Logos Space Services CEO Milo Medin, meeting with FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr's office, urged that his company's non-geostationary orbit constellation application be put on public notice expeditiously, said a Space Bureau posting last week. Logos' plans call for a 3,960-satellite constellation to offer business connectivity (see 2410310003).
Letting SpaceX provide supplemental coverage from space service in the 1429-2690 MHz band runs contrary to FCC efforts to limit the interference potential that SCS operations pose, Viasat said in a petition filed Thursday with the FCC Space Bureau. Seeking a reconsideration of the agency's November SCS authorization for SpaceX (see 2411260043), Viasat said the authorization improperly lets SpaceX operate in band segments not available for SCS or mobile satellite service. Viasat said the order improperly lets SpaceX conduct operations without using the modified processing-round procedures that the FCC requires.
The FCC Enforcement Bureau issued a warning to the Brockton, Massachusetts, property owners allegedly hosting pirate radio broadcasters, threatening penalties of more than $2 million, said a notice in Friday’s Daily Digest. The notice was sent to Maridane Aunaxe and Marie Aunaxe over illegal broadcasts on 87.9 MHz emanating from their property on Dec. 7, 2023, and again on Jan. 12, 2024, the notice said. “You are hereby notified and warned that the FCC may issue a fine of up to $2,391,097 if, following the response period set forth below, we determine that you have continued to permit any individual or entity to engage in pirate radio broadcasting.”
The FCC Wireless Bureau and Office of Economics and Analytics sent letters to T-Mobile and UScellular on Friday asking a battery of questions about their proposed transaction. Responses are due not later than Jan. 17. The T-Mobile letter explores in depth the carrier's arguments made in a September public interest statement (see 2409160029) and an accompanying declaration from Ankur Kapoor, T-Mobile's chief network officer.
The FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau in separate orders this week conditionally certified Nagish and InnoCaption to receive compensation from the interstate telecommunications relay services fund for providing IP relay service. However, the companies must demonstrate that their service “meets or exceeds” the commission’s minimum TRS standards. The authorizations run through Dec. 23, 2026, “or the date of grant or denial of full certification, whichever occurs earlier,” the orders said. “Nagish proposes to provide IP Relay on a fully automatic basis, i.e., using text-to-speech technology to deliver the IP Relay users’ communications to hearing call participants and using automatic speech recognition (ASR) to deliver hearing parties’ communications to IP Relay users, without any reliance on communications assistants (CAs),” the bureau said: “Nagish states that it has contracts with various vendors to render speech into text using ASR and can incorporate new ASR vendors as needed.” InnoCaption “proposes to provide IP Relay using either ASR-only or human stenographers, at the IP Relay user’s option, to transcribe the other party’s communications for the IP Relay user,” said the second order. “InnoCaption additionally proposes to use a text-to-speech engine in lieu of a CA to relay the IP Relay user’s text communications to the hearing party.”
The FCC “will take quick steps” to secure the additional funding that Congress authorized in the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law this week (see 2412240036), said a Thursday notice. The NDAA authorizes the commission to borrow as much as $3.08 billion from the Treasury Department to fully fund the program, said the notice from the Wireline Bureau and Office of Managing Director. While the commission secures funding, “recipients can and should continue their work to remove, replace, and dispose of covered communications equipment and services,” the agency said: “The Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act, as implemented through the Commission’s rules, requires recipients to remove, replace, and dispose of all Huawei and/or ZTE communications equipment and services that were in their networks as of the date of the submission of the application even if the recipient received a prorated allocation.”
With an eye to a mid-2026 launch of its prototype in-space refueling vehicle, Astroscale is seeking FCC approval for launch and operation. In an FCC Space Bureau application posted Tuesday, Astroscale said the craft is under construction via a cost-share contract from U.S. Space Systems Command. It is planned that the vehicle will conduct two refueling demonstrations with the Space Force in supersynchronous geostationary orbit, beyond the geostationary arc. The vehicle will operate in X-band uplinks and downlinks, Astroscale said.
The U.S. government, in an amicus brief filed Monday, asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reject arguments that a lower court can parse an FCC decision in a Telephone Consumer Protection Act case and isn’t barred from doing so under the Hobbs Act. SCOTUS will hear McLaughlin Chiropractic Associates v. McKesson Jan. 21, a case from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
NTIA has received useful feedback on improving its planned Local Estimates of Internet Adoption (LEIA) project that it's working on with the Census Bureau (see 2409110021), acting Deputy Associate Administrator Rafi Goldberg blogged Friday. For example, Goldberg noted a Heritage Foundation Center for Data Analysis suggestion about adding inputs into the LEIA experimental model, such as the share of households with seniors. He also mentioned feedback from the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights that racial, ethnic and other demographic lines be tested as model inputs. Multiple commenters said NTIA should employ metrics that include satellite and/or fixed wireless service, suggesting that LEIA should provide internet adoption metrics suitable for different purposes. LEIA was announced in September.
The FCC Wireless Bureau last week granted nine additional licenses in the 900 MHz broadband segment to PDV Spectrum. Six licenses are in Texas, two in Missouri and one in Iowa. The FCC approved an order in 2020 reallocating a 6 MHz swath in the band for broadband, while maintaining 4 MHz for narrowband operations (see 2005130057).