The House Commerce Committee is back on track to advance the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act (HR-8449) as part of a markup session Wednesday, as expected (see 2409100070), but the measure’s Senate backers still face headwinds. The panel said Monday night it will mark up HR-8449, which would mandate that automakers include AM radio technology in future electric vehicles, along with 15 other bills. The meeting will begin at 10 a.m. in 2123 Rayburn.
Title I or Title II of the Communications Act would bar the New York Affordable Broadband Act (ABA), said amici supporting ISP groups in briefs Friday at the U.S. Supreme Court. NCTA, a cable industry group that didn’t join the original May 2021 challenge that several national telecom associations filed in a district court, said the ABA “would impose unprecedented and unlawful rate regulation on broadband services.” The Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council (MMTC) also condemned the state law. “If the ABA becomes effective, it will achieve the opposite of what it purports to accomplish, making it harder for communities of color to subscribe to broadband.”
The FCC’s June rules for foreign-sponsored content violate the Administrative Procedure Act because the agency didn’t provide notice of plans for expanding the 2021 rules to cover political ads and public service announcements, said NAB in a petition for review filed Monday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. The 2024 order was a response to a D.C. Circuit ruling in favor of an NAB-backed challenge to portions of the FCC's 2021 foreign-sponsored content rules. The FCC “did not even attempt to provide a rationale for changing course,” to go after PSAs and issue ads, NAB said in the filing, which echoes arguments Commissioners Nathan Simington and Brendan Carr raised in dissents back in May. “Adopting rule changes nobody could have reasonably anticipated is a textbook example of unfair surprise,” Carr wrote at the time.
Representatives of Alaska’s GCI asked the FCC not to wait until the end of Alaska Plan commitments in 2026 before revising the commission’s approach to 5G in the 49th state. “New requirements to deploy 5G technology cannot simply be appended to the current Alaska Plan commitments,” said a filing posted Friday in docket 23-328. 5G deployments have “different engineering and core network requirements” than older technology, GCI said: Hitting higher throughput speeds anticipated for 5G “results in a smaller coverage area than the lower throughput speeds for 4G, meaning that a provider may need to construct more towers to provide 5G service to the number of population reflected in its existing Alaska Plan commitments -- construction that has not been planned and was not considered in negotiating the original Alaska Plan commitments.” The GCI representatives met with staff from the Wireless and Wireline bureaus and Office of Economics and Analytics.
The Alaska Remote Carrier Coalition (ARCC) recommended that the FCC reject GCI's proposal that addresses revisions in the Alaska Plan for the Alaska Connect Fund (see 2408140040). In a meeting with an aide to Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, ARCC defended its proposed adjustment factors associated with performance testing results, said an ex parte filing Friday in docket 23-328. "To suggest that no changes should be made to the original Alaska Plan format deviates from the intent of the first paragraph" of the commission's NPRM seeking comment on "innovative solutions" to connect Alaska's communities, the group said. It also urged that the FCC refrain from allowing "constant waivers of its performance testing guidelines with limited consequences," warning that the "regulatory compliance basis" the commission laid out in its plans is "flawed at best."
Responding to state budget cuts in the Broadband Loan Loss Reserve Fund Program (BLLRF), the California Public Utilities Commission clarified Thursday during a meeting that it will award just $50 million of the originally planned $750 million. The program was meant to support broadband deployment costs for nonprofits, local and tribal governments. But at the same livestreamed session, commissioners approved about $91 million in grants from the federal funding account (FFA) for 10 last-mile projects.
Much like the accountants and audit standards that safeguard financial systems, the generative AI universe needs an ecosystem of organizations, rules and people to oversee the technology and ensure it works as promised, NTIA Director Alan Davidson said during a talk Thursday at the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Davidson said the federal government is sorely lacking in the technical expertise it needs to wrestle with AI-related policy questions. While the government's technical knowledge is improving, "a huge gap" remains, Davidson said. Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., said Thursday that the U.S. is falling behind other nations in AI policy development (see 2409120035).
Patti Kukula, executive director of the Detroit Public Safety Foundation, withdrew a filing at the FCC made in August opposing FirstNet control of the 4.9 GHz band (see 2408290015). The filing "is not reflective” of the foundation’s “position or stance on this public safety communications matter,” said the new filing posted Wednesday in docket 07-100. “The submission of the Foundation’s original filing did not adhere to our organization’s process for review,” Kukula said. The foundation was “operating on an incomplete set of facts regarding this regulatory proceeding and a mistaken assumption regarding the proposal.”
Communications Daily is tracking the lawsuits below involving appeals of FCC actions. Lawsuits added since the last update are marked with an *.
The growing pace of launches in the U.S. is stressing launch site capabilities, particularly Florida's Cape Canaveral, launch operators said Wednesday at a U.S. Chamber of Commerce aerospace conference in Washington. Meanwhile, FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said SpaceX could pose a monopolistic threat in commercial space and that more competition is needed. In addition, the FAA was criticized for its launch regulatory regime.