Telecom carriers are under pressure from the FCC to end their diversity, equity and inclusion programs, with Chairman Brendan Carr saying last week that the FCC won’t bless mergers by companies that have DEI policies in place. Carr sent a warning letter Friday to Disney on its DEI programs. Industry officials say companies have no choice to comply, though the FCC moves have created regulatory uncertainty. T-Mobile explained in a letter to the FCC how it’s getting rid of DEI.
The FCC Enforcement Bureau on Thursday asked voice service providers and USTelecom’s Industry Traceback Group to file information by May 1 on “private-led efforts to trace back the origin of suspected unlawful robocalls necessary for the Commission’s annual report.” The reporting period for the request is all of 2024. “Unlawful prerecorded or artificial voice message calls -- robocalls -- plague the American public,” the bureau said in a notice in docket 20-195. “Spoofed caller ID makes it more difficult to identify the source of the call.”
Communications Daily is tracking the lawsuits below involving appeals of FCC actions.
Leaders of the National Association of State 911 Administrators and National Emergency Number Association are urging Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to preserve “a strong role” for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s National 911 Program amid the Trump administration’s government-wide workforce cuts. The program “has been crucial in coordinating state and local 9-1-1 systems -- an area that no other federal entity addresses,” said NASNA Executive Director Harriet Rennie-Brown and NENA CEO Brian Fontes in a letter to Duffy. “This coordination is more essential than ever as over 5,000 local 9-1-1 centers transition to” next-generation 911 technology. “Without support from the National 9-1-1 Program Office, local jurisdictions will struggle with interoperability between and among agencies and jurisdictions -- a key public safety component,” they said. “This is particularly true on our nation’s highways, where an estimated one-third of all 9-1-1 calls originate and where effective coordination and interoperability can save lives.”
Some of the launch spectrum streamlining that Congress seeks can be achieved by consolidating in one place post-license site and station registration, per-launch coordination, and final launch registration, said SpaceX, Blue Origin and Firefly Aerospace. In a docket 13-115 filing Friday, the launch providers said information today is scattered across the universal licensing system and the frequency coordination system. Consolidating coordination data "would provide a one-stop-shop for launch coordination." They also urged a five- to 10-day window before launch for launch service providers to be required to submit per-launch coordination details, rather than a longer requirement of submitting 60 or even 30 days before launch. They said the shorter window would align with current coordination practices among launch service providers.
A February FCC order expanding the reach of the do-not-originate lists and strengthening call-blocking capabilities will take effect March 24, 2026, said a notice for Monday’s Federal Register. Commissioners approved the order 4-0 (see 2502270058).
Viya filed at the FCC a revised version of its annual report on its Connect USVI Fund Stage 2 fixed phase-down support for 2024. “In gathering information in response to a request by Commission staff for clarification of certain information in the Original 2024 Report, Viya discovered it had misstated the amount spent on and the percentage completion of one of the approved projects in its spending plan,” the company said in a filing last week in docket 18-143. The error came in information on a subsea cable project, but the revised details were redacted from the report.
Grain Management will buy all of T-Mobile's 800 MHz spectrum in exchange for cash and Grain's 600 MHz spectrum portfolio, the companies announced Thursday night. Grain confirmed it plans to make the spectrum available “to U.S. utilities to support mission-critical communications, improve grid resilience, and enhance emergency response capabilities.”
The House Oversight Delivering on Government Efficiency Subcommittee said Wednesday it plans a March 26 hearing to examine conservatives' claims that public broadcasters’ content has a pro-Democratic bias, as expected (see 2502270071). PBS CEO Paula Kerger and NPR CEO Katherine Maher will testify starting at 10 a.m. in HVC-210. Republican lawmakers have filed several measures this year to end funding for NPR, PBS and CPB and claw back advance appropriations to the broadcasting entities (see 2502110072 and 2502120044), in part for alleged bias. PBS and other U.S. broadcasters are also facing scrutiny from the FCC via investigations that Chairman Brendan Carr has launched since taking over Jan. 20 (see 2502130060).
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr’s letter to Google over faith-based programming (see 2503070052) goes against the intent of his “In Re: Delete, Delete, Delete” proceeding and appears to be more of a political gesture than an indication of FCC action, said retired telecom attorney Jonathan Nuechterlein in a blog post Thursday for the Technology Policy Institute.