Among other objections to an FCC proposal to expand the parts of the 6 GHz band where very-low power (VLP) devices can operate without coordination, and make other changes to the rules (see 2404290035), NAB stressed the importance of protecting broadcasters' use of the band for electronic news-gathering. “Allowing unrestrained VLP operation by millions -- or even billions -- of unlicensed devices amounts to letting the metaphorical ‘genie out of the bottle,’ potentially creating a radio frequency interference environment that cannot be controlled,” NAB said. Sirius XM said its satellite digital audio radio service business “cannot operate without reliable access to the 7.025-7.075 GHz band to uplink programming for delivery to listeners and control its spacecraft.” Proponents haven’t demonstrated a need to expand the bands where VLP devices can operate, Sirius XM said: “The public interest in protecting service to tens of millions of satellite radios -- both subscribed and unsubscribed -- far outweighs any speculative benefit from adding marginally to the spectrum that can be used for outdoor VLP devices.” The Fixed Wireless Communications Coalition said the record “remains insufficient to move forward with the Commission’s proposals at this time.” Comments in favor of changing the rules “were either non-substantive or rehashed information previously submitted to the record,” the group said. The 5G Automotive Alliance said out-of-band emissions limits of -37 dBm/MH are needed to protect cellular vehicle-to-everything operations in the 5.9 GHz band. “The record in this proceeding demonstrates commenters’ well-founded concerns about VLP devices interfering with C-V2X operations and the possible dire consequences of such interference,” the alliance said. Comments were posted this week in docket 18-295.
FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel will appear before lawmakers twice next week, with the House Appropriations Committee announcing Tuesday that the Financial Services Subcommittee will hold a hearing May 8 on the commission’s FY 2025 funding request. President Joe Biden in March proposed $448 million for the FCC in FY25 and $65 million for NTIA (see 2403110056). The Appropriations Financial Services hearing will begin at 10 a.m. in 2362-A Rayburn. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo will testify at the same time during a Commerce, Justice and Science Subcommittee hearing on the Commerce Department’s FY25 request. Rosenworcel and the four other FCC commissioners are set to testify May 7 at a House Communications Subcommittee hearing on the commission’s FY25 funding request (see 2404190067). That panel will begin at 10 a.m. in 2123 Rayburn.
NTCA takes special interest in the impact of the FCC’s Nov. 20 digital discrimination order on its small-business members, the association’s amicus brief argued in the 8th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court (docket 24-1179) said Monday. The brief supports the 20 industry petitioners that want the order vacated as unlawful (see 2404230032). The “potential adverse effects” of the order implementing Section 60506 of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act “risk particular impact to small businesses that generally lack access to resources and economies of scale that can enable larger businesses to absorb substantial market or regulatory changes,” NTCA’s brief said. But those impacts “are neither envisioned nor authorized by the statute, whose language contemplates a far more limited scope of implementation,” it said. Compliance with certain of the standards presented in the FCC’s order “is effectively impossible since the processes by which those measures can be achieved are wholly inconsistent with the normal and ordinary practices within which NTCA members conduct their business,” it added. The standards contemplate the ability of small private businesses “to have access to the confidential business considerations of other businesses,” it said: “This result, too, is neither contemplated nor accommodated in the statutory language.” The 8th Circuit should hold the order as "unlawful" and set it aside, said NTCA.
Developing rules for opening the lower 3 GHz band, a top focus of U.S. carriers (see 2404080063), won’t be easy, Monisha Ghosh, engineering professor at the University of Notre Dame and former FCC chief technologist, said during an RCR Wireless virtual test and management forum Tuesday. Much discussion at the forum centered on the challenges of performance testing in evolving 5G networks.
Rather than the FCC requiring reviews for each mission undertaken on an in-space servicing, assembly and manufacturing mission, numerous ISAM interests are pushing the agency to consider a blanket license approach. In docket 22-271 comments this week, numerous parties also questioned the FCC's authority over ISAM and whether it's drifting far from its spectrum oversight role. Commissioners, on a 5-0 vote, approved an ISAM licensing NPRM in February (see 2402150053).
The Senate Commerce Committee will likely advance an amended version of the draft Spectrum and National Security Act during a Wednesday executive session with unanimous support from the panel’s 14 Democratic members, but lobbyists will watch closely how many Republicans don’t openly object to the measure as a means of determining its viability. The spectrum bill, led by Senate Commerce Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., would restore the FCC’s lapsed auction mandate through Sept. 30, 2029. The measure proposes using future license sales revenue to repay a proposed loan to the commission to fund the affordable connectivity program in FY 2024 and $3.08 billion for the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program (see 2404250061).
The FCC Media Bureau approved a Cumulus "pro forma" request to assign several broadcast licenses from one Cumulus subsidiary to another and will seek comment on a remedial petition from the company to allow an increase in foreign ownership, said an order Friday. The foreign-ownership request is connected to a Singaporean company, Renew Group, which in January informed the SEC that it now owns approximately 9.8% of the equity and 10.01% of the voting interests in Cumulus. Under the terms of a 2020 foreign-ownership approval (see 2005290046), Cumulus must seek FCC approval for any foreign investor to own more than 5% of the voting interest in the company. Cumulus has certified that Renew’s acquisition of interests exceeding the 5% threshold “was an independent investment decision that occurred on the NASDAQ Stock Exchange and was wholly beyond Cumulus’s control, was not reasonably foreseeable to Cumulus, and was not known to Cumulus before Renew reported the acquisition to the SEC.” Friday’s order grants the internal transfers of control but imposes conditions limiting the voting rights associated with the stock Renew owned until a declaratory ruling approving the foreign ownership is issued. The conditions would also limit Renew investors from serving as officers of Cumulus, attending board of directors meetings or having any role in management of Cumulus stations or decisions to buy or sell stations until a declaratory ruling is issued, the order said. Until the ruling, dividends payable to the Renew investors will be placed in escrow, the order said.
Charter Communications sought New Hampshire conditions on Consolidated Communications' transfer of indirect ownership and control of its local subsidiaries to Condor Holdings, a subsidiary of private equity firm Searchlight. Charter didn’t oppose the deal but asked the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission for conditions related to wholesale intercarrier relationships. Statements from Consolidated and Condor about maintaining the status quo "are ultimately meaningless unless there is a specific minimum period of time that ensures the continuity of existing wholesale intercarrier relationships,” said Michael Scanlon, Charter vice president-circuit operations, in written testimony Friday (docket DT 23-103). First, the PUC should require that Consolidated "honor existing interconnection agreements and their terms, including those of any tariffs or pricing guides" for three years after the deal closes, the Charter official said. Second, force Consolidated to process "number ports so as to meet or exceed [PUC] and FCC porting requirements with at least the same level of quality and intervals as they did pre-Transaction,” he said. Third, require that the company use existing operations support and billing support systems for at least 36 months after the deal closes. "It should also maintain at least the same intervals, quality of service, accuracy, and flow-through,” Scanlon wrote. Additionally, still under the third proposed condition, Consolidated should agree that, before migrating away from any existing systems related to wholesale, it should file a plan for the state commission to seek comment on, then approve, delay or deny. If approved, the company should provide CLECs with training on the new system, the Charter official said. If the migration results in “significant negative impacts to wholesale providers occur due to the migration, CLECs should be able to seek Commission approval of payment by Petitioners of all documented costs directly related to the migration." Under a fourth proposed condition, the PUC should require the company to "sufficiently staff its wholesale customer support centers with adequately trained personnel dedicated exclusively to wholesale operations; maintain updated escalation procedures, contact lists, and account manager information; and assign a single point of contact to [Charter New Hampshire] to address interconnection agreements, systems, and other issues,” said Scanlon: And the company should agree not to recover any transaction or rebranding costs through wholesale rates.
CTIA told the FCC that U.S. networks are secure in comments on a notice from the FCC Public Safety Bureau on providers’ implementation of security counter-measures to prevent the exploitation of vulnerabilities in the Signaling System 7 (SS7) and Diameter protocols to track the locations of consumers through their mobile devices. Comments were due Friday in docket 18-99. Major carriers emphasized that their systems were updated to address risks. That was also the industry message when the agency asked about Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council recommendations on diameter protocol security four years ago (see 2003120030). “U.S. providers’ commitment to security has resulted in U.S. networks being relatively more secure from legacy SS7 and Diameter risks than networks in other regions,” CTIA said. CTIA explained that technology is evolving. Legacy SS7 signaling is used today only in legacy 2G and 3G networks and Diameter in 4G and non-stand-alone 5G networks and “was deployed to help reduce risks associated with SS7 and is less susceptible to attacks,” the group said. Stand-alone 5G networks use HTTP/2 for signaling. Verizon said it knows of no successful attempts to access network user location data on its network using weaknesses in the SS7 or Diameter protocols since CSRIC’s adoption of best practices in 2018. “As Verizon explained in response to previous public notices relating to SS7 and Diameter security, in interviews with Commission staff, and in its responses to the Letter of Inquiry received from the Bureau” in October 2022 “we have implemented the relevant recommendations issued by the CSRIC and GSMA on signaling security,” the carrier said. As noted in previous filings, “AT&T has employed an aggressive, multifaceted approach to SS7 and Diameter security” and “continues to take significant, aggressive steps to protect the SS7 and Diameter networks including implementation of CSRIC’s working group recommendation,” the carrier said.
DOJ supports FCC efforts to lower prices and increase competition for incarcerated people’s communications services (IPCS), the department said Monday. “IPCS markets across the country suffer from a lack of competition, which harms both incarcerated people and those who purchase communications services to communicate with them,” the DOJ Antitrust Division said in a filing in docket 23-62. “Incarcerated people and their loved ones face an effective monopoly after the correctional facility selects a provider for its communications services. This process imposes long-term, structural barriers to competition and deprives consumers the benefits of a robust, competitive IPCS market.” Securus and Viapath “have controlled well over half of the overall market for more than a decade,” added the division: The providers’ competitors have failed to “discipline their prices” and there are “significant barriers to entry and expansion.” As a result, "unreasonably high rates, ancillary service fees, and abusive provider practices such as the seizure of unused funds in incarcerated people’s accounts without notice or refund,” characterize the market, it said. The division recommended considering “whether site commissions ought to be included as costs of providing service when determining just and reasonable rates.” Some jails and prisons prefer vendors that pay higher commissions, “but when site commissions serve to increase the rates that incarcerated people and their families pay, they work directly against the FCC’s mandate to ensure that such rates be just and reasonable,” it said. Also, the agency shouldn’t let providers "evade rate regulation by steering customers from regulated to unregulated communications services such as electronic messaging, which would cause competitive harm and dilute the intended benefits of the Martha Wright-Reed Act,” said the division: Messaging rates that incarcerated people pay “are unreasonably higher than the rates paid by people who reside outside of correctional facilities.”