The FCC Wireline Bureau is seeking comment on whether it should make changes to its rules for granting extensions to providers unable to implement Stir/Shaken requirements, said a Thursday notice. The FCC currently allows only two “categorical implementation extensions based on undue hardship” for providers who can’t obtain the service provider code token necessary to participate in Stir/Shaken and for small voice providers that originate calls via satellite using North American Numbering Council numbers, it said. The Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act instructs the commission “to annually ‘consider revising or extending’ any extension granted due to undue hardship, including whether an extension remains necessary,” the notice said. Comment deadlines will come in a Federal Register notice.
Representatives of the Utility Broadband Alliance met with FCC Wireless Bureau staff about its members' need for data and the important role played by private networks, according to a filing posted Thursday in docket 24-99. The group said it supports a proposal for a rulemaking authorizing 5/5 MHz broadband deployments in the 900 MHz band (see 2505190025). While the earlier establishment of a 3/3 MHz broadband segment in the band “has been a tremendous success, the amount of broadband spectrum currently available to utilities for private network operations is not sufficient to meet utilities’ current and future needs.”
The Central Alabama Volunteer Exam Coordinator has been designated as a club station call-sign administrator under FCC rules, the Wireless Bureau announced Thursday. The bureau noted that volunteer organizations have been responsible for processing applications for amateur radio service club and military recreation station licenses since 1998. The Alabama group is one of five organizations that has been so designated.
The FCC is dropping parts of its 2023 robocall and robotext order rejected by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (see 2501240067), effective Friday. The 11th Circuit vacated the part of the order that said a consumer can't consent to a telemarketing or advertising robocall unless they consent to calls from only one entity at a time and consent only to calls whose subject matter is “logically and topically associated with the interaction that prompted the consent.” The 11th Circuit remanded the order to the FCC for further proceedings.
An FCC order on FY 2025 regulatory fees is expected to be unanimously approved soon and will likely contain few surprises, according to industry and FCC officials (see 2506050061). The draft order, circulated to the 10th floor last week, changes how fees are assessed in line with proposals in the June NPRM, but it doesn’t take up calls from broadcasters and satellite companies to expand the base of regulatory fee payors. FCC officials told us they anticipate that the order will be issued in time to allow fees to be paid by the deadline at the end of September.
The cable industry is urging the FCC to adopt shot clocks for review of rights-of-way permits and to bar moratoriums on right-of-way access. In a meeting with FCC Wireline Bureau staff, NCTA, Comcast, Charter Communications and Cox Enterprises representatives also pushed for a prohibition on onerous requirements or conditions to receive right-of-way permits, said a filing posted Wednesday in docket 17-84.
The FCC Media Bureau is restoring language in the agency’s ATSC 3.0 rules that it said was inadvertently deleted in 2023, according to an order in Wednesday’s Daily Digest. The language in question involved the requirements to show public interest for non-expedited applications to deploy ATSC 3.0, the order said. The provisions were accidentally removed from the Code of Federal Regulations when the FCC modified the 3.0 rules for multicast streams in 2023, it said. The FCC at the time “never stated or implied” that it “intended to rescind these subsections.” The bureau said it's restoring the rules without seeking comment, effective immediately, because fixing the error falls under the “good cause” exemption to the Administrative Procedure Act.
The FCC Wireline Bureau notified the Universal Service Administrative Co. on Wednesday that it has approved USAC’s FCC Form 471 program integrity assurance review procedures. The procedures are part of the schools and libraries cybersecurity pilot. The approval is subject to further modification and instruction from the bureau, said the notice in docket 23-234.
Gavin Wax, a former FCC 10th-floor aide who was at one time rumored to be in the running for a commissioner seat, has moved on to the State Department, he posted on LinkedIn Monday. Wax is starting a new position as chief of staff to acting Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Darren Beattie.
The ATSC 3.0 Security Authority (A3SA) has a “uniform set of policies that applies equally and objectively to all manufacturers of a particular device type,” and it's interested in bringing gateway devices to market, said Pearl TV and A3SA in a meeting with acting Media Bureau Chief Erin Boone and other bureau staff last week, according to an ex parte filing posted Tuesday. Recent filings at the agency have accused the A3SA of using encryption requirements (see 2508180062) to block ATSC 3.0 device manufacturers (see 2507220075).