Telephone and Data Systems and UScellular stock prices rose Friday after T-Mobile Chief Financial Officer Peter Osvaldik said his company was eyeing UScellular. The boards of TDS and UScellular are exploring the future of the carrier and “strategic alternatives," the companies said in August (see 2308070043). TDS was up 5.85% to $20.08 Friday, UScellular 3.26% to $46.51.
The FTC is examining Alphabet, Amazon and Microsoft to see if they are unfairly exerting undue control over AI markets, Chair Lina Khan announced Thursday.
Following last week’s oral argument in two Chevron cases before the U.S. Supreme Court (see 2401170074), the future of the doctrine appears in doubt.
Labor contributed on average to 73% of underground build costs and 67% of aerial costs for fiber broadband providers in 2023, said a Fiber Broadband Association report Monday. Conducted by Cartesian, the report included regional cost variations and the cost differential between deployment methods. “As broadband providers across the country look to leverage public and private funding to connect communities to high-quality broadband services, understanding the cost variables of deployment remains a vital component to broadband plans and proposals,” said Deborah Kish, FBA vice president-research and workforce development. Respondents to the group's survey expected deployment, engineering and permitting costs to decrease in 2024 while material prices were expected to increase. The group will present the report's findings in a webinar Wednesday at 11 a.m. EST.
Telecom and media companies support the intentions behind FCC and FTC “junk fees” regulatory actions, but implementation raises questions and potential compliance headaches, industry representatives said. At an FCBA event Monday, Brownstein Hyatt financial services lawyer Leah Dempsey said many industries see the White House and regulatory agency focus on junk fees as "kind of a campaign issue." She said President Joe Biden will likely be "touting the war on junk fees" at his next State of the Union address. Dempsey also said there are concerns that agencies are coming to predetermined outcomes on fees.
The space industry is in disagreement over FCC reliance on case-by-case reviews of orbital debris disclosures. Pushing back on SpaceX criticisms of the orbital debris order on reconsideration on January's FCC agenda (see 2401180064), Viasat said Friday in docket 18-313 that different satellite systems pose various space sustainability risks. Accordingly, "there is nothing improper" about taking a case-by-case approach to application reviews. While backing a case-by-case approach, Astroscale said that an "expansive reliance on case-by-case analysis, without a strategy for evolution, will inhibit efficiency." It urged that the draft order include a commitment that the Space Bureau will issue guidance on orbital debris mitigation information disclosures and case-by-case reviews. With such guidance, operators wouldn't have to rely as much on "identify[ing] emerging disclosure precedents across hundreds of disparate" international communications filing system files, it said.
The Electric Power Research Institute briefed the FCC about the analysis it used that led to file challenges to various public trials of 6 GHz automated frequency coordination (AFC) systems (see 2312220043). EPRI submitted test vectors consisting of locations along fixed-service system centerlines "with line of sight to an FS receive station,” said a filing posted Friday in docket 21-352. “The AFC operator response for each test vector was compared to a free space path loss (FSPL) calculation,” EPRI said: “Locations where it was found that the AFC operator assigned co-channel maximum power spectral density (PSD) was more than 3 dB in excess of the maximum PSD based on the FSPL calculation were included in the challenge letter.” EPRI understands the metrics it used were different from those the FCC specified, the filing said.
EchoStar and RKF Engineering slammed criticism in the latest Dish Network report on safe use of fixed wireless in the lower 12 GHz band by DirecTV (see 2312270045). The report showed that higher-power point-to-multipoint fixed service in the 12.2-12.7 GHz band is “eminently feasible,” said a filing Wednesday in docket 20-443. “DIRECTV offers no concrete data or analysis establishing actual risk of interference from properly coordinated Fixed 5G deployments,” EchoStar said: “It would disserve the public interest to foreclose high-power fixed broadband in the 12.2 GHz band based on unproven ‘what ifs.’”
The FCC unanimously ordered Cumulus to pay a $26,000 penalty for a late annual equal employment opportunity report, over the objections of the broadcaster and the NAB (see 2203300067), said a forfeiture order Tuesday. “Cumulus’s characterization of the requirement to upload an Annual Report to the station online public inspection file and website as a mere administrative task undermines the Commission’s goal of ensuring meaningful public input via public access to the Annual Report,” said the order. The third-largest U.S. radio group, Cumulus reported a Q3 net revenue of more than $200 million. Cumulus had argued that although the report was filed late, it was completed on time and the FCC should have merely admonished the radio broadcaster. The agency rejected that argument, and said failing to upload a completed annual report analyzing EEO activities on time is the same as failing to conduct the analysis altogether. Cumulus also said the FCC shouldn’t adjust the penalty upward due to Cumulus’s multiple past EEO violations, because those occurred before the company’s bankruptcy reorganization. The FCC rejected those arguments, noting that many of the same executives still lead Cumulus. The company hasn’t provided evidence that bankruptcy proceedings are “intended to absolve licensees of the consequences of pre-bankruptcy violations of the FCC’s rules,” the order said. Unusually for an enforcement proceeding, NAB informally filed comments supporting Cumulus, which the FCC dismissed. “NAB offers no legal or procedural basis for submitting its nonparty filing,” the order said. “More broadly, NAB urges the Commission to apply a more balanced and reasonable approach to proposed forfeitures going forward, claims that are more appropriately raised in a petition for declaratory ruling.” The FCC reduced Cumulus’s forfeiture from the originally proposed $32,000, conceding that in the past the agency hasn’t treated late filed EEO reports the same as failing to prepare one. “Although nothing in our case law suggests that such a failure does not also amount to a violation of our self-assessment rule, Cumulus may not have had the requisite notice” of that policy, the order said. “Going forward, Cumulus and all other licensees are on notice” that the FCC will consider the timeliness of posting EEO reports when it considers if stations are meeting their EEO obligations, the order said. The FCC is considering a draft EEO order that would require additional workforce diversity reporting from broadcasters (see 2312220061).
The broadband equity, access and deployment program risks leaving multi-dwelling units across the U.S. unserved or underserved, broadband access advocates tell us. States are taking a variety of approaches to address MDU connectivity in their BEAD plans submitted to NTIA. These range from requiring connectivity for individual units to, in some cases, not addressing MDUs at all, our reading of BEAD volume 2 plans found.