Parties to the 14 petitions for review challenging the FCC’s Nov. 20 digital discrimination order now consolidated in the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (see 2402120077) should meet, confer and submit a joint proposed briefing schedule within 30 days, clerk of court Michael Gans wrote counsel for the various parties Wednesday. The proposed briefing schedule “should either provide for briefing to be complete, and the cases ready for submission on the merits,” before the end of calendar 2024, or include an explanation “why the parties believe such a schedule is not reasonably attainable,” his letter said. In his initial review of the petitions, Gans “has preliminarily identified two groups of petitioners, with the members of each group appearing to challenge the agency action in one of two different respects,” it said, without specificity. He thus anticipates that the consolidated cases “will be broken into two tracks, with each of the two groups briefing their respective issues separately, before the cases are ultimately argued and submitted together to the same panel of judges on the same day,” it said. He asked that the proposed briefing schedule “indicate whether the parties agree with the clerk’s preliminary assessment that two separate tracks are warranted.” Gans also asked whether the petitioners intend to submit separate opening briefs, a single consolidated opening brief, or two consolidated opening briefs, “one from each preliminarily identified group of petitioners.”

New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) will investigate AT&T's nationwide wireless outage last week, the AG office said Thursday. The office will investigate its causes and AT&T’s response, and wants consumers to file complaints, it said. “Nationwide outages are not just an inconvenience, they can be dangerous,” James said. AT&T CEO John Stankey on Sunday apologized for the outage, which the carrier blamed on a technical issue (see 2402260031). AT&T declined to comment Thursday. In addition, the FirstNet Authority is probing the AT&T outage (see 2402220058), and the authority board will discuss what happened at its quarterly meeting Wednesday, authority CEO Joe Wassel wrote in a Thursday blog post. The FirstNet network was restored by around 5 a.m. CST, about three hours after service was initially affected for some users, he said. “We are committed to identifying the circumstances that led to the outage and working with AT&T to implement strategies and corrective actions to help prevent FirstNet from experiencing an outage like this in the future,” he said. “Resilience is crucial in the face of adversity, and AT&T stepped up and prioritized the restoration of FirstNet.” Wessel said he has also established a FirstNet Authority After-Action Task Force “comprised of public safety, technical, and emergency management experts from our team” that will “help us strengthen our preparedness and emergency communications processes” to prepare for future outages.

Three infrastructure owner and contractor groups petitioned the U.S. Appeals Court for the D.C. Circuit Tuesday for review of the FCC’s digital discrimination order, released Nov. 20 and published Jan. 22 in the Federal Register, on grounds that it gives the commission unprecedented authority to regulate the broadband internet economy. The Wireless Infrastructure Association (WIA), the Power & Communications Contractors Association (PCCA) and NATE filed the petition. It was immediately transferred to the 8th Circuit where it was consolidated with 13 previous petitions under a Feb. 9 order from the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (see 2402120077). It was docketed as case number 24-1411. The Nov. 20 order “demonstrates the FCC’s failure to retain sight of the scope of its mission assigned by Congress,” the petition said. Entities like infrastructure owners and contractors “play an important role in advancing the goal of facilitating equal access to broadband service by making high-quality modern infrastructure available as quickly as possible for the use by telecommunications and broadband providers,” it said. The infrastructure provided is generally “neutral host,” allowing “any number of providers to place equipment on the sites, increasing broadband access and improving service,” it said. But the infrastructure owners and contractors represented by WIA, PCCA and NATE don’t sell broadband services directly to end users and therefore don’t have the ability “to control the place and manner of broadband access,” it said. The order ultimately also fails to “meaningfully address” WIA’s argument that the order’s definition of “covered entities” exceeds the FCC’s “statutory language and mandate” that Congress intended, it said.

The FCC should immediately investigate Apple for blocking the functionality of cross-platform messaging app BeeperMini, several tech and policy groups said in a letter to Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel Tuesday. Apple's actions degrading Beeper Mini’s functionality "may have violated FCC’s Part 14 rules, which guarantee access to advanced communications services and equipment by people with disabilities,” the letter said. A total of nine entities signed the letter, including the American Economic Liberties Project, the Open Markets Institute and Y Combinator. Earlier this month, Commissioner Brendan Carr at the State of the Net conference called for a similar investigation (see 2402120068). Beeper Mini’s tech allows users of Android phones to message iPhone users without using SMS. Without the app, Android users can message iPhones only with SMS, and their text messages have limited accessibility and appear on iPhones in green bubbles rather than the blue of Apple’s proprietary iMessage service. Apple responded by repeatedly blocking Beeper Mini from accessing its system, the letter said. Apple’s actions also prevent interconnection between carriers, which could violate other FCC rules, the letter said. Apple’s actions, and “the Biden Administration’s economy-wide focus on antitrust enforcement” should immediately lead to an FCC investigation, the letter said. Apple didn’t comment.

The Global Satellite Operators Association and the Global System for Mobile Communications Association will collaborate on supplemental coverage from space items, they said Tuesday. The joint efforts will include standards promotion, educational programs and workshops. GSOA Director General Isabelle Mauro said, "This convergence becomes paramount in building a reliable, secure, robust and globally connected world" as 5G and 6G evolve.

The FCC’s rechartered Technological Advisory Council will meet March 19, starting at 10 a.m., at FCC headquarters, the commission said Tuesday. Dean Brenner, a former executive at Qualcomm, returns as chair. The FCC announced in August TAC would be relaunched, with the first meeting then expected by the end of last year (see 2308240051). TAC last met in August (see 2308170057). “The TAC will consider and advise the Commission on topics such as continued efforts at looking beyond 5G advanced as 6G begins to develop ... to facilitate U.S. leadership; studying advanced spectrum sharing techniques, including the implementation of artificial intelligence and machine learning to improve the utilization and administration of spectrum; and other emerging technologies,” the FCC said.

E-rate participants and advocates welcomed the FCC's proposed cybersecurity pilot program for schools and libraries in reply comments posted Tuesday in docket 23-234 (see 2311130062). A coalition of education associations and school districts from 42 states and Puerto Rico urged the FCC to move forward, saying public schools are "now the industry most targeted by ransomware attacks" because they are "data-rich environments that often lack advanced resources and technology." The FCC should update the definition of firewalls under category two services to include "industry standard firewalls that are necessary to counter the most common, yet devastating, cyberattacks," the coalition said. The group also backed the schools and libraries cybersecurity pilot program, asking the FCC to "adequately fund the pilot and to shorten its duration so that entities can immediately strengthen their cybersecurity defenses by next school year." Establish an 18-month timeline for the pilot program, said E-rate compliance consulting firm Kellogg & Sovereign. Consider an "open data model" so the public, researchers, program participants and other stakeholders can "independently analyze and use data to support informed decision-making." The American Library Association noted that smaller libraries lack staff time and expertise to apply for the program and urged the FCC to require the Universal Service Administrative Co. to conduct outreach. ALA backed a one-year timeline for the pilot, saying the proposed three-year timeline "just adds unnecessary delay in the urgent need to make cybersecurity tools eligible for E-rate support."

DirecTV and SpaceX continue lobbying against opening the 12 GHz band to mobile service, according to filings in docket 20-443. In meetings with the offices of FCC Commissioners Geoffrey Starks and Anna Gomez, DirecTV said RKF Engineering analyses are unreliable and use flawed methodologies. If some assumptions in RKF's studies are inaccurate, then "DIRECTV subscribers will be the ones to suffer," it said Monday. Meeting with Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel's office, SpaceX also was critical of RKF's work. SpaceX said the "shapeshifting analysis" should end the proceeding.

The FCC should create an Office of Civil Rights, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights Media and Telecommunications Task Force told FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel in a meeting last week, according to an ex parte filing posted Thursday in docket 22-459. The existing Disability Rights Office and Office of Native Affairs and Policy perform important functions but are focused on different tasks than an Office of Civil Rights would be, the filing said. “Resolving individual disputes or encouraging participation” are different matters from “legal and quantitative analysis that could proactively identify systematic problems” and addressing those problems with rulemakings and enforcement actions, the filing said. “Intergovernmental consultation may belong in the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, but civil rights enforcement does not,” the filing said. The Leadership Conference also called on the FCC not to leave the 2022 quadrennial review open past 2024, keep ISPs active in encouraging digital equity, and endorse the FCC’s collection of workforce diversity data. Representatives from groups including the Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Communications Workers of America, National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, National Hispanic Media Coalition and Common Cause also attended.

Supplemental coverage from space (SCS) systems using terrestrial mobile spectrum could have "significant impacts" on radioastronomy, according to the National Science Foundation. In a white paper submitted by NTIA and posted Tuesday in docket 23-65, NSF said terrestrial mobile use of that spectrum isn't a problem because of issues like topography. But satellites beaming that spectrum directly into radioastronomy receivers could potentially damage their hardware, NSF said. "Any implementation scenario" is going to cause radioastronomy problems, although coordination and use "of the absolute minimum bandwidths and power levels necessary" could mitigate the harm's severity, it said. NSF recommended that SCS systems be required to follow current power flux density requirements for cellular usage in the National Radio Quiet zone unless there is coordination with NSF to ensure transmissions don't interfere with scheduled observations.