Requiring providers to unlock handsets within 60 days of activation, even if not paid off, would encourage handset-related arbitrage, fraud and trafficking and increase providers’ bad debt, according to AT&T. It said an unlocking requirement would create a disincentive for providers to continue offering aggressive handset promotions and flexible handset financing. Recapping a meeting with FCC Wireless Bureau and Office of Economics and Analytics staffers, AT&T said in a docket 24-186 filing posted Wednesday that arguments for 180-day unlocking periods for prepaid and postpaid handsets miss that the different business models of the two offerings dictate various results. It said prepaid customers may not pay every month, so prepaid providers might need more than 180 days from device activation to recover subsidies on a device. AT&T said prepaid unlocking shouldn't be required any sooner than six months after activation, as that is typically enough time to recover the subsidy on most prepaid devices and to mitigate most device fraud and theft risks.
Petitions to deny the transfer of UScellular authorizations and spectrum licenses to T-Mobile are due Dec. 9, the FCC Wireless Bureau said in a public notice posted Wednesday in docket 24-286. It said oppositions to petitions are due Jan. 8 and replies Jan. 28. The companies in May announced a $4.4 billion deal that would see T-Mobile buying UScellular's wireless operations (see 2405280047). T-Mobile also would pick up about 30% of UScellular's spectrum holdings, the bureau said.
NextNav's FCC petition on a proposed terrestrial complement to GPS for positioning, navigation and timing services is "a strong step toward addressing" the U.S.' national security PNT risk, according to cybersecurity expert David Simpson. The former head of the FCC's Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau wrote Wednesday in Breaking Defense that a commission order establishing a ground-based PNT service category "would let the market introduce and sustain competitive solutions without the tail of a new federal program." Now Pamplin Business College Professor in Leadership and Cybersecurity at Virginia Tech, Simpson said that while the FCC is reviewing the record on the NextNav proposals, DOD and other agencies overseeing GPS should motivate a diverse mix of PNT solutions. NextNav provided partial support for a Simpson paper about the need for a terrestrial alternative for GPS PNT services (see 2409110035).
The FCC should reconsider the foreign-ownership waiver Audacy was granted, said the Media Research Center in a petition posted Tuesday. Previously, MRC filed a petition seeking denial of Audacy's request (see 2404230054). The agency didn't show the order was in the public interest and Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel "falsely asserted that her actions were backed up by precedent," said the MRC petition. Though the FCC has granted similar foreign-ownership requests linked to bankruptcies several times, MRC said those proceedings were different because not all of them involved waivers and none included a full commission vote. MRC's petition echoes Commissioner Brendan Carr's argument that bureau-level decisions don't set FCC precedent, making the Audacy order "unprecedented" even though the agency has taken similar actions several times since Carr became a commissioner. The FCC "should reconsider its grant of a waiver that creates a special [George] Soros shortcut for the takeover of Audacy, which owns the second-largest number of broadcast radio stations in the country," the petition said.
Commerce’s proposed restrictions on sales or imports of connected vehicles using hardware or software tied to Russia or China (see 2409220001) is seeing pushback from communications and tech industry and adjacent groups over the compliance deadlines. Comments in the NPRM (docket 240919-0245) were due Monday. Some see the Commerce Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) NPRM as pointing toward a wider eventual campaign against all connected Chinese and Russian devices (see 2409250006).
Broad FCC approval of a SpaceX/T-Mobile direct-to-device commercial service should come soon, some agency watchers say. The FCC earlier this month gave the two special temporary authority to provide service in areas affected by hurricanes Helene and Milton (see 2410070049 and 2410100054). With that and AT&T and SpaceX seemingly agreeing on how the D2D service could operate in the near term without interfering with AT&T's terrestrial wireless operations (see 2410210002), "I'm a little surprised" the FCC hasn't given the green light yet, spectrum and satellite consultant Tim Farrar told us. The commission didn't comment. Its Space Bureau late last year approved limited supplemental coverage from space operations in G-block spectrum so SpaceX satellites' antennas for D2D service could be checked (see 2312050029).
The FCC handled the review of Audacy's foreign-ownership request differently from other media rulemakings, said Commissioner Nathan Simington in an email responding to a recent letter to lawmakers from Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel (see 2410250034). The Audacy process “was a sharply accelerated bureau review culminating in an order with a paragraph or two about public interest, which stands in contrast to the seemingly interminable, opaque, and quixotic ‘public interest’ reasoning that has otherwise characterized Commission action on media M&A and rulemaking of late,” Simington said in the email. The Media Bureau has approved a number of similar foreign-ownership requests associated with bankruptcy restructurings in the current and previous administrations without drawing protests. In her letter, Rosenworcel said the FCC’s Republican commissioners delayed the order when they waited 40 days before voting and that their stance was motivated by the involvement of funds associated with George Soros in the Audacy transactions. In his email, Simington conceded the 40-day wait but faulted the FCC for taking 147 days after the Audacy petition was submitted before informing him that the item would be approved at the bureau level. Simington said he was informed that his “perspective on the transaction as a sitting Commissioner was unnecessary and unwelcome,” Simington said. "The Constitution protects the rights of every American to speak his or her mind, even those with whom FCC staff disagree or dislike." But it “does not guarantee anyone whomsoever the right to a peremptory grant of the transfer of hundreds of broadcast licenses on what amounts to zero public interest or foreign ownership review” without an FCC vote, he added. Rosenworcel told lawmakers that granting Audacy’s request doesn’t preempt foreign-ownership review but delays it until the company emerges from bankruptcy. In all previous grants of similar waivers, companies went through the foreign-ownership review process. The FCC has granted every broadcast foreign-ownership request to go before it since the rules were clarified in 2013, an agency spokesperson told us.
Fixed satellite service earth station licensees qualified for protection from citizens broadband radio service have until Dec. 2 to renew their licenses so that their registration is valid in 2025, according to an FCC Wireless Bureau public notice Friday. Incomplete registrations as of Jan. 1 may be deactivated or deleted, and the earth station site won't merit protection by spectrum access system administrators, it said.
The FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau extended until Nov. 15 the deadline for reply comments on an NPRM and notice of inquiry addressing abuse from AI-generated robocalls and robotexts in an order Thursday. A coalition of banking, telecom, and consumer groups petitioned the FCC for more time (see 2410210039). Replies are due in docket 23-362.
The FCC Wireline Bureau adopted the E-rate program's final eligible services list for FY 2025 in an order Friday in docket 13-184. The bureau revised its definition of "wireless" service under category one to include mobile service on school buses and Wi-Fi hotspots. The bureau also declined to include advanced or next generation firewall services as a category two service. The bureau rejected calls to also include domain name system and dynamic host configuration protocol services under either category (see 2410070046).