The FCC is statutorily required to handle the 2018 and 2022 quadrennial reviews separately, said Media Bureau staff at an FCBA virtual panel Thursday. The law says the FCC “shall” review broadcast ownership rules every four years, and that means “this is something we must do,” said MB Attorney-Adviser William Durdach, saying the law doesn’t allow the agency to “roll a quad into another quad.” Stakeholders speculated the agency could seek to skip the 2018 QR (see 2112200018).
FCC commissioners unanimously approved an NPRM on adoption of broadband consumer labels, as directed by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (see 2201260049), during their Thursday meeting. They also approved an order amending the definition of tribal libraries to clarify their eligibility for E-rate, the revocation of China Unicom Americas' Section 214 authority to operate in the U.S., and an order on reconsideration upholding a fine against a Texas company for signal jamming.
Democratic FCC nominee Gigi Sohn told the FCC Thursday she will, if confirmed, recuse herself during the first three years of her term “from any proceeding before the Commission where retransmission consent or television broadcast copyright is a material issue.” Sohn’s recusal pledge appears to be the result of negotiations with Senate Commerce Committee leaders aimed at securing support from all 14 Democrats before a planned Wednesday panel vote to advance her nomination to the full chamber, lobbyists told us. Some panel Republicans pressed for concessions from Sohn over ethics concerns about her role as a board member for Locast operator Sports Fans Coalition (see 2201130071).
AT&T plans to deploy much of its C-band spectrum at the same time it deploys the 3.45 GHz licenses it bought in a recent FCC auction, CEO John Stankey told analysts on the company’s Q4 call Wednesday. Stankey said the radios needed for 3.45 GHz should become available in late spring or early summer. Installing the bands “together at one time with one tower climb … allows us to start really going what I would call good guns on this in scaling up,” he said. AT&T has followed a similar one-touch strategy in building out FirstNet spectrum.
The commercial space universe is moving toward satellites operating in close proximity, such as for satellite servicing and inspections, but the technology and the policies to allow such work is lagging, space policy experts said at a Secure World Foundation/Center for Strategic International Studies webinar Wednesday. As space becomes more congested and more nations and private sectors are in space, "the more states worry" about close approaches in geostationary orbit (GEO) and low earth orbit, said Almudena Azcarate Ortega, U.N. Institute for Disarmament Research associate researcher-space security and weapons of mass destruction programs. Space "already suffers from a significant lack of trust" and approaches done without consent or transparency would increase that, she said.
FTC Chair Lina Khan is starting to recognize the agency’s limited resources and jurisdictional boundaries in the face of declining antitrust and consumer protection enforcement under her watch, Commissioner Christine Wilson told a George Mason University event Wednesday.
The Biden administration is fully behind the push to open radio access networks, which it considers critical to making networks more secure and maintaining U.S. leadership in 5G, said Amit Mital, special assistant to the president, during an Open RAN Policy Coalition webcast Wednesday. The move to ORAN is “inevitable,” he said: We've seen software-defined networking “already transforming the storage and networking industries, respectively. Open RAN is simply software-defined telecommunications.”
Maryland senators will convene a workgroup to hash out differences with opponents to a state privacy bill, they said at a livestreamed Senate Finance Committee hearing Wednesday. SB-11 sponsor Sen. Susan Lee (D) said Maryland shouldn’t model a bill on Virginia’s law and can’t wait for a national law. TechNet Executive Director-Northeast Chris Gilrein said Virginia’s law is best in the absence of congressional action.
A draft FCC NPRM to adopt consumer broadband labels is expected to be unanimously approved during Thursday’s commissioners’ meeting, aides told us. The item is likely to take up the bulk of the meeting as most agenda items were adopted in advance (see 2201260016).
Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg assured investors Tuesday remaining issues on the C band will be resolved quickly (see 2201190064), as the company became the first of the major national carriers to report full Q4 results. AT&T announces Wednesday.