NTCA representatives spoke with an aide to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr about small providers' need for greater clarity as they move away from time-division multiplexing-based interconnection. They discussed how to “facilitate and expedite the voluntary migration of small rural providers from legacy voice services to cloud-based and hosted VoIP services,” said a filing posted Thursday in docket 17-97.
Comments are due Sept. 22, replies Oct. 21, on the questions raised in the pole attachments NPRM adopted by the FCC at its July meeting (see 2507280053), said a notice for Friday's Federal Register. The docket is 17-84. Among the questions asked in the NRPM is whether Section 224 of the Communications Act, which governs pole attachments, also covers light poles.
Portions of the FCC's Part 76 rules, which govern multichannel video and cable TV service, are off the books, as the agency said Thursday that its Media Bureau had axed 43 of those requirements under its "Delete" initiative. The order pointed to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' 2013 Time Warner Cable decision, which vacated the temporary standstill rule for program carriage complaint proceedings, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit's 2013 EchoStar decision, which set aside a pair of 2003 orders adopting encoding rules. In both cases, the agency said, the rules have no legal effect but remain in the Code of Federal Regulations, and doing away with them effectuates the courts' decisions.
Shifting federal priorities away from fiber toward newer technologies like low earth orbit (LEO) satellites is creating uncertainty for states' broadband plans and funding, experts and local officials warned Thursday at the National Association of Telecom Officers and Advisors' (NATOA) annual conference (see 2508200037). Panelists said the move has rattled the industry, left local governments scrambling for resources, and raised questions about how states will balance cost, access and long-term reliability without the possibility of new federal support.
Political scrutiny of Skydance Media's purchase of Paramount Global is growing, with the ranking members of the House Commerce and Judiciary committees demanding Thursday to see internal company communications, as well as those between the FCC and the companies.
Countries around the world are approaching the move to 6G from different perspectives and often with differing focuses, said a recently posted report by the FCC’s Technological Advisory Council. The TAC approved the 6G report and two others from its working groups earlier this month but didn’t make them available at the time (see 2508050062).
China's State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) disputed proposals in the FCC’s “bad labs” Further NPRM in a filing posted Wednesday in docket 24-136 (see 2508190051).
GCI counsel spoke with an aide to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr to explain the provider’s request for clarification on the agency’s Alaska Connect Fund order (see 2501310053) during what the company described as a follow-up meeting. GCI urged the commission “to adopt these requested adjustments to ensure continued improvement and expanded mobile coverage in Alaska’s rural communities,” said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 23-328.
The FCC should minimize foreign ownership reporting burdens on regulatees without reportable foreign ownership, said USTelecom in a reply comment filing posted Wednesday in docket 25-166. “To the extent the Commission can streamline the certification process for entities with multiple licenses, such as allowing bulk submissions, it should do so.”
Communications Daily is tracking the lawsuits below involving appeals of FCC actions.