The FCC sought comment Wednesday on Inland Cellular’s proposed acquisition of Commnet’s rural digital opportunity fund support obligations in parts of Washington and Montana. Comments are due July 17, replies July 24, in docket 24-134. “Applicants state that Inland and its affiliates have deployed wireless and broadband networks and served customers since 1989 in rural areas of Washington and Idaho,” said a Wireline Bureau notice: “They further assert that Inland is uniquely situated to efficiently deploy RDOF-supported voice and broadband service in the Assigned Census Blocks.”

Data submissions for the FCC's fifth broadband data collection are due Sept. 3, an FCC public notice said Thursday in docket 19-195. Submissions should include broadband availability as of Sunday.

FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel asked nine telecom companies how they will prevent politically motivated "fraudulent robocalls" that use AI (see 2204220051). A Thursday news release said Rosenworcel sent letters to AT&T, Charter, Comcast, Cox, Dish, Frontier, Lumen, T-Mobile and Verizon. The letters come after the agency responded to an AI-assisted fraudulent robocall campaign that targeted New Hampshire voters (see 2402060087). "This is just the beginning," Rosenworcel said. "We know that AI technologies will make it cheap and easy to flood our networks with deepfakes," she said: "As AI tools become more accessible to bad actors and scammers, we need to do everything we can to keep this junk off our networks."

Zayo became the first ISP to begin construction on a project that includes funding from NTIA's middle mile broadband infrastructure grant program, the agency said Monday. Zayo received $24 million to build a 645-mile fiber network across Nevada and 23 access points that will "enable ready access to local [ISPs]," NTIA said (see 2405220050). The start of construction "means the people of Nevada are one step closer to more affordable, more reliable high-speed internet service," NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson said.

NTIA accepted digital equity plans from American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands, the federal agency said Tuesday. That means NTIA has accepted plans from all states, territories and the District of Columbia to use grants from NTIA’s $1.44 billion digital equity program.

The Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials opposed an ATIS petition for reconsideration or clarification of the agency’s January outage reporting order (see 2406120043). Oppositions were due Monday. The ATIS petition is confusing, APCO said in a filing posted Monday in docket 21-346. ATIS asked the FCC to clarify the application of its waiver of network outage reporting system filings during disaster information reporting system activations. “If ATIS’s request is to excuse service providers from their obligation to provide timely notifications” to 911 call centers “of network outages and disruptions affecting 9-1-1 calls, APCO opposes the request,” the filing said.

Congress should renew the affordable connectivity program (ACP) and protect local authority in the right of way (ROW), mayors attending the U.S. Conference of Mayors conference said Sunday. City leaders adopted resolutions on ACP, ROW compensation and opposing the American Broadband Act (HR-3557), which is a package of GOP-led connectivity permitting revamp measures (see 2311060069). The conference adopted the resolutions as part of a unanimous consent agenda Sunday after the Technology and Innovation Committee approved them unanimously Friday. ACP “has been one of the most effective broadband benefit programs to date with its direct-to-consumer model to enroll low-income households and help ensure they can afford the internet connections they need for work, school [and] healthcare,” the first resolution said: The conference urges Congress to renew and extend ACP this year “to ensure eligible households have access to affordable high-speed internet.” The second resolution on local compensation noted that some members of the FCC, Congress and state legislatures “have wrongly characterized this balancing act among competing interests for the public rights-of-way and maintenance of local authority as a barrier to broadband deployment, putting the interests of national corporations ahead of the needs of communities by effectively granting those corporations subsidized access to local public rights-of-way that do not belong to the federal or state government.” Congress should pass a bill amending the Cable Act’s franchise fee section to correct the FCC and the 6th U.S. Circuit of Appeals misreading of the act “and make clear that no other provision of the Cable Act limits or preempts state or local fees or taxes on cable operators or on the non-cable services they provide,” it said. Also, Congress should approve the Protecting Community Television Act (HR-907 and S-340) “to make clear that the cost of non-monetary franchise obligations do not constitute a ‘franchise fee’ under the Cable Act,” the resolution said. And the FCC should act soon on a related remand from the 6th Circuit that has been waiting for action for more than two years, it said. The third resolution urged that Congress drop HR-3557, which “would bestow on broadband providers an unprecedented federal grant of access to state and local public property but impose no obligations on those providers to serve ‘unserved’ and ‘underserved’ Americans.”

USDA Rural Utilities Service wants applications by Aug. 20 for its FY 2024 broadband technical assistance program, a notice for Friday's Federal Register said. "Late or incomplete applications will not be eligible for funding," the notice said.

The FCC asked the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to dismiss Consumers' Research's challenge of the agency's USF contributions methodology. Consumers' Research "made the same arguments before the Sixth and Eleventh Circuits," the agency said in a petition filed Monday (docket 22-60008), adding the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the decisions (see 2406110008). "Those decisions are thus final and not subject to further review," the FCC said, and "petitioners are precluded from raising the same claims here." Also, Consumers' Research filed a motion for the D.C. Circuit for a voluntary dismissal regarding one of its challenges to the USF contribution factor.

The FCC wants comments by July 17, replies Aug. 1, on a Further NPRM addressing border gateway protocol security practices in docket 24-146, a notice for Monday's Federal Register said. Commissioners adopted the FNPRM during the agency's June meeting (see 2406060028).