WISPA urged the FCC this week to release the data specifications that providers should follow when seeking to restore locations in the broadband data collection (BDC) and to post a public notice with detailed guidance. The FCC Office of Economics and Analytics was instructed to provide direction, in consultation with other bureaus and offices, in an order last year, WISPA noted.
T-Mobile and Grain submitted to the FCC various documents on their pending low-band spectrum transaction. Filed Monday in docket 25-178, the documents were fully redacted. Grain Management agreed to buy T-Mobile's 800 MHz spectrum in exchange for cash and Grain's 600 MHz spectrum portfolio (see 2503210033). Grain plans to work with utilities and others to deploy services using the 800 MHz spectrum.
New Jersey State Police supports a petition from the Safer Buildings Coalition urging the FCC to launch a rulemaking on guidelines for getting consent from licensees to install signal boosters (see 2507210025), said a filing Tuesday in RM-12009. Implementing the proposal “to involve proven frequency coordination precedents would help to standardize and streamline the approval process, leading to a single, known, published standard for all authorities having jurisdiction, licensees, signal booster system designers and installers,” it said. The police division was the first to weigh in on the petition.
The courts have spoken, upholding the FCC’s stance that cellphone location data is customer proprietary network information regulated by the agency, the Electronic Privacy Information Center said Tuesday. “It feels like a rare treat these days to be able to share positive updates related to our privacy and cybersecurity work,” EPIC said. “The journey to get to this point has been quite a saga, spanning well over five years.”
Nationwide commercial mobile radio service providers must enable georouting of texts sent to the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by April 16, 2027, the FCC Wireline Bureau said Tuesday (docket 18-336). The compliance deadline for non-nationwide providers is Oct. 16, 2028. FCC commissioners adopted a 988 text georouting requirement during the agency's July meeting (see 2507240055).
The FCC Wireline Bureau on Tuesday reminded incarcerated people’s communications service providers that they must file annual reports by Nov. 3. The FCC has delayed the reporting deadline three times. It was originally April 1.
The FCC is demanding that Boomerang Wireless and Assist Wireless repay $1.18 million in what the agency says were overpayments for connected devices as part of the affordable connectivity program (ACP) and emergency broadband benefit (EBB) program. In a statement Tuesday, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr called the companies "unscrupulous providers." Some companies saw the pandemic-era programs "as a target for overfilling and padded their reimbursement requests."
Nexstar said Tuesday it would join Sinclair in continuing to preempt Jimmy Kimmel Live!, despite the show's return to ABC's lineup starting Tuesday night, while FCC Chairman Brendan Carr continued to insist on social media that he didn't cause Kimmel’s suspension.
The FCC's arguments that its pole attachment regulatory authority extends to utility-owned light poles are legally dubious and practically untenable, utilities said in comments this week in docket 17-84. Commissioners adopted a pole attachments NPRM at the agency's July meeting (see 2507280053), and utilities, as expected, voiced their opposition to the light-pole proposal (see 2508290003). The proceeding also saw no clear consensus about requiring attachers to deploy within 120 days of pole make-ready work being done.
Telecom providers largely welcomed FCC proposals to streamline the agency’s slamming and truth-in-billing rules, according to their responses to an NPRM that commissioners approved in July (see 2507240055). Consumer and public interest groups disagreed, calling for some protections to remain in place. Comments were due Monday and mostly posted Tuesday in docket 17-169.