The FCC should investigate reports that carriers disconnected customers after pledging to the FCC they wouldn’t do so during the COVID-19 pandemic, said Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel in a tweet Thursday. “Investigate these complaints. Stat.” The agency is “powerless” to enforce the Keep Americans Connected pledge (see 2003130066), said Gigi Sohn of the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society. The commission “abdicated" authority to do so when it reversed itself on net neutrality, she said. Hundreds of ISPs have taken FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's pledge.
Warning letters are the “most rapid and efficient means” for addressing bogus online claims about COVID-19-related products, FTC Chairman Joe Simons wrote, in documents we obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. Several members of Congress wrote in March asking how the agency is addressing the flood of deceptive and fraudulent activity related to the pandemic. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., asked about warning letters from the FTC and Food and Drug Administration.
Meetings continued on sharing the 6 GHz band with Wi-Fi, a week before a commissioner vote on an order and Further NPRM. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai spoke with National Spectrum Management Association officials this week about their concerns, said a filing posted in docket 18-295. The filing was among more than a dozen that popped up Thursday as parties made closing arguments.
T-Mobile/Sprint got its final OK, as California Public Utilities Commissioners voted 5-0 Thursday for a revised proposal that reasserted the agency’s authority to review the deal and adjusted some conditions (see 2004150058). The Utility Reform Network (TURN) said it's disappointed the CPUC didn’t punish carriers for closing their deal two weeks before the scheduled vote.
It took White House proxy support and concerns about commercial spectrum being essentially claimed by federal agencies to break the years-old logjam of Ligado's proposed terrestrial use of L-band spectrum with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's decision to circulate a draft approval order (see 2004160019), we were told Thursday. Swift action could be next, with multiple commissioners' offices expecting to vote on it this week. An array of primarily aerospace interests urged the FCC to close and dismiss the proceeding.
One thing has changed since the COVID-19 lockdown started -- it’s much easier to explain to electric cooperatives why people need fiber connections at home, said Conexon partner Jonathan Chambers during a Wednesday Broadband Breakfast webinar. “Now all the discussions are about how,” he said. “I don’t expect to have to go back to the why.”
Apps that warn citizens to avoid people infected with COVID-19 are a key element in lifting lockdowns, the European Commission said Wednesday. Its European road map toward easing containment measures noted contact tracing can help. Apps must comply with all EU privacy and data protection rules, the EC said. Among unresolved questions are whether the regime should be mandatory and how effective it will be.
House Science Committee leaders and an industry group urged the FCC to pull the orbital debris draft order from April 23's agenda. The agency got increasing resistance to its proposed satellite rules update (see 2004140052), in docket 18-313 Wednesday. A satellite executive told us the agency seemed surprised by the amount of industry criticism.
CTIA is hinting at a legal challenge to FCC rules, set for a vote April 23 (see 2004060062), allowing low-power devices throughout the 6 GHz band without automated frequency control. Reliance on restrictions in the draft rules “as a basis to conclude that an AFC-free regime will protect licensees from harmful interference would be arbitrary and capricious under well-established standards,” CTIA said in a filing posted Wednesday in docket 18-295. The group questions the studies and assumptions the FCC makes on the interference risk.
The FTC created an agency-wide pandemic response team and a pandemic-specific plan to address evolving COVID-19 issues, according to documents we obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. Chairman Joe Simons declined to share the plan's annex with Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., calling it “nonpublic” in a March 13 letter to the Senate Commerce Committee ranking member. Federal guidance on COVID-19 hasn’t "always kept up with the most pressing concerns expressed by FTC staff,” Simons wrote. He recommended a “timely and consolidated” source or site for federal agencies to plan for and “adapt to quickly changing circumstances.”