The FTC’s proposal that regulates tactics social media companies use to maximize engagement with young users will draw legal challenges if codified, former agency officials and industry representatives said Tuesday during the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Public Policy and Legal Summit.
The FCC’s administrative hearing process increasingly results in huge discovery requests that can be expensive for entities with matters before the agency’s administrative law judge and faces an uncertain future due to a host of recent administrative law cases, panelists said during a Federal Communications Bar Association virtual event Tuesday. Discovery is the most time-consuming part of the process, said FCC ALJ Jane Halprin. In addition, the expense of pursuing a lengthy case before the ALJ is sometimes more than many licensees can stomach, said Smithwick and Belendiuk attorney Arthur Belendiuk during a separate panel. “Even if you win, you might lose,” he said.
Capella is seeking FCC Space Bureau sign-off to add two more satellites to an existing authorization. In an application posted Monday for authority to modify its license, the company said Acadia-5 and Acadia-6 would join its authorization for Acadia-1 through -4. The company said 10 of its 13 satellites already authorized -- the Acadias and Capella-2 through Capella-10 -- are deployed. Acadia-5 and -6 are slated to launch in Q3 and Q4, respectively, said Capella. The earth imaging company said the two additional satellites will let it offer a wider variety of imagery and other data products.
The FCC Enforcement Bureau warned New York property owners in Mount Vernon and Poughkeepsie of possible forfeitures for allegedly hosting pirate radio stations, said letters in Monday’s Daily Digest. Property owners Keiwan Morrison and Shadae Bailey in Poughkeepsie and Jeromio Edwards in Mount Vernon could face a forfeiture of up to $2.3 million each, the letters said. The letters demand proof that the unauthorized transmissions EB field agents found have ceased and that the unauthorized broadcasters be identified. Property owners have 10 business days to respond, the letters said.
LTD Broadband’s opening brief is due May 8 in its petition to review the FCC’s rejection of the company's long-form application for Rural Digital Opportunity Fund support (see 2402070081), said a clerk’s order Friday (docket 24-1017) at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The FCC’s respondent brief is due June 24, and LTD’s reply brief July 24, the order said. LTD is challenging the FCC’s Dec. 4 order denying LTD’s application for review of the Wireline Bureau’s decision to reject the company’s application. LTD is asking the D.C. Circuit to hold the order unlawful and set it aside.
The 5G Fund order that FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel circulated March 20 raised long-standing concerns that the agency releases drafts for "meeting" items but not for those voted electronically, regardless of their relative importance. For those items, industry groups and companies must schedule meetings with commissioner staff and the bureaus and offices to ask about details.
The FCC Wireline Bureau on Friday extended the deadline for Gogo Business Aviation and other carriers to remove, replace and dispose of Huawei and ZTE equipment from their networks. The deadline for Gogo was extended from July 21 to Jan. 21. “Gogo states that it has encountered ongoing supply chain issues arising from high demand, material scarcity, and labor shortages, particularly in machine manufacturing, which continue to cause a lack of availability of necessary equipment and extended lead times,” the bureau said. Gogo maintains the disruptions “are particularly significant because it has aviation operations, which call for custom radio equipment, rather than off-the-shelf solutions, for both its ground infrastructure and its airborne components,” the bureau said. In addition, the bureau extended the deadline for Bluesky from April 18 to Oct. 18, for Gallatin Wireless from March 23 to Sept. 23 and for Mediacom Communications from April 15 to July 15. NE Colorado Cellular got two different extensions for parts of its network, from May 3 to Nov. 3 and from June 3 to Dec. 3.
The FCC Space Bureau shot down SpaceX's request that its second-generation satellites operate in the 2 GHz, 1.6/2.4 GHz bands and 2020-2025 MHz band. In an order in Wednesday's Daily Digest, the bureau said the 1.6/2.4 GHz "Big" low earth orbit bands and 2 GHz band aren't available for additional mobile satellite system (MSS) operations and that the 2020-2025 MHz request didn't constitute a comprehensive proposal needed to sustain a satellite application. The bureau also dismissed as moot an EchoStar/Dish Network petition seeking dismissal of the modification application. SpaceX was seen facing an uphill battle to get 2 GHz and 1.6/2.4 GHz spectrum access (see 2402230027). In its order, the bureau said the FCC's "carefully rebalanced" band plan for the 1.6/2/4 GHz bands adopted in 2007 "does not envision an additional [code division multiple access] MSS system, much less a system of 7,500 space stations, operating in this band," as SpaceX proposed. It said opening up the 2 GHz band to additional operators requires first a rulemaking proceeding to determine if additional MSS systems should be authorized for operators in the bands. The bureau also put on public notice SpaceX's petition seeking revision of the agency's licensing and spectrum sharing framework for non-geostationary orbit MSS systems in the 1.6/2.4 GHz bands. Comments are due April 25, replies May 10, in RM-11975, according to the public notice in Daily Digest. It also put on public notice a separate SpaceX petition seeking revision of the 2 GHz MSS sharing plan. Comments there are also due April 25, replies May 10, in RM-11976, according to the PN. At a meeting this week with Space Bureau Chief Julie Kearney, EchoStar argued against SpaceX's 2 GHz petition, according to a filing Wednesday. "The mere action of seeking comment [on the petition] would provide it with undeserved credibility and threaten the certainty that has allowed EchoStar to innovate in this band leading to significant public interest benefits," the company said. EchoStar called it "well established that two widely deployed mobile services cannot share the same frequency band generally and for the 2 GHz band specifically."
Rising opposition to diversity, equity and inclusion policies puts the latest iteration of the Communications, Equity and Diversity Council in a difficult position, said several CEDC members Wednesday during the group’s first meeting under its new charter. “We have always been challenged in our work, but I cannot remember a time that we have been so challenged,” said former FCC Commissioner Henry Rivera, who has served on every FCC diversity committee dating to the 1980s.
Comments are due April 15, replies April 25 in docket 12-108 on a joint proposal for closed caption display settings accessibility, an FCC Media Bureau public notice said in Tuesday’s Daily Digest (see 24031900). A joint effort of NCTA, the National Association of the Deaf, the Hearing Loss Association of America and TDIforAccess, the proposal represents a consensus from those groups on how to make the settings usable through a button, key or icon in a specific section of a set-top device settings menu.