Consolidation is a satellite industry must, particularly in the earth station segment, said experts Monday at the VSAT Congress. Many urged pursuing convergence between satellite connectivity and terrestrial networks so there's a bigger audience for the huge amounts of bandwidth going into orbit in coming years. "We don't have five years" for that convergence, iDirect CEO Kevin Steen said, noting satellite data capacity is expected to grow fourteenfold by 2027. "We have to start now."
Supporters of the Streamlining the Rapid Evolution and Modernization of Leading-Edge Infrastructure Necessary to Enhance (Streamline) Small Cell Deployment Act took center stage at a Friday Senate Commerce Committee 5G deployment field hearing in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to extol the bill's virtues. FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr and other national and state stakeholders endorsed the bill in written testimony, as expected (see 1810090049). S-3157, filed in June by Senate Commerce Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., and Senate Communications Subcommittee ranking member Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, aims to implement a “reasonable process and timeframe guidelines” for state and local small-cell consideration (see 1806290063). The friendly panel was in contrast to opposition S-3157 faces from other state and local governments (see 1810040055).
Carriers and public safety groups disagreed on next steps for assuring the vertical accuracy (z-axis) of wireless calls to 911. CTIA said more time and testing is needed, but public safety groups urged the FCC to get tough. In September, the Public Safety Bureau sought comment on a z-axis test bed report submitted by CTIA on behalf of the nationwide carriers. Replies were due Thursday. The FCC approved an order 5-0 in January 2015 requiring carriers to improve their performance in identifying the location of wireless calls to 911 (see 1501290066). Then-Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said at the time the FCC wasn't being tough enough.
Administrator David Redl said Friday he's hopeful comments on NTIA’s privacy principles (see 1810100057) will show privacy and innovation can be maximized under a new federal privacy framework. NTIA met with more than 60 companies, groups and individuals before the comment solicitation, he said. One message the agency heard from the tech industry is that privacy and innovation are “not mutually exclusive goals,” Redl told the Brookings Institution.
The FCC said restoration of "light-touch" broadband regulation reflects the best read of the Communications Act and its goal of an internet "unfettered" by federal and state regulation. The "internet freedom" order is backed by the agency's "legal analysis, public policy concerns, and the extensive record," said the FCC/DOJ brief Thursday, responding to challenges (see 1808210010) in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Mozilla v. FCC, No. 18-1051. Though the decision reversed a 2015 Title II net neutrality order, the FCC "had ample discretion, following a 'change in administrations' to reevaluate its policies," it said, citing the 2005 Supreme Court Brand X deferring to the commission classification of cable broadband as a Title I information service.
There are no signs FCC action on the TV-station national ownership cap is coming soon. The expected busy agency schedule for the remaining months of 2018 means such action is unlikely this year, FCC officials, broadcasters, attorneys and analysts told us. Without any deals actively pending that push against the cap and the UHF discount not under threat, the national cap appears to be “on the backburner,” said S&P Global Senior Research Analyst Justin Nielson.
Florida counties are working together to ensure 911 calls are answered from places hit hard by Hurricane Michael, county emergency management officials told us Friday. The hurricane left some Virginia 911 call centers running on generators, state officials there said. The FCC Disaster Information Reporting System (DIRS) communications status report Friday included nine Georgia counties added Thursday at the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s request, bringing the total number of counties covered to 110.
Though C-band the number of earth stations being registered with the FCC is accelerating as the window heads toward Wednesday closure, consensus among experts we talked to is that results won't dissuade the agency from freeing up some of the band for terrestrial wireless service. The FCC is starting to see that the 3.7-4.2 GHz band is more populated than the agency might have thought but now it will have a good cross-section to ensure there's needed engineering for terrestrial and satellite users "so they can play in the same sandbox," said Society of Broadcast Engineers President Jim Leifer.
NextRadio’s lack of a “data attribution” component and the radio industry’s inability or unwillingness to help pay to build one was the biggest factor that doomed the smartphone FM-listening app, said Jeff Smulyan, CEO of NextRadio developer Emmis Communications, on an earnings call Thursday. Smulyan said Emmis no longer is willing or able to shoulder the costs of running the NextRadio business, which Chief Financial Officer Ryan Hornaday said incurred a $7 million operating loss in the 12 months ended Aug. 31.
The thrust of a forthcoming privacy bill from Sen. Ron Wyden will be a “different brand” of tech sector transparency with “consequences” for transgressing companies, the Oregon Democrat told us. Also Thursday, Senate Commerce Committee leadership hammered Google for not disclosing sooner its recent Google+ vulnerability (see 1810100066), given the company’s chief privacy officer testified months after the issue reportedly was discovered (see 1809260050).