ClearCaptions received conditional certification Thursday to provide IP captioned telephone service after its acquisition by CC Opportunities. An FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau public notice in docket 03-123 said ClearCaptions will "remain eligible for compensation from the TRS Fund after the change in ownership, pending commission action on an application for full certification of the post-merger entity."
Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz (Texas) and 18 other Senate Republicans are pursuing a Congressional Review Act resolution of disapproval to undo the FCC’s digital discrimination order that mirrors a January House measure (H.J.Res. 107), as expected (see 2402260001). The digital discrimination order faces multiple legal challenges, now consolidated in the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (see 2403140042). “Despite admitting there’s ‘little to no evidence’ of discrimination by broadband companies, the Biden administration has plowed ahead with government-mandated affirmative action and race-based pricing for broadband,” Cruz said Thursday. “The only beneficiaries of the FCC’s Orwellian ‘equity’ plan are overzealous government regulators who want to control the internet. This resolution will roll back FCC Democrats’ unlawful power grab.” The other Republican co-sponsors include Senate Communications Subcommittee ranking member John Thune (S.D.). Cruz, Thune and other Republican senators urged the agency in November to reconsider the then-draft rules (see 2311130059). FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel told reporters Thursday she has “confidence in” the FCC’s digital discrimination rules “and that our work is consistent with” authorizing language in the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
The Advisory Council for Historic Preservation (ACHP) Thursday released an update to its 2017 program comment, aimed at speeding the approval of 5G and other deployments under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA). The agreement wraps in changes including those in the FCC’s 2020 order addressing equipment compound expansions as part of collocation (see 2010270043), industry officials said, noting it's largely an extension of prior decisions. The program comment also now applies to every federal agency, a change from the 2017 document. “The purpose of the amendment is to assist federal agencies in efficiently permitting and approving the deployment of wired and wireless next generation technologies of communications infrastructure, including 5G, to connect all communities with reliable, high-speed Internet,” the revised program comment says: “The Program Comment provides an alternative way for federal agencies to comply with Section 106 to take into account the effects of undertakings under its scope on historic properties and afford the ACHP a reasonable opportunity to comment on them.” ACHP notes the document comes as companies start to deploy broadband using $65 billion provided under the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and was updated at the request of the NTIA. “All wireless deployments start with a permitting application, but too often our enhanced connectivity goals are quickly ensnared in red tape,” emailed Wireless Infrastructure Association President Patrick Halley. By amending the comment “to apply across the federal ecosystem, these agencies have taken a critical step today for increasing predictability in federal broadband permitting,” he said. The collaborative effort is “the kind of action we need to hasten broadband deployment by ensuring our permitting policies are more predictable, proportionate, and transparent across the board,” Halley said. “It’s crucial to speed up the permitting process and lower barriers to broadband buildout, especially as more federal deployment funding dollars start to flow,” said USTelecom President Jonathan Spalter.
The FCC is investigating the extent to which U.S. mobile devices are still processing signals from China’s BeiDou, Russia’s GLONASS and other foreign adversaries’ global navigation satellite systems (GNSS), Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel told reporters Thursday. House China Committee Chairman Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., pressed the FCC on the item earlier this week (see 2403120073). The FCC’s investigation includes all major U.S. device suppliers, including Apple, Google, Motorola, Nokia and Samsung, a commission spokesperson said. FCC commissioners unanimously approved a voluntary cyber trust mark program based on National Institute of Standards and Technology criteria during their meeting Thursday (see 2403140034).
The FCC’s March 7 response opposing Essential Network Technologies and MetComm.net's Feb. 26 emergency motion to expedite consideration of the companies' E-rate program appeal “confirms that the motion should be granted,” according to the petitioners’ reply Wednesday (docket 24-1027) at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Utility companies and some industry groups urged the FCC to maintain its current rules for pole attachment application processes, noting the commission recently adopted new rules to help facilitate the process to expedite and streamline broadband deployment. Some ISPs said process delays remain and backed FCC-established timelines for larger pole attachment orders. Reply comments were posted Thursday in docket 17-84 (see 2402140048).
Twenty industry and business groups, including CTIA, USTelecom and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, seek expedited briefing and oral argument on their consolidated petitions for review challenging the lawfulness of the FCC’s Nov. 20 digital discrimination order (see 2402290002), said their motion Wednesday (docket 24-1183) in the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The Senate Commerce Committee needs to meet with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and the Senate Intelligence Committee before deciding on potentially marking up TikTok-related national security legislation, Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., told reporters Thursday (see 2403130039).
Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., told us she's considering a clean FCC reauthorization bill that could pay for some of congressional leaders’ telecom priorities but wouldn’t necessarily mandate that the commission begin sales of specific frequencies. Senate Commerce plans a March 21 hearing on that and other spectrum policy issues, Cantwell told us Thursday ahead of a formal panel announcement. Cantwell's proposal would be in line with her pursuit of a slimmed-down measure (see 2403110066) drawing some elements of the stalled House Commerce Committee-cleared Spectrum Auction Reauthorization Act (HR-3565).
FCC commissioners voted 3-2 Thursday, over dissents by Brendan Carr and Nathan Simington, to approve the agency's Telecom Act Section 706 report to Congress. The report concluded that broadband isn't deployed in a "reasonable and timely fashion," with about 24 million Americans lacking access to speeds of at least 100/20 Mbps. The two Republicans also dissented at the commissioners' open meeting on a proposed requirement that cable and satellite TV multichannel programming distributors display prominently the aggregate cost of video programming in ads and customer bills.