ATSC 3.0 isn’t being widely used by consumers because it uses digital rights management encryption, said two YouTube broadcast influencers in a presentation to FCC Media Bureau staff -- including acting Chief Erin Boone -- last week, according to an ex parte filing posted Monday in docket 16-142. Tyler Kleinle of the Antennaman YouTube channel and Lon Seidman of the Lon.TV YouTube channel have advocated against DRM in ATSC 3.0 with a number of online campaigns (see 2307130057) that have led to hundreds of consumer filings in the 3.0 docket. “The cost of complying with opaque, private regulations imposed on device manufacturers by the A3SA (ATSC 3.0 Security Authority) has resulted in market gatekeeping that significantly limits consumer choice,” said the filing. “ATSC 3.0 requires both an expensive 'NextGen TV' certification AND an equally expensive A3SA certification in order to tune live television,” the fillings said. This leads to expensive ATSC 3.0 tuners and a lack of competition, the filing said. Kleinle manufactures a low-cost 1.0 tuning device for optimizing antennas, but doing so for 3.0 would be cost-prohibitive, the filing said. “The best outcome would be to remove the private, opaque NextGenTV & A3SA regulations and allow device manufacturers to make TV tuners the same way they’ve been making them for the last two decades by self certifying their compliance,” the filing said. “If a device doesn’t work, the market will respond appropriately.”
Opponents of 5G Broadcast haven’t shown that HC2’s proposal to allow low-power TV stations to broadcast in the standard is inconsistent with the public interest, said HC2 in a meeting last week with Media Bureau acting Chief Erin Boone, according to an ex parte filing posted Monday in docket 16-142. Critics, which include NAB and Sinclair Broadcast, "have not submitted any substantive interference information into the record and have merely alleged concerns about interference,” the filing said. Interference concerns about 5G broadcast “have been fully refuted by the technical showings” of HC2 and others, the filing said. The FCC should “move forward expeditiously” to issue an NPRM on HC2’s proposal, the filing said.
The FCC Media Bureau has reached a consent decree with Sinclair Broadcast-associated Cunningham Broadcasting over children’s programming violations related to Hot Wheels toys, according to an order released Friday. As with other recent settlements connected with those violations (see 2507180066), Cunningham won’t pay a penalty and will have its licenses renewed. The previous FCC approved a $140,000 forfeiture against the broadcaster, which Cunningham had appealed. The FCC reached a $500,000 settlement in June with Sinclair, which had faced a $2.6 million penalty over the same incident (see 2506300064). All the violations involved were connected to multiple airings of an ad for Hot Wheels toys during a Hot Wheels-themed TV program.
Northstar has agreed to pay $15,000 and implement a compliance plan as part of a settlement with the FCC Enforcement Bureau over allowing its license to operate a submarine cable system to expire and failing to maintain current information in the FCC’s records, said a consent decree Monday. Northstar’s license expired Oct. 1, and the company continued to operate it without FCC authorization before requesting at the end of that month special temporary authority to operate without a license. Northstar’s STA grant expires Aug. 25. Under the compliance plan, Northstar has to create a compliance manual and training program and file compliance reports with the FCC for three years.
AST SpaceMobile is clarifying to the FCC that its activities in the 430-440 MHz band will be limited largely to emergencies when other frequency bands are unavailable. In a letter Friday to the agency's Space Bureau, it said the one exception is its FM-1 satellite, in which it will use 430-440 MHz for emergencies; for telemetry, tracking and control; and for launch and early orbit operations. It told the commission much the same earlier this month (see 2508060048). AST is seeing pushback from amateur radio interests to its request to use the band since they also use parts of it (see 2507210031). Pointing to an interference analysis it submitted, AST said it's "extremely unlikely" there will be interference to ham radio operations in the 430-44 MHz band.
Representatives of T-Mobile and Grain said they met with FCC Wireless Bureau staff to discuss their pending low-band transaction. Grain Management agreed to buy T-Mobile's 800 MHz spectrum in exchange for cash and Grain's 600 MHz spectrum portfolio (see 2503210033). Grain plans to work with utilities and others to deploy services using the 800 MHz spectrum.
T-Mobile defended the FCC's bureau-level order approving the company’s buy of spectrum and other wireless assets from UScellular. Along with Array Digital Infrastructure, the new name for UScellular, T-Mobile asked the FCC to reject an application for review filed by the Rural Wireless Association, the Open Technology Institute at New America, the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society and the Communications Workers of America (see 2507310041).
The FCC NPRM looking at potential changes to the commission’s enforcement of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) has numerous changes between it and the draft Chairman Brendan Carr circulated. Industry officials expect the FCC to move quickly since NEPA reform has been a top focus of the Donald Trump administration, they said Friday.
The FCC’s new direct final rule process doesn’t give enough time and information to the public, provides too much authority to the bureaus, and is of questionable legality, said local governments, public interest groups and civil rights groups in filings in docket 25-133 last week. All the comments objected to the DFR process, rather than specific rules the process is being used to eliminate in orders voted at the FCC’s July (see 2507240055) and August (see 2508070037) meetings.
Comments are due Sept. 12, replies Oct. 14, on an Intrepid petition asking the FCC to preempt a contract that Cottage Grove, Minnesota, has with another provider for deployment of fiber optic infrastructure there, an FCC Wireline Bureau public notice said in Thursday's Daily Digest. The docket is 25-248. In its petition earlier this month, Intrepid said the city had granted another provider exclusive access to the city's right of way (ROW) and was denying Intrepid's pending applications. It said the city had argued Intrepid is a broadband internet service provider and not entitled to use the public ROW under the Communications Act or state law.