There's broad support for finding more spectrum for mobile broadband, including in the UHF band, as the World Radiocommunication Conference gets ready to start next week in Geneva, the GSM Association said Thursday. “The GSMA is particularly encouraged by the importance that many governments have placed on ensuring flexibility for the UHF (sub-700 MHz) band, which has historically been used for TV broadcasting and is increasingly critical for meeting rapidly growing demand for mobile broadband from citizens and businesses around the world,” said John Giusti, GSMA chief regulatory officer. “The way we view video content is changing and mobile broadband is playing an ever more significant role in providing consumers with video when and where they want it.” New digital broadcasting technologies mean some TV spectrum can be freed up for broadband, said Giusti, former acting chief of the FCC International Bureau. Giusti said GSMA sees movement on the UHF band in the U.S., as well as Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Canada, Colombia, Mexico, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand. “By planning ahead now, countries that identify mobile allocations at WRC-15 will ensure they have the flexibility to satisfy future mobile data demand of their citizens,” Giusti said. “The more countries that support a band, the greater the possibility for global harmonisation, offering substantial economies of scale, reducing interference along country borders and delivering cost benefits for consumers.” NAB fired back. “GSMA’s talking points are tired and simply don't reflect any facts on the ground," an NAB spokesman said. "If the GSMA is looking for underused spectrum, it should look at its own bands."

The FCC urged a court to dismiss or deny Neustar’s challenge to an order giving Telcordia conditional rights to be the next local number portability administrator. Neustar, the incumbent LNPA, was simply outbid by Telcordia, the commission said in its brief responding to Neustar’s opening brief (see 1509210040) in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (Neustar v. FCC, No. 15-1080). The FCC said it held an “open, transparent and lawful” bidding process involving an industry consortium and a federal advisory committee. “The Commission acted reasonably and within its statutory mandate ... in approving the recommendation of its Advisory Committee that the industry consortium negotiate with Telcordia to complete a contract for it to become the new Administrator,” the FCC brief said. “Neustar lost this competition not because of any error by the Commission but because its bid was substantially inferior to Telcordia’s.” (Parts of the brief were redacted.) The FCC said Neustar’s challenge was premature because Telcordia was still negotiating the contract and the agency decision wasn't final. The commission also said the Telcordia decision satisfied a statutory requirement for an impartial LNPA, which oversees individuals and businesses switching carriers 100,000 times a day while keeping their phone numbers. The FCC disputed Neustar arguments that Telcordia directors’ fiduciary duties to corporate parent Ericsson precluded its selection. “Those fiduciaries have the duty to ensure that Telcordia does not violate the law -- including the neutrality requirements,” said the commission, saying it imposed or endorsed numerous contract conditions: “Ericsson must create a voting trust, with trustees subject to FCC approval, and to place all of its Telcordia stock in that trust,” and Telcordia must have an independent board majority and segregate numbering administration from other operations, among other safeguards. The FCC also disputed as “absurd” a Neustar argument that the agency acted “arbitrarily or capriciously in refusing to consider Neustar’s 'second best and final offer,’" which wasn't mandated by a request for proposal. The FCC reasonably concluded “a ‘best and final offer’ is just that: final,” it said. The agency said it reasonably accounted for transition costs and said Neustar’s “inflated claims” were contradicted in the record and would have the effect of giving the incumbent an advantage.

Indonesia will need to address certain localization practices, especially in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector, to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) Global Policy Director Ed Brzytwa said in a blog post Wednesday. Indonesian President Joko Widodo met with President Barack Obama Monday and expressed his interest in joining the TPP. Brzytwa said Indonesia tends to favor local companies and industries over foreign competitors in the ICT space and will need to change certain practices, including a new data localization requirement, to join the TPP. "The data localization requirement will impose higher costs on local companies, especially on small and medium sized enterprises," wrote Brzytwa. "It will also raise costs for U.S.-headquartered companies operating in Indonesia, as well as Indonesian businesses and consumers, undermining Indonesia’s global and regional competitiveness." ITI would "strongly support" including an affirmative statement in Indonesia's Digital Economy 2020 vision that it will avoid and roll back all forced localization measures, Brzytwa said. ITI will engage with Indonesian officials to find more trade and investment friendly approaches in order to meet its objectives, he said.

Google, Microsoft and several cable, Wi-Fi and wireless networking industry representatives are pushing the FCC on creation of standards and tests to ensure Wi-Fi/LTE-U coexistence. "LTE-U has avoided the long-proven standards-setting process" and runs the risk of degrading Wi-Fi service, they said in an ex parte filing posted Wednesday in docket 15-105, pointing to CableLabs and Google interference testing. Meanwhile, the LTE-U specification lacks sufficient interference safeguards because of its unconstrained duty cycling, lack of coordination among LTE-U carriers and its impairment to consumer network selection, they said. The solution is for LTE-U backers "to work through internationally recognized, open and transparent standards-setting organizations" to help set those standards and tests, they said. The filing recapped a meeting between FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and representatives of Arris, Bright House Networks, Broadcom, CableLabs, Cablevision, Charter Communications, Comcast, Google, Microsoft, Ruckus Wireless and Time Warner Cable. Broadcom, Google and Ruckus also signed a letter to the FCC last week urging the agency to adopt "straightforward rules of [LTE-U] device eligibility" (see 1510220028). Scott Bergmann, CTIA vice president-regulatory affairs, responded that the wireless industry also relies heavily on Wi-Fi and is "committed" to innovation in unlicensed spectrum. "We should all welcome technologies that will help address the continued increase in consumer demands for wireless broadband anytime, anywhere," he said. "As testing has repeatedly shown, LTE in the unlicensed bands coexists with Wi-Fi and will benefit consumers."

Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and members of the FCC Connect2Health Task Force told the Beyond the Beltway series event in Detroit Wednesday of the value connected health services can have for individuals and communities. Clyburn and members of a panel cited challenges faced by many communities of a lack of digital inclusion, as well as the need for more investment in connecting individuals to the Internet. "Let's face the facts ... there are a lot of challenges to our communities in terms of opportunities," Clyburn said. "Just about every investment" in broadband expansion and various connected services, including connected health platforms, is going to pay some dividends, she said. Chris Gibbons, Connect2Health Task Force scholar in residence, said people are relying on more than just doctors and nurses to get well and stay healthy. Individuals value what doctors and healthcare providers have to say, but often they can't get to them, Gibbons said, saying the future of healthcare is going to look very different from how it does now. Gibbons also said the U.S. is making "no systematic improvement[s]" in all recognized disparities being measured over a 10-year period, and that environments are powerful determinants of opportunities in healthcare. Clyburn and FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler met with local leaders yesterday in Detroit (see 1510270062).

Broadcasters considering participating in the reverse auction must begin planning now to have their forms in order by the Dec. 18 short-form application deadline, said Fletcher Heald attorneys Davina Sashkin and Ashley Ludlow in a post on the firm’s blog Monday. Broadcasters should also realize that some bids “will shrink, perhaps dramatically” over the course of the auction, the blog post said. “While some stations on some channels in some markets may not encounter such shrinkage, they will likely be in a slim minority,” said the blog post. “Would-be participants should be prepared to deal with eventual bids well below the tempting numbers dangled by the Commission to encourage participation.” Broadcasters should also take advantage of the commission’s planned mock auctions, the blog post said. “While the FCC has reportedly made extensive efforts to simplify the auction mechanics, whether or not those efforts have been successful remains to be seen. The best way -- and, perhaps, the only way -- to check that out will be to participate in the mock auction.”

The FCC can’t solve the problems of the digital divide on its own, said Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and Chairman Tom Wheeler in a Tuesday blog post about their meeting with Detroit local leaders at the city’s Henry Ford Innovation Institute. “If we ever hope to achieve universal broadband in the United States, we will need a concerted effort from private sector leaders, the public interest community, and government officials at all levels,” said the blog post. Low-income residents of Detroit without internet access miss out on savings available to those who do have broadband, Clyburn said. People who can’t get online also don’t enjoy health benefits from tech like remote monitoring, the blog post said. Efforts the FCC is taking to address the problem include E-rate modernization and the Connect America Fund, the blog said. “Looking ahead, we spoke about the need to reboot the Commission’s Lifeline program for the Internet age, which will help connect low-income Americans.”

Two Democratic appointees and one Republican were named to the three-judge panel to hear oral argument Dec. 4 on challenges to the FCC's net neutrality and broadband reclassification decision. An order Tuesday of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit identified the judges as David Tatel and Sri Srinivasan, both Democratic appointees, and Senior Judge Stephen Williams, a Republican appointee. Tatel has ruled both for and against the FCC in previous net neutrality cases. The order also set a format that appears to track the joint proposal submitted by most industry petitioners and the government respondents (see 1510230066). The court did not accept the proposal of Full Service Network to be included in the main discussion of the legality of the FCC's reclassification of broadband Internet access service under Title II of the Communications Act (see 1510260031). The case is USTelecom v. FCC, No. 15-1063.

AT&T, CenturyLink, Frontier and Verizon asked the FCC to modify special-access rulemaking protective orders to allow parties to use confidential industry data from that proceeding in the Wireline Bureau’s recently opened tariff investigation into ILEC contract terms and conditions. Meanwhile, Fred Campbell, executive director of the Center for Boundless Innovation in Technology, suggested FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler had opened the bureau tariff investigation to gain more control over the special-access process than in the commission-level rulemaking. But an FCC spokesman said the commission would have to vote on the bureau investigation to act. In opening the tariff probe, the bureau used the data "to draw preliminary conclusions related to this investigation,” the four large incumbent telcos said in a motion posted Monday in docket 05-25. But they said the protective order terms prevent parties from using the rulemaking data in the tariff investigation despite the data likely including "relevant information about the state of competition" and the relationships to ILEC contract terms. “These data are therefore necessary to the ILECs’ defense in the tariff investigation, and the Commission should accordingly modify the protective orders,” the four incumbent telcos said. ILEC critics Incompas and Sprint didn't comment. In a Forbes commentary, Campbell said, “The FCC claims ‘a more systematic inquiry’ into telephone companies’ pricing plans is necessary to determine their reasonableness. But the FCC’s framework for this tariff investigation is so sloppy and unsystematic that the outcome appears to have been predetermined.” Instead of examining all the issues in one proceeding, Campbell said, the use of a tariff investigation gives Wheeler “the power to exercise unilateral control over the FCC’s approach to regulating special access” while “obscuring the agency’s discriminatory approach to such regulation.” Campbell said the rulemaking will require a commission majority to adopt an order, but the bureau “has delegated authority to issue orders involving tariffs, and the chairman controls” the bureau. Wheeler's authority to act unilaterally on telco tariffs "gives him leverage to control the outcome of the broader rulemaking,” Campbell said. The FCC spokesman said the bureau won't decide the investigation and pointed us to the first paragraph of the order, which said the bureau "intends to gather sufficient information to enable the full Commission to decide whether and how to resolve these allegations." In response, Campbell said intent was not the same as a binding order. "If they’re absolutely going to stand behind a commission-level vote 100 percent, OK, but until there’s something unequivocal to that effect, I don’t think it changes my analysis at all,” he told us.

Full Service Network (FSN) proposed its own format for net neutrality oral argument Dec. 4 at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (USTelecom v. FCC 15-1063). In their proposal Friday, FSN and allies said they were unable to reach agreement with other industry petitioners (USTelecom and allies) and government respondents (the Department of Justice and FCC), which had submitted a joint proposal for the format (see 1510230066). “The other petitioners and Respondents have an obvious common interest in minimizing the prominence and discussion of the substantive legal arguments in [our] brief,” FSN said. The joint proposal “minimizes FSN’s time,” giving it only 10 minutes, “and excludes it from discussion of a key issue,” said FSN, referring to the legality of the FCC’s reclassification of broadband access under Title II of the Communications Act (previously it was under Title I). FSN said its attorney, Earl Comstock of Eckert Seamans, should be given 20 minutes: 10 minutes, as part of the main reclassification arguments, to make its case that the statute dictated Title II for broadband and 10 minutes to argue the FCC should not have given broadband ISPs forbearance deregulation from much of Title II. “Both FSN and USTelecom argue that the plain language of the Act determines the classification, but with different end results,” FSN said (USTelecom argues the statute precluded Title II reclassification). The DOJ and FCC argue the statute is ambiguous and allows the commission to reasonably reclassify broadband under Title II. The joint proposal’s approach “would be inefficient and result in the Court having to hear the [reclassification] issue twice,” FSN said, while “hearing all three parties’ positions at the same time will facilitate the Court’s understanding.” FSN's 120-minute proposal would allocate 35 minutes to USTelecom, 20 minutes to FSN and five minutes combined to Alamo Broadband and Daniel Berninger (to raise their free-speech challenge), with the DOJ/FCC receiving 60 minutes to respond. That time breakdown “roughly” tracks the court-ordered breakdown of word limits in briefs, FSN said. Joining FSN in the litigation are Sage Telecommunications, Telscape Communications and Truconnect Mobile. One of the three judges hearing the case will decide on the format, according to the D.C. Circuit’s procedural handbook, with the composition of the panel usually revealed 30 days before oral argument (in this case, that would be Nov. 4).