New Mexicans voted to switch from an elected Public Regulation Commission to one that's governor-appointed, with 55% voting yes Tuesday. It's the 40th state with appointed commissioners. A key state telecom commissioner will continue in her job, and many other elected incumbents also appeared to hold seats, showed state results Wednesday (see 2011040019). Denver is the latest and largest city to opt out of Colorado’s ban on municipal broadband.
The presidential election, still undecided at our deadline, is likely to create a murky environment for the FCC and Chairman Ajit Pai, at least until all the votes are counted and court cases and recounts resolved, experts said. The situation is reminiscent of 2000, when George W. Bush’s election wasn’t clear for a month. As we went to press, former Vice President Joe Biden was ahead in key swing states, but President Donald Trump still had a potential path to victory.
Punishing state 911 fee diverters could worsen funding problems for the emergency call system and might be ineffective, commented local and public safety groups this week in docket 20-291. Penalizing local governments for states’ decisions is “much like sending your daughter to bed without dinner because your son took a cookie from the jar without permission,” the National Association of State 911 Administrators (NASNA) responded to the FCC notice of inquiry. “The two siblings are related, but the response is not.”
Local and state governments concerned about FCC compound expansion rules, approved 3-2 last week (see 2010270043), got concessions in the final version that was posted Tuesday. That's based on our comparison with the draft. The agency didn’t change the order to address concerns about the expansion's size relative to the tower site or about how big was the added 5G gear.
With the greatly diminished voice transmission market power of ILECs, their possession of copper loops is hardly meaningful, so the FCC sensibly ended the requirement they provide copper wire services to competitors at subsidized pricing. That's per the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Tuesday as it rejected Incompas and California Public Utilities Commission challenges to a 2019 forbearance order (see 2003260040).
If Democrat Joe Biden wins the presidency, he could potentially expand DOJ’s antitrust lawsuit against Google, former antitrust enforcers and experts said in interviews. If President Donald Trump is reelected, they expect DOJ to avoid settlement talks and prosecute the case vigorously.
Safety advocates are seeking meetings and plan to oppose an FCC proposed order reallocating the 5.9 GHz band, said ITS America President Shailen Bhatt in an interview Tuesday. Bhatt hopes the FCC, set to vote on the order in two weeks, will pause to give dedicated short-range communications a final chance to succeed. “We’re disappointed our pleas have fallen on deaf ears so far,” he said: “Experts are being ignored. Data is missing.”
About two months into the Edge Networks launch of Evoca, the ATSC 3.0-based content service in Boise (see 2008210021), consumer reaction is “going great,” CEO Todd Achilles told us. “We’ve got many times more people on our wait list than we’re letting into the service at this kind of early stage. We’re learning a lot.” Edge is getting mixed messaging from shopping Evoca in markets where it might try expanding, said Achilles.
It’s questionable whether a consumer could sue over unlawful surveillance if the federal government is always able to claim classified information protections, said 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Margaret McKeown Monday during oral argument in Jewel v. NSA (see 2004170052).
The FCC could be ignoring wireless RF dangers due to industry influence, a New Hampshire commission reported Sunday to Gov. Chris Sununu (R) and House and Senate leaders. CTIA and two others disagreed with 10 members on the commission, whose 15 recommendations included a national study, required warnings and new restrictions on wireless deployments. “Some balance can be struck to achieve the benefits of technology without jeopardizing" health, the majority said.