The FCC’s application fees will change effective Sept. 4 to reflect a 3.7 percent increase to the consumer price index from October 2015 to October 2017, the FCC said in a public notice Friday.

The FCC should modify its biennial report on the 21st Century Communication and Accessibility Act to recognize that more progress is needed on the costs of unlimited data smartphone plans for the hearing impaired and to acknowledge that text-to-911 is critical to allow accessibility in emergencies, said a joint filing in docket 10-213 by a host of consumer groups for the hearing impaired, including Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, the National Association of the Deaf, and the Cerebral Palsy and Deaf Organization. “Deaf and hard of hearing users disproportionately use data for daily and routine communications out of necessity,” the filing said. The FCC report should also note the progress made on real-time-text technology, the filing said. “We emphasize the importance of incorporating RTT into the native phone capabilities of smartphones as Apple has done, rather than prolonged use of separate apps,” the filing said. The National Federation of the Blind in separate comments said few blind Americans can afford smartphone and data plan costs, and the report should put more emphasis on those cost prohibitions rather than chalking it up to being personal preference. It also said the FCC should create at least one additional secondary audio programming channel for simultaneous broadcast of foreign language and descriptive services and that the agency should institute rules requiring the audio description of live programming.

The FCC is examining some changes in light of the lessons learned during the 2017 hurricane season with its succession of powerful storms, said a Public Safety Bureau report released Friday. Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said the report falls short. “Let’s not kid ourselves -- releasing this report 85 days into the current hurricane season and as an historic storm gets closer to Hawaii’s shores, is simply too little, too late,” she said. After Katrina, the FCC “established an independent panel that brought to bear a broad background of public safety and industry experiences, including first-hand knowledge of the devastation wrought,” she said. “We didn’t do that here. After Hurricane Sandy, this agency convened a series of field hearings to help inform recommendations and action to improve network resiliency. Again, we didn’t do that here.” The report notes that high cost and severity of last year’s storms. “All told, it was the most expensive hurricane season in United States history, almost doubling the cost of the 2005 hurricane season that included Katrina,” the bureau said. “According to initial estimates, the combined storms caused over $200 billion in damages in the United States and its territories.” Among its recommendations, the report called for “increased engagement” between the FCC and critical infrastructure players. “Cross-sector dependencies greatly affected communications services, which are often highly dependent on electric power, fuel distribution (in the absence of electricity), and transportation at the local level (for access to sites and facilities) and regional level (for transportation of restoration crews and equipment),” the report said. The bureau said the FCC also should encourage backhaul providers to participate in the carriers’ wireless resiliency cooperative framework. The availability of wireless service is sometimes difficult to gauge and the report backed more use of a third-party smartphone app that senses the presence of RF signals in commercial wireless bands. “While initial distribution would be limited to authorized emergency responders deployed to a particular disaster area, the app could ultimately be made available via application stores so that it can be distributed widely,” the bureau said. The report also stressed the importance of over-the-air (OTA) information collection during disasters. Last year, the FCC used “over-the-air technologies such as the National Shared Remote Equipment Network and its High-Frequency Direction-Finding network to collect situational awareness information about emergency communications, including alert system operations,” the report said. This information was then shared with other federal agencies. The bureau “is now considering developing more integrated reporting from the various OTA observation systems which might increase reporting speed and free Roll Call teams for additional scans, analysis and reporting.” The FCC uses Roll Call equipment to examine the spectrum and identify disaster-related communications outages.

As 25 percent tariffs took effect Thursday on a second tranche of Chinese imports worth about $16 billion, CTA, in its toughest words yet, urged the Trump administration to end its “failing” strategy of trying to use the higher duties to punish China. It's “not working” but instead is “damaging” American businesses and consumers, said CTA President Gary Shapiro. It's “failing to change China's behavior” on intellectual property theft, “putting extreme pressure on American innovation and businesses that invent, design and engineer their IP in the United States,” said Shapiro. Of the nearly five dozen line items that CTA asked U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer last month to remove from the second tranche, the final version deleted one: alginic acid and derivatives used for many commercial applications (see 1808080028). CTA and other tech interests are fighting administration efforts to impose a third tranche of 25 percent duties on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports, including on IoT-critical connected devices (see 1808220056 or 1808170014). The administration by now "should know something it questioned several months ago: tariffs will not get China to change its unfair trade practices," testified Jonathan Gold, National Retail Federation vice president-supply chain and customer policy, at public hearings Thursday. "Instead, these tariffs threaten to increase costs for American families and destroy the livelihoods of U.S. workers, farmers, manufacturers and small-business owners. There is still time to prevent these harmful consequences. We hope this week’s discussions between the U.S. and China will pave the way for real action that will resolve these ongoing problems and end the trade war before it further escalates."

A pre-Labor Day nominations package that would confirm FCC nominee Geoffrey Starks and Commissioner Brendan Carr's full five-year term ending in 2023 under unanimous consent is still possible, though much depends on the outcome of ongoing negotiations, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters Thursday. The Senate recessed Thursday night without a deal following negotiations between Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., about a nominations package aimed at allowing the chamber to recess for the remainder of August. McConnell vowed earlier Thursday the Senate would “continue to work right through” the rest of the month to confirm a slate of at least 16 of Trump's nominees over Democrats' resistance absent a deal. Thune said he is talking with Schumer and others about getting the two FCC nominees and others under Senate Commerce's jurisdiction included in the package, too, but “at the moment, we don't have a deal yet.” Thune has been hopeful Senate leaders would agree to confirm Carr and Starks under unanimous consent before two previous recesses this summer, but progress on a nominations package has been elusive (see 1807310065). Senate leaders at the last minute scotched a bid to clear the FCC nominees before July 4 (see 1806290037).

Santa Clara County, California, disagreed with Verizon that throttling service to firefighters doesn't relate to net neutrality. Verizon throttled the service during the Mendocino Complex Fire, the largest fire in state history, reported County Fire Chief Anthony Bowden in a sworn statement that was an addendum to state and local governments’ net neutrality brief Monday at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (see 1808210010). “In the midst of our response to the Mendocino Complex Fire, County Fire discovered the data connection for [Office of Emergency Services] OES 5262 was being throttled by Verizon, and data rates had been reduced to 1/200, or less, than the previous speeds,” Bowden wrote. “These reduced speeds severely interfered with the OES 5262's ability to function effectively.” When Bowden’s IT staff contacted Verizon, the carrier confirmed the throttling, “but, rather than restoring us to an essential data transfer speed, they indicated that County Fire would have to switch to a new data plan at more than twice the cost, and they would only remove throttling after we contacted the Department that handles billing and switched to the new data plan.” Verizon reportedly said it was a customer service mistake to throttle service to public safety -- and it doesn’t usually -- and the situation has nothing to do with net neutrality or the D.C. Circuit case. Santa Clara County counsel James Williams responded: “Verizon’s throttling has everything to do with net neutrality -- it shows that the ISPs will act in their economic interests, even at the expense of public safety. That is exactly what the Trump Administration’s repeal of Net Neutrality allows and encourages.”

University of Idaho law professor Annemarie Bridy said it's not clear what role notices from copyright holders would play in cases involving Digital Millennium Copyright Act Section 512(A) providers like ISPs since they aren't subject to the notice-and-takedown framework that 512(C) providers are (see 1808020009).

The FCC Wireless Bureau denied a request by Communications Workers of America and others (see 1808170052) that the FCC pause its shot clock on consideration of T-Mobile’s proposed buy of Sprint. “We deny the Motion in all respects and decline to stop the clock or extend the current pleading schedule under which petitions to deny currently are due” on Aug. 27, said a Wednesday order by Bureau Chief Donald Stockdale in docket 18-197. “Although the Commission encourages the widest possible public participation and has a strong interest in ensuring that the record is complete and fully developed with respect a proposed transaction, the Movants have failed to establish any basis.” That this is a busy period of pending proceedings before the FCC and the FTC doesn’t support delay, Stockdale said. “If the Movants find the data submitted by the Applicants to be deficient, then they certainly may rely on that deficiency to support arguments in a petition to deny the proposed transaction.”

“Under no circumstances” should state 911 fee revenue be diverted for purposes unrelated to 911, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioner Mike O’Rielly wrote Tuesday to Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner (R). O’Rielly has mailed several states to condemn 911 fund skimming, but Tuesday’s letter appears to be the first to also carry Pai’s signature. Illinois diverted for several years but appeared to stop after 2015, they noted. “We urge you to continue the practice of 2016 and 2017 and devote these critical funds solely to the purpose for which they were intended: maintaining and improving public safety communications systems for the benefit of the people of Illinois.” Illinois Statewide 911 Administrator Cindy Barbera-Brelle told the commission the state won’t divert in the future so it may be eligible for next-generation 911 federal grants, the commissioners said. One Illinois county’s 911 director told them “upgrades have been put off and loans have been taken out to supplement the shortfall associated with past state diversion practices,” they said. National momentum to end 911 fee diversion appears to be growing, with Congress weighing a bill to discourage the practice (see 1808170023).

The FCC said E-rate support can meet $2.77 billion in school and library demand for funding year 2018 (which started July 1), as estimated by the Universal Service Administrative Co.: $2.025 billion for "category one" telecom and internet connections, and $745 million for "category two" internal connections. USAC is directed to fully fund all eligible requests, given an E-rate annual budget of $4.06 billion, plus $1.2 billion in unused funding carried forward from the past, said a Wireline Bureau public notice in docket 02-6 and Monday's Daily Digest