Financial and electric utility trade groups are urging the FCC to extend the compliance deadline for its revoke-all robocall rule, given that the caller ID further NPRM on the agency's October agenda proposes rolling back that rule. In separate comments posted Tuesday in docket 17-59, both industry coalitions said meeting the currently proposed April 11, 2026, deadline would mean businesses would have to start allocating resources now. The electric utility associations noted that any subsequent revisions would represent wasted investments.
The ongoing federal shutdown is causing anxiety and a lack of clarity for both FCC staff and industry attorneys, they told us in interviews. The FCC’s expectations for required filings during the shutdown are unclear, agency staffers are uncertain about when or if they will be paid, and less than two weeks remain before the Oct. 28 open meeting, which has the longest agenda the FCC has seen in years. Industry officials told us the shutdown could lead to some items being taken off the October agenda, but all three commissioners told us they're still taking meetings and calls on the planned items.
The FCC Public Safety Bureau has issued a national security advisory reminding companies that communications equipment on the "covered list" has been “determined to pose unacceptable risks to the national security of the United States and its citizens.” FCC Chairman Brandon Carr posted the advisory on X Friday.
Paramount Skydance taps Jay Askinasi, formerly Roku, as chief revenue officer ... Austin Schlick, ex-FCC and Consumer Product Safety Commission, joins Covington as senior of counsel ... Fletcher Heald adds Ryan McClafferty, formerly FCC Media Bureau, as an associate attorney.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr this week circulated revised incarcerated people's communications services (IPCS) rules that could drive up the price of calls by as much as 80% or more, said industry officials engaged in the proceeding. In interviews Thursday, they also questioned how they can even raise concerns ahead of the Oct. 28 open meeting, given the federal government’s partial shutdown.
Senate Communications Subcommittee member Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., praised the FBI on Monday night for investigating claims that during the Biden administration, the bureau and then-Special Counsel Jack Smith tracked her phone calls and those of eight other GOP lawmakers as part of a probe into the Jan. 6 Capitol siege. Fox News reported that in 2023 the FBI circulated a memo outlining the Jan. 6 team’s “analysis on limited” records of communications by Blackburn and the other Republicans, including current Senate Communications members Dan Sullivan of Alaska and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming. The Fox News report indicated that the FBI tracked the phone numbers that lawmakers called and the locations of the callers and recipients.
The FCC's October agenda will see commissioners tackling issues ranging from an NPRM on accelerating the ATSC 3.0 transition to loopholes in its covered equipment list, Chairman Brendan Carr wrote Monday. The agenda is particularly space-centric, he noted, saying in a speech Monday that the FCC remains "riddled with backwards-looking regulations" regarding space. Carr's blog also said the commission plans to vote at the Oct. 28 meeting on revisions to incarcerated people’s communications services rules, as expected (see 2510030047).
CTIA, wireless carriers and representatives of the airline industry briefed aides to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr and other agency staff about their work on opening the upper C band to licensed use while protecting air safety systems, said a filing posted Friday by CTIA. They updated the commission “on the efforts of the wireless and aviation industries to work together to define a consensus analytical framework for evaluating potential coexistence parameters between wireless operations above 3.98 GHz and altimeters operating in the 4.2-4.4 GHz band.”
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said Friday that he will seek a vote at the Oct. 28 open meeting on revisions to incarcerated people’s communications services (IPCS) rules, which were approved with his vote during the Biden administration. Last month, the FCC said commissioners would vote at the meeting in a filing at the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is reviewing challenges to the 2024 order (see 2509080034).
Wednesday was the start of the first fiscal year in over 50 years without federal funding for public broadcasting stations, and public broadcasters are starting to cut programming and even making plans to eventually go dark in some parts of the country, said America’s Public Television Stations CEO Kate Riley in interviews. “It feels like every day an announcement comes from another station talking about the services that they're having to cut, the layoffs they're having to make,” Riley said. “Our sense is that this is really just the beginning, and that this is going to be a rolling wave of these types of station cuts and reductions in services over the coming months.”