Financial and electric utility trade groups are urging the FCC to extend the compliance deadline for its revoke-all robocall rule, given that the caller ID further NPRM on the agency's October agenda proposes rolling back that rule. In separate comments posted Tuesday in docket 17-59, both industry coalitions said meeting the currently proposed April 11, 2026, deadline would mean businesses would have to start allocating resources now. The electric utility associations noted that any subsequent revisions would represent wasted investments.
AT&T's purchase of EchoStar's 3.45 GHz and 600 MHz spectrum licenses won't reduce wireless competition, but instead it will make the two wireless providers "stronger and better able to compete in an increasingly competitive wireless marketplace," they told the FCC in a public interest statement posted Thursday (docket 25-303). The companies said the deal gives spectrum-constrained AT&T the spectrum it needs and takes care of the "overwhelming headwinds" that EchoStar faced at the FCC in trying to become a facilities-based nationwide carrier. AT&T and EchoStar announced the $23 billion spectrum deal in August (see 2508260005).
Fiber and fixed wireless are expected to keep eroding the dominant market share of cable in North American broadband in the coming years, Dell'Oro Group's Jeff Heynen said Wednesday at a Fiber Broadband Association webinar. Cable had been dismissive of how resilient fixed-wireless access (FWA) would be as a competitor, but the industry has now accepted that a lot of its subscriber losses are due to FWA, Heynen said.
The broadband industry was already having trouble finding qualified workers, and the seemingly imminent release of BEAD funds to states could exacerbate that, according to workforce experts. "I'm scared to death" that the industry won't be able to build a stable, well-trained workforce but will focus on "warm bodies [and] quickie" on-the-job training (OJT), said Deborah Kish, the Fiber Broadband Association's vice president of research and workforce development, during the group's webinar Tuesday. "Quickie OJT doesn't work" as a long-term strategy, she said.
As the FCC looks at revising or doing away with its dual network and local TV rules, MVPDs told us they're likely to object along familiar lines about broadcaster consolidation tipping the balance of power in retransmission consent negotiations. FCC commissioners unanimously approved a 2022 quadrennial review NPRM in September that asks whether the local TV and dual network rules remain necessary (see 2509300062).
U.S. arguments that spectrum licenses don't confer property rights protected by the Fifth Amendment undermine wireless providers' reliance on those licenses and could chill investment, according to USTelecom. In an amicus brief filed this week with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (docket 25-1792), USTelecom said that if spectrum licenses don't confer any protected property right, a federal agency could unilaterally override a wireless provider's right to use spectrum without triggering a right to compensation. The same goes for other authorized use of public assets, including federal lands, it said. "That theory is breathtakingly broad -- and it cannot be right."
Given the growing problem of deliberate attacks on and damage to communications networks, Congress needs to close the loophole that excludes privately owned networks from federal protection, FCC Commissioner Olivia Trusty said Tuesday at a California event convened by the telecom industry to discuss the issue. She also said industry needs to do more to harden the targets of such attacks.
The FCC wants to adopt what it's calling a "licensing assembly line" approach to speeding up its review of satellite and earth station applications, according to a 201-page draft NPRM on space licensing reform. The item, which is on the FCC's Oct. 28 meeting agenda, would also extend the license terms for most satellites and earth stations to 20 years, move largely to a nationwide blanket license approach for earth stations, and require that satellite operators share space situational awareness data. The draft agenda items were released Tuesday.
The number of geostationary orbit (GSO) satellites ordered in 2024 was at a 30-year low, and there's no sign of demand picking up, Analysys Mason satellite analyst Dallas Kasaboski said during the consultancy's webinar Monday. Analyst Lluc Palerm said time is of the essence for satellite or mobile network operators that are interested in direct-to-device (D2D) service but haven't yet entered into cooperative partnerships or agreements. Any such operator "needs to act fast [as] the train is moving."
The FCC's October agenda will see commissioners tackling issues ranging from an NPRM on accelerating the ATSC 3.0 transition to loopholes in its covered equipment list, Chairman Brendan Carr wrote Monday. The agenda is particularly space-centric, he noted, saying in a speech Monday that the FCC remains "riddled with backwards-looking regulations" regarding space. Carr's blog also said the commission plans to vote at the Oct. 28 meeting on revisions to incarcerated people’s communications services rules, as expected (see 2510030047).