The demand for broadband infrastructure deployment job applicants and the supply of people trained in those fiber installation and construction fields are misaligned to a concerning degree, industry and educational experts warn. Some fear that companies will post many job openings at once, as BEAD money starts flowing to subgrantees, Lindsey Ekstrand, Youngstown (Ohio) State University director-workforce education programs, said. "No one is going to be ready for that," she warned during a Wireless Infrastructure Association event Thursday.
President-elect Donald Trump said Thursday he plans to nominate Senate Armed Services Committee Republican staffer Olivia Trusty to the FCC seat that current Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel will vacate Jan. 20. Multiple former FCC officials and communications sector lobbyists told us they expected Trump would also announce as soon as Thursday that Senate Commerce Committee Republican Telecom Policy Director Arielle Roth is his pick for NTIA administrator. A range of ex-FCC officials and other observers previously named Trusty and Roth as top contenders for the Rosenworcel seat, although some believed Roth’s ties to Senate Commerce Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, made her a slight front-runner (see 2412110046).
The FCC’s bureau-level rejections of four content-based legal challenges against network-owned TV stations Thursday could complicate future agency moves against broadcasters over their reporting but won’t prevent it, attorneys and free speech advocates told us. When he becomes chair next week, Commissioner Brendan Carr could quickly reverse the Media Bureau and Enforcement Bureau decisions rejecting challenges against ABC-, Fox-, NBC- and CBS- owned stations. However, doing so could require the agency to defend upending decades of precedent, broadcaster and public interest attorneys told us. The decisions “draw a bright line at a moment when clarity about government interference with the free press is needed more than ever,” said Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel in a release Thursday. “The FCC should not be the President’s speech police.”
FCC retirements: Rosemary Harold and David Snavely, Media Bureau; William Dever, Office of the General Counsel; Joyce Jones, Wireless Bureau, Kim Wild, Lyle Ishida and Brian Ulmer, Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau; Anthony Serafini, Office of Engineering and Technology; and Katie King, Wireline Competition Bureau... National Content and Technology Cooperative names Christy Drummond, ex-Windstream, vice president-marketing and communications ... Gary Hanson named chairman, South Dakota Public Utilities Commission, succeeding Kristie Fiegen, who remains a commissioner; Chris Nelson elected vice chairman ... Warner Bros. Discovery names to board SoFi Technologies CEO Anthony Noto and IAC CEO Joey Levin ... Communications technology firm BCN promotes Ryan Kelly to chief revenue officer, Jeanne Duca to chief marketing officer ... Trellix expands Kurt Mills' role to senior vice president-global channel chief … HP names Carol Surface, ex-Apple, as chief people officer, succeeding Kristen Ludgate, retired; Surface begins March 24.
Manufacturers of covered set-top devices and multichannel video programming distributors must make closed captioning display settings “readily accessible” to the deaf and hard of hearing by Aug. 17, 2026, said an FCC Media Bureau public notice Wednesday. The agency adopted the readily accessible requirement in July (see 2407180037). The requirement is intended to make it easier for caption users to modify the color, fonts, sizes and other features of closed captions.
The hearing proceeding on the TV and radio licenses of Antonio Guel and the Hispanic Christian Community Network will go forward with a paper hearing process rather than an in-person one, ruled FCC Administrative Law Judge Jane Halprin in an order Wednesday. The hearing proceeding is based in part on allegations that Guel pretended to sell his stations to relatives while actually retaining control of them and made misrepresentations to the agency (see 2408280048). Both Guel and the Enforcement Bureau support the paper process, the order said. A written process will “conserve the Commission’s resources in that it will not be necessary to engage the additional personnel needed to conduct a live hearing,” the order said. The affirmative case is due Feb. 21, response filings April 7 and final reply April 28, the order said.
Various consumer and public interest groups met with aides to FCC Commissioners Anna Gomez and Geoffrey Starks to urge that the FCC move forward on implementing a 2023 order closing the lead generator loophole (see 2312190032). “We explained that the new regulation is widely viewed by all parties to be a highly effective mechanism to cut down on the proliferation of unwanted telemarketing calls,” said a filing posted Wednesday in docket 20-278. In 2024, there were an average of 1.4 billion telemarketing calls every month in the U.S. “but these calls escalated in late 2024” to more than 1.8 billion, the filing said. The groups that met with the FCC aides included the National Consumer Law Center, Consumer Action, the Consumer Federation of America, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Public Knowledge, National Consumers League and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. The National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates also participated. The order becomes effective Jan. 27 but faces a challenge at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (see 2412180008).
The FCC on Wednesday approved Inland Cellular’s proposed acquisition of Commnet’s rural digital opportunity fund support obligations in parts of Washington and Montana. The Wireline Bureau noted it sought comment in July (see 2407030047) and none was filed.
The FCC released the 2024 Universal Service Monitoring Report, providing an overview of revenue in the U.S. telecom industry and associated contributions to universal service support. Released this week, the report shows a steep drop in some sources of revenue. Local exchange revenue was $12.3 billion in 2023, down from $30.5 billion in 2014. Local private line revenue declined from $31.2 billion to $19.1 billion during the same period. Total telecom revenue fell from $228.5 billion in 2014 to $116 billion in 2023. The tables are based on information filed with the commission in FCC Forms 499-A and 499-Q.
The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology on Wednesday approved C3Spectra to operate an automated frequency coordination (AFC) system in the 6 GHz band (see 2408130030). “This action benefits American consumers and businesses by enabling an additional AFC system to provide service to standard power and fixed client devices further expanding spectrum access for new applications and services,” said an order in docket 21-352.