Expect antitrust legislation to be introduced in the “late days of this Congress” to curb Big Tech’s dominance, House Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman David Cicilline, D-R.I., said Friday, discussing his panel’s recent report (see 2010070067). Regulation is on the agenda for this and next Congress, said during a Public Knowledge event, calling the report “just the beginning.”
The timing of the FCC’s move to new headquarters remains uncertain, and 87% of frontline FCC employees hope to telework full time until an effective COVID-19 vaccine is in wide use and the pandemic “subsides,” said a survey by the National Treasury Employees Union Chapter 209, which represents FCC employees. “At this juncture, I can’t provide you with a definite timeline for these next steps” in the agency's relocation, wrote FCC Chief of Staff Matthew Berry in an agencywide email at the end of September. “But I hope to be able to do so in mid-October.”
The net neutrality order set for an Oct. 27 vote at the FCC means that what could be the last big meeting of Chairman Ajit Pai’s tenure will include action on the same politically charged, divisive issue that took over his first year as chairman. The order is likely to be approved 3-2, but with strong dissents from FCC Democrats. Other contentious items are also on the agenda, including the 5G Fund, tower compound expansions and a final order on wireless infrastructure.
Don't expect the U.S. approach to C-band clearing for 5G to become the norm worldwide, with use of the spectrum here often being vastly different from how it's employed internationally, spectrum executives said Thursday in a Global VSAT Forum virtual panel. There's a push in many regions of the world to open the band to mobile, but alternatives for incumbent services are often a stumbling block, they said.
First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Sandra Lynch repeatedly challenged and expressed confusion about Massachusetts arguments on the FCC's LEC test, in oral argument Thursday. The Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Cable (MDTC) is challenging the commission's finding that the AT&T TV Now streaming service is effective competition to Charter cable service in Massachusetts and part of Hawaii, thus ending basic cable rate regulation there (see 1912230063).
Reported 911 dispatching issues in Washington alarmed Republican House Commerce Committee ranking members. Greg Walden of Oregon from the full panel, Communications Subcommittee's Robert Latta of Ohio and Environment Subcommittee's John Shimkus of Illinois asked District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) Thursday for a briefing “to better understand the failure of the ... emergency dispatch system, including whether the 9-1-1 system played a role,” the members wrote Thursday. Not everyone welcomed what they consider politicization.
The Wireless ISP Association plans a rare large telecom in-person meeting, Oct. 20-22 in Las Vegas. It also will be streamed. WISPA is limiting attendance to 250 and following government protocols -- masking, deep cleaning and barring attendance from some countries based on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisories. Experts worry about such gatherings during the pandemic.
The radio industry doesn’t know what to expect going forward, said Hubbard Radio CEO Ginny Morris and Connoisseur Media CEO Jeff Warshaw during the virtual Pillsbury Broadcast Finance panel Wednesday for the Radio Show. “We don’t think we have much visibility” into the industry outlook for the rest of this year and afterward, said Warshaw. “We don’t expect '21 to be a year like '19,” he said. “We don’t know what a norm is.”
Key FAA drone rules on remote ID and operations over people are still on schedule to be published in December as the agency refocuses on beyond-line-of-sight rules, said Jay Merkle, executive director of the FAA Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration Office, at a virtual Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International conference Wednesday. “They are currently in interagency review … the last step before we go to a final rule,” he said. Other speakers said public perception of drones is critical to adoption and how regulators view them and was helped by increased use during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and House Commerce Committee ranking member Greg Walden, R-Ore., filed the Beat China by Harnessing Important, National Airwaves for 5G Act Wednesday in a bid to codify the DOD’s deal with the FCC to sell commercial use of the 3.45-3.55 GHz band (see 2008100038). Americans for Tax Reform, Heritage Action, TechFreedom and 40 other right-leaning groups, meanwhile, raised concerns with Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., that DOD’s recent request for information on dynamic spectrum sharing of the frequency slice (see 2009210056) could be an avenue to 5G nationalization.