The FCC announced the membership of the rechartered Communications Equity and Diversity Council ahead of the group’s first meeting Wednesday. FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel announced in May that she would recharter the advisory committee, and the group’s new charter began in June (see 2305250058). “Currently, across the federal government, including here at the Commission, there is a focus on ensuring equity for all, including under-served communities,” Rosenworcel said in a news release Tuesday. “The CEDC exists to help level the playing field.” Wednesday’s meeting will open with an address from Rosenworcel, and otherwise involve introducing the advisory committee’s members, announcing working groups and receiving guidance on federal advisory committee best practices. Many members are returning from the previous charter, including the group’s chair and vice chairs (see 2403150059), Neptuno CEO Leticia Latino-van Splunteren, Multicultural Media Telecom and Internet Council President Robert Branson and former FCC Commissioner Henry Rivera. New members include University of Minnesota journalism professor Christopher Terry.

President Joe Biden signed off Saturday on the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act FY 2024 minibus spending package (HR-2882), the White House said. The Senate voted 74-24 Saturday morning on the measure, which allocates $390.2 million to the FCC, $425.7 million to the FTC and $535 million in FY 2026 funds for CPB. Congressional leaders omitted stopgap funding for the FCC's affordable connectivity program and money for the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program, despite repeated calls from the initiatives' backers (see 2403210067).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit denied Essential Network Technologies and MetComm.net's Feb. 26 emergency motion to expedite consideration of their Feb. 14 E-rate program petition for review, said its order Monday (docket 24-1027). The petitioners haven’t demonstrated that delay “will cause irreparable injury and that the decision under review is subject to substantial challenge, or that the public interest otherwise warrants expedition,” said the order. Their petition for review challenges the authority of the FCC and the Universal Service Administrative Co. (USAC) to stop processing the reimbursement of discounts for IT and broadband services that MetComm and Essential provided to schools under Section 254 of the Communications Act (see 2402200044). Their motion for expedited consideration argued that unless a briefing schedule is set that would allow for a D.C. Circuit decision on the appeal before the end of the court’s May sitting period, numerous elementary and secondary schools will be deprived of affordable IT infrastructure and broadband service for the new school year this fall (see 2403140002). But the FCC’s opposition said the petitioners have provided no compelling reasons for the D.C. Circuit to expedite review. “Under the circumstances, far from needing to expedite this case,” the D.C. Circuit “lacks jurisdiction to decide it,” because there is no final FCC action for the court to review, said the commission’s opposition.

The FCC proposed a total $1.2 million forfeiture for Nexstar and a $612,395 forfeiture for Mission Broadcasting (see 2403210078).

The American Consumer Institute Center for Citizen Research (ACI) urged the FCC against reclassifying broadband as a Communications Act Title II telecom service. Reclassification would "lead to a decline in consumer welfare" due to the "increased tax exposure" ISPs will face at the state and local level, the group said in a letter posted Friday in docket 23-320 (see 2403210026). ACI also noted that some states "consider intangible property to be taxable property" and "the taxation of broader telecommunications property could represent a major increase in the property taxes assessed on licensed spectrum." The impact will be "significant," ACI said, noting broadband services "are not highly inelastic."

Policymakers shouldn’t forget the potential of very high frequency spectrum, the mmWave Coalition said last week in response to the National Science Foundation’s request for information (RFI) on the national spectrum research and development plan, which is part of the national spectrum strategy. The comments have yet to be posted by NSF. Most 5G and 6G discussions so far are focused on lower frequencies, the coalition said. “A key reason for this is that it is hard to justify a business case for sub-THZ mobile spectrum use at present as there are now basic technical questions, technological hurdles, and cost issues, yet these are fertile and active areas of research which may eventually lead to compelling opportunities for mobile use in this spectrum,” the group said. The coalition cited a growing need for wireless backhaul, “especially in rural, underserved areas often where fixed wireless access is vital for rural households, and often backhaul requirements cannot always be implemented in fiber technology, due to installation urgency requirements, local terrain features that delay or block installation, cost, or short term requirements that make fiber optic installation uneconomical.” The Dynamic Spectrum Alliance said the RFI is on target in the areas it suggests for research. “Efficiency, dynamic spectrum access and management, automated interference mitigation, and coexistence modeling are all areas in which the DSA and our members have keen interest and extensive experience,” the alliance said: “We also fully support efforts to study the economic-, market-, social-, and human-centric aspects of increasing spectrum access.” DSA called on the NSF to take into account innovative licensing frameworks that are already working, including the citizens broadband radio service band and 6 GHz. “Given the historical success of the variety of spectrum sharing techniques in different bands designed to protect different incumbents … there is no one size fits all solution to spectrum sharing,” DSA said. AT&T urged the administration to more clearly define the term dynamic spectrum sharing. The definition should include an “examination of full-power licensed use” and “development of a basis for predictable times and/or geographies in which dynamically shared spectrum can be used,” AT&T said. The carrier urged more work on interference mitigation techniques and not restricting research to “mere ‘on/off’ spectrum access controls.” The definition should seek “to define co-channel and adjacent channel interference environments to incorporate into network design and operation.”

The Better Business Bureau's National Advertising Division is referring Charter Communications ad claims regarding T-Mobile's 5G Home Internet Service to the FTC for review. NAD said Thursday that T-Mobile challenged the ads as misleading or false. Because Charter opted out of NAD's self-regulatory process, the division said it referred the claims to the FTC. A person involved in the NAD proceeding told us Charter's objections were procedural and concerned NAD conducting an expedited review. In an email, Charter wrote it "stand[s] by the claims ... about the service limitations of cell phone internet, and we welcome the opportunity to fully defend our claims."

The FCC should "reinstate strong net neutrality rules" and reclassify broadband internet access service as a Communications Act Title II telecom service, NTIA said Thursday. "Fair and open access to the Internet underpins virtually every aspect of American life," said NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson: "The Biden Administration supports the FCC’s efforts to put rules in place that preserve an open Internet, promote national security and protect consumers." The agency agreed in an ex parte filing posted Thursday in docket 23-320 that a "limited use of Title II authority" is necessary for national security (see 2310050063). "The lightning-fast evolution of our communications technologies and our growing dependence on these offerings necessitate a whole-of-government approach to security that engages all available federal government resources," NTIA said.

Hamilton Relay, a telecommunications relay service (TRS) provider, seeks to intervene in support of the Ohio Telecom Association’s petition for review challenging the FCC’s Dec. 21 order modifying and expanding the commission’s data breach notification rules on telecom carriers, VoIP providers and TRS providers (see 2402210026), said its unopposed motion Wednesday (docket 24-3133) in the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Hamilton provides TRS to individuals who are deaf, hard of hearing, DeafBlind or have difficulty speaking, said its motion. The company provides intrastate and interstate text telephone, speech-to-speech and captioned telephone services in numerous states through individual state TRS contracts, nationwide relay service through its internet protocol captioned telephone service, which is regulated by the FCC, it said. Hamilton is entitled to intervene because it was a “party in interest” in the proceeding leading to the adoption of the order and the order’s changes to the FCC’s data breach notification rules adversely affect its interests, said the motion. Hamilton submitted comments in February 2023 in the FCC’s NPRM in the run-up to the order, it said. The order expands reporting obligations to the FCC and law enforcement agencies and imposes certain other duties on TRS providers pertaining to unauthorized access to or disclosure of customer proprietary network information and personally identifiable information, it said. In its February 2023 comments, Hamilton urged the FCC to consider how TRS providers are different from common carriers in the services they provide and the information they collect from their customers. The commission should ensure that any reporting obligations imposed on TRS providers “allow for the necessary flexibility to report relevant and actionable information to the appropriate law enforcement agencies and to customers,” it said then. It also urged the commission “to consider how its proposed rules will align, or potentially conflict, with existing state and federal privacy regimes,” it said.

The FCC should ensure that connected technologies keep pace with other industries in transitioning to clean energy, said FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks in remarks Thursday at the 2024 U.S. Tech for Climate Action Conference. “We have to make sure that next-generation standards -- 6G and beyond -- double-down on energy efficiency,” Starks said. “As work on 6G standards-setting continues, now is exactly the right time to throw your weight behind sustainability.” Starks also said that the tech industry should bring clean energy “capabilities we know are possible to market three, five, or seven years earlier than they would have been otherwise.” Tech companies “have to be a backer, not a bottleneck,” Starks said.