The Federal Communications Commission will vote later in Oct on rule changes for the upcoming auction of spectrum in the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) band. According to a draft order released Oct 2, the proposed CBRS auction rules call for licenses to be awarded by county for a period of 10 years with the option to renew. The FCC is proposing lengthening license terms in the CBRS (3.5 GHz) band, "modestly" increasing the size of those geographic licenses--the plan is to auction the licenses sometime in 2019-and allowing them to be renewed. That is according to FCC Commissioner Michael O'Rielly, who was delegated the oversight of the item. 

That modest increase would be to county-sized licenses, rather than partial economic areas (PEAs). Cable operators, who are actively investing in research and standards-development in the band, had pushed for those county-sized geographic licenses  as a middle ground, literally, between partial economic areas (PEAs) and the smaller census tracts. While the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association (WISPA) was happy the FCC did not go with larger PEAs, it said "the combination of county-sized licenses – especially where they are subject to package bidding – plus long license terms and renewability will shut out a significant number of our members from using licensed CBRS spectrum to deliver affordable, reliable broadband services to under-served rural areas."

I have been asked to discuss the Citizens Band Radio Service (CBRS). The timing of this event is indeed fortuitous, because the draft order on this exact issue will be considered at the Oct Federal Communications Commission meeting and its text is being posted Oct 2.  I am fortunate that FCC Chairman Pai entrusted me with such a challenging and important project. Over the last many months, I employed sound regulatory principles to guide my review of the band. To put it mildly, there is a lot of interest in this spectrum, and there are many divergent and passionate opinions. I have heard them all, sometimes at very high decibels. What is in the draft item, which I invite you to review, reflects a fair and reasonable compromise based on all of the various interests.

The fight over net neutrality today can be reduced to a single sentence: Everyone is suing everyone else. Congress should step in. The Federal Communications Commission abdicated its responsibility on net neutrality when it repealed the old rules with no adequate replacement. Now, without setting forth its own rules, the federal government is seeking to block states from creating their own. That may be frustrating to Americans who want an Internet where providers do not dictate what information reaches them and how fast. But a nationwide framework governing net neutrality would be preferable to a patchwork of state regulations establishing local regimes for systems that transcend borders. And creating that framework is up to Congress. Net neutrality done right could foster investment by forcing providers to compete by making their networks broader and better. Federal authorities say it is their job, not states’, to take the issue on. Congress should make sure they do.

Four telecommunication groups have come together to urge the Federal Communications Commission to increase the Universal Service Fund (USF) budget to at least $2.4 billion for 2018 for the high-cost portion of the program. The request took the form of a letter from ITTA – The Voice of America’s Broadband Providers, USTelecom – The Broadband Association, NTCA – The Rural Broadband Association and WTA – Advocates for Rural Broadband. Small rural telecom companies that receive USF support had the option in 2016 of moving to a cost-based support option known as the alternative Connect America model (A-CAM) or continuing to receive funding based on the traditional mechanism, which bases support on a carrier’s embedded costs. Those carriers choosing A-CAM had to commit to more aggressive broadband buildout requirements.

More carriers than anticipated chose the A-CAM model, which created a funding shortfall for both that program and the traditional program.  Since then the FCC has increased budgets for the programs but not enough to cover the entire shortfall, which means the commission has had to reduce broadband buildout targets commensurately. According to the letter sent to the FCC Oct 1, “[o]ngoing uncertainty over universal service funding is deterring investment, harming rural consumers and businesses and undermining the commission’s goals of universal service and closing the digital divide.” Increasing the high-cost Universal Service Fund budget to $2.4 billion annually would enable A-CAM funding recipients to receive support at the level initially offered to them in 2016, the letter says.

Verizon became the first major Internet service provider to launch 5G home internet service. But, is this really 5G? The answer is sort of. 

Verizon’s chief technology architect, Ed Chan, said that the newly launched home 5G service uses a number of technologies that have been deemed a part of 5G. Most important among those is the use of millimeter wave, the radio waves that will be the backbone of 5G connections. Millimeter wave connections work over a much shorter distance, but they’re far faster, enabling Verizon to deliver gigabit speeds wirelessly. But there are other important factors to 5G, like whether all 5G devices work together and speak the same language. And with Verizon’s implementation, they don’t. Verizon is using a communications standard largely of its own making, called 5G TF, whereas the industry at large is coalescing on something called 5G NR. Even Verizon plans to switch over to 5G NR eventually. But it means that this initial 5G deployment is being done without the widely accepted 5G standard. T-Mobile CEO John Legere immediately came out with criticism of Verizon, putting an asterisk beside his references to Verizon’s 5G service. “It doesn’t use global industry standards or cover whole blocks and will never scale… but hey, it is first, right?!” he wrote on Twitter.

In the wake of news that a federal court in CA rejected Department of Justice demands that Facebook break, bypass, or remove the encryption in its Messenger app, it’s worth noting how little we still know about such an important dispute. Depending on what specific relief the government sought from the court, the case may signal a potentially significant threat to the security of Internet-based communications. In a hyperconnected world, the implications of the government’s demand for expanded surveillance capabilities go far beyond any legitimate law enforcement equities in any single case. Yet almost nothing is known about the details of the Facebook case because the records remain under seal. Absent more information, the public has no clear way of assessing the impacts for security that are at stake.

This critical debate has not progressed much over the last two years. The government should contribute to the discussion by transparently reporting how often it makes wiretap assistance demands of the type that were reportedly put to Facebook. Any attempt to short circuit this process through a secretive end run to the courts in the name of security concerns should be squarely rejected.

[Greg Nojeim is director of the Freedom, Security, & Technology Project at the Center for Democracy & Technology. Eric Wenger is the director of Cybersecurity and Privacy Policy at Cisco Systems. Marc Zwillinger is the founder of ZwillGen PLLC.]

Twitter outlined its efforts to help preserve election integrity during the upcoming 2018 midterms, including its removal of a new set of accounts and a ban on the distribution of hacked materials. “As platform manipulation tactics continue to evolve, we are updating and expanding our rules to better reflect how we identify fake accounts, and what types of inauthentic activity violate our guidelines,” Twitter wrote. The company said that it removed around 50 accounts misrepresenting themselves as members different state Republican parties in Aug. The company already removed hundreds of accounts in Aug as a part of its platform security efforts.

The company said that it also take steps to keep hacked files from being distributed on its platform. Following the Democratic National Committee in 2016, for example, Wikileaks tweeted links to the trove of data that was hacked. Such information would likely be barred from being posted on Twitter in the future. “We are also expanding the criteria for when we will take action on accounts which claim responsibility for a hack, which includes threats and public incentives to hack specific people and accounts,” Twitter said, clarifying that “Commentary about a hack or hacked materials, such as news articles discussing a hack, are generally not considered a violation of this policy.”