The House is set to vote as soon as Tuesday night on a revised version of the NTIA Reauthorization Act (HR-4510) under suspension of the rules, the office of Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said Friday night. The House Commerce Committee-cleared measure would elevate the NTIA administrator from assistant secretary to undersecretary of Commerce. It also proposes other steps aimed at improving coordination of federal spectrum (see 2307270063). Chamber leaders pulled HR-4510 from consideration in early March amid objections from leaders of the House Armed Services Committee over the fight between NTIA and DOD about allowing 5G use of the 3.1-3.45 GHz band (see 2403060062). In addition, the House will consider the Senate-passed FAA Reauthorization Act (HR-3935) amid questions about whether backers of additional funding for the FCC’s affordable connectivity program and Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program will attempt to attach money for those initiatives to it. Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., and other senators unsuccessfully sought an amendment aimed at including $6 billion for ACP and $3.08 billion for rip and replace in HR-3935 (see 2405100046).
The FCC Enforcement Bureau classified a group of bad actors as a consumer communications information services threat (C-CIST) for "persistently facilitating robocall campaigns, aimed at defrauding and harming consumers," a news release Monday said (see 2308010075). In an enforcement advisory, the bureau classified Royal Tiger as a C-CIST for "impersonating government agencies, banks, and utilities." The entity, which included a group of individuals and entities based in India, the U.K., the United Arab Emirates and the U.S., received FCC warnings beginning in 2021. The first of its kind classification will allow the bureau to "formally name threat actors that are repeatedly using U.S. communications networks to perpetuate the most harmful, illegal schemes against consumers." It will also give industry stakeholders information to enhance their know-your-customer and know-your-upstream-provider processes.
AT&T says the FCC should vacate a recent forfeiture order against the company on grounds that it’s arbitrary, capricious and an abuse of discretion within the meaning of the Administrative Procedure Act, said its petition for review Thursday (docket 24-60223) in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In the April 29 order, the FCC imposed a $57.3 million penalty for AT&T’s violations of Section 222 of the Communications Act and commission regulations governing treatment of customer proprietary network information (CPNI). It found that AT&T failed to use reasonable measures for discovering and protecting against attempts to gain unauthorized access to customer location information. However, AT&T said as a “threshold matter,” the location data isn’t CPNI within the meaning of Section 222. Accordingly, the company's petition for review said the FCC lacked statutory authority to issue the order. “At a minimum,” by first announcing its “novel and expansive interpretation” of Section 222 in its enforcement proceeding and “retroactively punishing” the carrier for conduct preceding that announcement, the FCC “failed to provide the fair notice that AT&T was due,” it said. Even assuming otherwise, the agency’s finding that AT&T acted unreasonably in discovering and protecting against unauthorized access to customers’ location data is arbitrary and capricious, it added. The imposition of a $57.3 million penalty based on the existence of 84 distinct location-based-services providers, despite zero breaches by those providers, “defies law and logic,” it said. The FCC “has long lauded the valuable and sometimes life-saving benefits of location-based services, the growth of which AT&T has facilitated by implementing industry-leading data security safeguards,” the petition said. Yet the order “takes the nonsensical position that AT&T should have abruptly cut off access to customer location data in response to a news report of a single provider’s misuse,” of which the FCC had been aware for a year, “and despite the absence of any evidence that AT&T customers’ information was subject to unlawful use,” it said. The agency’s enforcement regime also “runs afoul” of the Constitution, the petition argued. Rather than grant a hearing to an alleged violator, it may elect to issue a notice of apparent liability, pass judgment on its own proposed liability finding and penalty, and then demand payment as a prerequisite to an appeal, the petition said: “That regime violates due process, Article III, the Seventh Amendment, and the nondelegation doctrine.”
Opening the 2 GHz band and the 1.6/2.4 GHz band to more satellite operators won't happen without a fight from incumbent satellite operators in those bands. SpaceX is pushing for such openings (see 2403270002). EchoStar and Globalstar argued against amending the rules governing those bands in comments posted Monday. The FCC Space Bureau in March rejected SpaceX requests to operate in the bands but put on public notice SpaceX petitions about amending the rules governing the bands.
Firefly Aerospace anticipates a November launch for its BGM1 lunar lander, which plans to deliver commercial, scientific and government payloads to the moon's surface as part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, the company said in an FCC Space Bureau application Friday. Firefly said it expects the lander to reach the moon about six weeks later, by year's end.
The FCC license for 112 non-geostationary orbit remote sensing satellites granted to Theia Group in 2019 is now EMTech Global's. That license was satellite startup Theia's "largest asset by far," U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel for the Southern District of New York said in 2021 in a docket 1:21-cv-06995 order appointing a receiver for Theia as part of litigation that investors FCS Advisors brought against the company. LTS Systems bought Theia's assets, including the license, at auction in 2023, with EMTech Global then acquiring the assets from LTS and subsequently seeking FCC OK on transferring the license to an EMTech subsidiary, according to EMTech's transfer application. The Space Bureau approved the transfer Friday, said a notice in Friday's Daily Digest.
FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel defended the agency’s order and Further NPRM on robocalls and robotexts. In letters to Sens. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Thom Tillis, R-N.C., posted Friday, she wrote that the commission "has now made it unequivocally clear" that sending robocalls or robotexts to consumers will require "prior express written consent ... on a one-to-one basis.” The lawmakers were concerned about the effect of that FCC policy on comparison shopping websites. “Our record indicated that consumers can unexpectedly receive hundreds or more robocalls and robotexts from a single inquiry on comparison shopping websites,” Rosenworcel said: While some of the websites “may have used this loophole to provide consumers with the ability to quickly compare goods and services and discover new sellers, our record demonstrated that consumers are often overwhelmed with robocalls and robotexts they did not agree to receive.”
Electric utilities are urging that the FCC allow networked operations for drones in shared-use parts of the 5030-5091 MHz band, where technically feasible. Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel recently circulated an order on the band (see 2404080065). Electric utilities representatives met with an aide to Commissioner Brendan Carr. Drones allow businesses in the critical infrastructure industry "to more efficiently inspect and repair infrastructure, improve worker safety, and maintain consistent, reliable service for customers,” said a filing posted Friday in docket 22-323. Represented at the meeting were Florida Power & Light, Pacific Gas & Electric, Xcel Energy and the Edison Electric Institute. The utilities offered examples of how they use uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS). “PG&E’s 79,000-square mile service territory includes extremely remote areas such as the Trinity Alps in Northwest California,” the filing said: “To inspect and maintain infrastructure in such difficult-to-reach areas, crews work extended shifts under difficult conditions, such as poor roads, which increases the risk that crews and property will suffer injury. … By allowing utilities to inspect infrastructure remotely, UAS reduces the need for unnecessary truck rolls, thereby improving worker safety.”
Bentina Terry, new president and CEO of Southern Linc, and other company representatives met with FCC Commissioners Brendan Carr, Geoffrey Starks and Anna Gomez “to provide an overview of the company and its policy priorities,” said a filing posted Friday in 21-346 and other dockets. “Southern Linc offers comprehensive geographic coverage, serving the extensive rural territory within its footprint as well as major metropolitan areas and highway corridors,” the company said. Terry explained how the communications needs of utilities are changing. “Historically, utilities mainly needed systems that supported two-way land mobile voice communications for line crews and field workers,” the company said: “With the digitization of the electric grid that is now underway, utilities now need broadband networks capable of handling large amounts of data -- data that is used to monitor and control the electric grid, to facilitate customers' pursuit of greater energy efficiency, and to ensure both the physical security and cybersecurity of the Nation’s critical electric infrastructure.”
FCC commissioners approved a notice of apparent liability of $8 million against K20 Wireless “for apparently willfully and repeatedly violating” affordable connectivity program rules. Also, the carrier will be removed from the program. “From at least June 2022 to May 2023, K20 sought and received ACP Tribal lands support for subscribers who were not eligible for those benefits,” said an order posted Friday. “For approximately 50 percent of these subscribers, the Company, after switching the subscriber’s ACP enrollment to K20, then changed the subscriber’s existing non-Tribal lands home address to a false address on Tribal lands not associated in any way with that subscriber,” the order said: “K20 then sought ACP reimbursement for those subscribers at the rate available for consumers residing on Tribal lands.”