LAS VEGAS -- Broadcasters are optimistic about ownership deregulation and concerned about tariffs, while NAB is looking to broaden the NAB Show’s appeal, according to speeches and interviews at NAB Show 2025, which kicked off Saturday and runs until Wednesday. The show is set to feature almost no FCC presence compared with previous years, as only Commissioner Anna Gomez planned to attend.
New tariffs from the Trump administration could increase the price of smartphones in the U.S. by as much as 48.8%, warned the IPC, which represents electronics manufacturers. “Reciprocal tariffs have far-reaching consequences beyond just higher prices on finished imported goods,” Shawn DuBravac, IPC's chief economist, said in an emailed statement Friday. “Trade is essential to supply chain resilience, innovation, and cost competitiveness.”
FCC commissioners will consider a long-anticipated order on sharing in the 37 GHz band at their meeting April 28, Chairman Brendan Carr announced Friday. In addition, the commission will vote on satellite spectrum sharing and an item designed to crack down further on robocalls. Foreign ownership rules round out the agenda.
Telecom industry associations have had little to say on the record so far on the tariffs President Donald Trump unveiled Wednesday. A baseline tariff rate of 10% on all imports takes effect Saturday, while China and EU countries that manufacture products used in the telecom sector face higher reciprocal tariffs starting next week.
House Oversight Foreign Affairs Subcommittee Republicans tried to keep a Wednesday hearing focused on how to strengthen U.S. telecom networks’ security after the 2024 Chinese government-affiliated Salt Typhoon hacking incident (see 2411190073). But it quickly shifted to a series of partisan barbs over Trump administration officials’ leaked communications about plans for an airstrike in Yemen on messaging app Signal. Republicans have been attempting to pivot from the week-plus fallout over “Signalgate,” with White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt telling reporters Monday that “this case has been closed … as far as we are concerned.”
A White House executive order issued Thursday ends federal employee union bargaining rights at a host of federal agencies, including the FCC, citing national security concerns. Laws that allow for collective bargaining enable “hostile Federal unions to obstruct agency management. This is dangerous in agencies with national security responsibilities,” said a White House fact sheet on the order.
FCC Space Bureau Chief Jay Schwarz is promising modernization of the bureau's licensing, as well as making spectrum available for more intensive space uses. Speaking Wednesday at Satellite 2025, Schwarz said he sees space policy through the lens of economic growth, and the bureau's "main job ... is to facilitate and accelerate all the investments in your industry." Slow processing of applications and overly burdensome rules "are creating unnecessary regulatory drag." Schwarz -- who noted that he lives on a farm in the Washington region served by satellite-delivered broadband -- said regulatory drag can compound over time, resulting in significant effects on the economy and the types of services the space industry offers.
The Donald Trump administration’s tariffs and conflicts with traditional allies in North America and Europe could complicate U.S. preparations for the next World Radiocommunication Conference in 2027, experts said Tuesday during a Technology Policy Institute spectrum webinar. The U.S. has traditionally worked through the Inter-American Telecommunication Commission (CITEL), which represents the Americas region, but relationships with other CITEL members are increasingly in question, speakers said.
AT&T CEO John Stankey is optimistic that the FCC under new Chairman Brendan Carr will make more spectrum available for full-power, licensed use, though the business leader sounded a note of caution about the round of tariffs that President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday.
President Donald Trump urged lawmakers Tuesday night to “get rid” of the 2022 Chips and Science Act, which allocated $52 billion for domestic semiconductor manufacturing (see 2207280060). The law “is a horrible, horrible thing,” Trump said during his Tuesday night speech to a joint session of Congress. He asked House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to use “whatever’s left over” in unobligated Chips and Science Act funding “to reduce debt or any other reason you want to.” Trump was sharply critical of the statute during the 2024 presidential campaign, saying subsidies were a bad idea (see 2412090046). Johnson drew heat himself during the closing days of the campaign by first calling for Congress to repeal the Chips and Science Act and then quickly reversing course (see 2411040062).