NTIA is developing a $1 billion Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program to provide grants for increasing broadband access on tribal lands, it announced Friday. Tribal advocates and governments sought more cooperation from federal agencies in recent weeks to expand broadband access (see 2101250036). NTIA held a virtual consultation with tribal leadership Friday and plans additional meetings Feb. 10 and 12 "to ensure that tribal input informs the new grant program" before the application process begins. The new program will provide funding for broadband deployment, including carrier-neutral submarine cable landing stations. It'll also fund free or reduced-cost broadband service, distance learning, telehealth, digital inclusion efforts and broadband adoption activities, and will prevent disconnection of existing services.

Rural and small carriers reported mixed progress in response to December questions from the FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau (see 2012220031) about their requests to waive the June 30 deadline to offer real-time text. Most said they hadn’t picked a vendor for the RTT transition, in responses posted through Thursday in docket 16-145. Viaero cited its use of a Huawei core as the reason it hasn’t picked such a vendor. “Huawei does not support RTT,” the carrier said: “Over the last 18 months, Viaero has been limited with respect to further investments and integration to upgrade the services offered, due to the fact that other vendors are not willing to integrate with Huawei.” Appalachian Wireless is talking to two network vendors “on potential solutions for implementing RTT for IP-based calls.” Both are working on a solution, Appalachian said. One said “it may have something available in 2022,” the carrier said: “Appalachian Wireless plans to adopt the solution from the first vendor to make such solution available.” GCI “has not yet contracted with its network vendor to deploy RTT because [the] Vendor has not finalized a compliant RTT solution for GCI” yet, the carrier said. Southern Linc redacted the identity of the company it's using and cited “good progress toward RTT deployment.” Parts of the transition are “complex and time consuming,” Southern Linc said. Nex-Tech Wireless said it didn’t have an RTT vendor. Cellcom reported it launched RTT in September.

The FTC and DOJ Antitrust Division temporarily suspended early terminations of the Hart-Scott-Rodino waiting-period review of mergers and acquisitions, over the objections of FTC Commissioners Noah Phillips and Christine Wilson. The commission said it expects the suspension to be "brief." Given "the confluence of an historically unprecedented volume of filings during a leadership transition amid a pandemic, we will presume we need those 30 days" for reviewing the competitive implications of a proposed transaction "to ensure we are doing right by competition and consumers," said FTC acting Chairwoman Rebecca Kelly Slaughter. Phillips and Wilson said the suspension seems "unwarranted" without better explanation, and past suspensions have been done only in response to a crisis.

The NARUC Telecom Subcommittee unanimously cleared a draft resolution urging the FCC to scrutinize Rural Digital Opportunity Fund long-form applications (see 2101290028). Thursday at NARUC’s virtual winter meeting, the staff-level panel tweaked the RDOF measure to specify that the FCC should ensure winners follow through “at the speeds and latency tiers” they promised. The Telecom Committee plans to vote on the measure at its Wednesday business meeting. Subcommittee Chair Joseph Witmer from the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission noted many RDOF winners in his state are new carriers. Based on conversation with the Biden transition team, including DLA Piper's Smitty Smith, NARUC General Counsel Brad Ramsay hopes FCC Democrats “will really see much, much more benefit in working closely with states on these policy issues, as they have at the state level ... for the last four years” on issues like net neutrality, he said earlier in the meeting. NARUC wants the FCC to quickly reengage with state members of the Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service about a contribution overhaul, said Ramsay, noting the state association wrote the Biden transition team about it in December. He suspects the commission won’t want to address the subject until it has a permanent chair, he said. Acting FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel was federal chair when Democrats last ran the FCC and the joint board was close to consensus, but there wasn’t agreement in the Republican-controlled FCC, he said. The board’s new federal side should take up the proposal submitted by state members during the Trump administration or submit an alternative plan for debate, he said.

Comcast is pausing -- but not halting -- rollout of its 1.2 TB data plan across a variety of Eastern and Northeastern states (see 2011230037), it said Wednesday. The rollout set to happen in March is being delayed to give customers "additional time to become familiar with the new plan," Comcast emailed. It said the soonest that customers who exceed 1.2 TB of data could see overage charges is the August bill. Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro (D) said he negotiated with Comcast to delay implementation of the overage charges and a waiver of the early termination fee for customers who opt out this year.

Schools should have more flexibility in how they use E-rate funds because most students are relying on remote learning during the pandemic, blogged Ed Gillespie, AT&T senior executive vice president-external and legislative affairs. The FCC should "evaluate whether the current E-rate structure is the right one for today's world" and work with the Education Department to transform the program, Gillespie wrote Tuesday. The funding mechanism for USF programs is "fundamentally broken and unsustainable," he said, and should be reevaluated.

A bipartisan group of attorneys general from more than half the states urged the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse a lower court ruling dismissing a robocalling case on the grounds that the Telephone Consumer Protection Act was unconstitutional from 2015 to 2019. In Lindenbaum v. Realgy, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio reasoned TCPA couldn’t be enforced during that period because the Supreme Court said in 2020 that it was unconstitutional for Congress to amend the law in 2015 with a government debt exception. Indiana, North Carolina, 32 other states and Washington, D.C., disagreed, in an amicus brief at the 6th Circuit in case 20-4252. “People who engaged in illegal robocalling between 2015 and 2020 should be brought to justice,” said California AG Xavier Becerra (D) Tuesday: “Granting a five-year hall pass to these harassers would permit illegal activity and open the door for more.” Indiana AG Todd Rokita (R) pledged to “stay on the offense” against illegal robocallers.

Zoom must implement a “comprehensive security program” and adhere to biennial independent third-party privacy assessments, the FTC announced Monday in a finalized deal (see 2011100024). The company must “review any software updates for security flaws prior to release and ensure the updates will not hamper third-party security features,” the agency said. Commissioners voted 3-2, with the two Democrats dissenting, as they did in the initial vote. Acting Chair Rebecca Kelly Slaughter noted “widespread opposition” comments. The decision is “particularly troubling in light of" DOJ recently charging a “Zoom employee with allegedly participating in a scheme to surveil, disclose, and censor political and religious speech of individuals” worldwide at the direction of Chinese leadership, she said. The agency “must think beyond its status quo approach of simply requiring more paperwork, rather than real accountability relying on a thorough investigation,” said Commissioner Rohit Chopra. Commissioner Christine Wilson noted the inclusion of “targeted fencing in relief that provides privacy protections to consumers.” Provisions address the type of conduct seen with the DOJ charges, she said. “Advancements we have made to our platform are well-documented, and we are continuously improving our privacy and security programs,” a company spokesperson emailed. “We remain committed to fulfilling the expectations of the millions of people who trust and rely on our platform.”

Google’s alleged actions detailed in DOJ’s antitrust lawsuit were “lawful, justified, procompetitive” and carried out with legitimate business interests, the company argued (in Pacer) Friday at U.S. District Court in Washington (see 2101080055). It responded to an amended complaint (in Pacer) from DOJ and various states, which claimed the platform signed exclusionary agreements, “including tying arrangements, and engaged in anticompetitive conduct to lock up distribution channels and block rivals.” The complaint cites agreements with distributors like Apple, LG, Motorola, Samsung, AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Mozilla, Opera and UCWeb. Google requested the complaint be dismissed. The company argued it shares revenue through such agreements in order to be the default search service, and it denied it blocks “counterparties from dealing with Google’s competitors.”

Free Press, Public Knowledge and 30 other groups want a third Democratic commissioner at the FCC by March 31. Confirmation became more likely after the party regained a Senate majority this month (see 2101060055). The agency is tied 2-2 (see 2012090063). The letter was to Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Commerce Committee lead Democrat Maria Cantwell of Washington and lead Republican Roger Wicker of Mississippi. It said the FCC “faces an urgent agenda including implementing the new emergency broadband benefit" and work on issues including Lifeline, using E-rate for remote education, a media ownership quadrennial review, inmate calling service costs, and reclassification of broadband service as a Communications Act Title II service.