Space operators see themselves facing emerging policy hurdles around the globe that could impede satellite spectrum sharing and satellite mesh networks. At the SmallSat Symposium in Silicon Valley Thursday, there also was discussion about the growing challenges of an increasingly noisy and crowded low earth orbit (LEO) environment and talk of the need for a global approach to space sustainability.
Exports to China
Don't expect supplemental coverage from space to ever provide terrestrial broadband-like service -- there's not a strong business case, multiple operators said Wednesday at the SmallSat Symposium in Silicon Valley. Several questioned the economics of a robust SCS service with a thick data pipeline.
FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington thinks the agency should provide consumers with more of an explanation about why they should buy secure smartphones and other devices, he said during a Silicon Flatirons’ conference on global fractures in tech policy. The two-day conference ended Monday.
The lower 3 GHz band, a top target for wireless carriers for reallocation for full-power licensed use, remains critical to DOD as well, DOD Chief Information Officer John Sherman said Thursday at NTIA's spectrum policy symposium. The band is one of five targeted for study in the national spectrum strategy (see 2311130048).
A senior research analyst from Georgetown University's Center for Security and Emerging Technology cautioned Thursday that in some locations the cost of replacing Chinese hardware in information technology networks with more expensive alternatives outweighs the benefits. Jack Corrigan told the China Economic and Security Review Commission at a Thursday hearing that procurement bans should be targeted at "high-risk sectors, networks and use cases."
Senate Commerce Committee members Deb Fischer, R-Neb., and John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., urged Congress Monday to advance their Defend Our Networks Act (S-1245), closing a $3.08 billion funding gap for the FCC's Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program. Filed last year, the bill would reallocate 3% of unspent and unobligated funding from the FY 2021 appropriations omnibus, the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act and other COVID-19 aid packages to make up rip-and-replace's deficit (see 2304210069). Other lawmakers are eyeing directly appropriating the funding amid stalled work on a spectrum legislative package that some hoped could use future FCC auction revenue to repay a proposed loan (see 2311070050). Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., recently proposed paying for rip and replace by authorizing the FCC to reauction the 197 AWS-3 licenses that Dish and affiliated designated entities returned to the agency last year after it denied them $3.3 billion in bidding credits (see 2401240001). “Nearly all of the 85 companies that received approval by the FCC for costs to rip and replace the untrusted equipment are still waiting for their full federal reimbursement,” Fischer and Hickenlooper said in an opinion piece in The Hill. “Communications providers, many of them smaller companies, can’t pay to replace these technologies without help.” Absent more federal funding, “they’ll either refrain from ripping it out or will be forced to shut down parts or all of their networks,” the senators wrote: “We need telecom companies to remove China’s surveillance infrastructure [from cell towers] and replace it with secure equipment, but we can’t force these critical businesses to go broke in the process.” They cited China's spy balloons flying over the U.S. last year as a “sobering surveillance threat. The urgency of its removal cannot be understated.”
AI is valuable for police investigations but carries civil liberty and privacy risks, Senate Criminal Justice Subcommittee Chairman Cory Booker, D-N.J., and ranking member Tom Cotton, R-Ark., agreed Wednesday. The subcommittee discussed AI as a tool in investigations and prosecutions during a hearing. Booker and Cotton didn’t announce legislation on the topic. Instead, they discussed AI's benefits generally, including in facial recognition tools, license plate scanners, gunshot identification and financial crimes tools. Booker admitted he doesn’t always agree with Cotton but said the ranking member is “intellectually honest.” Booker raised concerns about the increased prevalence of surveillance technology in minority communities, saying people living in those areas are more likely to encounter video surveillance and physical stops. He asked whether police can empathize with those concerns. However, Miami Assistant Police Chief Armando Aguilar said video surveillance is “an accepted part of life for all communities throughout” the country. Aguilar claimed the U.S. is second to China in the number of video cameras the average citizen encounters daily, and “most cameras” are owned by private individuals, not government. AI technology is crucial to police departments, and many crimes would go unsolved without it, he said. Cotton said AI technology has helped lead to a faster, more efficient and accurate criminal justice system. Cotton highlighted the benefits of AI technology in child sexual abuse cases, noting how facial recognition helps identify predators.
The U.S. attained generally positive results at the World Radiocommunication Conference, but 6 GHz band issues remain, Steve Lang, the State Department official who headed the U.S. WRC delegation, told an American Enterprise Institute event Monday. In contrast, other speakers argued WRC wasn’t a clean U.S. win.
Consumer and industry advocates sounded alarms late last week over a proposed California ballot initiative that would make social media companies liable for up to $1 million in damages for each child their platform injures. Courts would likely find that Common Sense CEO James Steyer’s December proposal violates the First Amendment and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, said comments California DOJ forwarded to us Friday. For example, “Initiative 23-0035 is a misguided and unconstitutional proposal that will restrict all Californians’ access to online information,” the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) said.
NTIA’s administration of the Public Wireless Supply Chain Innovation Fund (Wireless Innovation Fund) drew criticism from some House Communications Subcommittee Republicans during a Thursday hearing over concerns the agency was slow to use it to aid development of U.S. open radio access networks (see 2401160068). Subpanel Democrats conversely eyed whether Congress should allocate additional funding to the NTIA initiative for ORAN use. Members of both parties sought to tie future ORAN development to the push to give the FCC’s Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program an additional $3.08 billion to close a funding shortfall that could hurt the goal of removing suspect gear from U.S. networks (see 2311070050).