Expect a Donald Trump White House and FCC to focus on deregulation and undoing the agency's net neutrality and digital discrimination rules, telecom policy experts and FCC watchers tell us. Brendan Carr, one of the two GOP minority commissioners, remains the seeming front-runner to head the agency if Trump wins the White House in November (see 2407120002). Despite repeated comments from Trump as a candidate and president calling for FCC action against companies such as CNN and MSNBC over their news content, many FCC watchers on both sides of the aisle told us they don’t expect the agency to actually act against cable networks or broadcast licenses under a second Trump administration.
Exports to China
Former President Donald Trump famously doesn't do policy detail, but this time around his senior advisers and self-described MAGA revolutionaries are doing it for him. Trump himself has repeatedly called for punishment of disfavored media, including FCC-licensed "fake news" outlets. But the specifics of the disruptions planned for policy and governance of telecom (along with many other sectors) are most explicitly framed in the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, the massive policy prescription directed in part by Trump's past and presumably future advisers and appointees. Among contributors is FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, author of the chapter on the future of the agency and telecom policy as a whole. In this Comm Daily Special Report, published on the eve of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, our award-winning editorial team looks at the ideas and the people that would transform telecom in America if Donald Trump is returned to office. (Our counterpart examination of Democratic plans -- whether under a reelected President Joe Biden or someone else -- will appear in August.)
Communications Daily is tracking the lawsuits below involving appeals of FCC actions.
The House Appropriations Committee voted 31-25 Wednesday to advance its Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Subcommittee FY 2025 funding bill without advance FY 2027 money for CPB after Democrats didn’t attempt to restore the allocation. The House Rules Committee, meanwhile, will consider filed amendments to Appropriations’ FY25 Financial Services Subcommittee bill (HR-8773) that aim to undo a ban on the FCC implementing an equity action plan and increase the FTC’s annual funding. The measure proposes boosting the FCC’s annual allocation to $416 million but includes riders barring the commission from implementing GOP-opposed net neutrality and digital discrimination orders (see 2406050067).
The Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday it expects the FCC would need $4 million to implement the Foreign Adversary Communications Transparency Act (HR-820) in fiscal years 2024-2029. HR-820 would require the agency to publish a list of communications companies holding FCC licenses or other authorizations in which China and other foreign adversaries’ governments possess 10% or more ownership. The House Commerce Committee advanced the measure in March (see 2403200076). The FCC “would need five employees, at an annual cost of $200,000 per employee, for the first two years, to review existing grants of authority, and two employees after 2026 to review new applications and changes in ownership,” CBO said. “However, because the FCC is authorized to collect fees each year sufficient to offset the appropriated costs of its regulatory activities, CBO estimates that the net cost to the FCC would be negligible, assuming appropriation actions consistent with that authority.”
House Democrats rang alarm bells Wednesday over the Appropriations Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies (CJS) Subcommittee’s proposal reducing FY 2025 allocations for NTIA and other Commerce Department agencies. The subpanel advanced its FY25 bill on a voice vote Wednesday after Republicans defended the proposed cuts, including a significant slashing of annual funding for the DOJ Antitrust Division. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo fielded repeated questions during a House Innovation Subcommittee hearing Wednesday about Republicans’ claims that NTIA’s requirement that broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program participants offer a low-cost connectivity option constitutes rate regulation.
Ericsson increased by about 300 million its projections for 5G subscribers in 2029, to 5.6 billion, based in part on a revised outlook for Africa. “We continue to see a robust uptake of 5G subscriptions worldwide, anticipating the addition of nearly 600 million new 5G subscriptions in 2024,” the report said. But Ericsson warned of the need for continued deployments of 5G stand-alone networks, beyond deployments by about 50 providers so far, and “additional densification of mid-band sites.” The report said mid-band so far has been driven by “extensive deployments” in India and North America. “Although 5G population coverage is growing, 5G mid-band is only deployed in around 25 percent of all sites globally outside of mainland China,” the report said: 5G mid-band offers “a sweet spot between both coverage and capacity, while improving user experience.”
Hikvision representatives met with FCC Office of Engineering and Technology staff seeking guidance on the commission’s information disclosure rules, said a filing last week in docket 21-232. Representatives explained that ownership of the China-based company is complicated. “OET acknowledged the challenges of gathering the information and Hikvision advised that it would update its disclosure as it obtains additional information,” the filing said.
SpaceX's second-generation Starlink satellites are proving more robust than expected and can operate easily a couple of hundred kilometers lower than their 525-535 km operational orbits without hardware changes, the company told the FCC Space Bureau last week. It said its pending request for operating in the 340-360 km range capitalizes "on the significant space sustainability and service improvements that lower-altitude operations allow." SpaceX said it has been coordinating with NASA and the National Science Foundation to ensure that the lower-altitude operations won't increase risk to federal space and science missions and in many cases will decrease risk. Earlier this month, the bureau posed a series of questions to SpaceX about its lower-altitude plans. Pointing to its partial approval of the company's second-generation constellation (see 2212010052), including a condition that it not deploy satellites that operate below the International Space Station -- roughly 400 km altitude --, the agency asked how many satellites SpaceX anticipates operating below the ISS at any one time. In its filing last week, SpaceX said the figure could vary, but potentially 600, though perhaps more. It said it hopes ultimately the FCC will sign off on 19,440 satellites at 340-360 km altitudes, as it requested in its second-generation application. However, for now it wants to include those orbital shells as an option for its first tranche of 7,500 second-gen satellites. SpaceX said its automated collision avoidance system "has proven its mettle on-orbit."
Group of Seven members are focused on Chinese investment in Western telecommunications networks because they're concerned with Beijing’s access to company data, Anne Neuberger, White House deputy national security adviser-cyber and emerging technology, said Tuesday.