Indian Peak Properties seeks to vacate the FCC’s March 7 order denying its petitions for declaratory ruling, said its petition for review Monday (docket 24-1108) in U.S. Appeals Court for the D.C. Circuit. Indian Peak's petitions had sought a federal preemption under the commission’s over-the-air reception devices (OTARDs) rule of a decision by Rancho Palos Verdes, California, to revoke, under local ordinances, the company’s conditional use permit for the deployment of rooftop antennas on a local property. The FCC’s order denying Indian Peaks that relief was premised on a new “human presence” rule for OTARDs, the petition said. That means FCC staff found that Indian Peak failed to plead facts sufficient to establish a regular human presence at the property where the antennas were deployed. But such a “substantive rule” under the Administrative Procedure Act requires a notice-and-comment rulemaking to be legal and effective, said Indian Peak's petition. But “no notice was given, and the public was afforded no opportunity to comment on the new rule,” it said. Instead, the order announced this rule when it denied Indian Peak’s application for review before the commission, it said. The order also upholds FCC staff’s refusal to declare a proceeding, and hold in abeyance state court litigation, it said, The order thus “upholds staff’s violations of FCC rules of procedure,” it said. With its appeal, Indian Peak seeks reversal of these “arbitrary and capricious agency actions that are contrary to law,” and remand to the FCC “for treatment not inconsistent” with the D.C. Circuit’s opinion, it said. On remand and with the FCC’s grant of Indian Peak’s petitions, the local zoning ordinance would be preempted, and the company would be able to replace the disputed antennas on the rooftop of the property, it said.

A written presentation by SETI Institute filed a day before the FCC's March meeting will be associated with but not part of the record in the supplemental coverage from space framework proceeding approved at that meeting (see 2403140050), the FCC Office of General Counsel said in docket 23-65 Friday. The March 14 filing came during the sunshine agenda window prior to the meeting, when presentations to commissioners are prohibited. SETI is a nonprofit organization that focuses on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

The FCC is seeking information from nine other federal agencies about test labs with Chinese government ties as the agency considers a proposed rulemaking barring these labs from the FCC equipment authorization process (see 2405020071). Requests went to the Bureau of Industry Security, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, DOD, DOJ, the Federal Acquisition Security Council, FBI, Department of Homeland Security, the National Counterintelligence and Security Center and NSA, per a notice in Friday’s Daily Digest. The FCC asked for responses by May 16.

Worldwide spending on telecom and pay-TV services reached $1.5 trillion in 2023, up 2.1% over 2022, but slower growth is expected this year, according to the IDC Worldwide Semiannual Telecom Services Tracker. IDC projected an increase of 1.4% in 2024. “The progress of the global market slowed during the latter half of 2023,” IDC said: “This deceleration primarily resulted from slower-than-anticipated progress in the Americas, where a combination of sluggish economic growth, relatively high inflation, and saturated markets created an unfavorable environment for market development.” Growth was stronger in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, where operators “were allowed by the regulators to increase their tariffs in line with inflation using a Consumer Price Index model,” the report said.

The FCC’s April 24 opposition to Essential Network Technologies and MetComm.Net's petition challenging the authority of the FCC and the Universal Service Administrative Co. to withhold reimbursement of discounts for IT and broadband services that the companies provided to schools confirms that the petition should be granted, the petitioners’ reply said. It was filed Wednesday (docket 24-1027) at the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Discounts on IT and broadband services come under Section 254 of the Communications Act (see 2404250028). The FCC calls the mandamus relief that the petitioners seek to force the reimbursements a drastic remedy that should be invoked only in extraordinary circumstances. In cases such as this, involving claims of unreasonable agency delay, mandamus is warranted only when delays are egregious, the agency said. But under “the first mandamus factor,” for a remedy in this case to be adequate, “it must enable the numerous schools in this case to complete their IT projects before the next school year,” said the petitioners’ reply. If the FCC doesn’t render a decision and provide funding before the summer, “many schools will be unable to move forward with vital IT projects and hundreds of students will be deprived next school year of the IT infrastructure necessary for a modern education,” it said. Compensatory relief after years of litigation, as the FCC suggested, doesn’t provide an adequate remedy that would prevent this harm to the public, “which after next year would become irreversible in the absence of immediate mandamus relief,” it said. The agency contends that in light of evidence showing that the petitioners may have had an improper relationship with the schools they were servicing, USAC investigated that possible misconduct, but expects those probes will be finished by the end of May. But that expectation “provides little solace when USAC lacks any authority to address the legal issues in this case and there is no time limit for an FCC decision,” said the petitioners’ reply. The agency’s opposition doesn’t indicate when the FCC will render a decision or whether the schools will receive funds before next school year, it said. Under the second mandamus factor, there’s a clear and indisputable right under Section 254 to the particular relief sought, it said. The Fifth Amendment also establishes a clear and indisputable right to due process, which required a “timely deprivation hearing” either before or after Essential and MetComm were deprived of their “statutory entitlement to reimbursement,” it said. The FCC has a “clear duty” to report its deprivation decision in writing, it said.

FCC commissioners will vote at their May 23 open meeting on an NPRM proposing labs from companies on the agency’s “covered list” of unsecure firms be barred from participating in the equipment authorization process. Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and Republican Commissioner Brendan Carr announced the NPRM Wednesday. “This new proceeding would permanently prohibit Huawei and other entities on the FCC’s Covered List from playing any role in the equipment authorization program while also providing the FCC and its national security partners the necessary tools to safeguard this important process,” a news release said. “We must ensure that our equipment authorization program and those entrusted with administering it can rise to the challenge posed by persistent and ever-changing security and supply chain threats,” Rosenworcel said. The NPRM is “another significant step in the FCC’s work to advance the security of America’s communications networks,” Carr said: It proposes “to ensure that the test labs and certification bodies that review electronic devices for compliance with FCC requirements are themselves trustworthy actors that the FCC can rely on.” The NPRM builds on a 2022 order, which bans FCC authorization of gear from companies including Huawei, ZTE, Hytera Communications, Hikvision and Dahua Technology (see 2211230065). Last month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit remanded part of that order to the FCC to further develop the definition of critical infrastructure (see 2404020068). Commissioners will also consider an adjudicatory matter from the Media Bureau, and four items from the Enforcement Bureau as part of the abbreviated agenda, per Rosenworcel's note. She thanked other commissioners for their work on national security issues. “Working together, we have enacted and enforced rules to safeguard our wired and wireless networks from communications equipment that has been determined to pose an unacceptable risk to national security,” she said.

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr appeared on a News Nation broadcast Tuesday to opine on protests at Columbia University over the conflict in Gaza, according to a Carr X post Wednesday. On the broadcast, Carr said he was in New York for work and “thought it was important to express some appreciation for what the NYPD is doing out here,” and witness the protest. He said the First Amendment protects political speech but not violent conduct. “That includes storming buildings,” he said. “Everyone here has the right to express their viewpoints, however vile,” Carr tweeted.

As of the end of Q1 2024, the C-Band Relocation Payment Clearinghouse cumulatively has received 4,405 claims totaling $3.52 billion, with nearly $3.3 billion of that from satellite operators, it said Wednesday in docket 18-122. It said as of Q1's end, it had approved 96% of lump sum claims, and cumulatively approved claims totaling $2.64 billion. A cumulative $2.51 billion in claims were paid.

NTCA takes special interest in the impact of the FCC’s Nov. 20 digital discrimination order on its small-business members, the association’s amicus brief argued in the 8th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court (docket 24-1179) said Monday. The brief supports the 20 industry petitioners that want the order vacated as unlawful (see 2404230032). The “potential adverse effects” of the order implementing Section 60506 of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act “risk particular impact to small businesses that generally lack access to resources and economies of scale that can enable larger businesses to absorb substantial market or regulatory changes,” NTCA’s brief said. But those impacts “are neither envisioned nor authorized by the statute, whose language contemplates a far more limited scope of implementation,” it said. Compliance with certain of the standards presented in the FCC’s order “is effectively impossible since the processes by which those measures can be achieved are wholly inconsistent with the normal and ordinary practices within which NTCA members conduct their business,” it added. The standards contemplate the ability of small private businesses “to have access to the confidential business considerations of other businesses,” it said: “This result, too, is neither contemplated nor accommodated in the statutory language.” The 8th Circuit should hold the order as "unlawful" and set it aside, said NTCA.

The FCC's supplemental coverage from space (SCS) licensing framework that commissioners adopted 5-0 in March (see 2403140050) becomes effective May 30, according to a notice for Tuesday's Federal Register. Comments are due May 30 and replies July 1 in a Further NPRM adopted with the order, said a separate notice. The NPRM asks questions about SCS delivery of 911 service and protection of radio astronomy.