The USF contribution factor for Q3 2024 will be 34.4%, an FCC Office of Managing Director public notice said Wednesday in docket 96-45. That's an increase from 32.8% in Q2 (see 2403150004).

FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez will host a listening session about incarcerated people's communications services on June 18 in Phoenix, a public notice said Wednesday in docket 23-62. Gomez will meet with current and former IPCS consumers for "first-hand accounts of the critical importance of affordable communications services to incarcerated people." The listening session will also offer "additional public comment regarding the commission's ongoing efforts" to establish new IPCS rates and charges. The event will take place from 10:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the Arizona State University Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law.

The FCC’s rechartered Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council will meet for the first time June 28, the FCC announced Monday. FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said Billy Bob Brown from the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and Todd Piett of Motorola will serve as co-chairs. It will have three working groups: Harnessing AI/Machine Learning to Ensure the Security, Reliability and Integrity of the Nation’s Communications Networks; Ensuring Consumer Access to 911 on All Available Networks as Technology Evolves; and Preparing for 6G Security and Reliability. The group last met a year ago (see 2306260058).

The "cascading levels of responsibility built into" NTIA's broadband, equity, access and deployment program "open multiple doors through which devilish details ... might slip and cause havoc," Free State Foundation Senior Fellow Andrew Long wrote in a blog Monday. Long warned of potential rate regulation, a bias for fiber technology and "other elements of the Biden Broadband Plan" that weren't included in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (see 2405310050). The "multitiered process" creates "numerous opportunities for motivated mischief-makers to inject their policy biases ... into the day-to-day administration" of BEAD, Long said. All 56 eligible states and territories have submitted initial BEAD proposals and received approval for volume I.

The FCC Wireline Bureau Friday reminded recipients of funding through the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program that their next update to the FCC is due July 8. The last was due April 8. FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel wrote Congress last month urging full funding to close the more than $3 billion shortfall in the rip-and-replace program, which pays for replacing Huawei and ZTE communications gear and services (see 2405020071).

The FCC Public Safety Bureau said Tuesday covered 911 service providers must notify the FCC within 60 days after they completely cease operations, starting July 4. That comes following Federal Register publication of the Office of Management and Budget's review of the requirement, which was imposed as part of an FCC 2022 order (see 2211180070), the bureau said.

The carrier-neutral network operator (CNNO) segment had combined revenue of nearly $100 billion in 2023, responsible for $34.8 billion in capex, ResearchAndMarkets.com reported Monday. Revenue was up 5.1% over the previous year. “CNNOs play a crucial, complementary role in the communications sector and own and operate a large portion of the world's cell towers, data centers, and fiber networks,” the report said. It added, the telecom carrier of today “cobbles together its physical network from a mix of owned and leased or rented resources.” The five largest CNNOs by revenue in 2023 were China Tower, American Tower, Equinix, Level 3 and Crown Castle.

The State E-rate Coordinators’ Alliance reported on a series of meetings at the FCC with aides to Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and others to offer advice on the commission’s proposed $200 million cybersecurity pilot program for schools and libraries (see 2405160076). Commissioners will vote at their open meeting Thursday. “Our underlying premise, based on our day-to-day, year-after-year experiences working with applicants, is that they need to be informed of all the fundamental program requirements before they begin the application process, to flourish and succeed with the new pilot,” the alliance said in a filing posted Friday in docket 23-234. Potential negative effects “can be mitigated by addressing all the program parameters in the final Report and Order, at the beginning of the pilot, rather than relying on supplemental clarifications being issued later,” the group said. Also seeking tweaks were the Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition, the American Library Association, the Consortium for School Networking and Common Sense. “It is not immediately apparent that there is a need for funding floors or caps since this is a pilot program in which the Commission retains the authority to choose which applicants are going to receive funding,” the groups said. They said it’s also not clear how the FCC will choose which pilots to fund.

Intrepid Fiber Networks backed the FCC's proposal that bans bulk billing arrangements between ISPs and multi-tenant environment (MTE) owners (see 2405080043). Intrepid said in a letter Tuesday in docket 17-142 that such arrangements without an opt-out provision "force MTE resident consumers to pay for broadband, cable, and satellite service" from a specific provider. In addition, they act "as an impediment to new market entrants," Intrepid said. Some consumers are "being forced to purchase unwanted and unused services, leading to overall higher costs," it added. The company said bulk billing contracts result in consumers being "obligated to pay for increasingly outdated technology and network equipment."

Officials from trade association America’s Credit Unions (ACU) met with FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel about proposals for clamping down on robocalls. “The purpose of the meeting was to discuss how the Commission can best achieve a balance that protects consumers from unlawful calls and scams while also ensuring that credit unions are able to communicate with their members without undue litigation risk or the risk of having their lawful calls inadvertently blocked or mislabeled,” according to a filing posted Thursday in docket 02-278. The group opposed a National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) proposal seeking an automated “opt-out mechanism” on every call containing an artificial or prerecorded voice message. The NCLC proposal is “unnecessary” in light of commission rules, which provide “ample mechanisms for consumers to revoke consent,” ACU said.