AST SpaceMobile is seeking FCC approval for two years of testing off-the-shelf cellular handsets receiving supplemental coverage from space service using FirstNet's Band 14. In an experimental license application last week, AST said the testing would be done in a 24-kilometer-radius area in Texas using 758-768 MHz downlinks and 788-798 MHz uplinks. Such testing would allow AST to continue evaluating its Bluebird satellites' capabilities to transmit and receive broadband communications to and from mobile handsets in the Band 14 network footprint, it said.
Charter Communications' proposed purchase of Cox Communications might have faced DOJ and FCC opposition under the Biden administration, with its reliance on market-share snapshots when pursuing antitrust claims, Mercatus Senior Research Fellow Alden Abbott wrote last week. But the $34.5 billion Charter/Cox deal, announced in May (see 2505160060), "should have a clear path forward" under current DOJ and FCC leadership, given signs that the Trump administration wants to reinstate "a commonsense, fact-based, and economically centered merger-review policy," said Abbott, a former FTC general counsel. Under the Supreme Court's Brown Shoe test for assessing if a transaction will lessen competition, Charter/Cox doesn't eliminate an existing rivalry, raise entry barriers or accelerate harmful concentration, he said. The two have minimal overlap, and there's booming growth of new broadband competitors, Abbott added.
The FCC Wireless Bureau agreed to “long-term de facto transfer leasing arrangements” in which AT&T and FTC Management will lease spectrum to each other, mainly in the 3.45 GHz band, in markets in South Carolina. The bureau also approved a waiver for the companies to exceed the 40 MHz aggregation limit on 3.45 GHz spectrum in some of the markets. “We find that the proposed transaction has a low likelihood of competitive harm and would serve the public interest, convenience and necessity,” said an order in docket 25-138 in Friday’s Daily Digest.
T-Mobile representatives met with FCC staff to discuss the “drive test data” that the company submitted with its annual progress report, required as part of its purchase of Sprint. “T‑Mobile also identified the software used to calculate low-, medium-, and high-intensity developed areas in large rural census blocks as part of the selection of additional testing locations in these areas,” said a filing Friday in docket 22-211. The slides from T-Mobile’s presentation to staff were redacted in the filing.
A coalition opposed to T-Mobile’s purchase of wireless assets from UScellular spoke with aides to FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez about its challenge to a Wireless Bureau order approving the deal. Gomez has said commissioners should have been asked to vote on it (see 2507310041). Representatives from the Rural Wireless Association, Open Technology Institute at New America and Communications Workers of America were present, according to a filing posted Friday in docket 24-286.
Comments are due Sept. 8 in dockets 25-256 and 25-257 on two Consolidated Communications applications to discontinue legacy voice services at locations in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, said a public notice in Friday’s Daily Digest. The application will be granted automatically Sept. 22 unless the FCC notifies the company otherwise.
Intrepid is dropping its petition asking the FCC to preempt a contract that Cottage Grove, Minnesota, has with another provider for deployment of fiber-optic infrastructure there. In a motion to withdraw posted Friday (docket 25-248), Intrepid said it and the city have settled, "and there is no longer a 'controversy' requiring resolution by the Commission." In its petition, Intrepid said Cottage Grove granted exclusive access to another provider and was denying Intrepid access to its right of way.
Comments are due Sept. 5, replies Sept. 12, on Crown Castle's proposal to sell its fiber network business to Fiber FinCo. That company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Front Range, a joint venture between investors DigitalBridge Group and Sweden’s EQT. Filings should be posted in docket 25-174, said a Friday order by the FCC Wireline Bureau. Crown Castle sought agency clearance in May.
Wireless and aviation groups are working together to look at how the upper C band can be safely reallocated for full-power licensed use, officials from the Aerospace Industries Association, Airlines for America and CTIA told the FCC in a filing posted Friday. Questions about the implications for radio altimeters, which use adjacent spectrum, surfaced ahead of FCC approval of a notice of inquiry on the band (see 2502120046).
The Public Safety Spectrum Alliance (PSSA) and the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) urged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to throw out an appeal of last year’s FCC order giving the FirstNet Authority, and indirectly AT&T, control of the 4.9 GHz band through a nationwide license (see 2410220027). The Coalition for Emergency Response and Critical Infrastructure (CERCI), which leads the appeal, fired back, saying a challenge by PSSA also should be tossed.