The FCC won’t freeze radio regulatory fees or change the way it calculates them, and will continue phasing in fees for satellite providers, said an order and Further NPRM on FY 2020 regulatory assessments released Monday. Direct full-time equivalent employee allocations “best reflect the benefits provided to the payor,” the order said. The item, unanimously approved by the full FCC, includes measures intended to provide relief during the COVID-19 pandemic but doesn’t go as far as some broadcast commenters had requested. The agency can’t waive 2020 fees or late payments, or suspend fee increases over the current lack of advertising, the order said. Instead, the order streamlines the process of seeking hardship reductions or waivers, lowers the interest rate for installment payments of regulatory fees, and allows “red light” licensees to seek such relief. The agency will issue public notices with greater detail. The order adopts the population-based fees for TV broadcasters proposed in an earlier NPRM. “The population-based metric better conforms with the actual service authorized here -- broadcasting television to the American people,” the order said. “We disagree with the radio broadcasters that we should ignore our long-standing methodology in order to freeze regulatory fees for (and thus benefit) radio broadcasters at the expense of other regulatees,” said the order. “Because the Commission is statutorily obligated to recover the amount of its appropriation through regulatory fees, these fees are a zero-sum situation.” The agency also collect regulatory fees from most non-U.S. licensed space stations that have U.S. market access, the order said. Assessing the same regulatory amount on those stations as on U.S. licensed space stations “will better reflect the benefits received by these operators through the Commission’s adjudicatory, enforcement, regulatory, and international coordination activities,” the order said. The FNPRM seeks comment on methods for calculating fees for non-geostationary orbit satellites.
AT&T supported Friday’s civil rights march on Washington, D.C., said Tanya Lombard, AT&T vice president-multicultural engagement and strategic alliances. The company is “firmly committed to the moral principle that Black lives matter,” she said. “The March is about far more than police reform and other worthy issues,” she said: “It is about social justice. Social justice is a value that is -- and certainly ought to be -- shared by everyone. That means not just shared by people who live here, but also by the institutions that impact our lives, whether a government, a charity or a corporation.”
USTelecom CEO Jonathan Spalter and Incompas CEO Chip Pickering had video calls with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai on their agreement on whether and how much access LECs need to provide to DS0, DS1, DS3 and operation support systems (see 2008060044). They also spoke with Commissioners Mike O’Rielly, Brendan Carr and Jessica Rosenworcel, said a filing posted Friday in docket 19-308. “The Compromise Proposal was negotiated in direct response to the issues raised in this proceeding and with the intention of bringing an end to the debate over whether and to what extent certain unbundled network elements will continue to be available,” they said: “The proposal recognizes the significant changes in a modern communications market that has seen increased competition for voice and broadband service. It also recognizes that some providers, primarily in less populated areas generally subject to less competition, may still be impaired" without access to incumbent LEC facilities" to offer competitive alternatives.”
ACA Connects is "once again seeking handouts" from the FCC with its application for review of the C-band final cost catalog (see 2008170003), NAB said in an opposition Friday to be posted in docket 18-122. It said ACA arguments that the cost of integrated receivers/decoders should be included in the C-band lump sum are unconvincing, and the record's clear that selecting and buying such equipment should be seen as part of the satellite transponder transitions and guided by satellite operators and programmers, not MVPDs. ACA didn't comment.
NTIA scheduled a virtual symposium Sept. 22 on spectrum policy and the evolution of technologies for federal spectrum management and sharing, said Friday's Federal Register. The symposium “will focus on developing, implementing and maintaining sustainable, national spectrum policies and spectrum management techniques,” NTIA said. Speakers from the Commerce Department and other agencies, plus the White House, Congress and the private sector are expected. The session is 8:30 a.m. to noon EDT.
President Donald Trump touched briefly on telecom policy during his Thursday speech accepting the Republican Party’s nomination for a second term, as expected (see 2008270051). Trump promised if he’s reelected in November the U.S. “will win the race to 5G, and build the world's best cyber and missile defense.” The Trump campaign Friday again listed 5G development as a second-term agenda item in connection with building a “National High-Speed Wireless Internet Network,” which Trump didn’t speak about Thursday. Officials compared the language, first released Aug. 23 (see 2008240056), to an earlier Rivada Networks proposal for the U.S. government to make spectrum being reserved for 5G available to carriers at wholesale. The Trump campaign spoke in 2019 in favor of the 5G wholesale concept but later walked back the comment amid perceptions that was a form of nationalization (see 1903040058). Trump “will be sharing additional details about his plans through policy-focused speeches on the campaign trail” in the coming weeks, the campaign said. A National Security Council official proposed in 2018 the U.S. build a national 5G network, drawing opposition from across the political spectrum (see 1801290034). Other Republican National Convention speakers, including Trump’s youngest daughter, Tiffany, criticized social media and other tech companies.
The Land Mobile Communications Council sought “expedited FCC action” to address alleged harmful interference from newly authorized DTV stations to Part 90 private land mobile radio (PLMR) systems. “This interference has rendered affected PLMR facilities entirely unusable in certain markets, resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars of lost revenue as customers of commercial systems are forced to search for alternative communication options and incurred expenses as licensees have sought remedial action by the broadcasters and/or acquired other spectrum to which their operations could be moved,” said a Friday filing by the group. “The interference with what had been reliable communications endangers the safety of employees, disrupts operations at affected facilities, and poses a major threat to public safety in certain instances,” the council said: “The urgency of the problems demand FCC action to enforce those regulations and policies as promptly as possible and to avoid the creation of similar problems in the future.” The filing cites incidents in major markets from New York to Los Angeles, mostly focused on co-channel interference in the T-band, which is considered the most difficult problem to solve. Enterprise Wireless Alliance President Mark Crosby said in a statement. “Some EWA members are so frustrated that they wonder if the reaction of a few TV stations might be ‘There is nothing we can do; the environment is the root cause; we didn’t want to move in the first place; or, maybe the PLMR incumbents will go away in time and leave us alone,’” he said: “These are unacceptable responses as the PLMR industry is as vital to the well-being of this country as are broadcasters, even if not as well known. The LMCC seeks only a fair hearing and the FCC’s active support towards a resolution.” Fletcher Heald’s Peter Tannenwald told us he has been in the thick of one of the fights for a low-power station. “It is very difficult to determine what the actual facts are, partly because the land mobile people seem to want to be at war, in the sense that they want complete victory more than a compromise resolution, and partly because field observation that you really need to pin down the problem is nearly impossible during the pandemic,” Tannenwald said: “The FCC doesn’t make things any easier, because it talks to both sides ex parte, through different bureaus. Then the Wireless and Media bureaus talk, and we don’t know what goes on between them.” NAB is reviewing the filing, a spokesperson said.
There are 334,791 cable and wireline subscribers without service in the affected areas of the 19 states covered by the FCC’s disaster information reporting system for tropical storms Laura and Marco, said Friday’s DIRS report. Twenty-four FM stations are out of service, plus four TV stations and one AM station, the report said. 911 calls are being rerouted from five public service answering points in Louisiana and Texas, and 2.2 percent of cellsites are down in the affected area.
T-Mobile exercised an option to buy Virginia’s Shenandoah Personal Communications, subject to a dispute on the purchase price, T-Mobile said in a filing at the SEC. The dispute “involves the appraisal framework used to value Shentel,” New Street’s Jonathan Chaplin told investors Thursday. “Assuming the dispute finds a timely resolution, it clears a minor roadblock on the path to unlocking value at New T-Mobile,” he said. Shenandoah parent Shentel has more than 1 million wireless customers and was affiliated with Sprint starting in 1995. Shentel didn’t comment.
The FCC Wireless Bureau approved an American Radio Relay League request for a 30-day waiver to permit amateur data transmissions at a higher symbol rate than permitted under commission rules so amateur operators can assist in hurricane relief. “Hurricane Laura has the potential to cause massive destruction states along the Gulf of Mexico, and communications services will likely be disrupted,” the bureau said in a Thursday order: “The waiver is limited to amateur radio operators in the continental United States using PACTOR 3 and PACTOR 4 emissions who are directly involved with [high-frequency] hurricane relief communications.”