The U.S. Supreme Court seems likely to reverse the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision against Cox Communications regarding music piracy by its broadband subscribers, a copyright expert told us Monday. Cox is challenging the 4th Circuit's ruling, which upheld a lower court's contributory copyright infringement finding against the ISP (see 2408160034).

A legislative proposal to eliminate the ConnectMaine Authority (CMA) saw both support and criticism in a hearing Thursday of the state's Joint Energy, Utilities and Technology Committee. LD-1975, introduced in May, would disband the agency -- the predecessor to the Maine Connectivity Authority (MCA), the state's broadband office -- by repealing the Advanced Technology Infrastructure Act. "Maine does not need two broadband authorities in the long term," said Rep. Jack Ducharme (R), the bill's sponsor.

Comcast and Charter continue to be hammered with fiber and fixed-wireless access (FWA) competition in residential broadband, though their wireless businesses are still growing. Between fiber overbuilding and FWA, "in any market, when you have new competition ... there's going to be a short-term impact on us," Charter CEO Chris Winfrey said in a call with analysts Friday as the cable ISP announced Q3 results.

The federal shutdown is keeping the FCC from processing transfer-of-control applications, but broadcasters are expecting a wave of station deal approvals when it ends, they told us in interviews. Being unable to file paperwork doesn’t delay negotiations, broadcasters told us. “We can’t file anything because nothing’s open right now,” said Circle City Broadcasting CEO DuJuan McCoy, who announced an $83 million deal Tuesday to purchase WRTV Indianapolis (ABC) from E.W. Scripps. “When you're doing deals, you worry about what you can control, and that's signing a deal, negotiating a deal and locking it up.”

The FCC released the draft items for its Nov. 20 open meeting Thursday, including an NPRM on clearing the upper C band, an order undoing the last FCC’s response to the Salt Typhoon attacks, and an NPRM seeking comment on updating telecommunications relay services.

NTIA is unfairly emphasizing use of low earth orbit satellite connectivity in BEAD, sometimes in cases where LEO doesn't make sense, some state broadband officials said Thursday. Speaking at the Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition's annual conference, Christine Hallquist, executive director of the Vermont Community Broadband Board, said many BEAD locations being awarded to LEO bids won't actually get service due to geographic issues like dense foliage and mountains. Hallquist said that of the state's roughly 15,000 BEAD locations, about 1,300 are being awarded to LEO.

AT&T filed a lawsuit Thursday in Texas against industry ad watchdog the National Advertising Division (NAD) over its attempt to block the company from running ads about T-Mobile’s repeated violations of NAD rules on deceptive ads. “It is one thing for NAD to prove ineffective at stopping deceptive advertising,” said AT&T in a complaint at the U.S. District Court for Northern Texas. “It is quite another for NAD to demand, privately and publicly, that AT&T censor its own truthful statements about T-Mobile’s deceptive advertising history -- that NAD itself disseminated to the public.”

Top Senate Commerce Committee leaders told us they aren’t yet completely ruling out proposals to make the USF subject to Congress’ annual appropriations process as part of a legislative revamp of the program. However, some panel Democrats are dubious because of flaws in the funding system, amplified by the ongoing government shutdown (see 2510230049). In comments submitted to Congress' bipartisan USF working group, some stakeholders also strongly advocated for shifting to an appropriations-based funding model (see 2509160064). Meanwhile, panelists at a Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition event Wednesday said they see appropriations as a largely unappealing option to give USF more sustainable long-term funding.

Communications Daily is tracking the lawsuits below involving appeals of FCC actions.

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, told us he’s still planning to bring in FCC Chairman Brendan Carr for a hearing before year-end, but Democrats are concerned that he’s slow-walking scheduling that panel amid their ongoing airing of grievances about Carr's tenure leading the commission, particularly actions that critics say targeted the media’s free speech rights. As expected (see 2510280053), Senate Commerce Democrats used Wednesday's hearing on the Biden administration's social media censorship to again raise concerns about Carr’s comments last month against ABC and parent Disney, which were widely perceived as influencing the network’s since-reversed decision to pull Jimmy Kimmel Live!