The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral argument on an industry coalition's challenge of the FCC's net neutrality order Oct. 31 at 8:30 a.m. ET (see 2408140043). The court will list the assigned judges sitting on the panel two weeks prior to argument, a letter filed Monday said (docket 24-7000).

AT&T will pay $950,000 and implement a three-year compliance plan to resolve an FCC Enforcement Bureau investigation of an Aug. 22, 2023, 911 outage affecting parts of Illinois, Kansas, Texas and Wisconsin, the FCC said Monday. The outage lasted an hour and 14 minutes and resulted in more than 400 failed 911 calls, the agency said. AT&T “violated FCC rules by failing to deliver 911 calls to, and failing to timely notify, 911 call centers in connection” to the outage, the FCC found. The FCC said the outage occurred during testing parts of the carrier’s 911 network. A contractor technician “inadvertently disabled a portion of the network, and AT&T’s system did not automatically adjust to accommodate the disabled portion of the network, resulting in the outage.” The testing wasn’t associated with planned maintenance and “did not undergo the stringent technical review that would have otherwise been conducted.” Service providers “have an obligation to transmit 911 calls and notify 911 call centers of outages in a timely manner,” said FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel: “Our rules are designed to protect the public and ensure that public safety officials can inform consumers of alternate ways to reach emergency services in the event of an outage.” AT&T understands “the importance of having critical access to 911,” a spokesperson said in an email: “We’ve resolved this matter and are committed to keeping our customers connected in times they need it most.”

Oral argument in the Minnesota Telecom Alliance's challenge of the FCC's digital discrimination rules in the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (see 2408220015) will take place on Sept. 25, said an order Friday (docket 24-1179). Judges James Loken, Duane Benton and Steven Grasz will hear the case.

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, didn’t mention broadband or other telecom issues in her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention Thursday evening. However, she promised global leadership on “space and artificial intelligence.” Harris said she would ensure “that America, not China, wins the competition for the 21st Century.” She also called out her Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump, over “his explicit intent to jail journalists” and political opponents. Trump has repeatedly called for FCC action against media companies for their "fake" reporting (see 2401170050). Harris also mentioned the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 plan: “We know what a second Trump term would look like. It’s all laid out in Project 2025, written by his closest advisers.” FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr is identified as the principal author of the FCC chapter in Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, the book laying out Project 2025’s plan for a second Trump administration. Commissioner Nathan Simington is credited as a contributor. Trump has repeatedly disavowed connection to Project 2025, though he has also publicly embraced Heritage's effort. In a Truth Social post during Harris’ speech he wrote: “LYING AGAIN ABOUT PROJECT 2025, WHICH SHE KNOWS, AND SO DO ALL DEMOCRATS, THAT I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH!”

FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez hasn’t expressed an opinion on edge providers contributing to the Universal Service Fund (see 2408190056). She has expressed interest in the work of the bicameral, bipartisan USF working group, which includes the concept of assessing digital advertising services and enterprise-oriented data services, such as cloud services.

Lingo Telecom will pay a $1 million fine and implement a "historic compliance plan" under a settlement with the FCC following an investigation of spoofed generative AI robocalls. Lingo transmitted spoofed robocalls using AI-generated voice cloning technology that spread disinformation during the New Hampshire presidential primary election, the investigation found. Political consultant Steve Kramer directed the operation (see 2406260041). Lingo will also be required to apply an A-level attestation, the highest level of trust attributed to phone numbers, for calls where it's providing the caller ID number to the calling party. Kramer faces a proposed $6 million fine. “Every one of us deserves to know that the voice on the line is exactly who they claim to be,” said Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel: “If AI is being used, that should be made clear to any consumer, citizen, and voter who encounters it. The FCC will act when trust in our communications networks is on the line.”

FCC staffers give the agency and their jobs generally high marks, according to the Office of Personnel Management's 2023 federal employee viewpoint survey data released Wednesday by the FCC. Among employees surveyed, 92% said people in their work unit contribute positively to the agency's performance, 75% said they recommend the agency as a good place to work, and 68% said senior leaders maintain high standards of honesty and integrity. Areas where results were more lukewarm include questions about whether information is openly shared in the organization (56% of respondents agreed), the approval process in the organization allows timely delivery of my work (54%), and senior leaders generate high levels of motivation and commitment in the workforce (55%). The OPM data came from anonymous surveying of 519 agency employees for a month in 2023.

Any incoming presidential administration must “be ready to implement a reindustrialization plan" and change financial rules to resurrect American manufacturing and compete with China, FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington wrote in China is Winning, Now What?, an essay in the fall issue of the journal American Affairs. The essay doesn’t mention the FCC, and it only touches on tech policy. Instead, it focuses on China’s superior manufacturing capacity and on the global dependency on Chinese products. “It would have been unthinkable for Cold War America to source key components in logistics and telecommunications from the Warsaw Pact,” Simington wrote. “And yet, our long history of peaceful relations with the PRC [People’s Republic of China] has led us to sleepwalk into exactly this unacceptable state of dependency.” Simington noted that the rise of electric vehicles has positioned China as a global competitor to the U.S. auto industry and said a collapse of American carmakers would deeply injure America. Should China become the dominant international automaker, it could “normalize the presence of hundreds of millions of vehicles packed with sensors, radios, and firmware on every road in the world,” Simington added. “The intelligence benefits alone are incalculable, but control of such markets will in addition weaken countries that the PRC routinely calls its geopolitical adversaries.” To address the matter, the U.S. should “use tariffs and waivers as precision tools for strategic products and industries” but it must also “address larger questions of tax, accounting, and finance rules that have contributed to an anti-industry investment environment,” Simington wrote. Federal spending should be reallocated “to promote world peace through American strength.” He added, “The social costs of failure, here and abroad, will blight the lives of generations yet unborn.”

Democratic National Convention delegates were expected to vote Monday night on the Democratic National Committee’s 2024 platform, which includes a pledge that promises the party will “keep fighting to reinstate” the FCC’s lapsed affordable connectivity program. The draft program repeatedly references President Joe Biden and his now-ended reelection bid because the DNC Platform Committee adopted it July 16, before the incumbent stepped aside in favor of new nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, the committee said when it released the document Sunday night. “23 million households received free or monthly discounts” via ACP, “saving $30 to $75 per month on high-speed broadband through the largest internet affordability program in history,” the Democrats’ proposed platform said: The program lapsed “because Republicans refused to act.” ACP's supporters are tempering their expectations that Congress will act to restore the subsidy this year despite the Senate Commerce Committee successfully advancing a surprise amendment July 31 to the Proper Leadership to Align Networks for Broadband Act (S-2238) that would allocate $7 billion to the program for FY 2024 (see 2408090041). The DNC platform references the Biden administration’s implementation of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which included $65 billion for connectivity. “We’re bringing affordable, reliable, high-speed internet to every American household,” the platform said. “But a full 45 million of us still live in areas where there is no high-speed internet. Democrats are closing that divide.” Democrats are also “determined to strengthen data privacy,” through passage of a revamped “Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights” and an update of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act “to protect personal electronic information and safeguard location information.” The document notes Democrats' continued push to “fundamentally reform” Communications Decency Act Section 230 and “ensure that platforms take responsibility for the content they share.” It also mentions Democrats’ interest in “promoting interoperability between tech services and platforms, allowing users to control and transfer their data, and preventing large platforms from giving their own products and services an unfair advantage in the marketplace.”

Jared Carlson is leaving his role as a deputy chief of the FCC Office of International Affairs to work for the National Security Council, replacing Matthew Pearl as director-emerging technologies, industry officials said. Pearl recently left the White House post (see 2408140044). Carlson is an industry veteran who spent more than 15 years at Ericsson and previously worked at Sprint Nextel. He joined the FCC last year. The FCC declined comment and the NSC didn’t comment Monday.