Emergency Communications

A group of interested stakeholders has cited the coronavirus in asking the Federal Communications Commission to extend the comment deadline on a court's remand of portions of its Restoring Internet Freedom order. In a motion for extension of time, the groups said that "the staff, officials and line level first responders who possess the knowledge necessary to respond to these questions are preoccupied with preparing for, and conducting, emergency responses to a public safety crisis of unprecedented magnitude brought on by the rapid spread of COVID-19." They also pointed out that since the c

This past Nov, a bipartisan majority at the Federal Communications Commission adopted a vertical, or “z-axis,” location accuracy metric of plus or minus 3 meters for wireless 911 calls. That means that in the coming years you will be able to more accurately identify the floor-level for most 911 calls and reduce emergency response time.

You might think it could never happen here in the United States. But think again. To understand how, start with the Communications Act of 1934 — which, though it has been amended and updated several times, is essentially an 86-year-old law that is still the framework for US communications policy today.

The Trump Federal Communications Commission’s overzealous efforts to remove broadband providers from any obligations to protect internet users defies what Congress clearly intended for these critical communications services. Our national goal of achieving universal broadband service faces several roadblocks without the FCC’s Title II authority. The agency will also have difficulty upholding public safety if we don’t restore this crucial legal standard. These harms are already playing out. Feb.

The weekend of Feb 21, Federal Communications Commissioner Geoffrey Starks visited Puerto Rico, where he convened a field hearing on communications resiliency and visited mountain areas to learn about the challenges of deploying resilient infrastructure in Puerto Rico’s rural areas.  

As our communications networks have expanded, we sometimes take stable, reliable access to communications—and the access to friends and family, emergency services, employment, and all of the many benefits those networks provide—for granted.

In early October 2019, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued its ruling in Mozilla Corporation vs Federal Communications Commission, the case that challenged the Federal Communications Commission's repeal of network neutrality rules (the Restoring Internet F

House Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) and Communications and Technology Subcommittee member Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-CA) introduced the Reinforcing and Evaluating Service Integrity, Local Infrastructure, and Emergency Notification for Today’s Networks Act (H.R.

In Mozilla Corp. v. FCC,  the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld the vast majority of the Federal Communications Commission’s 2017 decision to end net neutrality protections. However, the court also remanded three discrete issues for further consideration by the FCC. On February 6, 2020, the D.C. Circuit denied all pending petitions for rehearing, and the Court issued its mandate on February 18, 2020. With this Public Notice, the Wireline Competition Bureau seeks to refresh the record regarding the issues remanded to the FCC by the Mozilla Court.