If the U.S. Supreme Court rejects President Donald Trump’s firing of FTC Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and defies conventional wisdom (see 2512080047), it would go a long way to counter the prevailing view that the court is doing Trump’s bidding regardless of the law, argued Peter Shane, chair in law emeritus at Ohio State University, in Friday's Washington Monthly. If SCOTUS upholds the firing, Trump could also fire members of the FCC with whom he disagrees, including Democratic Commissioner Anna Gomez.
AST SpaceMobile said its supplemental coverage from space interference analysis shows that its operations won't cause harmful interference to terrestrial services. In a filing posted Monday in docket 25-201, AST said the FCC should stick with its established practice of license conditions that require operations within applicable interference protection limits. Requiring the company to provide incontrovertible proof of non-harmful interference, including successful coordination with all non-partner terrestrial licensees, before any approval would create "an impossible barrier to entry."
Strand Consult said in its year-end predictions that pressure is likely to continue on big tech companies to pay into the USF. “The largest internet companies Alphabet, Meta, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Netflix, and TikTok derived an estimated $200 billion in revenue in 2024 from the 135 million users connecting to the internet through the USF,” Strand said last week. The companies earned on average $2,600 in 2024 through every household connected, it added. An “explosion of data centers is poised to exacerbate this free ride if left unaddressed.”
Many of the bands highlighted in the Dec. 19 presidential memo on spectrum for 6G will likely take years to bring to auction, but that may be all right with carriers, who will face two auctions in the next two years, industry officials told us.
With Warner Bros. Discovery's board continuing to urge shareholders to opt for Netflix's takeover offer (see 2512170049), Paramount Skydance is sweetening parts of its rival offer. Paramount said Monday it would boost its regulatory termination fee from $5 billion to $5.8 billion, matching Netflix's.
The FCC's Wireline Bureau and Office of Economics and Analytics on Friday released the 2026 “reasonable comparability benchmarks” for fixed voice and broadband services for eligible telecommunications carriers subject to broadband public interest obligations. ETCs must certify by July 1 that the pricing of monthly basic residential voice services isn't more than $61.29, two standard deviations above the average rate of $33.99. The survey includes broadband rates, which run from a U.S. monthly low of $98.33 ($127.58 in Alaska) for 4 Mbps service to a high of $143.93 ($175.28 in Alaska) for 2 Gbps service.
CTIA is urging the leaders of the Massachusetts Senate Ways and Means Committee to oppose SB-2318, which would require the state's ISPs to offer an internet plan for low-income residents at $15 a month. In a letter last week to committee Chairman Michael Rodrigues (D) and Vice Chair Joanne Comerford (D), CTIA said there's clear evidence "that artificial price mandates and state-level rate regulation, while well-intended, ultimately increase prices and harm consumers." Such a pricing mandate also puts the state's BEAD funding "at serious risk," the group said, as NTIA has barred states from setting the price for BEAD subgrantees’ low-cost service options.
The initial round of 2022 quadrennial review comments last week included Fox seeking elimination of the dual network rule and MVPDs advocating for the FCC to adopt DOJ’s market definitions for broadcasting, as well as the expected calls from broadcast station owners to eliminate ownership limits. Opponents of deregulation in docket 22-459 included conservative entities Newsmax and CPAC, along with a coalition of public interest groups, independent film trade groups and academics arguing that the FCC must study broadcast markets.
Charter Communications and Cox Communications are justifying their planned $34.5 billion combination on flawed premises, a Public Knowledge-led group said in an FCC posting Tuesday (docket 25-233). PK, Communications Workers of America, the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society and the Center for Accessible Technology have petitioned to block Charter/Cox (see 2511190049), and the filing was a reply to the Charter and Cox response (see 2512050028)
Neology, which provides a platform for tolling services that uses the 900 MHz band, filed a technical study at the FCC this week challenging arguments by NextNav in support of its proposal to use the spectrum for a “terrestrial complement” to GPS for positioning, navigation and timing (PNT).