The FCC is ready to authorize $21.3 million for rural broadband experiments by seven companies in eight states, the Wireline Bureau said Tuesday in a public notice in docket 10-90. The companies include: Skybeam ($12.4 million in Iowa, Nebraska and Texas), Douglas Services ($2.4 million in Oregon), Northern Valley Communications ($2.02 million in South Dakota), Paul Bunyan Rural Telephone Cooperative ($1.96 million in Minnesota), Federated Telephone Cooperative ($1.46 million in Minnesota), Daktel Communications ($875,000 in North Dakota) and Midwest Energy Cooperative ($211,532 in Michigan). The bureau provided some companies with waivers to certain rules, including that they be designated as "eligible telecom carriers" if they made "good faith" ETC efforts. The provisionally selected bidders must submit at least one acceptable irrevocable standby letter of credit and bankruptcy code opinion by Sept. 29, the notice said.

Clearwire sought authorization to discontinue interconnected VoIP service and associated features to 20 business customers in nine states on Nov. 6, in an application filed with the FCC Monday by the company and parent Sprint. Clear Pro Voice is being discontinued because Sprint is upgrading its 4G LTE network and is shutting down the towers that support the VoIP service so they can be repurposed for LTE service, the companies said. The business customers have voice service alternatives from various other providers, they said. Clearwire also sought authorization to discontinue "digital voice VoIP" service and associated features in 36 states and the District of Columbia on Nov. 6 for the same 4G LTE repurposing, in a separate application filed by the companies Thursday.

The FCC Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council will meet Monday, starting at 1 p.m., at commission headquarters, the agency said. “The Council will hear progress reports from the Steering Committee and each of its working groups on their formation and initial meetings.”

Qualcomm's Qualcomm Life bought medical device integration and data management solutions provider Capsule Technologie, the acquirer said in a news release Monday. It will extend Qualcomm Life's connected health offerings and enable data collection and monitoring of its connected device ecosystem, the company said.

A court decision certifying class-action rights of Uber drivers has implications for other companies that rely on independent contractors, including upstarts and communications companies, Kelley Drye attorney Steve Augustino said in a Friday blog post. “Many communications companies make similar uses of independent contractors to perform key functions, and therefore should heed the lessons of the decision. At a minimum, the Uber decision demonstrates why companies must remain cognizant of how they classify workers in order to avoid similar costly and time-consuming class action cases.” U.S. District Court Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco ruled Sept. 1 that current and former Uber drivers constituted a class that could pursue a claim that Uber violated California’s Unfair Competition law (Douglas O’Connor, et al., v. Uber Technologies, No. C-13-3826 EMC). Four plaintiffs sued Uber on behalf of themselves and a putative class of about 160,000 past and present Uber drivers. They contended they and other drivers were employees, not independent contractors, under state law and thus eligible for various labor protections. Uber argued it had properly classified every single driver as an independent contractor, but Chen disagreed after finding the company's statements created tension with that argument. He noted other federal rulings, including Norris-Wilson v. Delta T Group in the Southern District of California in 2009, which said an employer citing independent contractor classification as universally appropriate “runs at cross purposes with the reason for objecting to class certification.” A Kelley Drye advisory said the case has lessons for companies, including tech startups, using independent contractors to lower costs. “One possible way for a company to avoid a potential class action of the kind filed against Uber is by utilizing contractual clauses that limit the resolution of disputes with independent contractors to arbitration proceedings that exclude class actions,” it said.

The FCC released a new eligible service list (ESL) for the E-rate USF program providing discounts for schools and libraries. "In the ESL Public Notice for this coming funding year, we proposed keeping the basic structure of the ESL while modifying the ESL to reflect the changes the Commission made to the E-rate program for funding year 2016 in the Second E-rate Modernization Order, and to provide some minor clarifications," the Wireline Bureau said in an order. The bureau said it is adopting the proposed changes to the ESL in the public notice with some modifications.

Taking aim at curbing unwanted robocalls and caller ID spoofing, the FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau suggested a two-year timetable for implementation (mostly by industry) of highly technical authentication and call-filtering actions. That news came with CGB's release of the agenda for a related workshop scheduled for Wednesday. The first planned steps would be this winter, with the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) completing a “Secure Telephone Identity Revisited SIP (session initiation protocol) header document" and industry organizations and advisory panels recommending how to store "per-number cryptographic credentials,” the bureau said in a public notice Thursday. Several actions would be targeted for next year, including carriers offering "egregious caller" filters in the spring and initial user-controlled call filtering in the fall. The timetable’s stretch run anticipates terminating carriers validating “SIP calls based on carrier or per-number certificates or credentials” in winter 2016-17 and all VoIP-originated calls being “signed” by summer 2017. The workshop will examine call-blocking and call-filtering solutions to robocalls and caller ID spoofing from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday in the Commission Meeting Room. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is to make opening remarks, followed by panels on call-blocking services, third-party solutions, carrier/provider capabilities, and the role of “gateway providers” in stopping unwanted robocalls. Panelists and moderators will include officials from the FCC, FTC and the Indiana attorney general’s office; representatives of telecom providers (AT&T, Bandwidth.com, Level 3, USTelecom, Verizon and Vonage), other industry parties (e.g., the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions, Call Control, IETF and Oracle); Consumers Union; and professors from Georgia Tech and Columbia University.

AT&T Digital Life will begin offering a limited number of its existing security and automation customers a free trial of a personal security app in November, it announced Thursday. The app will offer trial users access to Digital Life’s professional monitoring service for support when problems arise while they are outside their home, said the provider. Components of the service include professional monitoring, messaging and a mapping feature, said the company. A user who is traveling can use the app’s one-click alert feature 24/7 to contact Digital Life’s monitoring center, which can dispatch emergency services and provide first responders with information such as health conditions and allergies from the user’s profile, said AT&T. Users can opt in to have the monitoring center view live audio and video of their location or condition, it said. Another option is to set a timer at the start of a trip -- such as walking to a parked car in a dark location -- which will trigger an alert unless canceled, said AT&T. The messaging function sends an alert to a programmed list of contacts within the app to let them know information such as a safe arrival or that the user has been in an accident, it said. A map feature shows the user's location, with the individual's permission, for use by monitoring professionals in case of emergency. The trial service will be available to a limited number of existing AT&T Digital Life Premium Security and Automation subscribers and AT&T plans to launch Personal Security to a broader audience in the future. The company plans to add features “to continue extending Digital Life beyond the home,” it said. Questions to AT&T on length of the trial, how trial customers will be chosen and planned date to begin broad service weren’t immediately answered.

Neustar agreed to buy caller authentication assets from Transaction Network Services for about $220 million in cash. After tax benefits are factored in, the purchase will be worth about $173 million, said Neustar and TNS, a Siris Capital Group affiliate, in a joint release Wednesday. "This acquisition will allow Neustar to compete in the broad market for call authentication in mobile, broadband and wireless services with offerings that include subscriber data storage, database management, caller identification and verification services," the release said. "The Company estimates that the acquired assets will generate approximately $60 million in revenue in 2016." The companies expect the deal to close in 4Q after receiving federal Hart-Scott-Rodino antitrust clearance.

NetCompetition Chairman Scott Cleland blasted presidential candidacy talk from Larry Lessig, a Harvard Law School professor and net neutrality advocate. “The political agenda hidden inside Mr. Lessig’s Trojan horse candidacy is network neutrality,” Cleland wrote Monday in an op-ed for The Daily Caller. “At least part of the reason Mr. Lessig is running for president, is because he knows the partisan net neutrality gains enjoyed at the FCC are at serious risk of defunding from Congress, of overturning in court, and/or reversal by a potential Republican President in 2017.” NetCompetition receives support from the telecom industry. Lessig announced consideration of a bid last month and plans to officially announce his candidacy for the Democratic nomination Wednesday. He has said he has no intention to govern as president, simply to advance a campaign finance overhaul measure and then resign.