With funding for the federal government ending tomorrow barring congressional action, the FCC has said that 85% of its workforce, or 1,265 employees, will be furloughed and sent home in the event that agency appropriations lapse.

Among those who will not be furloughed are the five Commissioners, whose compensation is “financed by a resource other than annual appropriations,” and up to 185 employees whose “salary and expenses are not funded out of annual appropriations that will lapse on December 8 and [who] will be supporting spectrum auction-related activities,” according to the agency’s “Plan for Orderly Shutdown Due to Lapse of Congressional Appropriations” dated Dec. 5.

“Up to 13 employees, not otherwise exempt, will be retained to protect life and property,” the plan says.  “Up to three (3) employees will be retained to provide oversight or conduct interference detection, mitigation, and disaster response operations wherever they may be needed. These will be full-time employees strategically located across the country to resolve imminent threats to the safety of life or property,” it adds.

Up to nine employees will be retained “for critical oversight/protection of life or property,” up to four will be retained “to perform international and treaty related activity instrumental in the discharge of the President’s constitutional power,” and seven will be retained “for critical Information Technology (IT) issues.”

In addition, contractors will be retained for security, IT, and facility services purposes.

Furloughed employees will be given four hours for shut down activities, such as securing materials and files, cancelling travel plans, and cancelling meetings. Furloughed employees will be expected to monitor news regarding a continuing resolution or appropriations legislation and to return to work on the next scheduled day after the furlough has ended.

A continuing appropriations bill (H.J. Res. 123) that would extend funding at current levels through Dec. 22 passed the House and Senate late this afternoon, sending it to President Trump for his signature.  —Lynn Stanton, lynn.stanton@wolterskluwer.com

Courtesy TRDaily

The FCC’s Communications Security, Reliability, and Interoperability Council plans to hold a meeting from 1-5 p.m. on Dec. 12 in the Commission’s meeting room.

The FCC’s Technological Advisory Council today received a myriad of recommendations from its five working groups, including those dealing with rural broadband deployment, the removal of obsolete technical rules, mobile device theft prevention, and satellite system spectrum sharing.

The broadband deployment technical challenges working group recommended, among other things, that the FCC encourage broadband providers to use long-term technologies, consider developing an Economic Advisory Council to assist the chief economist in understanding the micro-economic operations on rural broadband deployment, and coordinate with government entities on GIS [geographic information system] modeling and an accessible database.

The working group also recommended that the FCC’s Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC) develop a planning guide for future broadband providers and publish success stories. It also suggested that the FCC and BDAC coordinate to better identify where broadband exists today and develop partnering guidance.

The removing obsolete or unnecessary technical rules working group recommended that the FCC begin using consensus-based standards as an alternative, or in addition to, traditional regulations. To accomplish this, the FCC should engage with standards-development organizations and industry organizations, according to the recommendation, and should make public its areas of focus. Continue reading →

The Mobility Division of the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau today dismissed a petition for rulemaking filed by Thomas Alessi of Stamford, Conn., asking the agency to amend its part 97 rules “to make available to Amateur Extra Class licensees call signs consisting of one letter, followed by two digits, followed by one letter (1xx1 format).” The division added in a letter to Mr. Alessi, “Approximately 15 million call signs are presently available in the sequential call sign system, but it does not include every amateur call sign that has been allocated to the United States.

In 2010, the Commission rejected a suggestion that it make certain additional call signs, including 1xx1 call signs, available to Amateur Extra Class licensees. It concluded that enough call signs already are available for an amateur service licensee to obtain a call sign that he or she finds acceptable. You have not demonstrated any changed circumstances or other reason that would warrant revisiting this decision. Consequently, we dismiss your petition.”

Courtesy TRDaily

In addition to the draft Internet freedom order, draft “twilight” towers public notice, and draft notice of proposed rulemaking on the national TV ownership cap previewed last week (TR Daily, Nov. 21) and other items of particular interest to wireless entities (see separate story), FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is also planning to ask his fellow Commissioners to vote on a draft notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) and order to address increased demand for the Rural Health Care (RHC) portion of the Universal Service Fund and a draft notice of proposed rulemaking to allow cable system operators to make certain communications with subscribers by e-mail rather than on paper.

The draft RHC NPRM in Wireline Competition docket 17-310 would propose raising the RHC program’s $400 million annual cap and creating a prioritization mechanism in the event that demand exceeds the cap, according to a fact sheet issued by the FCC.

“For the second funding year (FY) in a row, demand for RHC Program support is anticipated to exceed available program funding, leaving healthcare providers to potentially pay more for service than expected.  Unfortunately, part of that growth is due to an increase in waste, fraud, and abuse in the RHC Program,” the text of the draft item says. Continue reading →

The FCC is receiving conflicting advice about whether it should require enterprise communications systems (ECS) to handle 911 calls the same way as most other telecom systems by routing emergency call to the nearest public safety answering point and including information about where the call originated. Public safety organizations are urging the Commission to take steps to ensure that ECS, which are used by businesses, hotels, universities, and other entities, provide all of the functions callers expect when dialing 911.

Carriers, business groups, and equipment makers, on the other hand, cautioned that the FCC should proceed carefully given the complexity of ECS and its various configurations, the expense involved for ECS operators to activate emergency calling functions, and the Commission’s uncertain jurisdiction over the issue.

“Put simply, the Commission does not have authority to regulate ECS operators nor does it have subject matter expertise in workplace safety issues to adopt specific 911 transmission requirements for enterprise systems,” the Ad Hoc Telecommunications Users Committee, which represents large enterprises, said in PS docket 17-239.

The FCC issued a notice of inquiry (NOI) in the docket in late September to explore the issue of ECS emergency calling (TR Daily, Sept. 26).  The Commission has moved in recent years to extend 911 obligations to new types of wireless and wireline telecom systems, and ECS, users of which sometimes must dial extra digits for an outside line, remains an area of concern. Continue reading →

The FCC released a memorandum opinion and order today approving the privacy and security plan that the wireless industry submitted to the FCC in February for the National Emergency Address Database (NEAD) (TR Daily, Feb. 6), which was created pursuant to indoor 911 location-accuracy rules adopted by the Commission in 2015 (TR Daily, Jan. 29, 2015).

The nation’s four national wireless carriers — Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Inc., Sprint Corp., and T-Mobile US, Inc., — along with NEAD LLC, a non-profit entity established by CTIA to administer the NEAD, submitted the required NEAD privacy and security plan in PS docket 07-114.

“Based on our review of the Plan and the comment record, we find that the Plan meets the requirements of the Indoor Location Fourth Report and Order and includes sufficient provisions to safeguard the privacy, security, and resiliency of the NEAD when it is launched,” the FCC said in the order released today. “Moreover, we agree with CDT’s [the Center for Democracy & Technology] prediction that prohibiting the use of the NEAD and associated data for non-E911 purposes will help maintain public trust in the NEAD and will, in turn, help the NEAD succeed as a means of deriving dispatchable location. We therefore approve the Plan and find that it fulfills the precondition established by the Commission in the Indoor Location Fourth Report and Order for activation of the NEAD. We will continue to monitor the implementation of the Plan by the National Carriers and the NEAD, LLC, and reserve the right to take ‘additional measures to protect the privacy, security, and resiliency of the NEAD and any associated data’ should the Plan not be adhered to by the parties.” Continue reading →