The FCC will launch a proceeding aimed at increasing telecom security by making changes to its equipment authorization rules and competitive bidding procedures “to help keep insecure devices off the market,” acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said Wednesday. Commissioners will also take up a proposal sought by CTA allowing the limited marketing and sales of wireless devices to consumers before equipment authorization. All the items are to be voted at the June 17 commissioners' meeting.
Federal regulators are likely looking closely at possible antitrust action against Amazon, but the company's $8.45 billion buy of MGM announced Wednesday isn't expected to face federal or state antitrust challenges, experts told us. Lawmakers we interviewed questioned the potential monopoly power of Amazon while wanting the deal scrutinized.
Emergency alerting officials and broadcasters see more information-rich alerts and increased geotargeting as the biggest needs for improving alerting, looking to ATSC 3.0 as a solution, said speakers at the Advance Warning and Response Network’s virtual summit Tuesday. More authorities are including links and additional information in their alerts, and that’s information that can’t be “effectively delivered” using the current emergency alert system, said Wade Witmer, deputy director of the Federal Emergency Management Association's Integrated Public Alert Warning System. Last year, there was an almost 200% increase in use of wireless emergency alerts compared with 2019, and a 135% increase in EAS use, Witmer said.
Regulators should immediately break up Facebook and act against its entities, protesters said outside the company’s lobbying headquarters in Washington on Tuesday. Participants told us the company hasn’t been responsive to specific demands, is incapable of self-correcting and has built a large U.S. corporate lobbying operation.
The FCC might be close to resolving an enrollment issue affecting emergency broadband benefit (EBB) participation by some Lifeline eligible telecom carriers (ETCs) in California and two other states. TruConnect CEO Nathan Johnson told us Monday the California Public Utilities Commission delay responding to the FCC about a proposed alternative verification process (AVP) “has made trying to get people enrolled in California incredibly cumbersome to the point where a lot of carriers aren’t even bothering.” The FCC said it's working with the CPUC.
Telecom-focused Democratic senators demurred Monday and Tuesday from criticizing President Joe Biden for offering to substantially reduce the proposed broadband spending request in his infrastructure counteroffer to Republicans (see 2105210056). They insisted in interviews that Biden’s revised plan, which lowered the proposed broadband money from $100 billion to $65 billion to align with an April GOP framework (see 2104220067), won’t hamstring efforts to enact an infrastructure package that contains a larger amount of connectivity funding via budget reconciliation if talks with Republicans collapse. Lobbyists and others we spoke with believe Biden’s shift doesn’t mean a higher figure won’t ultimately pass.
Being vertically integrated with content helped AT&T's domestic connectivity business, but it became apparent its HBO Max platform needed to be global in scale to compete and wouldn't fit with the U.S. focus, hence the spinoff and Discovery deal (see 2105160003), CEO John Stankey said Monday during a JP Morgan conference. He said AT&T's smaller dividend after the DirecTV and WarnerMedia spinoffs will mean more capital the company can invest into wireless and fiber deployment for connectivity.
Vice President Kamala Harris and other White House officials remained hopeful Monday that a bipartisan deal on broadband and other infrastructure spending is possible, despite Senate Republicans’ negative reception for President Joe Biden’s latest revisions. The administration briefed Senate Republicans Friday on a revised proposal that lowered broadband spending from $100 billion to $65 billion to mirror an April GOP counteroffer (see 2105210056). During a Monday virtual White House event, Harris touted the plan's highlights.
President Joe Biden’s cybersecurity executive order (see 2105130065) will boost the federal government’s reliance on cloud services and information sharing, experts told us. The EO directs federal civilian agencies to “accelerate movement to secure cloud services,” including software as a service (SaaS), infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS). Within 90 days, the OMB director will develop a federal cloud-security strategy with guidance to agencies, in consultation with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the General Services administrator through the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRamp).
Though cable operators are shedding landline voice subscribers, experts said they don't see disconnecting that offering in the foreseeable future since it drives some revenue and reduces churn. The landline subs losses aren't a cable-only issue, said industry consultant Steve Effros. "Everybody is losing landline customers." Comcast and Charter are gaining sizable wireless subscriber bases, he said.