Four major public safety groups on Wednesday opposed a NextNav proposal for the FCC to reconfigure the 902-928 MHz band to enable a “terrestrial complement” to GPS for positioning, navigation and timing (PNT).
USTelecom and other commenters warned the FCC against abruptly detariffing legacy business data services (BDS), as is proposed in an NPRM that commissioners approved ahead of their August meeting (see 2508050056). Unlike most deregulatory proposals from the FCC, industry groups mostly aren’t on board with the BDS changes. Comments were posted Tuesday and Wednesday in docket 21-17.
New research by the Global Mobile Suppliers Association (GSA) found that by the end of October, a total of 647 operators in 191 countries were investing in 5G, GSA analyst Joe Gardiner said Tuesday during the group's webinar. Some have launched, while others have purchased spectrum for 5G or otherwise are planning to offer the service, he said. GSA also found that 358 operators in 140 countries have launched or soft launched mobile 5G services, and 175 providers in 78 countries have launched fixed wireless access service that's compliant with the 3rd Generation Partnership Project.
Only about 10% of the locations being passed through projects funded by New York's Municipal Infrastructure Program are unserved or underserved, meaning the state is financing overbuilding almost 90% of the time, according to an analysis from the New York Law School's Advanced Communications Law and Policy Institute. In a blog post Thursday, ACLP Director Michael Santorelli and Senior Fellow Alex Karras said that kind of overbuilding diverts funds from the 61,000 remaining unserved and underserved locations in the state.
Nations worldwide are working on individual regulatory frameworks for direct-to-device (D2D) service, with satellite operators facing some challenges in dealing with the varied approaches, said Lynk Chief Global Affairs Officer Amy Mehlman at an FCBA continuing education seminar Monday. Some countries might have to revisit their rules, she said, depending on what the ITU does at its 2027 World Radiocommunication Conference and the outcomes of Agenda Item 1.13, which deals with D2D service.
Blackout "battles of attrition" between pay-TV providers and distributors will let the former assess the impact of losing carriage fees while they grow their direct-to-consumer services, Ampere Analysis' Sam Nursall wrote Tuesday, pointing to Disney channels going dark last week on YouTube TV. It's the first major dispute with a carrier since Disney released its ESPN app, with the streaming platform "significantly shifting the dynamic between ESPN and carriage partners such as YouTube TV," Nursall said. Instead of relying on carriage agreements with MVPDs and virtual MVPDs, ESPN is now a competitor, especially with the ESPN/Disney+/Hulu bundle, he noted. Between the ESPN app and Fox One app, the vast majority of sports are available in the U.S. via streaming, and the ability of fans to create a streaming-only subscription basket could incentivize further cord-cutting among pay-TV and vMVPD subscribers, he added.
Noting that many judges aren't technology experts, 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Patrick Higginbotham expressed concern Monday that many legal issues are decided using court documents instead of jury trials. “One of the frustrations” that stems from long-running litigation is that “a trial judge … never got to hear the full evidence,” he said during oral argument in CCIA v. Paxton.
Comcast and Charter continue to be hammered with fiber and fixed-wireless access (FWA) competition in residential broadband, though their wireless businesses are still growing. Between fiber overbuilding and FWA, "in any market, when you have new competition ... there's going to be a short-term impact on us," Charter CEO Chris Winfrey said in a call with analysts Friday as the cable ISP announced Q3 results.
With one of the FCC's largest monthly agendas in recent years -- nine items -- the commissioners on Tuesday unanimously approved everything from a major revamp of the agency's satellite and earth station approvals process to a proposal to end simulcast requirements for the ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard. But three items were adopted Tuesday over the dissents of minority Commissioner Anna Gomez. She said the broadband labels further NPRM was "one of the most anti-consumer items I have ever seen." She also dissented on the prison-calling order and NPRM (see 2510280045) and the wireless direct final rule.
Senate Communications Subcommittee member Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., praised the FBI on Monday night for investigating claims that during the Biden administration, the bureau and then-Special Counsel Jack Smith tracked her phone calls and those of eight other GOP lawmakers as part of a probe into the Jan. 6 Capitol siege. Fox News reported that in 2023 the FBI circulated a memo outlining the Jan. 6 team’s “analysis on limited” records of communications by Blackburn and the other Republicans, including current Senate Communications members Dan Sullivan of Alaska and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming. The Fox News report indicated that the FBI tracked the phone numbers that lawmakers called and the locations of the callers and recipients.