Twenty-nine out of 113 cellsites are down and some police departments have rerouted 911 calls owing to wildfires affecting two counties in New Mexico, a disaster information report system update said Thursday. The fires are mainly affecting Lincoln and Otero counties, so the FCC has activated “DIRS-Lite,” which involves the Public Safety Bureau “obtaining more granular situation-specific information through ongoing direct communications with communications providers,” the report said. The agency is using DIRS-Lite “due to the geographically concentrated impact of the New Mexico wildfires, and the need to gain information that is more precise than county-level.” The report also shows 2,877 wireline customers out of service due to a damaged switch, and that a head-end in Lincoln County serving 172 VoIP customers was damaged. Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility deployed nine mobile assets to the area, the report said. The Public Safety Bureau also issued a public notice Thursday detailing contact numbers and emergency communications procedures for the disaster.

The Media Institute released an adaptation of remarks previously given by FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez at a February luncheon (see 2402200066) as a paper on misinformation in media, a news release said Thursday. The paper, part of the institute’s Madison Project series, is called "Misinformation and the Threat to Our Democracy." In the speech and paper, Gomez said, “Concern about dis- or misinformation is one of the top media issues raised to me in my role as commissioner.” She added, “And it is one where, frankly, regulatory options are limited, as they should be.”

The U.S. Supreme Court granted Bell Wisconsin’s April 15 cert petition challenging the 7th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court ruling that E-rate reimbursement requests to the Universal Service Administrative Co. are actionable under the False Claims Act (FCA) (see 2405220039), said SCOTUS' order list Monday (docket 23-1127). In holding that the FCA’s treble damages and civil penalties apply to submissions made to USAC -- a private corporation paying private funds -- the 7th Circuit “explicitly acknowledged” that it was taking a “contrary view” from the 5th Circuit “about the identical program,” the petitioner said. The circuit split “directly affects billions of dollars distributed each year under the E-rate and three other universal service programs," it added.

Presentations to the FCC's World Radio Conference Advisory Committee, including its subcommittees and working groups, as well as at WAC-sponsored roundtables and presentations between WAC members and FCC staff or commissioners, are exempt for ex parte purposes, the commission's Office of International Affairs said in a notice Monday. The notice also said if pending FCC proceedings and WAC issues overlap, the FCC "will not rely ... on any information submitted to the WAC ... or information WAC members conveyed to FCC staff or Commissioners unless that information is first placed in the record of the relevant proceeding."

Tribal officials asked about outreach, funding and data privacy connected with the FCC’s proposed missing and endangered persons (MEP) alert code during a virtual tribal consultation and listening session Monday (see 2405240043). The agency's Office of Native Affairs and Policy conducted the event. Speakers were broadly supportive of the MEP code but expressed concern about some of the proposal's details. Funding should go from the FCC directly to native groups so they can implement the new code, Sally Fineday of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe said. Reycita Billie, the Navajo Nation Police Department's missing and murdered indigenous people liaison, said the agency should focus on communicating with the public about the new code. “Public education is very important to our community members,” she said. Many members of the public aren’t clear about their options when a loved one is missing, she said. The FCC should consider privacy and data sovereignty issues when any information is collected or shared in connection with the MEP code, a speaker from Washington state said. “How are we ensuring that tribes maintain control of it, that they have access to it, have the ability to edit, delete or share as tribes see fit?” he asked. Michelle Beaudin, a council member for the Lac Courte Oreilles Tribe in Wisconsin, said the FCC should also create MEP wireless emergency alerts. “I believe there's so many more people that have their phones versus the TV or radio,” she said.

Responses are due Monday at the 6th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court on the FCC's motion transferring the consolidated challenges to the commission's net neutrality order to the D.C. Circuit (see 2406100044|), a case manager’s letter said Thursday (dockets 24-3449, 24-3450, 24-3497, 24-3507, 24-3508). Responses to ISPs’ motion to stay agency judgment (see 2406110073) are due Tuesday, the letter said. Friday is the deadline for replies to the responses to either motion, it said.

The Justice Department is trying to avoid public attention to and judicial scrutiny of its conduct, Vermont National Telephone (VTEL) told the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia last week as it argued for an oral hearing on DOJ's motion to dismiss. In a reply in support of its motion for an oral hearing (docket 1:15-cv-00728), VTEL said the court can't follow DOJ's argument that the issue can be decided based on the parties' written submissions, since DOJ hasn't submitted evidence supporting its dismissal decision. DOJ is seeking dismissal of relator VTEL's litigation against Dish Network designated entities (DE) Northstar Wireless and SNR Wireless over allegations of fraud in the FCC's 2015 AWS-3 auction (see 2403040052). In a reply in support of its motion to dismiss this month, DOJ said there's a lack of evidence Dish and the DEs failed to make a material disclosure to the FCC as well as a lack of damages. It said VTEL hasn't contested that Dish and the DEs paid full price for every license they received as they were never awarded any bidding credits. "Given the extensive written submissions by the parties (with Relator filing hundreds of pages on this issue), the United States respectfully submits that such a hearing is not necessary here," DOJ said. In a statement, EchoStar's Dish said VTEL's fraud claim case "has always been frivolous, and the DOJ was absolutely justified in moving to dismiss it." It said VTEL's allegations of political interference "are false and baseless."

A revised substitute version of the Spectrum and National Security Act (S-4207) circulating Friday jettisons the bill’s mandate for the FCC to sell licenses on the 12.7-13.25 GHz band by the end of 2027, as some lobbyists expected (see 2406120058). The revisions, filed as a substitute amendment to S-4207, reflect changes the Commerce Department, DOD and Joint Chiefs of Staff sought in exchange for their endorsement of the measure last week. S-4207’s supporters hope the changes will help ease the bill’s path forward after Senate Commerce postponed three past markups of the measure since early May (see 2405010051). The amount of future auction proceeds S-4207 to be allocated to a range of telecom projects remains the same in the substitute amendment, including lending the FCC $7 billion to fund the expired affordable connectivity program in FY 2024 and $3.08 billion for the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program. The substitute amendment would reapportion $700 million in additional Chips and Science Act money that S-4207 previously allocated to National Institute of Standards and Technology research programs. Instead, it will go to the National Science Foundation for science, technology, engineering and mathematics education grants and other research. Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., will seek a vote on the substitute amendment as part of a Tuesday markup session on S-4207. That meeting will begin at 10 a.m. in 253 Russell.

The Benton Institute for Broadband & Society supported the FCC’s request that the 6th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court move a challenge to the FCC’s net neutrality order to the D.C. Circuit (see 2406100044). A lottery chose the 6th Circuit to hear the case. Yet Benton said the law governing random selection by the Joint Panel on Multidistrict Litigation “merely provides a means for determining which court will initially administer the proceeding, including determining the appropriate venue for its ultimate disposition.” Benton argued that “few cases are as deeply tied” to a particular circuit as net neutrality is to the D.C. Circuit: “Since 2008, the core legal issues presented here have been presented to the D.C. Circuit in five successive cases.” Benton noted that a 2020 FCC order responding to a remand of the 2018 net neutrality order remains before the D.C. Circuit. Groups that brought the challenge say it should remain before the 6th Circuit (see 2406110073).

The U.S. Supreme Court denied the Jan. 5 cert petition of Consumers’ Research challenging the FCC's method for determining the USF quarterly contribution factor (see 2401100044), a docket entry Monday said (docket 23-743). The petition asked SCOTUS to review a Dec. 14 decision of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholding the Q4 2022 contribution factor (see 2312140058).