In an interview scheduled to air Saturday on C-SPAN’s The Communicators, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr wouldn't say whether he supports acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel being nominated as the permanent chair. "I'm not sure my endorsement of a Democrat chair would help or hurt them at this point, so I'll refrain from weighing in on that," Carr said, "but it's been great having her reach across party lines and compromise." Carr said President Joe Biden's infrastructure package ignores the "billions of dollars that we already have in the pipeline to further close the digital divide." The FCC should be allowed time to disburse existing funds before additional funds are approved, he said (see 2104080059). The challenge is coordinating those efforts because "money at this point is not the problem," and it comes down to administering existing programs, Carr said. The commission's current broadband maps are also "outdated," he said, and "we can't take $100 billion without knowing where there is still a problem." Efforts to create broadband price regulation could disincentivize private investment, Carr said: "There's nothing that's going to scare those dollars away more quickly than the threat of rate regulation." There could be a lot of common ground on net neutrality if rate regulation is taken off the table, he said: "I'm still hopeful we can have an objective conversation." California's net neutrality law is "pretty remarkable," he said, and "an example of the real harms that come from those extreme approaches." Another pressing challenge is addressing the "spiraling" USF contribution factor, Carr said (see 2103230032). "I think that's an issue that is going to demand the attention of Congress in pretty short order." He also said the FCC made the "right call" in freeing up prime spectrum, and he's "very worried that there could be some backsliding with respect to those initiatives." Carr said he's still "very much open and interested" in Communications Decency Act Section 230 reform, citing Twitter's decision to block former President Donald Trump (see 2103300074). "The reasons that they articulated for kicking the president off the platform didn't really seem to line up with the actual tweets that they were referencing."

The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology approved waivers sought by six companies wanting to use the 57-64 GHz band for vehicular safety technologies. The waivers were approved in a single order for Vayyar Imaging, Valeo North America, Infineon Technologies Americas, Tesla, IEE Sensing and Brose North America. OET said granting the waivers, in coordination with NTIA, “will bring immediate relief to the industry and the public in this area.” The technologies all involve detection of children inadvertently left in vehicles in hot weather “and other related passenger safety functions at higher power levels than specified in the rule,” OET said Wednesday. The waivers “will enable important in-vehicle sensing technology to further the auto industry’s goal of saving lives,” Auto Innovators President John Bozzella said in a statement. “The industry is working to reduce pediatric heatstroke fatalities through advanced technology, public awareness efforts, and a 2019 commitment to equip vehicles with rear seat reminder systems by Model Year 2025,” he said.

Belgium-based management consultancy Arthur D. Little acquired U.S.-based management consultancy MAG as part of the expansion of its telecom, IT, media and electronics practice and its U.S. presence, Little said Tuesday. Terms weren't disclosed.

Dish Network and designated entities Northstar Wireless and SNR Wireless should be able to submit briefs separately because a shared one would create the appearance Northstar and SNR are under Dish control, which is a key issue in their court challenge of the denial of AWS-3 auction bidding credits (see 1807130003). That's per the appellant DEs, the appellee FCC and intervenors Dish, AT&T, T-Mobile and VTel Wireless in a proposed briefing format and schedule filed Friday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (docket 18-1209, in Pacer). The parties said Dish also will raise issues that are independent of the DEs' issues.

President Joe Biden said he's "prepared to negotiate" with Republicans on the size and scope of an infrastructure spending package, but "it’s going to get down to what we call infrastructure," as he began a Monday meeting with Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., ranking member Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and other lawmakers on the subject. Biden told reporters, "I think broadband is infrastructure. It's not just roads, bridges, highways, et cetera." Biden's proposal includes $100 billion for broadband, in line with Democrats' legislation (see 2103310064). Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg also cited the infrastructure definition debate, tweeting, "Why would anyone turn against broadband because it's not a bridge, or come out against water pipes because they're not highways?" Democrats "just spent nearly $2 trillion on a COVID relief package -- the majority of which did not go to immediate pandemic problems," Wicker tweeted after the meeting. "Now, @POTUS has a $2.3 trillion infrastructure proposal, but not even 70% of it could be called infrastructure. Where does the spending end?" Republicans are "wary" about whether Biden's meetings with the party's lawmakers are actually aimed at "working out a bipartisan deal, or if they are about window dressing that will lead to another Democrat-only reconciliation process," a Senate GOP aide said. The White House released fact sheets before the meeting outlining each state's infrastructure needs. For instance, "26% of Mississippians live in areas where, by one definition, there is no broadband infrastructure that provides minimally acceptable speeds," that state's fact sheet said. "And 50.1% of Mississippians live in areas where there is only one such internet provider. Even where infrastructure is available, broadband may be too expensive to be within reach. 23% of Mississippi households do not have an internet subscription. The American Jobs Plan will invest $100 billion to bring universal, reliable, high-speed and affordable coverage to every family in America."

Intel “generally” opposes U.S. imposition of “unilateral export controls” on foreign tech companies suspected of threatening U.S. national security, said Tom Quillin, senior director-security and trust policy, at a virtual forum convened Thursday by the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security to identify risks in the semiconductor supply chain. BIS said it will use feedback from the forum, plus comments received in its notice of inquiry, to help shape recommendations to the White House on President Joe Biden’s Feb. 24 executive order to relieve supply chain bottlenecks (see 2103110054). BIS export restrictions “place undue hardship on U.S. semiconductor companies, especially when similar items are available in foreign markets,” said Quillin. “The foreign availability of products and technology typically leads to the substitution of U.S-origin products and technology for comparable non-U.S.-origin items that are not similarly controlled.” He avoided mention of Huawei and other Chinese companies on the BIS Entity List.

Charter Communications owes Windstream $19.2 million in compensatory damages for violating an automatic stay against terminating their reseller agreement and its "literally false and intentionally misleading" ad campaign, U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Robert Drain in White Plains, New York, said in a memorandum of decision Thursday (in Pacer, docket 19-08246). The stay “clearly and unambiguously” should have stopped Charter from terminating service at the start of Windstream’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and that termination itself was contrary to the terms of the reseller agreement, Drain said. The judge rejected multiple Charter criticisms of Windstream’s damages calculations, including $9.2 million in legal fees and expenses, though he rejected an additional $1 million in various legal fees. Charter didn't comment Friday.

President Joe Biden's FY 2022 discretionary budget request, released Friday, asks Congress to give the Commerce Department $11.4 billion, up almost 28% from what it received for FY 2021. The money includes $39 million to NTIA "for advanced communications research," to "support the development and deployment of broadband and 5G technologies by identifying innovative approaches to spectrum sharing," the White House said. The request "ensures Commerce has additional staff and resources to analyze export control and Entity List proposals, enforce related actions, and implement executive actions related to export controls and secure telecommunications." The budget would give the National Institute of Standards and Technology $916 million, up 16% from FY 2021, the White House said. That would help NIST spur research into "computing, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence, quantum information science ... and to establish prize competitions to pursue key technology goals." Biden is seeking $2.1 billion for the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, an almost 6% boost. CISA got increased scrutiny for the 2020 SolarWinds cyber hack (see 2104060058). "This funding would allow CISA to enhance its cybersecurity tools, hire highly qualified experts, and obtain support services to protect and defend Federal information technology systems," the White House said. "The discretionary request also provides $20 million for a new Cyber Response and Recovery Fund." The request includes $500 million for the General Services Administration’s Technology Modernization Fund to “strengthen federal cybersecurity and retire antiquated legacy technology systems.” The TMF request “builds on” $1 billion provided in the American Rescue Plan Act, the White House said. The request shows a "commitment to improve cybersecurity" and "invest in researching and developing modern technologies," House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said.

Broadband “clears the definitional hurdle” of what constitutes infrastructure, but President Joe Biden’s proposal for $100 billion in broadband spending (see 2103310064) is a “blunder,” FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr said Thursday in an opinion piece in The Hill. It’s “not a good thing” that Biden’s proposal “tracks many of the ideas” contained in congressional Democrats’ Accessible, Affordable Internet for All Act. HR-1783/S-745 proposes $94 billion for broadband (see 2103110060). “At the outset, their efforts ignore” the $40 billion in existing broadband funding the FCC is working to distribute, including via the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund and the new $3.2 billion emergency broadband benefit program, Carr said. “Not one penny from this $40 billion tranche has been spent.” Price tag “aside, the Democrats’ approach is plagued with substantive flaws that will only make it harder to close the digital divide,” he said. “It dedicates funds to upgrade communities that already have high-speed Internet services so that they can receive the superfast ‘future proof’ connections of tomorrow.” Carr criticized the proposal for betting “on government-owned networks as the future of connectivity” and for putting “price controls squarely on the table” when “rate regulation would be a surefire way to scare off the private sector investment needed to bridge the digital divide.” He compared the current infrastructure effort to the rollout of broadband funding in the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, in which “waste, fraud, and abuse flourished.” Congressional oversight hearings “followed with vows of ‘never again,’” yet “here we are again,” Carr said. “Rather than appropriating additional dollars in blunderbuss fashion, we can administer the substantial funds already available to the FCC while unleashing additional private sector investment” by reducing regulatory barriers, as House Commerce Committee Republicans proposed in February (see 2102160067). USTelecom and others also criticized Biden’s proposal (see 2104070057).

FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington said ensuring "the highest and best" intense use of spectrum and easing the path to infrastructure investment are among his top policy priorities. During a virtual AGL event Thursday, he said shrinking guard bands could be a potentially viable route. Simington said he's "skeptical" that a nationwide fiber buildout could be accomplished at $80 billion and cautioned that a Title II regulatory approach to broadband could raise the threshold for what constitutes a viable community for a broadband provider to offer connectivity. The FCC has done "quite well" in making low- and high-band spectrum available for commercial wireless, but midband needs remain, and that spectrum has a strong ability to drive 5G updates, Simington said: The FCC has the tools to make more spectrum available for terrestrial wireless, but the most effective way to use those tools is clear and open communication with federal users. "Often it's important to not let things get too far down the road before engagement." Simington said he hasn't heard any discussions about a twilight towers agenda item, though the issue could be under study at the staff level. Asked about Communications Decency Act Section 230 action at the FCC, he said it seems clear the agency has authority to take action, but whether it should is less clear. Congress might take up Section 230 without the FCC, he said, and the agency isn't likely to move any item forward before it has a fifth commissioner. He was largely critical of municipal broadband, saying systems frequently require ongoing taxpayer subsidization. Muni broadband "has on occasion filled gaps in some areas," but it's not an effective systemic solution to unserved areas, he said. Asked who will be permanent FCC chair, Simington said he has no insider knowledge, but acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel “has been doing a fantastic job. We are transacting business at a nice brisk clip.” Aurora Insight CEO Jennifer Alvarez said this fall's 3.45-3.55 GHz band auction won't be "quite as high-priced" as the C-band auction because while both represent midband spectrum, 3.45-3.55 GHz has to be shared with incumbent users. Localities lawyer Jonathan Kramer of Telecom Law Firm said small-cell deployments are varying widely in density, with two to three per square mile in some jurisdictions and 30-plus in others. He said local governments have pressing interests in knowing the numbers, locations and designs, because they are "the ones who will live with these things the next 30, 40 years."