Maurine and Matthew Molak, who sued the FCC for its decision authorizing funding of Wi-Fi on school buses (see 2406260006), filed a petition at the agency seeking reconsideration of last month’s 3-2 order allowing schools and libraries to use E-rate support for off-premises Wi-Fi hot spots and wireless internet services (see 2407180024). Pleading cycle deadlines will come in a Federal Register notice, a Friday notice from the FCC said. “Petitioners urge the FCC to reconsider and rescind the Report and Order because it is contrary to law,” the petition said. The Molaks argue that the Telecom Act didn’t provide the FCC authority to use the E-rate program to pay for internet service and connections, “such as the Wi-Fi service and equipment at issue.” An agency “cannot exercise authority it does not have,” the petition argued: “If the FCC wishes to move forward with this proposal, it must first obtain proper authority from Congress.” The Molaks, whose 16-year-old son died by suicide after he was cyberbullied, argued that the school bus ruling would give children and teenagers unsupervised social media access. That case is before the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Meanwhile, Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition Executive Director John Windhausen told us the group is mostly pleased with the Wi-Fi order and Further NPRM that the FCC posted last week. Windhausen saw no big surprises. “We're glad the FCC clarified a few issues and teed up additional questions in the further notice,” he said. SHLB's webinar on Wednesday “showed that there is a high level of interest in this new initiative, so we're excited to see how schools and libraries use this opportunity,” he said. SHLB plans additional webinars to answer questions about the program. Several changes were made between the draft and final version of the item, based on our side-by-side comparison. One question before the vote was whether the item would be tweaked to address fixed wireless access and partnerships with nontraditional providers (see 2406270068). The order clarifies that Wi-Fi hot spots “must be for use with a commercially available mobile wireless Internet service, rather than for use with [citizens broadband radio service] or other private network services.” The FNPRM adds language, as sought by Commissioner Geoffrey Starks, on cybersecurity issues. The final order includes a new paragraph on cybersecurity risk management. “Recognizing the critical needs of schools and libraries to protect their broadband networks and sensitive student, school staff, and library patron data, we seek comment on how to ensure that using E-Rate support for Wi-Fi hotspots does not introduce additional vulnerabilities or risks to cyberattacks,” the FNPRM says: “Specifically, we seek comment on whether service providers … should be required to implement cybersecurity and supply chain risk management plans.”

Q2 of this year saw the C-band Relocation Payment Clearinghouse receive another $59 million in claims, the clearinghouse said Thursday in docket 18-122. It said cumulatively it has received 4,507 claims for $3.58 billion -- the vast majority from satellite operators. Of those claims, 2,837 -- with a value of $2.9 billion -- were reviewed and invoiced to the C-band overlay licensees, the clearinghouse said. A total of $287.2 million in claims were approved in Q2. As of Q2, 97% of lump sum reimbursement claims were approved.

FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel touted the FCC’s upcoming vote on a proposed Missing and Endangered Persons alert code (see 2407160064). “One week from now, the FCC will vote to make it easier to use television, radio, and wireless phones to sound the alarm about missing and endangered persons,” Rosenworcel said Wednesday at a Women Empowering Women for Indigenous Nations event in Prior Lake, Minnesota. “The action the FCC is taking next week is in direct response to a call sent out by Native communities after enduring a crisis of the missing for far too long.” Rosenworcel said the agency had received “powerful testimony” that “provided a voice for the murdered and missing.”

NTIA expects it will finish reviewing most initial plans for the broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program next month, NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson said on a conference call with Vermont broadband officials Thursday. Montana, Oklahoma and Vermont may access more than $1.6 billion combined from the $42.5 billion BEAD program, NTIA said earlier in the day. The federal agency approved volume 2 of each state’s initial plan. NTIA allocated about $628 million to Montana, $797 million to Oklahoma and $228 million to Vermont. NTIA has approved entire initial plans for half the 50 states, plus three territories and the District of Columbia. The pace of approvals has quickened lately, with NTIA clearing six plans last week (see 2407260035). Davidson noted an “increased cadence” of approvals, with the agency signing off on three or four plans each week. The NTIA administrator expects that pace will continue through the summer. While expecting the “bulk” of reviews to be done by September, Davidson said there might be “a few small stragglers.” Vermont is “very excited to move from planning to action,” said Christine Hallquist, Vermont Community Broadband Board executive director, on the same call. Vermont expects it will collect bids this fall and winter and hopes to start releasing funds in Q3 2025, Alexei Monsarrat, said a rural broadband technical assistant specialist with Vermont.

The FCC’s Technological Advisory Council will meet Aug. 29 at FCC headquarters, a Friday notice in the Federal Register said. The meeting starts at 10 a.m. TAC last met June 21.

Courts will likely rule that many FCC enforcement actions trigger the Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s SEC v. Jarkesy decision, said DLA Piper partner and former FCC Deputy General Counsel Peter Karanjia in a white paper posted on the law firm's website. In articles, former FCC General Counsels Chris Wright (see 2407170033) and Tom Johnson (see 2405030066) have also said the ruling has ramifications for FCC enforcement. “Jarkesy is a game-changer for the FCC (as well as other administrative agencies), and the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau will not be able to continue with ‘business as usual,’” Karanjia wrote. Arguments that the FCC’s enforcement proceedings already satisfy the Seventh Amendment because targets can decline to pay their fines, triggering a DOJ collection trial, are unlikely to satisfy the courts, Karanjia wrote. “Absent reform, the FCC also faces litigation risk that courts will interpret Jarkesy to bar virtually any FCC enforcement action that seeks civil penalties.”

The White House's Kids Online Health and Safety Task Force issued recommendations and best practices for youths' social media and online platform use Monday. Recommendations in the 130-page report include making youth privacy protections the default, limiting "likes" and social comparison features for youths by default, and making age-appropriate parental control tools easy to understand and use. Its recommendations for parents and caregivers include building "a family media plan [to] create an agreement across all members of a family or household about media use." NTIA and the Department of Health and Human Services’ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration co-headed the task force.

The FCC Public Safety Bureau's report on the Feb. 22 nationwide outage of AT&T’s wireless network (see 2403040062) found procedural mistakes by the carrier. Released Monday, the report said the Enforcement Bureau could impose sanctions. Based on information from AT&T, the report said “all voice and 5G data services for all users of AT&T Mobility were unavailable as a result of the outage, affecting more than 125 million registered devices, blocking more than 92 million voice calls, and preventing more than 25,000 calls” to 911. The direct cause was “an error by an employee who misconfigured a single network element, ultimately causing the AT&T Mobility network to respond by entering Protection Mode and disconnecting all wireless devices,” the bureau said: “Adequate peer review should have prevented the network change from being approved, and, in turn, from being loaded onto the network. This peer review did not take place.” The report cited a lack of post-installation testing, inadequate lab testing and “insufficient safeguards and controls” on AT&T's part, as well as insufficient procedures for mitigating problems. It noted the company has “taken numerous steps to prevent a reoccurrence.” For instance, within two days of the outage, “AT&T implemented additional technical controls in its network,” the report found: “This included scanning the network for any network elements lacking the controls that would have prevented the outage, and promptly putting those controls in place. AT&T has engaged in ongoing forensic work and implemented additional enhancements to promote network robustness and resilience.” AT&T has "implemented changes to prevent what happened in February from occurring again," a spokesperson emailed: "We fell short of the standards that we hold ourselves to, and we regret that we failed to meet the expectations of our customers and the public safety community.”

The FCC appeared to make only limited changes to an NPRM proposing industry-wide handset unlocking rules that commissioners approved 5-0 Thursday. The agency posted the NPRM Friday. The biggest change came in a paragraph on exceptions to the 60-day locking period that Commissioner Brendan Carr requested, as indicated Thursday (see 2407180037). “Should the rule permit any other exceptions to deter fraud including instances where individuals or groups illegally obtain devices and resell them to the public (i.e. handset trafficking)?” the notice now says: “For example, should lost or stolen phones also fall under an exception to the 60-day unlocking requirement?” The final order also notes concerns that Tango Networks and CS Hawthorn raised (see 2407160048). Only Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and Commissioners Geoffrey Starks and Anna Gomez issued written statements attached to the NPRM. Comment deadlines will be set in an upcoming Federal Register notice.

FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel had “no comment" Thursday when reporters asked her about 16 House Democrats’ request that Inspector General Fara Damelin and federal watchdogs investigate Republican Commissioner Brendan Carr for potential ethics rules violations related to him writing the telecom chapter of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 policy report (see 2407170061). During a news conference Thursday, Carr largely repeated an earlier statement that his Project 2025 writing didn’t run afoul of ethics rules. FCC ethics officials “signed off on me” writing the Project 2025 chapter “in my personal capacity, which I did,” Carr told reporters. He also pushed back against lawmakers’ claims that identifying himself as a sitting FCC commissioner violated the Hatch Act. FCC ethics officials found “you are allowed to list your current position” in a biography accompanying text written in a personal capacity “among the other sort of biographical details that would be in a bio,” Carr said: Many of the ideas included in the Project 2025 chapter come from “ideas that I’ve put forward in a lot of different contexts, including testimony and in speeches. It's pretty basic stuff,” which isn’t “that controversial.” He later declined to discuss whether he agreed with a Project 2025 proposal that the FCC exclude stations affiliated with PBS and NPR from being designated as noncommercial educational stations, saying he was speaking during the news conference in his personal capacity. That proposal is included in a CPB chapter of the Project 2025 book that Carr did not write.