implement revisions that will help clarify this issue,” GAO said.

The Communications Workers of America urged the FCC to require Verizon and Frontier to submit more information about Verizon's proposed sale to Frontier of local wireline systems in California, Florida and Texas, according to an ex parte filing posted Friday in docket 15-44 on a meeting CWA officials had with FCC staffers. In its filing, CWA said because state regulators have no authority in Florida and only limited authority in Texas, regulatory oversight of the deal affecting 6 million customers "falls heavily on the shoulders of the FCC." Because Verizon and Frontier hadn't given the FCC the information it needs to do its public-interest review, CWA said, the FCC should issue a comprehensive data request to the applicants for more information on: (1) Verizon FiOS and other broadband deployment and upgrade plans for the lines subject to the deal; (2) retail and wholesale service performance, including Frontier's staffing plans for the next five years; (3) the claimed synergies producing $700 million in savings; (4) Frontier financial and operational projections; (5) the details of the planned conversion of Verizon's operations to Frontier's systems; (6) Verizon's transition commitments to engage in capital spending and marketing prior to close of the deal; (7) employment ramifications, including job projections for the next four years; and (8) the transfer of assets and liabilities from Verizon to Frontier, including customer accounts, network assets, equipment, job functions, job titles and pensions. A Frontier spokeswoman wouldn't comment on the CWA filing. A Verizon spokesman didn't respond to our queries.

SES Americom continues to push against expanding the use of unlicensed national information infrastructure (U-NII) devices in the 5.9 GHz band, as company officials met with FCC representatives to discuss it, SES said in an ex parte filing posted Friday regarding docket 13-49. U-NII devices in the 5.9 GHz band could lead to "harmful cumulative interference" to fixed satellite service operations, SES said. The FCC also needs to consider how using U-NII devices in that piece of spectrum might affect satellite service, or that the IEEE had so far not inspected fixed satellite service operations in looking at that spectrum sharing. In a related filing posted Monday, Paul Nikolich, IEEE 802 committee chair, said a "Tiger Team" looking at spectrum sharing between wireless local access networks and dedicated short-range communications had "examined some initial ideas for how band sharing could work." Nikolich also pointed the FCC to further documents about future testing that needs to be done to ensure 5.9 GHz band sharing will insulate dedicated short-range communications transmissions from interference.

Free Press, New America's Open Technology Institute and Public Knowledge again urged the FCC to impose various requirements on AT&T's planned buy of DirecTV as conditions for approving the deal, said an ex parte filing posted Friday in docket 14-90 of a meeting their representatives had with staffers for Commissioner Mignon Clyburn. The groups' advocates repeated concerns about the "transaction’s impact on consumers and competition in the broadband and pay-TV markets -- particularly AT&T’s increased incentives to discriminate against over-the-top ('OTT') video marketplace rivals to AT&T’s legacy video services." While the groups believe the deal should be blocked, they urged the FCC to impose conditions in numerous areas: stand-alone broadband, net neutrality, interconnection and zero-rating of video services for data cap purposes. They also said the FCC should (1) be skeptical of -- and verify -- AT&T/DirecTV claims that the deal would deliver public-interest benefits, (2) ensure the deal does no harm to the agency's IP transition efforts and (3) require AT&T to maintain existing DirecTV video service tiers and pricing plans for seven years in order to address horizontal concentration in the multichannel video programming distribution market. AT&T recently filed a lengthy response disputing the arguments of public-interest groups and others seeking conditions on interconnection, data caps and other issues (see 1505270049).

The Wi-Fi Alliance is pushing back at assertions that terrestrial low-power service (TLPS) for broadband will alleviate traffic congestion for Wi-Fi users, calling such claims “inaccurate and misleading.” In a filing posted Wednesday in RM-11685, Alliance CEO Edgar Figueroa said the claim that using the 2473-2495 MHz band in TLPS would widen the Wi-Fi highway doesn't fly because there are no FCC-approved devices that would work on the proposed TLPS network. “There is no evidence that TLPS will be anything but a private, stand-alone, low-power network,” Figueroa said. “Unless Wi-Fi users pay for the privilege of accessing TLPS, they will have no additional spectrum on which to operate their Wi-Fi devices.” In fact, Figueroa said, TLPS could cause interference to Wi-Fi devices: “The very limited technical evaluation that has occurred to date has been rushed and constrained, and the results are inconclusive.” Globalstar has been lobbying for rules that would let it use its TLPS for broadband, arguing that it would ease Wi-Fi congestion. The Wi-Fi Alliance is among an array of industry groups that have raised concerns about TLPS, including the Bluetooth Special Interest Group, CEA, the Entertainment Software Association, NCTA, New America’s Open Technology Institute, Public Knowledge and the Wireless ISP Association (see 1505220048). In a statement Friday, Globalstar said those concerns "are rooted solely by anti-competitive motivations." The company in March said it "agreed to demonstrate the ability for TLPS to peacefully coexist with incumbent unlicensed operations and the opposition groups were also given a platform to showcase their results, followed by characterization testing at an FCC laboratory. The opposition was given the chance to demonstrate any technical basis for their concerns in a real-world environment. The results from this demonstration were clear and fully supportive of Globalstar’s contentions. Even the opposition’s own results, with an extreme and unrealistic network that was constructed with the sole purpose of trying to somehow show interference, failed to support their purported concerns. As there is no sound engineering support for the other side’s expressed concerns, in a process that has been open for public comment for over two and a half years, it is clear that the opposition is working only to suppress new and innovative entrants like Globalstar and TLPS."

A report on “Cybersecurity Risk Management and Best Practices” from the FCC Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council is “the most comprehensive Framework implementation proposal for any industry to date,” CTIA said in comments on a public notice on the framework. “The Report goes beyond merely offering guidance for reducing cybersecurity risk to critical infrastructure, enterprises, and consumers; it provides detailed, scalable recommendations designed to apply to each segment of the communications industry.” The Telecommunications Industry Association also said the report is on the right track. “This report not only provides guidance to communications sector stakeholders, but also serves as a model for industry members and policymakers globally, and reinforces the success of the voluntary public-private partnership model which TIA and many others advocate as the most effective means to improve cybersecurity for critical infrastructure,” TIA said. Comments were due Friday on the PN, released by the Public Safety Bureau March 19. The comments were filed in docket 15-68.

Despite AT&T's pushback, Cogent continues to urge the FCC to impose an interconnection condition on any approval of the AT&T/DirecTV transaction, according to a May 27 Cogent ex parte filing in docket 14-90. During a teleconference with Gigi Sohn, counselor to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, Cogent CEO Dave Schaeffer and others repeated Cogent's belief that "AT&T-created congestion at interconnection ports" continued to result in "degraded broadband experiences for its customers," the filing said. They also said AT&T's proposed buy of DirecTV and its video distribution business will increase its incentive to use its ability to "impair broadband Internet access." "Accordingly, we emphasized the need for a clear, robust and enforceable interconnection condition as a prerequisite to a determination that the proposed transaction comports with the public interest," the filing said. "In particular, Mr. Schaeffer underscored the need for a durable interconnection solution that not only solves congestion today, but ensures that as broadband usage continues on its upward trajectory congestion will not reappear in short order." AT&T recently disputed in detail the arguments of Cogent and others for an interconnection condition (see 1505270049.