The House Communications Subcommittee plans a Jan. 11 hearing on the subject of improving U.S. communications networks’ cybersecurity, the Commerce Committee said Thursday. “Every day, there are more than 2,200 cyberattacks" on U.S. communications infrastructure and many "originate from foreign adversaries, like communist China, that exploit vulnerabilities in our networks and compromise our national security,” said House Commerce Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., and Communications Chairman Bob Latta, R-Ohio. The hearing will begin at 10 a.m. in 2123 Rayburn.
Exports to China
SpaceX's accomplishments in 2023 are "what increasing domination of the world launch market looks like," the National Space Society blogged Monday. Those accomplishments include 96 Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy flights versus 61 in 2022, increasing flight cadence with 10 launches in November, and 1,985 Starlink satellites launched on 63 flights, NSS said. 2023 saw a total of 107 U.S. launches, with SpaceX responsible for 92% of them, up from 78% in 2022, it said. By comparison, China launched 62 times in 2023, NSS said. The society said SpaceX's rideshare launches have "taken a big bite out of the small launch providers" market. United Launch Alliance's Vulcan, Blue Origin's New Glenn and ArianeGroup's Ariane-6, once flying regularly, will likely influence SpaceX's launch manifest, yet Falcon 9 launches will continue to show steadily increasing metrics for another year or two, the report predicts. SpaceX's 2024 manifest "is stuffed," with 144 launches projected, the society said.
Congress is unlikely to follow up the 5G Spectrum Authority Licensing Enforcement Act (S-2787) with a near-term agreement on a broader spectrum legislative package, certainly not in time to factor into the upcoming debate over funding the federal government once an existing continuing resolution expires Feb. 2, lawmakers and lobbyists told us. President Joe Biden signed the 5G Sale Act last week (see 2312200061), giving the FCC temporary authority to issue 2.5 GHz band licenses that T-Mobile and others won in a 2022 auction. All sides view the measure as a stopgap, required after months of stalled talks on Capitol Hill for a broader legislative package that would renew the FCC’s lapsed general auction authority (see 2312040001).
Activity at the recent World Radiocommunication Conference in Dubai points to the need for U.S. policymakers to make more spectrum available for 5G and 6G, blogged Umair Javed, CTIA senior vice president-spectrum. “WRC-23 made clear that the rest of the world is putting significant emphasis on making mid-band spectrum available for full-power 5G use,” he wrote. “Perhaps the most significant outcome of the conference is that the 6 GHz band -- which has been allocated for unlicensed access in the United States across the full 1200 megahertz -- is now earmarked to be the harmonized home for licensed mobile in the top half of the band for a majority of the world,” Javed wrote last week: “While some tried at the conference to set up a dynamic that suggested that countries would have to ‘choose’ between the U.S. vision for Wi-Fi or China’s vision for mobile, the reality was that some European countries were a major force for identifying the 6 GHz band for 5G and many countries sided with that view.” The lower 3 GHz is “truly a global 5G band now” with more than 50 nations using it “as the home for full-power 5G,” he said. “Now the WRC has harmonized this use across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa,” he added. “This includes adding a new primary mobile allocation for the United States in the 3.3-3.4 GHz band and removing regulatory limitations on using 5G near the border in the 3.6-3.8 GHz band,” he said. Javed said the 7/8 GHz band “is now the global harmonization target for expanding mobile capacity for 5G and beyond.” The 4 GHz band “will be studied for future 5G use in the other two major ITU regions, but, unfortunately, not here in the Americas,” he said: “Agency opposition to study this band either domestically or internationally deprives the Administration of a promising option available to our key rivals.” Javed is a former top aide to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel.
Wireless Infrastructure Association President Patrick Halley praised President Joe Biden Wednesday night for signing the 5G Spectrum Authority Licensing Enforcement Act (S-2787) (see 2312200061). Yet Halley said he believes it’s “imperative that Congress” follow that stopgap measure with a long-term renewal of the FCC’s lapsed auction authority. The House passed the 5G act measure last week (see 2312110062), giving the FCC authority for 90 days to issue the 2.5 GHz licenses. Lawmakers viewed it as a stopgap measure, required after months of stalled Capitol Hill talks on a broader legislative package that would renew the FCC’s lapsed general auction authority (see 2312040001). “Anything less” than a “long-term reauthorization” will “continue to hamper the advancement of America’s mobile communications and put us in the competitive backseat against China and other global competitors,” Halley said.
The 2023 World Radiocommunication Conference “has been a clear success for U.S. interests," U.S. delegation head Steve Lang, State Department deputy assistant secretary-international information and communications policy, told reporters Friday, minutes after the four-week U.N. event concluded. He said the U.S. delegation "achieved many important objectives," including further harmonization of 5G spectrum across the Americas with an international mobile telecommunications (IMT) identification in the 3.3-3.4 and 3.6-3.8 GHz bands in Region 2. That creates 500 MHz of contiguous spectrum in the 3 GHz band for 5G, Lang said.
The FBI’s surveillance authorities will extend through April after the House voted 310-118 Thursday to approve the National Defense Authorization Act (see 2312120073).
The House China Committee Tuesday recommended as part of a report on ways to "fundamentally reset" the U.S. economic competition with China that Congress "fully fund" the FCC's Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program, which faces a $3.08 billion budget gap and resultant prorating of payouts to participants (see 2310120067). Lawmakers have been eyeing whether to directly appropriate the additional $3.08 billion amid stalled talks on a spectrum legislative package that would loan the money to the FCC and use future auction proceeds to pay it off (see 2311070050). The House China report doesn't recommend a specific funding vehicle but says providing the money will help remove "Huawei, ZTE, and other high-risk foreign adversary-controlled telecom vendors" from U.S. networks. The panel recommended strengthening the FCC’s "covered list" of companies barred from the agency’s equipment authorization program by enacting legislation allowing DOJ "to make determinations as to the national security threat from certain equipment and services that can trigger the FCC to add such equipment and services to the Covered List. This could ensure that the FCC can rapidly respond to 'white-labeled' equipment and services that should be on the Covered List." House China also wants legislation "requiring a separate equipment certification for any device using any module produced by any Covered List entities or their subsidiaries or affiliates." Competitive Carriers Association President Tim Donovan praised the report. "Congress must immediately provide full funding to secure our nation’s networks and prevent any loss to vital communications services," he said in a statement.
EU privacy law will change to address the challenges of AI and other technologies, European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) Wojciech Wiewiorowski told Communications Daily in a wide-ranging interview. He is urging governments not to wait for global privacy solutions to emerge before regulating AI but to use existing tools.
The House was expected to vote as soon as Monday night on the Senate-approved version of the 5G Spectrum Authority Licensing Enforcement Act (S-2787), as expected (see 2312060073), amid hopes of salvaging at least incremental progress after months of stalled Capitol Hill talks on a broader legislative package that would renew the FCC’s general auction authority. FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr and former commission and State Department officials highlighted during a Center for Strategic and International Studies event the importance of Congress reauthorizing the spectrum auction mandate and reaching a consensus that will allow the U.S. to reclaim a top leadership role in wireless innovation.