The American Radio Relay League has filed a petition for rulemaking asking the FCC to adopt rules “to permit licensed Amateur Radio operators to erect and maintain at their residences an effective outdoor antenna for the purpose of conducting Amateur Radio communications, notwithstanding the provisions of any private land use regulations that may be imposed on the residential real property owned or leased by those Amateur Radio licensees.

Such effective outdoor antenna installations would be subject to reasonable conditions and requirements imposed by community associations, also known as homeowner’s associations (HOAs), if the governing documents of the HOA otherwise so empower the HOA. The relief requested herein is critically necessary in order to provide for the sustainability of the Amateur Radio Service in the near term and in the future; and the ability of licensees in that Service to fulfill their Federal public service obligations set forth at Section 97.1 of the Commission’s rules.”

Courtesy TRDaily

Nearly 10% of the total 911 fees collected by all 50 states, five territories, and the District of Columbia in 2017 were diverted to other purposes, the FCC said today in its annual report to Congress on 911 and enhanced 911 fees and charges, which it released for public comment.

Diversion occurred in Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, West Virginia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, the FCC said.  “The total amount of 911/E911 funds diverted by all reporting jurisdictions in calendar year 2017 was $284,968,912.66, or approximately 9.70% of total 911/E911 fees collected,” it added.  The annual report is mandated by the New and Emerging Technologies 911 Improvement Act of 2008 (NET 911 Act).

In a public notice, the FCC requested comments on the report be filed in PS docket 09-14 by Jan. 18, and reply comments by Feb. 4.

“As an initial matter, we seek comment on the sufficiency and accuracy of the reported information, including additional information concerning the specific impact, if any, that such diversion has had on the provision of 911 service in those states. We also seek comment on whether there have been any other instances of fee diversion by states or local jurisdictions not identified in the Report, including counties or other jurisdictions in states that have local or hybrid fee collection programs,” it said. Continue reading →

The FCC’s Communications Security, Reliability, and Interoperability Council today approved recommendations from its working group on emergency alerting to amend a report presented and adopted in September and an “addendum” dealing with supply chain issues for the report presented in September by the network reliability and security risk reduction working group (TR Daily, Sept. 28).

Emergency alert working group Chair Farrokh Khatibi, who is director-engineering at Qualcomm Technology, Inc., explained that his group’s additional recommendations include enhancing the emergency alert system (EAS) to enable information not currently available in EAS-native format and to evaluate the desirability of retaining EAS AFSK (audio frequency-shift keying) in its current state and trying to extend it to include some new features.

Another set of additional recommendations from the emergency alert working group focused on the importance of sending alerts in a timely fashion to targeted individuals in a secured manner.  Recommendations included conducting additional investigation into the use of digital signatures as a solution to EAS security and into technical or system impacts — if any — to allowing the usage of embedded audio files in CAP [common alerting protocol] alert messages.”

Network reliability and security risk reduction working group Chair Travis Russell, who is director–telecommunications cybersercurity at Oracle Communications, described the supply chain addendum to the group’s September report as recommending that the FCC participate in the Department of Homeland Security’s Information and Communications Technology Supply Chain Risk Management (ICT SCRM) Task Force with other agencies.  “If the FCC decides that regulatory action on SCRM is necessary based on responses to the current NPRM on restricting use of USF funds, that regulatory action should be focused as narrowly as possible to avoid broader impacts across the supply chain,” he said. Continue reading →

In a blog posting today, Lisa Fowlkes, chief of the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, highlighted actions that the agency took in 2018 on the 911 front and noted that much of the work will continue next year. “There is no higher priority at the FCC than promoting reliable 911 service,” she said.

“As we approach the end of 2018, I thought I’d recap our work this year to strengthen emergency calling and highlight some of our next steps for 2019.” Ms. Fowlkes summarized FCC proceedings on multi-line telephone systems, 911 call routing, and 911 location accuracy and said the bureau is finalizing its latest report to Congress on state diversion of 911 surcharges.  “Lastly, I want to emphasize that strengthening 911 is not the FCC’s job alone; it’s a team effort,” she said. “In 2019, we will continue to work collaboratively with public safety organizations, government partners, industry, public interest groups, and other stakeholders on this important mission.”

Courtesy TRDaiy

The FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau today granted a waiver in PS dockets 15-91 and 15-94 to the Virginia Department of Emergency Management to conduct wireless emergency alert (WEA) tests on Dec. 12 for the Surry Nuclear Power Station and Feb. 20, 2019, for the North Anna Nuclear Power Station (TR Daily Nov. 30).

Courtesy TRDaily