FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks said including routers under the agency’s recently approved voluntary cyber trust mark program “is vitally important for the security of our home and small business networks.” Commissioners approved the cyber mark program 5-0 in March (see 2403140034). “Consumer routers are the quarterback … of the home network,” Starks said in a speech at American University included Friday's Daily Digest. The program will prove important for consumers, helping them make informed buying decisions “while at the same time incentivize[ing] manufacturers to invest in stronger security measures,” he said. “Much is at stake,” Starks said: “Cybercriminals and adversarial states can steal sensitive personal data, facilitate identity theft, disrupt critical infrastructure and compromise national security.”

While FCC commissioners will vote at their September meeting on allowing non-geostationary satellite use of the 17 GHz band (see 2409040053), nothing in the record supports NGSO operations at up to the ITU power flux density (PFD) limits in the 17.7-17.8 GHz slice, according to AT&T and Verizon. In a docket 22-273 filing posted Friday, the companies said more measures are needed to ensure protection of incumbent fixed service (FS) operators in the band. NGSO operators have "abdicated their burden" of showing that current and future NGSO, geostationary orbit (GSO) and FS systems can coexist in the slice, they said. AT&T and Verizon urged that the FCC require NGSO applicants seeking to operate in the slice have their PFD threshold capped at a certain level unless they submit an aggregate interference analysis showing they will protect FS when operating at a higher level. Cheering the proposed opening of the 17 GHz band to NGSO operations, SpaceX said there's no need to apply equivalent power flux density limits to the band to protect GSO operators. But the FCC should make clear that any EPFD protections adopted will be subject to the outcome of international efforts to modernize EPFD limits and to the outcome of FCC updates of GSO/NGSO spectrum sharing rules, it said. SpaceX said it met with the offices of all five commissioners. AT&T and Verizon said they met with Space, Wireless, and Consumer and Governmental Affairs bureaus and Office of Engineering and Technology staff.

Led by the Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition, four public interest groups filed a petition at the FCC asking for changes in a July order that lets schools and libraries use E-rate support for off-premises Wi-Fi hot spots and wireless internet services (see 2407180024). The petition reflects several changes SHLB sought before the order was approved 3-2 (see 2407170035). “The Commission should allow E-Rate funding to support cost-effective options that are functionally equivalent to commercially available mobile wireless services and Wi-Fi hotspots within the established pre-discount budget,” said the petition, posted Friday in docket 21-31: “E-Rate support should also be available for the purchase of hotspots on a standalone basis if an applicant already has access to the service needed to use the hotspots, and for wireless service that could be used with an applicant’s existing non-hotspot Wi-Fi-enabled equipment.” Also signing the petition were the Open Technology Institute at New America, the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society and the Consortium for School Networking. Maurine and Matthew Molak filed a legal challenge to the order in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The FCC told the court the case isn’t ripe for review since the agency hasn’t addressed petitions for reconsideration and the order isn’t final (see 2409130063). Commissioner Brendan Carr has questioned whether the order would survive a legal challenge.

Aura Network Systems CEO Bill Tolpegin met with an aide to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel about the company’s 2021 pursuit of a rulemaking on expanding the use of air-ground radiotelephone service channels between 454.675-454.975 MHz and 459.675-459.975 MHz for voice and data communications, including by drones (see 2109230049). Tolpegin also met with aides to Commissioners Brendan Carr and Nathan Simington. Filings on the meetings had yet to be posted on Friday. The CEO earlier met with an aide to Commissioner Geoffrey Starks (see 2409180020).

The Wireless Innovation Forum, the OnGo Alliance and the Wireless ISP Association jointly petitioned the FCC to delay by 30 days comment deadlines on an August NPRM asking about further changes to rules for the citizens broadband radio service band (see 2408160031). Comments are now due Oct. 7, replies Nov. 5, in docket 17-258. “The NPRM raises significant and complex issues … that warrant detailed Comments to build a robust record from those directly impacted, including over 1,200 member companies of the Joint Petitioners,” said the petition posted Friday: “Each of the Joint Petitioners concurs that additional time to write Comments would help establish a more robust record.” They note numerous groups are “working to coordinate positions among their respective members on the proposals and questions raised.”

An order on adopting out-of-band emissions in the 24 GHz band, aligned with limits adopted at the 2019 World Radiocommunication Conference, was circulated for a commissioner vote, per an update last week to the agency’s “circulation list.” The proposed changes had received mixed reviews (see 2403150037). Commissioners Brendan Carr and Nathan Simington dissented on a December NPRM. The proposed changes “are asks that were either rejected or never even studied at WRC-19,” Carr said at the time (see 2312260043): “Thus, WRC-19 provides no basis or justification for turning heel.”

5G Americas released a paper looking at the ITU’s “IMT-2030 Vision” study and the “long and complex process” of developing international mobile telecommunications radio-interface standards. The Americas “must carefully decide the proper level of enhancement/performance of attributes originating in 5G,” said the paper, posted Thursday. 5G Americas noted that this is only “an initial framework, or vision for IMT-2030” and “one of the early steps in the IMT definition process.” The framework “has many details that remain to be determined: minimum levels of performance, mandatory and optional features, and which specific technologies are to be incorporated into next-generation systems,” the group said. 6G is expected to be cloud native “with computing and data services tightly integrated with the communications aspects in an inherently distributed and disaggregated fashion,” the group said. The ITU report is more than a technical document, blogged Viet Nguyen, vice president-PR and technology at 5G Americas. “It sets the stage for what will define 6G -- everything from enhanced mobile broadband to integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) technologies that combine wireless communication with radar-like detection capabilities,” he said.

CTIA completed a series of meetings with staff from all five FCC commissioner's offices on proposed rules requiring blocking texts. A vote on the issue is scheduled for the commissioners' Sept. 26 open meeting (see 2409050045). A filing, posted Thursday in docket 21-402, largely repeats points the group made based on an earlier meeting with an aide to Commissioner Nathan Simington (see 2409170044). “CTIA estimates that in 2023 wireless providers prevented over 47.5 billion spam messages from reaching consumers, and those numbers no doubt have continued to grow,” it said.

The Coalition for Emergency Response and Critical Infrastructure (CERCI) asked the FCC to complete a collection of “granular data on public safety operations in the 4.9 GHz band” promised in a January 2023 (see 2408130035) order before addressing rules for the band. CERCI is a leading opponent of a proposal that would give FirstNet and AT&T control of the frequencies. “The FCC cannot convert the 4.9 GHz band into an AT&T FirstNet/commercial shared band premised on vague promises of interference protection for all current public-safety licensees,” said a filing this week in docket 07-100. “Rather, it must first conduct the data collection it announced over a year-and-a-half ago,” CERCI said: “CERCI respectfully submits that if the Commission were to conduct the data collection … it would conclude that it is not in the public interest to deploy the 4.9 GHz band on AT&T’s network.”

SpaceX representatives met with FCC staff to discuss recent studies that found high-power terrestrial operations in the lower or upper 12 GHz band “would cause debilitating interference to Americans who rely on next generation satellite broadband in the 10.7-12.7 GHz band.” Representatives from SpaceX met with staff of the Wireless Bureau and Office of Engineering and Technology, according to a filing posted Thursday in docket 20-443. “SpaceX has once again unveiled [Dish Network’s] efforts to steal high-power spectrum rights to a terrestrial service in the lower 12 GHz band at the expense of millions of Americans who rely on the band for their broadband and broadcast service,” the filing said. An EchoStar executive slammed SpaceX’s earlier filing on lower 12 GHz (see 2409040035), calling it an “unserious and last-ditch effort” to block use of the frequencies for fixed wireless (see 2409050040). EchoStar is Dish’s parent company.