A Republican and a Democratic FCC commissioner criticized aspects of the agency's 2020 communications market report but adopted it. The biennial report, released Monday in docket 20-60, runs down the mobile wireless, fixed broadband, voice video and audio markets. It said FCC priorities for the next two years include making additional spectrum available for mobile services, particularly midband spectrum for 5G, and reducing regulatory impediments to wireless and wireline infrastructure deployment. The agency said it will keep up efforts to eliminate or modify "obsolete, burdensome, or [video and audio] outmoded rules." Commissioner Brendan Carr said he concurred partly because the report could go further in recognizing converged markets instead of continuing to see them in silos. Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said the report should do more to identify how services are changing and how that could create opportunities or barriers for new entrants. The report doesn't "adequately reflect the magnitude of the work ahead for this agency" in addressing broadband access and affordability issues, she said. Commissioner Geoffrey Starks, dissenting in part, said the report touts FCC actions as closing the digital divide when they haven't. He said the 2019 Lifeline order increases red tape and will hurt provider participation. He said the report ignores persistent barriers to entry for broadcasters, such as lack of access to capital for people of color and women. He said the fixed broadband priorities ignore any discussion of promoting affordability.
The FCC International Bureau seeks comment on proposed standardized questions for applications on foreign ownership, as part of the new foreign-ownership review process jump-started by a White House executive order last year (see 2009290063), said a public notice Thursday. Applicants for foreign ownership of broadcast stations, submarine cables, earth stations and other entities under FCC purview will submit answers to the finalized questions to the Committee for the Assessment of Foreign Participation in the U.S. Telecommunications Services Sector before or during FCC review, the PN said. The proposed questions are divided by subject matter, and the IB seeks comment on the language used, whether all questions are necessary, and how often the questions should be reevaluated. The bureau also wants input on how long entities will need to answer. The questions proposed in each category ask applicants for details on the foreign entities involved, services the applicant provides, and possible security concerns, such as whether the licensee serves “any sectors of U.S. critical infrastructure.” The IB will issue an order addressing the comments and seeking Paperwork Reduction Act review, and then issue another PN on the effective date of the questions, after which applicants will be required to submit answers to the committee, Thursday’s PN said.
Both Intelsat and SES say C-band clearing efforts are underway and meeting deadlines, though both warned of some COVID-19 pandemic-related supply chain issues, in their first quarterly C-band clearing status reports. "We remain on track and in some cases ahead of ... schedule," SES said Wednesday in docket 18-122. It said it has ordered "nearly all" the filters needed for Phase I of the clearing, and "a large portion" of Phase I satellite service transitions are done. It said some component suppliers have informed two of its satellite manufacturers about likely component delivery delays due to COVID-19 infections in their facility or elsewhere in the supply chain. It said two customers also warned of "slight delays" in satellite service transitions at their uplinks due to COVID-19 restrictions or infections. It said forecasted delivery dates for new satellites "remain on track." It said its primary incumbent earth station equipment installation vendor, USSI, has been contacting incumbent operators, identifying the needs of each site and the quantity and configuration of antennas accessing SES satellites. Despite some pandemic-related supply chain issues, the contracted delivery dates for all seven replacement satellites are on target, Intelsat said. It said it completed some customer transitions, and four are on track to be done by month's end. It said all the equipment for technology upgrades to be done in Phase I of the clearing has been ordered, and hardware installation at earth stations has started. Intelsat said thousands of integrated receiver/decoders were delivered to earth stations. It said it has roughly 5,000 IRDs in inventory and has ordered over 21,000. It said most Phase I earth station transition and remediation work is expected to happen in Q2 and Q3 2021, and it began passband filters at those incumbent earth stations where their programming was migrated or already resides above 3820 MHz.
Opening the 12 GHz band to 5G service would be "a step backward in closing the digital divide" by undermining the potential of broadband delivery via low earth orbit satellites, ACT|The App Association said Wednesday in RM-11768, saying the NPRM on circulation (see 2012290032) should be replaced with a notice of inquiry. The 12 GHz band is several gigahertz away from 5G spectrum bands, so it's not clear if development of chips and equipment would come soon, it said. The FCC said the draft NPRM seeks comment on adding a mobile service allocation throughout the 12 GHz band; on technical parameters that would allow for additional terrestrial shared use of the band; on different routes for assigning flexible-use rights in the band, such as modification of the licenses of multichannel video and data distribution service licensees to give them flexible-use rights, auction of overlay licenses in the band, or authorizing underlay use of the band; and on potential sharing mechanisms for the band.
The FCC issued an order Wednesday limiting the number of exempted non-telemarketing robocalls to three to any residential phone from any caller within a 30-day period. “Previously, there was no limit on the number of non-telemarketing robocalls that any caller could make to a residence,” the FCC said: “Callers are also now required to allow consumers to opt out of these calls.” The order was approved by commissioners, but none released statements. In a second order, also approved by commissioners without comment, the agency requires terminating voice service providers to take new steps to make sure their networks aren’t used to transmit illegal robocalls. “Voice service providers will now be required to take affirmative steps to stop illegal calls when notified of those calls by the Commission,” the FCC said. “They will also be required to aid FCC and law enforcement efforts to identify providers that originate illegal calls.” The order expands safe harbors for providers to now include network-based blocking of calls considered “highly likely to be illegal and that have been identified using reasonable analytics, including caller ID authentication.” The FCC is staying busy under Chairman Ajit Pai, who will leave Jan. 20 when Joe Biden is sworn in as president and Democrats assume control. “Americans are sick and tired of unwanted and illegal robocalls, and today’s separate actions are like a one-two punch to ward them off,” Pai said.
Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel’s dissent from a 3-2 order updating FCC rules for application fees relies on “a misnomer,” Chairman Ajit Pai said in a statement released with the order Tuesday. The order, stemming from provisions of Ray Baum’s Act, creates a streamlined schedule of application fees, paring down eight fee categories to five and reducing the total number of fees from 450 to 173. Rosenworcel said the order was largely “thoughtful and smart,” but she dissented in part based on its increasing the cost of filing “a formal consumer complaint” to $540. Commissioner Geoffrey Starks dissented in part as well. “I believe consumers should be able to avail themselves of this process, but a fee of this size is unjust and could easily deter them from doing so,” Rosenworcel said in a statement with the item. In his statement, Pai said the complaint form that she referenced “doesn’t exist.” The FCC has a two-track process wherein consumers file free informal complaints, while formal complaints cost a fee and “create a trial-like process to adjudicate a dispute and are not designed for nor used by consumers,” Pai said. The FCC’s consumer complaint website says consumers unsatisfied with the agency’s response to informal complaints can file formal ones but warns that parties filing formal complaints “usually are represented by lawyers or experts in communications law” and the FCC's procedural rules. Pai said no consumer filed a formal complaint in 2019 or 2020, but thousands of informal ones were filed. “Remember, in taking this step we’re following the law as set forth by Congress,” Pai said. Rosenworcel’s office didn’t comment. Rosenworcel and Pai disagreed about complaint fees in a 2018 order amending the complaint process and in the NPRM phase of Tuesday’s order, when Pai castigated Rosenworcel for not informing his office of her objections to the proposal until late in the process (see 2008260073).
FCC Enforcement Bureau penalties assessed Jan. 15 or later will be adjusted for inflation by multiplying the most recent penalty amount by 1.01182, then rounding the result to the nearest dollar, said an order in Tuesday’s Daily Digest. The adjustments reflect OMB guidance, the bureau said.
CTIA and groups representing small carriers sought reconsideration of the FCC’s October 5G Fund order, approved over partial dissents by Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Geoffrey Starks (see 2010270034). Recon petitions were posted Tuesday in docket 20-32. CTIA asked the FCC to revise the noncompliance penalty to limit potential recovery of prior funding to the support an eligible telecom carrier failed to spend in compliance with fund requirements. “The Order imposes an unreasonable and unprecedented penalty … on mobile wireless ETCs that do not meet the newly-adopted deployment requirements, or that voluntarily relinquish future support -- even if the ETC’s actual spending complied” with the order's minimum 5G spending requirements, CTIA said: The penalties are “unreasonable and inconsistent with permissible spending rules." The Rural Wireless Association and NTCA jointly asked the FCC to rethink whether funds should be available for areas served by unsubsidized 4G networks. “That an unsubsidized 4G LTE network may be deployed in a particular area provides no guarantee or even reasonable assurance that 5G service meeting the required performance metrics will be deployed there, nor is there any basis for concluding that the deployment of 5G service to such an area is likely to occur,” the groups said: “History consistently instructs that rural areas are almost never served with the latest generation of service unless and until a small rural carrier based in that area begins to provide such service.” Smith Bagley asked the FCC to rethink a decision not to mandate special-case treatment for remote tribal lands. “The Commission denied special case treatment … without considering the substantial evidence placed into the record over many years demonstrating dire demographic and economic conditions” there, the carrier said: “The Commission has no factual basis for its view that conditions in Alaska are so unique that special treatment such as an ‘Alaska Plan’ is not warranted elsewhere.”
SpaceX, not Amazon, is seeking a license modification to allow more than 2,200 of its satellites to operate at altitudes of 540-600 km (see 2012220001).
Transfer of U.S. fiber network operator Telia Carrier's domestic and international authority as part of a purchase of Swedish telco Telia (see 2010160013) is being reviewed by the Committee for the Assessment of Foreign Participation in the U.S. Telecom Services Sector, DOJ told the FCC last week in docket 20-344.