The FCC posted on Thursday the drafts for all the items teed up for votes at the commission’s Aug. 7 open meeting. Most have a deregulatory bent.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr on Wednesday unveiled a full agenda for the Aug. 7 open meeting, leading off with proposed changes to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Also included are draft orders that Carr said were aimed at streamlining submarine cable licensing and satellite and earth station licensing. As will be true for the July meeting, cutting regulation will be a priority in August (see 2507030049).
Future rules for the 37 GHz band must protect licensed wireless operations in the upper 37 and 39 GHz bands and shouldn’t impose new emissions limits, CTIA said in comments on a Further NPRM aimed at spurring greater use of the spectrum. FCC commissioners approved an order and FNPRM on the band in April and comments were due Monday in docket 24-243. The National Academy of Sciences’ Committee on Radio Frequencies (CORF) repeated its concerns (see 2409300028) about protecting the 36-37 GHz earth exploration satellite service (EESS) band, which is critical for science, it said.
Charter Communications' proposed $34.5 billion purchase of Cox Communications, announced in May (see 2505160060), isn't expected to raise anticompetitive concerns at the FCC. If it faces headwinds from the agency, they are more likely to come from the companies' diversity, equity and inclusion policies, cable executives, agency watchers and others tell us. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has repeatedly said the agency won't approve acquisitions involving companies practicing "invidious forms of DEI discrimination" (see 2503210049), which Carr has defined as cases "where people are discriminating based on race and gender."
Concessions from T-Mobile and Verizon that the companies offered as part of recent transactions were critical to getting major carriers to the table to address long-standing pricing issues, said Todd Schlekeway, president and CEO of NATE, an association representing infrastructure builders. The agreements also address concerns about workforce security and contractors who work on towers being fully vetted, he said.
The FCC Space and Wireless bureaus and Office of Engineering and Technology signed off Friday on license transfers needed as part of SES' $3.1 billion purchase of Intelsat. It put no special conditions on the transaction. SES/Intelsat is likely to result in lower costs from synergies, better network quality, increased investment, national security benefits "and the creation of a more vigorous satellite competitor," the bureaus said in a 35-page order.
The FCC Wireline Bureau last week approved T-Mobile’s buy of a stake in fiber-based provider Metronet as part of a joint venture with investment firm KKR. The proposed deal was announced a year ago (see 2407240020). The approval came after T-Mobile agreed to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs that the Trump administration targeted (see 2507090034).
T-Mobile’s purchase of wireless assets from UScellular, which has been pending since May of last year, got two key clearances in two days. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr announced Friday (see 2507110065) that the Wireless Bureau approved the transaction. Late Thursday, DOJ announced it won’t oppose the deal, which includes about 30% of UScellular's spectrum and all its wireless customers and stores.
NextNav filed at the FCC a supplement to its early engineering report, addressing interference issues raised by the company’s proposal that the FCC reconfigure the 902-928 MHz band “to enable a high-quality, terrestrial complement” to GPS for positioning, navigation and timing services (see 2503030023). The supplement filing, posted Thursday in docket 25-110, slammed critics of the earlier report (see 2504280045).
Morgan Stanley on Thursday resumed coverage of Verizon and Frontier with an "equal weight" investment rating. The firm said Verizon appears to have a strategy for improving its performance in the wireless consumer space, and its loss of market share should slow. "When we aggregate our view on moderating industry growth, Verizon's pricing premium, the competitive environment, and Verizon's strategy to improve its wireless performance, we see 2.5-3% annual wireless service revenue growth ahead with a bull case of [about] 3-4% and a bear case of [about] 2% in each of the next three years."