The FCC should issue a notice of inquiry on the agency’s history of anti-Black racism, said more than 100 public interest and diversity groups in a letter Tuesday to acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. “Examine the roots of its failure to create a racially just media system,” said Free Press, the Future of Music Coalition, Greenpeace US, National Hispanic Media Coalition, Common Cause, Public Knowledge and others. “It’s time for the FCC to acknowledge that its policies and practices are a primary reason for deep structural inequities existing in the media and telecom industries that have harmed the Black community.” Rosenworcel said Tuesday in a statement that the agency would seek comment on the groups' request. “I recognize we can’t build a better, more equitable future without a reckoning of how our past continues to influence our present and how too many communities continue to be overlooked and underserved," she said. Along with investigating past policies, the agency should “identify reparative actions” that could be taken “to redress the structural racism that exists in our media system” due to FCC policies, the groups said. They seconded a recent call for an “equity audit” from legislators (see 2106290072). The National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters and the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council, which frequently lobby the FCC on diversity matters, weren’t signatories and didn’t comment.

T-Mobile Senior Vice President-Government Affairs Kathleen Ham slammed AT&T Tuesday during a Media Institute webinar after the rival asked the FCC to adopt a spectrum screen for 2.5 GHz-6 GHz (see 2109010069). AT&T fired back. “What an about face,” Ham said: “For AT&T now to be endorsing a screen is really a complete 180” degrees. AT&T fought “very hard and very mightily” against low-band aggregation limits sought by T-Mobile, she said. “Competition is indeed working.” AT&T “is feeling the heat, they’re realizing that T-Mobile is the leader in 5G right now and we’re pushing them,” she said. AT&T wants regulation to “help them out, to basically protect them from competition,” she said. A screen is “supposed to be pro-competitive, not anticompetitive,” Ham said. T-Mobile will have more to say in filings, she said. “Mid-band spectrum plays a critical role in the buildout of 5G networks,” an AT&T spokesperson emailed. “Its value should be reflected in a separate screen -- as is low-band and high-band spectrum -- when determining whether a proposed transaction would harm the competitive landscape. Our proposed screen would not prevent any carrier from acquiring more spectrum as needed to meet demand. Rather, it would level the playing field.” T-Mobile “doesn’t sit on a megahertz, we build it out,” Ham said. T-Mobile wants the FCC to enforce buildout requirements, recognizing that every band is different, she said. T-Mobile led the industry in clearing AWS spectrum of government users “because we had to” and needed the spectrum for 3G, she said. T-Mobile hopes for a 2.5 GHz auction in Q1 or Q2, she said. “It’s time for the remaining spectrum to be auctioned.” Other 3 GHz spectrum is the most likely to be examined next for auction “and then other bands to be determined,” she said. Ham said there are “very positive signals” that Congress will approve federal infrastructure legislation. T-Mobile likes the commitment to “affordability,” she said: “We’re very active participants in the current emergency broadband benefit program, which is really continued as part of that legislation.” She added to T-Mobile’s Washington, D.C., office, but staffers have been unable to gather in one location since the start of this pandemic. “We’ve had some great webcasts and we do get together online on a regular basis,” Ham said: “That’s been a challenge.” T-Mobile is requiring all employees be vaccinated by Oct. 25, which should mean more in-person work, she said. T-Mobile is offering in-home broadband in markets where it has excess capacity on top of its mobile network, Ham said. “We’re finding, particularly in rural areas and smaller towns … there’s a real hunger for this,” she said: Plans are to expand the program to 7 million-8 million customers by 2025.

Microsoft’s petition for reconsideration of relaxed interference rules for distributed transmission systems is “illogical and contrary to the public interest,” said NAB and America’s Public Television Stations in a call with FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington Thursday, per a filing posted Monday in docket 20-74. “There is no track record of [TV White Space] TVWS success, or even the potential for success, that would warrant limiting broadcasters’ efforts to improve service to viewers,” the associations said. “Despite Microsoft’s repeated efforts to amplify the purported successes of TVWS deployments ... just 322 TVWS devices [are] authorized in the United States today.” Microsoft didn’t comment. In a separate filing, APTS and NAB targeted replies from Public Knowledge, Tribal Digital Village and the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute. New DTS rules don’t give broadcasters new spectrum rights or new protections, the broadcasters said: “Despite the length of the Interest Groups’ comments, they are rife with factual errors and misleading conflations and reflect no effort to engage seriously with the substance of this proceeding.” The groups didn’t comment.

Wireless entities urged fixes in the challenge process for mobile coverage maps (see 2108060064), in comments posted Monday in docket 19-195. The process needs to be fixed to be effective, the Rural Wireless Association said. Technical requirements “should be adjusted to account for unique testing and rebuttal issues in rural areas,” RWA said. The notice says it will initiate an inquiry when it has a “critical mass” of complaints, the group said: Because the FCC doesn’t “define what that inquiry trigger is, any use of crowdsourced data to trigger an inquiry could be deemed arbitrary.” Emphasize flexibility and efficiency, said CTIA. “Start by focusing on challenges to outdoor stationary maps” and “defer consideration of any challenges to in-vehicle maps,” the group said. CTIA recommended first improving the accuracy of 4G and 5G coverage maps and supports a proposal to “aggregate speed-test data collected from various challengers.” The Competitive Carriers Association warned that proposed requirements for data submissions are “inconsistent in certain respects with industry standard practices for drive testing.” CCA wants more transparency on the FCC data collection app, saying that “could increase the number of users.” Authorizing third-party speed test apps “concurrently with the Commission’s own app will help ensure that the Commission receives more accurate, diverse, and reliable crowd-sourced data,” CCA said: “Limiting the evidentiary weight given to rebuttals that use only infrastructure data in response to a challenge will reinforce the Commission’s stated preference for real-world as opposed to wholly predictive data.” Implement the program in phases, “beginning with the stationary 4G LTE maps, giving" stakeholders "the chance to work through the challenge and verification procedures and adjust,” Verizon said. Limit the program to outdoor stationary maps of 4G and 5G, and not 3G because that's being retired, T-Mobile said. The carrier said the FCC should seek comment on applications for third-party speed-test apps before they’re authorized. Ookla, which offers speed tests, warned that details need to be further developed.

A draft FCC NPRM seeks comment on how to improve access to the E-rate program for eligible tribal entities (see 2109090068).

COVID-19 forced cancellation of the Oct. 11-14 Cable Tec Expo in Atlanta as a physical show, announced the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers Friday. The event will instead be a “virtual experience” next month, “due to the health and safety risks to attendees posed by the public health epidemic,” it said. It blamed the surge in the delta variant and federal travel restrictions on foreign visitors to the U.S., plus employee travel bans at “some corporations." It’s planning to return the 2022 expo to a physical event next September in Philadelphia, it said.

Comments are due Oct. 12, replies Oct. 25, in RM-11798 on an FCC Wireless Bureau notice seeking to refresh the record on use of the 5030-5091 MHz band by drones (see 2108230034), says Friday's Federal Register.

The FTC will consider withdrawing June 2020 vertical merger guidelines at a meeting Sept. 15, the agency announced Wednesday. The virtual meeting will start at 11 a.m. EDT. According to the tentative agenda, the commission will vote to rescind the 2020 guidelines and December commentary on vertical merger enforcement. Staff will present findings from an FTC study on “large technology platforms’ unreported acquisitions, including an analysis of the structure of deals that customarily fly under enforcers’ radar,” the agency said. Public release is subject to a vote. Commissioners will vote on implementing a process for receiving public input on “rulemaking petitions by external stakeholders.” Members will consider issuing a “policy statement on the importance of protecting the public from privacy breaches by health apps and other connected devices.” The commission will allow public comment after the business portion of the meeting. Registration and comment submissions are due Sunday at 8 p.m. EDT.

No public safety answering points are down or rerouting calls, and just 4.6% of cellsites are listed as out of service in Tuesday’s disaster information reporting system update for Tropical Storm Ida. The area covered by DIRS was reduced to include only some portions of Louisiana, and no counties in Alabama or Mississippi. Some 212,079 cable and wireline subscribers remain out of service in the affected counties, along with two TV stations, eight FM stations, and one AM, the report said.

Cable operators urged California legislators to stop commissioners directing a $6 billion broadband law's money to areas with higher than 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload. Legislators defined unserved as under 25/3 Mbps, but “just a month later, the plan is already going off the rails, with the California Public Utilities Commission instead unilaterally deciding to spend these funds in areas that already have internet service,” California Cable and Telecommunications Association President Carolyn McIntyre blogged Friday. Commissioner Martha Guzman Aceves tweeted, "Fake News coming out of" CCTA. The commission's middle-mile ruling said the agency would prioritize places that enable last-mile connections to residences unserved by 25/3 Mbps, she said. "Lets [sic] stop wasting time and get to work!" McIntyre last month raised concerns about the CPUC using 100 Mbps to define unserved (see 2108190046).