As the FCC works on rules governing supplemental coverage from space, the agency needs to be sure efforts to provide direct-to-handset service aren't meanwhile delayed, according to T-Mobile. A docket 23-65 filing Friday recapped SCS discussions between company representative and Wireless and Space Bureau staffers. T-Mobile said SCS rules should be based on the idea the service supplements terrestrial coverage, and thus there's no need to modify the terrestrial spectrum allocation that will support SCS. It said making terrestrial operators obtain a license covering subscribers' devices for when those devices are receiving service from satellites is impractical. T-Mobile said there's no regulatory purpose for requiring blanket earth station authorization for mobile handsets and such an authorization would be difficult to enforce. If the commission opts to require a mobile handset authorization, the satellite operator and not the terrestrial licensee should have to obtain that authorization through its satellite license or get a separate user authorization, T-Mobile said.

Two FCC commissioners say social media companies' embrace of U.S. Supreme Court precedent is misplaced when it comes to their arguments in the challenges before SCOTUS of Texas and Florida social media laws (see 2309290020) that such platforms have a First Amendment right to censor users' speech. Writing last week in the Yale Journal on Regulation, Commissioners Brendan Carr and Nathan Simington said SCOTUS has never held that the First Amendment gives dominant companies like big social media "a freewheeling right to censor others’ speech." Pointing to such SCOTUS precedent as its Turner decision, requiring cable systems to carry broadcast TV channels, the Republican commissioners said the high court has allowed the government to apply anti-discrimination requirements to corporations in ways consistent with the First Amendment. The commissioners said social media regulations like Texas' House Bill 20 "are easily distinguished" from regulations struck down on First Amendment grounds in decisions such as Tornillo, which involved a Florida law requiring newspapers to run partisan editorial content. "Indeed, HB20 touches none of the First Amendment third rails that were at play in those cases," they said. When considering such issues as market power and the degree to which the regulated entity makes individualized decisions about speech rather than being a common carrier of speech, "it is clear that the government can, in the appropriate case, apply anti-discrimination rules to social media platforms," they said. "Texas’s HB20 is one of those cases."

In an "innovation-led economy," innovation must “flourish,” but with AI "the protection of people” is critical, Microsoft Vice Chairman-President Brad Smith told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce State of American Business 2024 webinar Thursday. “We need to ensure that humans remain in control of this technology,” Smith said during a Q&A with Harold Kim, the Chamber’s executive vice president-chief legal officer. “We need to have safety and security standards,” he said. Smith found “fascinating” that the Chamber’s report on AI said that unless the government enacts regulation, “we’re likely to have market failure,” he said. “That is not a sentence that most people would expect to see in the executive summary” of a Chamber report, “and yet it is precisely right.” He added, “Most healthy markets for everyday products that can impact people’s safety do have a degree of safety regulation in place,” he said. “The key is to strike the right balance.” At Microsoft, “we’re very much focused on doing this on a global basis,” he said. “We’re interacting with governments in, easily, a few dozen countries at this point as each country is considering this.” Smith didn't mention the New York Times’ AI copyright infringement lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI, announced Dec. 27 (see 2312270044), and Kim didn’t ask him about it.

Last year's slowing in broadband network and service spending will likely continue well into 2024, Dell'Oro Group's Jeff Heynen blogged Thursday. Total broadband equipment spending likely declined around 10% in 2023, and projections indicate this year will see an additional 5% year-over-year drop due to interest rate increases, he said. That would put 2024 spending at around $16.5 billion, roughly equal to 2021 levels, he said. However, 2025 could see a rebound as the broadband equity, access and deployment program and other subsidization efforts start flowing to broadband equipment suppliers, he said. Heynen said it's likely operators will deploy dozens of Wi-Fi 7 residential routers and broadband customer premises equipment models by year's end. Wi-Fi 7 products may be seen as differentiators in a crowded broadband market and could ease marketplace confusion over Wi-Fi 6 vs. Wi-Fi 6E.

NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson sounded a warning about AI during remarks at CES Thursday. Davidson said nearly every booth at the conference hypes AI and claims that the products offered leverage it, he said. “We’re here today because of the growing power of technology in all of our lives -- that power, along with its inherent risks, has really been the animating force in my career,” he said. Humanity can build technologies that will be a force for good, he said: “It also has the power to build tools to monitor our population, divide our societies, weaken the vulnerable or even destroy life itself.” The global discussion around AI and machine learning is the best example of policymakers looking closely at technology's impact, he said. Responsible AI will “bring enormous benefits" and “transform every corner of our economy,” Davidson said. Yet policymakers must address the “very serious and real risks” that AI already presents, he said. Those include concerns about safety, security, privacy, bias, risks from disinformation and the effect on the labor market, he said. As a result, “there is a strong sense of urgency today across the Biden administration and among governments around the world,” he said. Davidson called President Joe Biden’s executive order (see 2310300056) “the most significant government action to date on AI.” Last year, NTIA launched an accountability initiative and will soon release the results, he said. The department is also looking at AI openness and the benefits and risks different AI models pose, he said.

The FCC took its first official steps Thursday to wind down the affordable connectivity program. A Wireline Bureau order in docket 21-450 gives providers guidance on notifying enrolled households about the impact of the program ending, advertising and outreach, claims submissions and "participation during a possible partially funded month." The bureau said it will announce ACP's final date about 60 days prior to the end of the program's last fully funded month. "To facilitate the efficient wind-down of the ACP, we strongly encourage providers to submit any remaining outstanding claims for reimbursement or revisions prior to February 1," the order said. The bureau will freeze new enrollments Feb. 8, which it said will help it "more accurately project funding exhaustion by increasing certainty in program commitments." ACP "connected millions upon millions of households to broadband services," FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said. "[D]isconnecting millions of families from their jobs, schools, markets, and information is not the solution," she added. Commissioner Anna Gomez said she was "dismayed that the commission finds itself with no choice but to initiate the wind down process," but "I remain hopeful that this program will continue to be funded."

Dish Network transferred some spectrum licenses, including AWS-4, H Block, CBRS, 12 GHz, 24 GHz, 28 GHz, 37 GHz, 30 GHz and 47 GHz, to a sister EchoStar subsidiary, EchoStar Wireless, while retaining ownership of other licenses including 600 MHz, 700 MHz, 3.45 GHz and AWS-3, parent EchoStar said Wednesday. EchoStar said the move "optimized strategic and financing flexibility." Spectrum and space consultant Tim Farrar posted on X that the moved spectrum "is mostly peripheral or low in value, and perhaps therefore more readily saleable to raise cash."

EchoStar could face challenges meeting its financial commitments during the next two to three years, S&P Global said Friday as it assigned the company a CCC+ credit rating following the closing of the deal creating EchoStar/Dish Network (see 2401020003). EchoStar must raise substantial funds in the coming years for its capital spending, offsetting wireless losses and debt maturities, S&P said. Dish will likely need to raise about $1.5 billion this year to address $2 billion in debt that matures in November, and another $2.5 billion in 2025 "before a massive maturity wall approaches in 2026." While Dish needs success in its 5G wireless business to lower its cost of capital and service its debt, that success "is highly uncertain," it said. S&P predicted that Dish's 5G ambitions in the postpaid market will struggle as it tries to capture business in a mature wireless market with large, established competitors. It added that cable is already competing in the more price-sensitive segment of the wireless market through bundles of mobile and broadband service. Hurting Dish is a lack of meaningful contracts with large enterprise clients and a strategic partner that could help drive revenue growth. S&P said 5G private network adoption is progressing slowly, and the addressable market will be much smaller in 2025 than Dish management projected.

The EchoStar/Dish Network transaction consummated over the weekend, (see 2401020003) "buys Dish some time… but not much," MoffettNathanson wrote Thursday. A Dish bankruptcy remains likely as its direct broadcast satellite, streaming video and Boost wireless mobile virtual network operator businesses are losing subscribers and the latter two are losing money, it noted. Dish's 5G network plans would make it the fourth entrant in a mature market where carriers don't always earn their cost of capital, it said. While Dish has "immensely valuable" spectrum assets, the potential buyers all have balance sheet issues and there are prohibitions on spectrum sales to any of the major wireless carriers before 2027, it said. "And even then, it isn’t entirely clear that the FCC and DOJ would conclude that spectrum sales to any of those three buyers are in the public interest," it added.

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr hired former senior counsel to the chief of the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau Arpan Sura as his legal adviser. “Arpan is a true lawyer’s lawyer as well as an experienced advisor on a range of policy issues,” Carr said in a news release Thursday. In addition, he noted Sura's experience in “wireless, satellite, consumer protection, media, technology, and litigation issues,” Carr said. Before joining the FCC, Sura represented telecommunications and tech clients for Hogan Lovells. Sura has degrees from the University of Texas at Austin and William & Mary Law School, the release said.