Howard Buskirk

AI is “part of everything” and will only grow in importance, but the U.S. is falling behind other countries in developing AI policy, Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., said Thursday during the Augmented and Virtual Reality Conference. “Innovation and technology are moving forward and policy is falling further and further behind,” DelBene said. The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and the Extended Reality Association (XR) sponsored the conference at the AT&T Forum.

The FCC’s three-year, $200 million cybersecurity pilot program for schools and libraries will likely be highly competitive, with lots of interest nationally, Julia Legg, account manager at E-Rate Central, predicted on Wednesday during a Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition webinar. SHLB received dozens of questions about program details during the webinar. The FCC wants to fund as many eligible schools, libraries and consortiums as possible, including “those that include tribal entities, and a mix of large and small, urban and rural” programs, Legg said. All the details haven’t been published on reporting requirements, but a baseline report will be required in year one, with annual reports due within 60 days of the end of the year, she said. Applicants disagreeing with a decision have 30 days to appeal, half the time normally available for E-rate appeals, she said. Allison Baker, associate chief of the FCC Wireline Bureau, said the agency will accept applications from entities not participating in the E-rate program, but they must be eligible for it. Sue McNeil, chief of the Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau’s Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, warned potential applicants that failure to file a complete Part 2 application could mean being removed from the pilot and potentially being referred to the Enforcement Bureau: “Nobody wants that.” Some 30 questions raised in the webinar that weren't answered will be addressed during an Oct. 2 SHLB workshop, said John Windhausen, SHLB executive director. The FCC approved the pilot program 3-2 in June with Commissioners Brendan Carr and Nathan Simington dissenting (see 2406060043). The initial window to apply for the program opens Sept. 17 and closes Nov. 1 (see 2409040036).

NCTA told the FCC that giving wireless providers six months to unlock handsets after they’re activated, not the FCC’s proposed 60 days, would allow providers time to “ascertain whether a handset has been subject to fraud.” Comments were filed this week in docket 24-186, on an NPRM commissioners approved 5-0 in July (see 2409100048). A six-month mandate would mean “increased competition among providers, and, in turn, lower service prices and more competitive offerings than under existing unlocking policies,” NCTA said. Comcast also urged a six-month unlocking requirement. The longer period “would give wireless providers a sufficient opportunity to detect and combat handset fraud as well as a greater opportunity to identify other payment issues, while promoting increased competition and consumer choice in the wireless marketplace,” Comcast said. The Cloud Communications Alliance supported an order requiring unlocking by default when a phone is activated. That would “further enhance competition, avoid any consumer confusion, and prevent wireless providers from interposing delays or objections,” the alliance said: Unlocking by default "is the rule in several other countries and has long been supported by consumer advocates.” The Coalition of Rural Wireless Carriers said the mandate should apply only to handsets customers buy outright. “The proposed rule will interfere with contractual arrangements in ways that will disproportionately harm financially vulnerable consumers,” the coalition said. For smaller providers, “the incentive to offer device installment contracts to credit-challenged consumers will likely decrease if consumers can more easily break these agreements and take devices -- without paying for them -- to other carriers,” the group said. But EchoStar backed a requirement that applies to all devices “whether prepaid or postpaid and regardless of financing status.” It also called on the FCC to issue a Further NPRM on porting practices. “Carriers today impose varied and often onerous requirements on consumers seeking to port their phone numbers to new carriers that -- like unlocking rules -- may hinder their ability to switch providers,” the company said. The Advanced Communications Law and Policy Institute at New York Law School advised the FCC not to “micromanage” handset policy. “Unfortunately, the Commission, notwithstanding its confidence in the need for prophylactic regulation, fails to offer persuasive data, analysis, or legal justification for its proposed handset unlocking rules,” the institute said: “In reality, the U.S. wireless sector is robustly competitive, vibrantly innovative, and incredibly responsive to consumer demands, including those related to handset unlocking.”

Carriers have a long history of using statistical methods and machine learning when analyzing their networks, but generative AI means a “step function in capabilities,” Raj Savoor, AT&T vice president-network analytics and automation, said Wednesday during an RCR Wireless webinar. However, another speaker warned of “lazy” AI.

A group of companies and associations, including Federated Wireless and Charter Communications, urged the FCC in comments this week to adopt a nonexclusive, nonauctioned shared licensed framework in the lower 37 GHz band. The band is one of five targeted for further study in the administration’s national spectrum strategy (see 2311130048). Comments were due Monday in docket 24-243 and most were posted on Tuesday.

Carriers clashed over whether the FCC should move forward on an order that generally imposes industry-wide handset unlocking rules, requiring all mobile wireless providers to unlock handsets 60 days after they’re activated. Groups representing low-income consumers warned the rules could mean ending subsidies for purchasing phones. Comments were due Monday in docket 24-186, on an NPRM commissioners approved 5-0 in July (see 2407180037).

The window for applying to be designated as a cybersecurity labeling administrator (CLA) or lead administrator under the new voluntary cyber-trust mark program will open Wednesday and close Oct. 1, the FCC Public Safety Bureau said Tuesday. The notice provides guidance on the application format, filing fees, selection criteria, the sharing of expenses, lead administrator neutrality and confidentiality and security requirements. The bureau declined imposing “selection criteria” beyond those in an order that commissioners approved 5-0 in March (see 2403140034). As discussed in the order, “authorizing one or more CLAs subject to Commission oversight to handle the routine administration of the program will help to ensure its timely and consistent rollout, and independent third-party CLAs will bring trust, consistency, and an impartial level playing field to the IoT Labeling Program and will provide the required expertise for the administration of the program,” the notice said. Applications will be treated as “presumptively confidential” and the FCC won't assess application fees “at this time,” the bureau said. CLAs will share the cost of a lead administrator, but the bureau declined to lay out how that would work. The commission will “rely on CLAs and the Lead Administrator to determine the sharing methodology, which should be reasonable and equitable and will be subject to ongoing oversight by the Commission,” the notice said. Each applicant must submit an “attestation that it already has created and implemented -- or upon selection will create and implement -- a cybersecurity risk management plan,” the bureau said: Each applicant must show it will comply with agency requirements, as well as demonstrate its “cybersecurity expertise and capabilities, knowledge of [the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s] cybersecurity guidance, and knowledge of federal law and guidance governing the security and privacy of information systems.” The program should be “narrowly tailored to cybersecurity so as not to dilute its effectiveness, confuse consumers, and deter manufacturer participation,” CTA and other groups said in a letter to the FCC. The letter warned against imposing a requirement on disclosures about IoT products and privacy. It was posted Tuesday in docket 23-239. “Expanding required disclosures from cybersecurity risks to privacy topics would dilute the effectiveness of the Mark, risk consumer confusion, and undermine the careful balance that the Commission has struck to provide simple and tailored educational cybersecurity information to consumers,” the filing said. Other groups signing the letter were CTIA, the Information Technology Industry Council and the National Electrical Manufacturers Association. The groups said the regulator should “treat as confidential” both cybersecurity label administrator and manufacturer applications to join the program.

Verizon has focused on AI for more than a decade and sees itself as “very advanced” in the technology, CEO Hans Vestberg said Monday during a Goldman Sachs technology conference. For example, Verizon is experiencing the growth of AI in handling calls from customers, and quickly forwarding them to the best agent to address customer concerns, he said. AI will also mean more personalized service from the carrier, Vestberg added. “Given the amount of data we have on the customer, we can personalize the plans much better.” Generative AI will also help Verizon in its strategy of bringing computing closer to the edge, Vestberg said. The carrier already has agreements with Google, Amazon and Microsoft on mobile-edge compute, he said. Large-language models are still being trained, but “the loads are coming.” In the 1990s, customers changed their phones yearly, and now it's closer to every 40 months, Vestberg said. “People keep the phone because the quality is higher” and “that's partly because … the network is great.” Verizon has two “great” AI phones available today, but so far they’re not driving changes in customer behavior, he said. Cable wireless is making gains, he admitted, though some of the companies use the Verizon network. Cable providers “are an important wholesale partner on the wireless side for us” and “accretive to our bottom line.” We treat them as “important, large enterprise customers. Then we compete with them every day.”

With Congress back for a three-week sprint before Election Day, Competitive Carriers Association CEO Tim Donovan remains convinced lawmakers will fully fund a program that removes unsecure gear from U.S. networks. In an interview, Donovan also said he expects at least some groups will seek reconsideration of the FCC’s recent order creating a 5G Fund.

AT&T CFO Pascal Desroches wasn’t surprised at Verizon’s proposed buy of Frontier (see 2409050010). “When you look at bandwidth consumption trends in the U.S., they are going in one direction,” Desroches said Thursday during a Bank of America conference. The providers with “networks at scale [in] both wireless and fiber will be the ones who succeed,” he said: “They're going to be more competitive. They will have the best networks, the best cost structure.” He noted AT&T has invested heavily in spectrum and fiber and doesn’t need to acquire companies to compete. AT&T would rather “build and generate the returns through building as opposed to going out and acquiring and paying a premium.” Offering wireless and fiber service in a market means “considerable churn reduction” for both. Compared with 2021 and 2022, the wireless market “has normalized” and is “very healthy.” AT&T’s “play is not necessarily taking share of subscribers -- it is how do you optimize overall revenue and deliver value to the bottom line?”