Internet service and traditional pay-TV costs rose faster than the rate of inflation in March, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index unadjusted data released Wednesday. Internet service costs in the U.S. in March rose 4.2% year over year, while cable, satellite and livestreaming TV service costs were up 3.8%, according to BLS data. BLS said March prices overall rose 3.5% year over year before seasonal adjustment. The agency said residential phone service jumped 3.4% year over year, while wireless phone service costs dropped 2.7%. It said smartphone prices dropped 9%, and computers, peripherals and smart home assistants fell 3.8%. Video purchase/subscription/rental rose 8.1%.

FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel circulated for a commissioner vote initial rules allowing drone use of the 5030-5091 MHz band (see 2303100028), the commission said Monday. If approved, the order would allow operators to obtain direct frequency assignments in a portion of the band for non-networked operations, the FCC said. The band is one of the five targeted for study in the national spectrum strategy (see 2403120056). “The FCC must ensure that our spectrum rules meet the current -- and future -- spectrum needs of evolving technologies such as uncrewed aircraft systems [UAS], which can be critical to disaster recovery, first responder rescue efforts, and wildfire management,” Rosenworcel said. The proposal relies on dynamic frequency management systems (DFMSs) “to manage and coordinate access to the spectrum and enable its safe and efficient use,” said a news release: “These DFMSs would provide requesting operators with temporary frequency assignments to support UAS control link communications with a level of reliability suitable for operations in controlled airspace and other safety-critical circumstances.” During an interim period, users could obtain early permission to use the spectrum, coordinating with the FAA and filing an online registration form with the commission. Under the spectrum strategy, the FCC, in coordination with NTIA and the FAA, is to “take near-term action to facilitate limited deployment of UAS in the 5030-5091 MHz band, in advance of future study of the band,” the FCC said. Under the strategy, work on future use of the band is supposed to start next March and be completed in March 2027.

President Joe Biden called out congressional Republicans Saturday for Capitol Hill's failure so far to allocate stopgap funding for the FCC's ailing affordable connectivity program. The funding would keep ACP running through the end of FY 2024. Congress approved the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act FY 2024 minibus spending package last month without ACP money (see 2403210067). Advocates are eyeing other vehicles for appropriating the funding ahead of ACP's existing allocation running out in May (see 2403280001). “For months, I've called on Congress to extend the program,” but “Republicans in Congress still haven't acted, putting millions of their own constituents in a position where their internet costs could go up -- or they could lose connection altogether,” Biden tweeted. He proposed an additional $6 billion for ACP in an October supplemental domestic Appropriations request (see 2310250075). Republicans "have called the program ‘wasteful,’ and now threaten to cut it,” Biden said: “We can't let that happen” given it has “helped over 23 million households save $30-$75 each per month on their monthly internet bills.” House Commerce Committee ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., later echoed Biden, tweeting “House Republicans are playing political games and refusing to extend this vital program before it runs out of funding.”

Consumers' Research asked the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse the FCC's USF contribution factor for Q2 of FY 2024 (see 2401100044). In a filing posted Wednesday (docket 24-60160), the group repeated its claim that USF contributions are illegal taxes that the Universal Service Administrative Co. collects and "should be rejected."

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management released a final rule Thursday intended to clarify and reinforce protections for career civil servants and defend against future versions of former President Donald Trump’s Schedule F executive order (see 2010300048). “This final rule honors our 2.2 million career civil servants, helping ensure that people are hired and fired based on merit and that they can carry out their duties based on their expertise and not political loyalty,” OPM Director Kiran Ahuja said in a news release. Trump’s Schedule F order, which was reversed in the first week of President Joe Biden’s administration, would have reclassified many career civil servants, making it easier to terminate them and transfer their positions to political appointees. Trump’s campaign and the Republican Party have announced detailed plans -- partially authored by FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr -- to make sweeping changes to federal agencies, including the FCC, during a second Trump term. Thursday’s final rule is aimed at preventing another Schedule F order, and clarifies that a career federal employee who has earned civil service protections retains them until the worker voluntarily waives them. The order also establishes a transparent, appealable process for changing which positions receive civil service protections. “With these regulations, President Biden’s administration has strengthened the guardrails around the merit-based civil service,” said NTEU National President Doreen Greenwald in a release. “It will now be much harder for any president to arbitrarily remove the nonpartisan professionals who staff our federal agencies just to make room for hand-picked partisan loyalists.” An “independent federal workforce ensures that our government works for all of us, not for one party or one person,” said Bitsy Skerry, regulatory policy associate for Public Citizen, in an emailed release. The final rule will be published in the Federal Register Tuesday, OPM said.

Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the redacted version of the Emerging Mid-Band Radar Spectrum Sharing Feasibility Assessment demonstrates the importance of the lower 3 GHz band to U.S. defense. DOD released the report Wednesday (see 2404030052). “Modern equipment vital to our nation’s defense, including aircraft and radar, requires access to the entirety of the lower 3 GHz band,” Fischer said. “To protect this country from adversaries like China, the DOD must retain that access. … NTIA can no longer overlook the facts included in this report.” DOD shouldn’t be viewed “only as the pot of spectrum gold at the end of the rainbow,” she said. “It’s very clear the DOD is still upset that it had to vacate the 3.45-3.55 GHz band,” Reconanalytics Roger Entner told us. But the U.S. military uses its systems globally, Entner said, and the 3.3 to 3.8 GHz band was harmonized internationally for 5G. “I am not sure what the U.S. military is going to do when it operates outside the U.S. territory,” he said. Entner noted there could be problems along the borders with Canada and Mexico if those countries use the spectrum for 5G. “Acknowledging the global coexistence of 5G with these defense systems, we underscore the necessity of exploring effective approaches beyond traditional spectrum sharing, including relocation and optimization of federal spectrum use, to make more spectrum available for commercial services,” a spokesperson of 5G Americas wrote in an email. “The report confirms what experts have been saying all along -- dynamic spectrum sharing in the lower 3 GHz band can unleash U.S. innovation and commercial 5G uses without weakening national security, if the right interference mitigation techniques are applied,” said Spectrum for the Future, a pro-sharing group.

While the wireless industry has explored georouting calls made to the 988 Lifeline, requiring carriers to implement georouting is necessary to ensure it happens in a reasonable time frame, the FCC said in the draft NPRM on the commissioners' April 25 open meeting agenda (see 2404030051). The 38-page draft item was released Thursday, as was the net neutrality draft order (see 2404040064). The draft asks about potential downsides to mandating use of georouting to connect wireless 988 callers with local crisis centers. The draft NPRM is short on specific policy recommendations, instead asking numerous questions. It seeks comment on "each functional step" needed to route a call from a wireless carrier to a geographically appropriate crisis center, that would perform each function and the facilities and systems needed to perform those functions. It also asks whether georouting steps involve proprietary elements, such as licenses, that would limit whether and how wireless carriers could implement it. The draft NPRM said that while georouting based on cell tower information would best identify a caller's location, it seeks input on alternative methods as well. The draft NPRM doesn't make a recommendation on a time frame for implementation but asks about timelines for deployment.

The FCC's April open meeting will see commissioners voting on a draft NPRM about georouting calls to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel wrote Wednesday. Also on the agenda is reinstatement of net neutrality rules (see 2404030043). More than 80% of calls to 988 come from wireless numbers, and network design makes it "challenging to receive help from close by," she wrote. The NPRM, which circulated on the 10th floor last month (see 2403210033), proposes routing calls to the crisis call center closest to where the call is made.

Don't expand space operations in the 2110-2120 MHz portion of the AWS-1 band, wireless interests urged the FCC this week in docket 13-115 reply comments. The agency in September adopted a Further NPRM proposing changes to the Table of Frequency Allocations addressing the use of spectrum by manned and unmanned spacecraft during missions, and seeking comment on new spectrum allocations in certain bands for communications with cargo and crew capsules. Wireless providers have relied on the 2110-2120 MHz band for their networks, and the proposed expansion of satellite uplinks in the band ignores that it was auctioned and licensed to commercial wireless operators subject only to interference from one federal user at one location in California, CTIA said. Expanded use outside of NASA's Deep Space Network research facility would undermine wireless licensees' "investment-backed expectations in acquiring [licenses] and foundational network deployment," it said. CTIA said minus the protections that come with exclusive use licenses, consumers could face service-quality disruptions and there would be less confidence in the auction and regulatory process. AT&T said its use of the 2110-2120 MHz spectrum is constrained only by the need to accept interference from those high-power NASA transmitters. It said additional restrictions on AWS-1 A-Block licensees’ use of the 2110-2120 MHz portion of the band would undermine the auction process and put new terms on licensees post auction. Such a move would also put AWS-1 A-Block licensees at a competitive disadvantage to other AWS-1 licensees, it said. More nonfederal spectrum allocations for launch activities will help relieve lower S-band congestion, SpaceX said. It urged streamlined coordination in the upper S band as a way of supporting launch and space operations while protecting incumbent flight-testing services. It pushed for looking beyond the S and L bands for spectrum for launch and space operations, including for commercial crewed and uncrewed spacecraft. In a separate filing, SpaceX and fellow crewed launch capability companies Vast Space, Sierra Space, Voyager Space Holdings and Starlab Space urged the FCC to make an allocation for future crewed space stations and operations not connected to the International Space Station, which is to be retired in 2030. They said additional bands should be considered for space-to-space communications. The Aerospace and Flight Test Radio Coordinating Council said that before there are any changes to the L and upper S bands, the FCC, NTIA, DOD and the space launch industry should get more experience with the lower S bands being available for nationwide licensing on a secondary basis. It said the FCC also should monitor commercial launch operators' use of the L and upper S bands under the existing framework.

The FCC’s net neutrality order will likely circulate this week (see 2403290057), with a 3-2 vote in favor on April 25, New Street’s Blair Levin said Tuesday. The order will largely restore 2015 rules, he said in a note to investors. “Like its predecessors, this policy debate will generate significant headlines and commentary, [but] is unlikely to generate significant changes in how the ISPs operate, nor material changes in their revenues, margins, or opportunities,” Levin said. “Traditional issues of non-discrimination, as well as the key investor concerns about price regulation and unbundling, will largely be treated as they were in 2015,” he added. Whether the FCC will preempt state action remains a question, though that matters less than in the past, he said. The new issue of how 5G network slicing is treated “puts the wireless companies on one side against the cable industry and certain public interest groups on the other,” Levin said: Another concern, the application of Section 214 of the Communications Act to ISPs, “can create some administrative headaches but is unlikely to be material to investors.” Barbara van Schewick, director of Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society, meanwhile, submitted a paper on throttling rules. “The new Open Internet Order needs to clearly prohibit ISPs from speeding up and slowing down applications and classes of applications,” the paper sent to the FCC says: “Neither the 2015 no-throttling rule nor the proposed no-throttling explicitly prohibited ISPs from speeding up an application or class of applications. … Clarifying this in the Order is critically important.” The paper was posted Tuesday in docket 23-320.