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Vol. 19, No. 14

April 3, 2023

UPCOMING EVENTS

April 18, 2023

Tarana Live ngFWA Demo

Sacramento


October 8-10, 2023

For information about exhibiting, sponsoring or securing meeting space, please email Sky Wang.

MEMBER NEWS


Bandwidth Wins Best of Show for New ‘Maestro’ Next-Gen Enterprise Communications Platform


Google Fiber Debuts 8-gig Broadband in Mesa


Granite Recognized as Americas Managed Service Provider 2022 Partner of the Year by Juniper Networks


IdeaTek and Halstead Partner to Offer Discounted Fiber Internet Rates


LS Networks and PocketiNet Expand Fiber in Waitsburg


Meta’s Huntsville Data Center Gives $90,000 to Area Schools


Sinch Appoints Laurinda Pang as CEO


Twilio Appoints Charlie Bell to Twilio Board of Directors


Twilio Supercharges Customer Profiles for Data Warehouse Portability and Extensibility


KORE to Acquire Twilio’s IoT Business Unit and Accelerate Progress Towards Building the World’s First ‘IoT Hyperscaler’


8 Out of 10 Companies That Invested in Customer Engagement Met Their Financial Goals Despite Turbulent Macroeconomic Environment, Twilio Research Shows


Unite Private Networks Announces Market Expansion into Waco, Texas


WOW!'s Construction of Fiber Network Underway Across Central Florida


Zayo Sneaks onto U.S. SD-WAN Carrier Leaderboard

COMMENT

DEADLINES


April 7

Comments Due on Supply Chain FNPRM


April 17

Comments Due on NTIA's National Spectrum Strategy


April 20

Reply Comments Due on Digital Discrimination NPRM


April 24

Comments Due on Tribal E-Rate NPRM


May 1

Comments Due in NTIA Inquiry into How to Structure Digital Equity Programs


Comments Due on New USAC Record System


May 8

Reply Comments Due on Supply Chain FNPRM


May 23

Reply Comments Due on Tribal E-Rate NPRM

INCOMPAS CEO Chip Pickering Dedicates His Papers to Mississippi State University

Former MSU President Malcolm Portera, Mississippi Republican Party strategist Henry Barbour, Congressman Charles W. “Chip” Pickering Jr. and Judge Charles W. Pickering Sr. (Photo by Megan Bean)

On March 31, the Mississippi Political Collections unit of the Mississippi State University Libraries will host a public ceremony commemorating the formal dedication of the papers of INCOMPAS CEO and former Congressman Charles W. "Chip" Pickering and his father Charles W. Pickering. The ceremony will feature a panel discussion including former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and former two-term Governor Haley Barbour. 


Chip started his career as a Senate staffer in Sen. Lott's office. He worked on many of the policies that served as the foundation of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which was the first major overhaul of the Telecommunications Act of 1934. After his time in Sen. Lott's office, he ran for Congress and was elected in 1996 to represent Mississippi's Third District. 


"Between the '90s and the early 2000s, the country was reforming all of our telecom laws and really reforming all of the different depression era laws to create the policies that shaped today's economy," said Pickering. "It was the greatest period of legislative reform - we shifted from monopolies to competition policies across multiple sectors including energy and telecom, transportation, finance, and healthcare." 


As a freshman Representative, Chip served as the Chair of the Basic Research Subcommittee on the Science Committee amid the transition of government-owned and operated internet to the commercial internet as we know it today. Later in his tenure, he served as Vice Chair of the prestigious Energy and Commerce Committee and was the founding Chairman of the Congressional Wireless Caucus. As the wireless industry emerged and began to flourish, he was able to shape the founding laws and actions that gave us robust wireless networks and multiple generations of technologies and applications.  


"From my time as a Senate staffer to my 12 years in Congress, I worked on solutions to spur competition, advance technological innovation, and expand economic growth and opportunity for all Mississippians," Pickering added. "Now, I am fortunate to continue shaping policy in a different role and responsibility by building coalitions and advocating before the Administration, agencies and Congress to ensure a continuation of good competition policy across all broadband and technology networks." 

FCC Announces April Agenda

The FCC announced the tentative agenda for its next Open Commission Meeting scheduled for April 20:

  • Promoting Efficient Use of Spectrum and Opportunities for New Services – A policy statement intended to help guide FCC decision-making and stakeholder action to promote efficient co-existence between incumbent and new services. The policy statement promotes a balanced and comprehensive approach to spectrum management that holistically considers both transmitter and receiver components of wireless systems.
  • Review of International Section 214 Authorizations to Assess Evolving Risks – An Order and NPRM that would take another important step to protect the nation’s telecommunications infrastructure from threats in an evolving national security and law enforcement landscape by proposing comprehensive changes to the FCC's rules that allow carriers to provide international telecommunications service pursuant to section 214 of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended.
  • Facilitating Satellite Broadband Competition – A Report and Order and FNPRM that would revise rules for spectrum sharing among new satellite broadband constellations. The rule revisions would clarify protection obligations between non-geostationary satellite orbit, fixed-satellite service systems to facilitate the deployment of these next generation systems, including new competitors.
  • Updating the Frequency Allocation Table – An Order to make updates to the International Allocation Table to reflect the International Telecommunication Union Radio Regulations (Edition of 2020) and make other non-substantive, editorial revisions. The FCC will also consider an NPRM that would seek comment on implementing certain of the remaining radiofrequency allocation decisions from the 2015 World Radiocommuni-cation Conference and would propose allocation changes and related updates to service rules.
  • Improving Wireless Emergency Alerts – An FNPRM that would increase the accessibility, performance and functionality of Wireless Emergency Alerts, including greater accessibility for people with disabilities and through multilingual alerting.
  • Updating the Intercarrier Compensation Regime to Eliminate Access Arbitrage – A Second Report and Order, which would modify its Access Stimulation Rules to close a perceived loophole exploited by opportunistic access-stimulating entities to continue to inflate access charges paid by interexchange carriers. The order would make this inefficient practice less attractive to arbitrageurs and help prevent interexchange carriers’ end-user customers from bearing costs for services they may not even use.
  • Removing Obsolete Analog-Era Provisions from Part 74 Rules – An order that would amend its Part 74 rules for low-power TV and TV translators to remove obsolete rules for analog TV operations.

FCC Provides Draft of Data Fields for ACP Data Collection

The FCC's Wireline Competition Bureau issued a public notice on March 27, 2023, that provides a draft of the data fields to be collected under the Affordable Connectivity Program transparency data collection. The bureau said it, in coordination with the Office of Economics and Analytics and USAC, is developing an online portal through which ACP participating providers will electronically submit the data. PRA comments on the proposed information collection are due May 15, 2023.

NTIA Seeks New Member for FirstNet Authority Board

The NTIA issued a Federal Register Notice last week seeking interested individuals who would like to serve on the Board of the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet Authority) Board. Prospective candidates must have expertise or experience in at least one of the following areas: public safety, network, technical and financial.


The Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012 (Act) created the FirstNet Authority as an independent authority within NTIA. The Act charged the FirstNet Authority with ensuring the building, deployment, and operation of a nationwide, interoperable public safety broadband network, based on a single, national network architecture. The FirstNet Authority holds the single nationwide public safety license granted for wireless public safety broadband deployment.  


The FirstNet Authority Board is responsible for providing overall policy direction and oversight of FirstNet to ensure that the nationwide network continuously meets the needs of public safety. The 15-member board includes 12 non-permanent members, the Secretary of Homeland Security, Attorney General of the United States, and Director of the Office of Management and Budget. One of the 12 non-permanent members to the FirstNet Authority Board resigned prior to the end of his term. The Secretary of Commerce will appoint an individual to complete that Board member’s term through September 2024.


Expressions of interest must be emailed to FirstNetBoardApplicant@ntia.gov no later than April 27, 2023.

Bipartisan, Bicameral USF Contributions Bill Reintroduces

Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), John Thune (R-SD), John Hickenlooper (D-CO) and Jerry Moran (R-KS) reintroduced a bipartisan bill on March 28, 2023, which would expand broadband access to rural communities. The Reforming Broadband Connectivity Act would strengthen funding mechanisms for the Universal Service Fund by directing the FCC to initiate a rulemaking process to reform the contributions system within a year.


A companion bill was introduced in the House by Reps. Joe Neguse (D-CO), Lizzie Fletcher (D-TX) and Angie Craig (D-MN).

Rep. Graves Leads Bill to Spur High-Speed Broadband in

Rural and Economically Distressed Communities

A bill to remove barriers for communities seeking to use Economic Development Administration (EDA) grants to develop high-speed broadband access was introduced in the House of Representatives.


The Eliminating Barriers to Rural Internet Development Grant Eligibility (E-BRIDGE) Act was re-introduced for the 118th Congress by Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Sam Graves (R-MO), along with Reps. Jenniffer González Colón (R-PR), Tracey Mann (R-KS) and Michael Guest (R-MS). The bill removes hurdles for broadband projects under EDA grants, including difficult last-mile efforts that often delay rural broadband deployment. It also ensures that local communities can partner with the private sector in carrying out broadband projects and gives communities more flexibility in complying with their funding match requirements. 

INCOMPAS | www.incompas.org
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