The draft NPRM on low earth orbit satellite spectrum sharing on Tuesday's FCC agenda (see 2111230068) will surely pass, but some of its provisions could face friction from some satellite operators, we were told. A lawyer with satellite clients said sunsetting a non-geostationary orbit fixed satellite system's interference protections could get operator pushback. He said there's some gray area in the current FCC rules, so some clarity of what it means to be a first- or second-round licensee could help. ITU has no concept of a sunset, and ITU priority is forever, he said. The FCC draft NPRM in docket 21-456 wants input on sunsetting protections for an NGSO FSS system before the expiration of its 15-year license term and what protections should apply after sunsetting. Astroscale regulatory associate Laura Cummings emailed that there will be a divide among operators over rights sunsetting, because some that were licensed in earlier processing rounds invested first and heavily with the expectation of FCC protection, though later-round applicants would like easier entry into an already crowded spectrum market. She said an FCC decision to sunset first processing round protection rights could result in a legal challenge. She said another issue that could have diverging operator views is on sharing beam-pointing information, which some operators view as proprietary business information. She said operators with government clients also expect client opposition to that sharing. Between spot beams and the sheer number of beams, real-time coordination "would require incredible computing power and logistics" if mandated across thousands of satellites with multiple beams each, she said. She said most operators should agree there should be rules clarity on issues such as the sharing regime, since there has been a struggle to work out how first-round and subsequent licensees can share spectrum across processing rounds. The draft item got mixed feedback from operators. SES/O3b officials told International Bureau Chief Tom Sullivan last week they have concerns about the NPRM, and that other countries also dealing with NGSO sharing might be watching closely. Amazon Kuiper officials, in discussions with aides to Commissioners Brendan Carr, Geoffrey Starks and Nathan Simington and with Sullivan, said that licensees "need reasonable protection and certainty [but] the current rules risk hampering competition and placing the promise of satellite-delivered broadband in the hands of a small group of earlier-licensed incumbents" if there aren't limits on priority protections. SpaceX also told the aides the draft NPRM had its support.

Hal Singer is managing director at Econ One Research (see 2112090069).

The FCC ordered small voice service providers that aren’t facilities-based to implement Stir/Shaken in the IP portions of their networks by June 30. The old deadline was a year later. Facilities-based carriers still have until June 30, 2023. Commissioners OK’d the order 4-0, after unanimously approving a Further NPRM in May (see 2105200072). Friday's release targets the small players “most likely to be the source of illegal robocalls.” It cited “overwhelming record support and available evidence showing that nonfacilities-based small voice service providers are originating a large and disproportionate amount of robocalls.” Facilities-based carriers can still be required to implement Stir/Shaken earlier if the Enforcement Bureau “suspects” them of originating illegal robocalls and the company “fails to mitigate such traffic upon Bureau notice,” the FCC said. Those companies face a 90-day implementation deadline unless “sooner implementation is otherwise required,” the order said. “We close a gap in our current STIR/SHAKEN regime and, by targeting those providers most likely to be involved in illegal robocalling, we reap a substantial portion of the benefits offered … to Americans,” the FCC said.

The assignment phase of the FCC’s 3.45 GHz auction started Thursday. It's expected to last only a week or two, with winning bidders likely to be announced in 2021 (see 2111170037).

The U.S. is “in great shape” on 5G competition internationally, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr told a Media Institute virtual event Thursday. He said the agency's approach over the past five or six years of freeing up spectrum and lowering infrastructure barriers has been a proven success. He waved off former Google Executive Chairman CEO Eric Schmidt's repeated warnings of the U.S. lagging behind other nations such as China as "the Chicken Little of 5G leadership." Google didn't comment. Carr said more should be done in spectrum availability and infrastructure reform, citing completion of the 2.5 GHz auction and authorizing very low power use in the 6 GHz band as goals. Asked about 6G planning, Carr said the U.S. could start contemplating issues like the terahertz spectrum it might require, but the U.S. has "got to tend to our knitting" with 5G foremost. Asked about the likelihood of a resumption of net neutrality rules, he said it's "largely baked in" that the agency will at least debate a return to Communications Act Title II rules, though he was dismissive. "It's such an old debate of the past," he said, saying regulatory focus shouldn't be on ISPs but on edge provider behavior. He said if rate regulation were taken off the table, it would be relatively easy to find consensus about net neutrality rules for blocking and throttling. He said there could be a route for Communications Decency Act Section 230 changes that puts an affirmative anti-discrimination requirement on platforms while remaining consistent with the First Amendment. He said the Supreme Court's rulings on the First Amendment, when put on a continuum, include an opening for regulating tech companies' actions as a speech conduit while not implicating the First Amendment. Asked whether the FCC's 2018 broadcast ownership quadrennial review is likely to get done in 2022, Carr said there "is some precedent" for rolling it over: "These may start to run together a little bit."

Verizon is “very, very confident, certain that the availability of C band is imminent,” said Ronan Dunne, outgoing Verizon Consumer Group CEO, at a Barclays virtual financial conference Wednesday. The C band will “augment our millimeter wave for the next push on 5G,” he said. Verizon and AT&T proposed temporary voluntary power limits and antenna restrictions on C-band deployments near airports as they seek to turn the band on (see 2111240062). Dunne said the recently closed Tracfone buy (see 2111230038) is also important to Verizon’s future and will allow the carrier to expand its customer base: “Our timing on Tracfone couldn't have been more perfect.” The buy means Verizon’s ability to bring in billions of dollars through the FCC emergency broadband benefit program is “significantly enhanced,” Dunne said.

An Amazon Web Services outage midday Tuesday took out a swath of gaming logins, streaming video services and cloud-based events, including the Vizio investor presentation at a virtual UBS technology conference. Amazon reported “impact to multiple AWS APIs in the US-EAST-1 Region.” The outage affected some of Amazon’s monitoring and incident response tooling, “which is delaying our ability to provide updates,” said Amazon, saying it “identified the root cause and are actively working towards recovery.” The Verge reported outages for Disney+ streaming and games and some problems accessing Amazon.com, the Alexa voice assistant, Kindle ebooks, Amazon Music and Ring security cameras. “There are reports from network admins everywhere about errors connecting to Amazon’s instances and the AWS Management Console that controls their access to the servers,” said the Verge. The webpage for Vizio’s event said the presentation was being recorded and the replay “will be posted as soon as the AWS Network is back up.”

LTD Broadband took the Iowa Utilities Board to court for denying the company eligible telecom carrier status needed to get $23 million in Rural Digital Opportunity Fund support. LTD notified the FCC about the lawsuit Tuesday in docket 20-34. “LTD filed a timely and substantially complete application to expand its ETC designation, and promptly responded to IUB staff follow-up questions and requests for additional information,” said the complaint posted Monday in case CVCV062857 at Iowa District Court for Polk County. After delaying decision, the board improperly denied LTD’s application Nov. 5, the company claimed. The Iowa agency sent the FCC its order as it seeks to ensure “the record is clear with regard to the ETC designation process in Iowa,” the board said in a filing posted Monday. LTD sued “one of the few state [public utility commissions] that is actually doing its job,” tweeted Institute for Local Self-Reliance Director-Community Broadband Networks Christopher Mitchell. The board doesn't "comment on current or pending litigation," a spokesperson said Tuesday.

ISP associations asked the 2nd U.S. Circuit of Appeals to require their brief by Feb. 23 on New York’s appeal of a lower court rejecting the state’s broadband affordability law, in letters Monday in case 21-1975 from the Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Association, New York State Telecommunications Association, CTIA, USTelecom and NTCA. U.S. District Court in Central Islip, New York, temporarily blocked the state law earlier this year, ruling ISPs would likely succeed on conflict and field preemption arguments (see 2107230044). Last week, in an amicus brief, California, Illinois, 20 other states and the District of Columbia said they “seek to defend New York’s sovereign right to exercise its police powers against Plaintiffs’ unwarranted assertions of federal preemption.” Amici “regularly exercise their sovereign authority to enact and enforce numerous laws applicable to broadband providers and other online businesses,” including laws “aimed at securing their residents’ access to vital goods and services,” they said. “There is nothing about the Internet that necessitates a departure from that normal state of affairs, and certainly nothing that warrants it in the absence of clear direction from Congress.” In other amici filings, the Benton Institute and Public Knowledge said the New York law is “a targeted and state-specific regulatory response to the problem of the digital divide.” Access Now, the National Digital Inclusion Alliance and others said federal “programs, while being helpful and effective, have not fully solved" the "broadband affordability problem.” The Greenlining Institute said states “have long played an essential role in regulating both interstate and intrastate communications, both as an exercise of their inherent sovereign police powers and within a federal statutory framework that leaves room to adapt communications law and policies to local concerns.” The district court's field preemption claim, if affirmed, "would invalidate vital state laws regulating areas of traditional local concern -- including consumer protection, public health, and public safety,” wrote seven internet law professors including Harvard Law School’s Lawrence Lessig and Stanford Law School’s Barbara van Schewick. It would “leave both the FCC and the states without regulatory authority, leaving Americans wholly unprotected from harms by interstate communications providers,” they said.

China Telecom Americas didn't satisfy "the stringent requirements for a stay pending court review," the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said in an order Thursday (docket 21-1233) denying the company's emergency motion for a stay of the FCC’s October order revoking the company’s domestic and international authorities (see 2111080056). The decision was made by Judges Cornelia Pillard, Justin Walker and Judith Rogers. China Telecom outside counsel didn't comment. The company is also appealing the revocation (see 2111150025).