Dish Network likely can absorb the $5 billion price tag of Sprint's prepaid business and spectrum licenses, S&P said Tuesday, but added it was keeping its negative outlook on the company based on the pay-TV industry pressures, uncertainty about how it plans to finance its wireless network build and the challenges of entering the competitive wireless market. It said Dish has $1.5 billion in cash on hand, but it likely will access capital markets to fund the purchase, and that borrowing "pales in comparison to the $10 billion Dish requires for its planned wireless buildout." It said bundling prepaid wireless with pay-TV has some challenges, such as thin profit margins for mobile virtual network operator agreements and that Sprint's Boost customers are mostly in urban areas while Dish's direct broadcast satellite customer base is largely rural. It said Dish's lack of wireless experience makes it difficult to compete against established players, and while IoT presents notable long-term revenue opportunities, its use cases are more than five years away. It said Dish's wireless ambitions will likely require a partner and substantial capital. Other Dish and wireless watchers also said the company faces significant challenges in becoming a competitive wireless carrier (see 1907290019).

The Supreme Court’s recently concluded term had big implications for the FCC and the future of administrative law, said Christopher Walker, professor at the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law and a member of the Free State Foundation’s academic advisers board, in a paper released Tuesday. In Kisor v. Wilkie, the court looked at whether to eliminate to eliminate Auer, or Seminole Rock deference, “the doctrine that commands courts to defer to a federal agency’s interpretation of its own regulation unless the agency’s interpretation is ‘plainly erroneous or inconsistent with the regulation,’” Walker wrote. In a 5-4 decision “with Chief Justice [John] Roberts casting the deciding vote on stare decisis grounds,” the court declined to overrule those long-standing doctrines, he said. But the decision limited them, he said. “Gone is the blunt, bright-line rule, first articulated in the Court’s 1945 decision in Seminole Rock, that a court must defer to any agency regulatory interpretation unless it is ‘plainly erroneous or inconsistent with the regulation,’” he said: “Enter a new, five-step inquiry that in some ways, if taken literally, seems more searching than Chevron deference.” In Gundy v. United States, the high court considered whether a statutory grant of authority to a federal agency or executive branch official violates the nondelegation doctrine. Walker said. Gundy is “noteworthy because only four Justices were willing to continue to embrace a toothless nondelegation doctrine,” he said: Justice Samuel Alito “cast the fifth and decisive vote because ‘it would be freakish to single out the provision at issue here for special treatment.’” But Alito made clear he's willing to reconsider, Walker said. “If and when the Court does decide to reconsider the nondelegation doctrine, the Communications Act’s ‘public interest’ standard, under which so much of the FCC’s regulatory activity takes place, likely will be a candidate for scrutiny.”

The C-Band Alliance (CBA) met with multiple FCC bureau chiefs about the complexity and timing challenges of substituting fiber for the U.S.' C-band content distribution system, according to a docket 18-122 ex parte posting Monday. They also discussed technical aspects of the CBA's band-clearing plan, such as the need for more satellites and 5G rejection filters for earth stations, it said. At the meeting were agency General Counsel Tom Johnson, Wireless Bureau Chief Don Stockdale, International Bureau Chief Tom Sullivan, Office of Engineering and Technology Chief Julius Knapp and Office of Economics and Analytics acting Chief Giulia McHenry.

Crowdsourced data can be useful in refining the accuracy of the FCC's broadband deployment map, but that data may not be accurate about service performance and availability and there's questionable value in publishing it without verification, said NCTA, Cox Communications, GCI and Charter Communications in meetings with aides to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioner Mike O'Rielly, according to a docket 11-10 ex parte posting Monday. The cablers said the commissioners, as part of the broadband map draft order on Thursday's agenda (see 1907110071), instead should have agency bureaus evaluate ways to ensure consumer and provider confidentiality is protected in the crowdsourcing process. NCTA said the related Further NPRM should include questions about whether there needs to be a broadband-serviceable location database or whether alternative information could achieve the same goal. The cablers also asked for some operational clarity on the mapping item, such as requiring the new filing be done on the same March 1/Sept. 1 schedule as Form 477.

CenturyLink, a leading responsible organization (RespOrg), raised objections on what's becoming the most controversial part of draft FCC rules for an upcoming auction of more than 17,000 numbers in the recently opened 833 toll-free code (see 1907220064). “The proposed order would assess unreasonable penalties on RespOrgs for failing to report secondary market transactions involving toll-free numbers, when the RespOrg may have no notice that such a transaction has even occurred,” said a filing Thursday in docket 19-101. “Paragraphs 133-138 state that RespOrgs would be denied access to the Toll-Free Database for failing to report a secondary market transition involving one of their customers within 60 days.” The company met officials from the Wireline Bureau and Office of Economics and Analytics.

GAO made recommendations to several federal agencies on phony public comments, but the FCC wasn’t one of them, despite alleged issues with the agency’s 2017 net neutrality NPRM. GAO scrutinized the comment filing systems of the FCC and nine other agencies. It recommended some agencies “more clearly” communicate comment policies and associated identity-gathering information. The FCC received more than 22 million comments through its electronic comment filing system for the NPRM. GAO noted, “Media and others reported that some of the comments submitted to FCC were suspected to have been submitted using false identity information.” GAO said, according to FCC officials, the agency requires the name and mailing address of the commenter or an attorney of record. The commission accepts anonymous comments to comply with Administrative Procedure Act guidelines and to “minimize barriers that could prevent or discourage commenters from participating in the commenting process,” GAO said. It noted the FCC doesn’t collect or “store IP addresses as part of the comment data it collects when a public user ultimately submits a comment.” GAO addressed the issue of when a person claims that a comment was filed under their name without consent. Similar to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Environmental Protection Agency and the SEC, the FCC directs the complainant to file a new comment to correct the record but doesn’t remove the original comment.

With the Aug. 14 deadline for an FCC recommendation on a three-digit code for a national suicide prevention and mental health crisis hotline nearing, the Wireline Bureau is working on the report, Chairman Ajit Pai said in a letter dated July 19 to Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., posted Friday. Pai said before implementation of any recommendation, the agency would initiate a notice and comment proceeding. Pai responded to a Manchin letter dated May 7 asking Pai and Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie how they're trying to increase awareness of the VA crisis line. The FCC North American Numbering Council has recommended expanded use of 211 for the hotline (see 1905080020).

July partial pre-emption of San Francisco's Article 52 open-access rule (see 1907110015) exceeded the FCC authority, and is arbitrary, capricious and unconstitutional, San Francisco said (in Pacer) this week in a 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals petition for review (docket 19-71832). Thursday, the FCC didn't comment.

Comments by MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett, on T-Mobile possibly selling some assets to Dish Network as part of buying Sprint, were incorrectly attributed to New Street’s Jonathan Chaplin (see 1907240062).

Apple will buy most of Intel’s smartphone modem business for $1 billion in a deal expected to close Q4, said the companies. About 2,200 employees will join Apple, which also gets from Intel intellectual property, equipment and leases. Intel keeps rights to develop modems for non-smartphone applications, such as PCs, IoT devices and autonomous vehicles. The chipmaker exited the 5G smartphone modems business in April, seeing “no clear path to profitability and positive returns" (see 1904170004). It said then it would evaluate opportunities for 4G and 5G modems in non-smartphone products. Thursday's announcement was Intel's first confirmation it would hold onto those other modem businesses. “While the 5G network opportunity meets each of our investment criteria, the 5G smartphone opportunity does not,” said Intel CEO Bob Swan Thursday on the company's previously scheduled Q2 call. The deal with Apple “preserves Intel’s access to critical IP we have developed, and enables us to focus on the more profitable 5G network opportunity, where we are growing and winning share,” he said. Intel shares rose 6.4 percent after hours to $55.50.