Wireless service slowly is being re-established in Puerto Rico, with 78.9 percent of cellsites down Tuesday, compared with 81.1 percent the day before, the FCC said in Tuesday's Hurricane Maria update. It said 18 of the island's 78 counties have no cellsites up, vs. 23 counties. It said satellite cells on light trucks and terrestrial cells on wheels have been deployed. In the U.S. Virgin Islands, 60.3 percent of cellsites are out, same as Monday, including 100 percent of cellsites in St. John. The FCC said two Puerto Rico TV stations and nine radio stations are off the air. The FCC said both public service answering points in Puerto Rico are operational as of Tuesday, as are the 911 call centers in St. Croix and St. Thomas, with location information for wireless callers and VoiP callers intermittently available. Meanwhile, Hurricane Nate had "virtually no effect on communications" during the storm or afterward, with no TV or radio stations knocked out of service and one cellsite out in Alabama, the agency said in its update Monday. It deactivated its disaster information reporting system for Nate at the request of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The FCC said it granted an experimental license for Project Loon, led by Google parent Alphabet, to help provide emergency wireless service in Puerto Rico. The project provides coverage through a network of balloons. Loon has consent agreements to use land mobile radio spectrum in the 900 MHz band from carriers in the commonwealth, the FCC said Saturday. “More than two weeks after Hurricane Maria struck, millions of Puerto Ricans are still without access to much-needed communications services,” Chairman Ajit Pai said in a statement. “We need to take innovative approaches to help restore connectivity.”

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai will give a "Morning in Digital America" speech Tuesday (6 p.m. PDT) at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. Pai "will outline his vision of the future of U.S. communications policy -- inspired by President Reagan’s principles -- and explain how his agenda of cutting red tape, promoting innovation, and establishing rules that encourage infrastructure investment will bring prosperity and hope to millions of Americans currently trapped on the wrong side of the digital divide," said an agency advisory Friday.

Judges asked parties for proposals on how to deal with two inmate calling service cases on Securus Technologies' challenges to the FCC's 2013 and 2016 ICS orders, after court rulings against a 2015 ICS order. Judges David Tatel, Thomas Griffith and Cornelia Pillard of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued two brief orders (here and here in Pacer) Friday asking litigants to file motions within 30 days to govern the two pending cases, Securus v. FCC, Nos. 13-1280 and 16-1321. They noted the D.C. Circuit's recent decision not to rehear en banc (see 1709270009) another panel's June ruling reversing key parts of the commission's 2015 ICS order, including intrastate rate caps, in Global Tel*Link v. FCC, No. 15-1461 (see 1706130047). The 2013 order set interim interstate rate caps (see 1308120049). The 2016 reconsideration order raised interstate and intrastate rate caps from the 2015 order to account for correctional facility costs but without restricting ICS provider site-commission payments to authorities (see 1608040037).

The National Hispanic Media Coalition and others disputed objections to their motion to put consumer complaint materials into the FCC record of the current open internet proceeding and to seek comment on them; cable and telco groups had questioned the complaints' relevance (see 1709290049). NCTA and USTelecom ignore "that the very questions raised by the Commission in the Internet NPRM demonstrate the relevance of these materials," including an agency query about evidence of consumer harm, said a filing posted Friday in docket 17-108 by NHMC and eight of the 20 other groups that had joined the initial motion (see 1709200033). Separately, NCTA knocked "erroneous claims" made in Incompas' reply comments about "broadband providers' purported incentives to act anticompetitively" in the market. "These assertions conflict with the weight of the evidence in the record and present no hurdle to restoring a Title I classification of broadband" under the Communications Act, the NCTA filing said.

The FCC likely will soon clear the planned sale of Securus Technologies to SCRS Acquisition, said an inmate family advocate who asked Chairman Ajit Pai to recuse himself from matters affecting the inmate calling service provider because he represented the company before arriving at the agency (see 1708240005). "I assume that Pai slow walked it so it would not come up during his senate confirmation process that he is basically a long time shill for Securus and continues to do their bidding and enhance their bottom line," emailed Paul Wright, executive director of the Human Rights Defense Center, Friday. "Now that he has been confirmed, I assume the deal will go forward promptly. That Securus and company stopped whining about losing money every day the deal was delayed would indicate they understand the political game as well and did not want to endanger their critical ally during the confirmation process." The FCC and Securus didn't comment.

Three groups urged a court to throw out an FCC business data service order "largely deregulating and deeming competitive an overwhelmingly concentrated market." The agency "departed from its past precedents" without justification in concluding, "contrary to the record and established antitrust analysis, that duopoly markets are sufficiently competitive to discipline market power and prices," said an amicus brief by Public Knowledge, Consumer Federation of America and New Networks Institute to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (in Citizens Telecommunications of Minnesota v. FCC, No. 17-2296), which PK posted Thursday. The groups said the order will "harm businesses, government institutions, and other organizations that rely on BDS for essential connectivity, and those costs, totaling approximately $20 billion per year, will ultimately be borne by consumers and taxpayers." If the "contrived theory" is upheld and applied to other markets, it "would be catastrophic for competition and consumer protection," they said, because the FCC could "contravene the direct mandate from Congress to ensure 'just and reasonable rates,' opening the door to potential price gouging and possibly chilling traditional antitrust enforcement." The FCC didn't comment. After years of “massive data collection,” the agency 2-1 found price regulation inappropriate for packet-based BDS offerings due to widespread competition, creating a competitive market test for legacy services under price caps (see 1704200020 and 1705010019).

Puerto Rico's main public safety answering point remains offline, with 911 calls being sent to the backup PSAP. The St. Croix and St. Thomas 911 call centers are operational but unable to retrieve some location information for wireless and VoIP callers, the FCC said Thursday in its latest Hurricane Maria status report. It said 84.6 percent of wireless sites are out of service, down from 86.3 percent the day before. It said 24 of Puerto Rico's 78 counties have all their cellsites out of service, down from 27. In the U.S. Virgin Islands, 60.3 percent of cellsites are out of service, down from 66 percent, and all cellsites in St. John remain out of service. It also said large numbers of people in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands remain without cable or wireline service due to widespread power outages. And it said two Puerto Rican TV stations and nine radio stations are reported off-air. The outage information is "almost certainly ... not complete" due to some communications providers having yet to report, the agency said. A Wireless Bureau order Thursday granted an American Radio Relay League temporary waiver to allow amateur data transmission at a higher baud rate than allowed to facilitate hurricane relief communications. “Approximately one-third” of Puerto Rico’s VHF radio system for communication among municipalities is back online, said the Federal Emergency Management Agency Thursday. “Since Hurricane Maria, communication has been out across the island, hampering the ability of mayors to communicate.” The system currently allows communication among more than 30 municipalities, and is expected to be fully functional by “early next week,” FEMA said. The system will also allow municipalities to communicate with the Puerto Rico Emergency Management Agency, the federal counterpart said. “Restoration is joined by more and more cell towers being re-energized around the periphery of the island, increasing communications of government municipalities and Puerto Ricans.” AT&T and other carriers likely learned lots of lessons from the three big storms that hit parts of the U.S. recently, blogged public safety consultant Andrew Seybold Thursday. “The final and greatest challenge is just getting underway in Puerto Rico,” Seybold wrote. “Because of the devastation, lack of access, power, water, and food, the job for both those handling the power and the cell sites is most daunting.” As it rebuilds its cellsites, FirstNet partner AT&T is likely spending extra time and money making sure more sites are hardened to a point where they can withstand at least some of “nature’s fury,” he said. “I say ‘some’ because I am not certain how you could ensure your hardened sites are, in fact, hardened to withstand what Maria brought.”

The FCC proposed 4-1 a $3.96 million fine against Neon Phone Service for apparently violating rules against making unauthorized changes to consumers' preferred long-distance providers (slamming) and inserting unauthorized charges on phone bills (cramming). The commission, saying Neon also "deceptively marketed" its service, received many consumer complaints, said a release and a notice of apparent liability in Wednesday's Daily Digest. In a couple cases, "Neon fabricated third party verification recordings to make it appear that these consumers authorized the carrier change and then provided those fabricated recordings to the Commission as evidence of consumer authorization," said the NAL, noting Neon didn't respond to a letter of inquiry. Chairman Ajit Pai and Mignon Clyburn said they were pleased the FCC "agreed to consider revoking Neon’s Commission authorizations after it has had the opportunity to respond to this [NAL]. If companies egregiously flout our rules, this option should be on the table." Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel called this "part of a pattern of similar behavior by others associated with Neon," some subject to multiple FCC enforcement actions: "The Commission should go further to stop these bad actors from engaging in this same fraud again. This agency should use every tool we have at our disposal to stop wrongdoers in their tracks and prevent them from repeating these scams." Commissioner Michael O'Rielly partially dissented without issuing a statement. Company representatives didn't comment or couldn't be reached.

Finding spectrum will increasingly become a challenge as space and airborne wireless becomes a bigger part of communications, said Julius Knapp, chief of the FCC Office of Engineering and Technology, at a Silicon Flatirons conference Wednesday, streamed from Boulder, Colorado. The session was on 3D wireless, from satellites to high-altitude platform stations (HAPS) to drones. “It’s getting more complicated,” he said. “There’s a lot more things going up in the sky” and the FCC doesn’t have the luxury of giving all the users their own bands, he said. Like in chess, “2D is challenging, 3D, mind-boggling.” Knapp said 3D wireless is “at the intersection of policy, engineering, economics, and the services that they provide.” Geostationary orbit satellites, roughly 22,000 miles in space, have major latency issues, “not necessarily a complete" impediment, he said. Non-geostationary satellites offer worldwide coverage and are comparable to inverted cellular systems, he said. “Instead of having all of the base stations on the ground, now the base stations are in the air and the handoff is happening between satellites.” HAPS, at close to 60,000 feet high, have a role, he said. They are “low to the Earth, so they don’t have the latency issue,” Knapp said. “The power levels are higher so I can get penetration on the ground. I can use them to fill in areas.” There’s only one global allocation for HAPS now, he said. The "good news” is ITU is looking at more spectrum for HAPS as an agenda item at the 2019 World Radiocommunication Conference, he said. “Because the technology has advanced, and the need to provide service to fill in” at various locations bigger, “it’s all being studied,” he said. Unmanned aerial vehicles, much lower than HAPS, are seeing work at NASA and the FAA and within industry, Knapp said. UAVs now mostly use unlicensed spectrum, “which always makes me a little bit nervous because there’s no interference protections,” Knapp said. UAVs need spectrum for command and control, but also for their payload, he said. People want HD video from the UAV and that takes a lot more bandwidth than the operations themselves, he said. “Where is that going to come from?" he said. "There has been much more focus on the control.” The big challenge for all the systems is spectrum, agreed Bobby Braun, dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Colorado Boulder. “If you think of where we’re headed … I actually don’t think that there’s going to be enough spectrum,” he said. “I imagine there will some kind of allocation, sharing scheme in time.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is moving to the next-generation case management/electronic case files system on Nov. 20, with a redesigned user interface that functions similarly to other circuit, district and bankruptcy courts in the federal judiciary, it said in a notice Tuesday. The implementation also will increase compatibility with commonly used web browsers and allow a centralized sign-on into each circuit, district and bankruptcy court that has implemented the next-gen upgrade, it said. The court also said each user will need an individual, upgraded Pacer account under the next-gen CM/ECF system, because firmwide and shared accounts aren't permitted.