Jimm Phillips

The FCC’s expected vote Thursday to reclassify broadband as a Communications Act Title II service has the potential to unintentionally expand its regulatory authority on communications sector cybersecurity, ex-agency officials said in interviews. They conceded it’s unlikely the commission has any plans to exercise that authority in the near future given the strong likelihood of legal challenges to new net neutrality rules. Industry lawyers have said the FCC can claim authority on cybersecurity at least via Title I, and could stake a claim via Title II and Section 706 (see 1406240037). FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has been championing improving cybersecurity risk management within the communications sector since last year via voluntary private sector-led work in the Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council’s (CSRIC) Working Group 4 and the Technological Advisory Council (see 1406130056).

Localized public safety answering points (PSAPs) have “an obvious leading part” in making the FCC’s 911 wireless location accuracy order and the industry-public safety road map work, FCC Public Safety Bureau Deputy Chief David Furth said on Tuesday. PSAPs “are in the best position” to monitor the on-the-ground accuracy of 911 location technologies the carriers are testing as part of the order and road map, he said during a National Emergency Number Association (NENA) conference. The 911 indoor location accuracy order the FCC adopted Jan. 29 was seen to have been influenced by the voluntary commitments included in the road map (see 1501290066).

State and local governments will be cut off from Department of Homeland Security cybersecurity grants and other DHS grants if Congress doesn’t pass funding for the department by the end of the week, Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson told state governors Sunday during a National Governors Association meeting. DHS funding has been in doubt since earlier in the month after House Republicans attached to a bill to fund the department for the rest of FY 2015 provisions that would scale back President Barack Obama’s immigration executive action (see 1502130015).

Spectrum allocations above 24 GHz that the FCC has identified for possible wireless use “present an important opportunity to open large contiguous blocks of spectrum,” but the commission also should continue to examine bands below 24 GHz since those are the bands where 5G services “are expected to emerge first,” AT&T said in a filing posted Friday. Most other industry stakeholders also encouraged the FCC in separate filings to proceed with caution on rulemakings for spectrum above 24 GHz. The FCC, in an Oct. 17 notice of inquiry, identified six sets of bands above 24 GHz for possible wireless use: the local multipoint distribution service (LMDS) bands, the 39 GHz band, the 37/42 GHz bands, the 57-64 GHz and 64-71 GHz bands, the 71-76 GHz bands, the 81-86 GHz bands and the 24/25 GHz bands. Reply comments on the NOI were due Feb. 17.

Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council (CSRIC) Working Group 4 delivered its draft final report Friday to the full CSRIC membership on its recommendations for how the communications sector should adapt the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework for industry-specific uses. The report’s full contents will remain confidential while CSRIC reviews the report and provides feedback on possible revisions ahead of an expected March 18 vote on whether to adopt the report, Working Group 4 Co-Chair Robert Mayer said in an interview.

A Wednesday all-party meeting on the California Public Utilities Commission Comcast/Time Warner Cable deal review is likely to be crucial in determining the outcome of the CPUC review, industry lawyers and public interest advocates said in interviews. CPUC Administrative Law Judge Karl Bemesderfer released a draft decision on Comcast/TWC Feb. 13 that recommends the CPUC approve the deal with significant conditions (see 1502170059). The CPUC scheduled the meeting for 2 p.m. PST at its headquarters in San Francisco before Bemesderfer’s release of the draft decision.

Questions about the security of using non-U.S. satellite constellations to supplement GPS in determining wireless 911 caller locations and privacy concerns related to phone functionality during a 911 call will require further debate, industry executives said Wednesday during a panel at NARUC’s meeting. Nebraska Public Service Commissioner Tim Schram asked what cybersecurity measures U.S. carriers should take if they use non-U.S. global navigation satellite systems (GNSS). NARUC Telecom Committee Chairman Chris Nelson, chairman of the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission, asked whether Wi-Fi and Bluetooth functionalities on cellphones should automatically be enabled when someone calls 911.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler struck back against “ill-informed” criticisms that his draft net neutrality order would institute a 1930s-level regulatory structure on broadband. He said during NARUC’s winter meeting in Washington Tuesday that his order would use a “modern version” of Communications Act Title II. The FCC is expected to vote 3-2 Feb. 26 for the net neutrality order, which would reclassify broadband as a Title II service. The draft order would forebear from 27 of Title II’s 38 sections, which Wheeler said was almost four times the seven Title II sections that the FCC forbore from when it crafted mobile voice rules under Title II and Telecom Act Section 332 following enactment of the 1996 Telecom Act. CTIA, where Wheeler was president when he backed forbearance of regulatory sections in Title II for wireless carriers, has said it will join other industry groups in suing the FCC over the new net neutrality rules (see 1502130049). CTIA President Meredith Baker is to speak during a Wednesday NARUC session.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said he's hopeful the commission will move soon on an order allowing state agencies access to the Network Outage Reporting System (NORS) database, the subject of one of two resolutions (see 1502050039) that NARUC’s Telecom Committee approved Tuesday. The committee unanimously approved a resolution urging the FCC to grant state agencies access to the NORS database in response to a November 2009 petition from the California Public Utilities Commission.

President Barack Obama signed a cybersecurity executive order Friday to encourage cyberthreat information sharing between the private sector and the government and to effectively concentrate that sharing at the Department of Homeland Security. “There’s only one way to defend America from these cyber threats, and that is through government and industry working together, sharing appropriate information as true partners,” he said. The order represents an important step on improving cybersecurity, but isn't as far-reaching as a 2013 executive order that resulted in the production of the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Cybersecurity Framework, industry executives and lawyers told us.