The Trump administration will focus on First Amendment rights, and its agenda could include a review of the tech industry’s role in weakening those rights, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr wrote in letters to Facebook, Google, Apple and Microsoft last week. Carr requested information that could “inform the FCC’s work to promote free speech and a diversity of viewpoints.” He noted the FCC’s role in administering the Communications Act, which includes the tech industry’s liability shield, Section 230. The statute grants tech companies benefits when it operates in “good faith,” said Carr. He’s seeking information about the industry’s relationship with NewsGuard, a tool that ranks news and information on social media sites. Carr requested the companies identify their ad and marketing partners. The companies didn’t comment Friday.
The FCC Wireless Bureau on Friday approved a waiver of quarterly tower inspection rules for Cooperative Energy (CE) after the co-op system installed self-diagnostic technology. “Our action today should encourage other tower owners to invest in state-of-the-art technologies so that they, too, will become capable of continuous monitoring of both their lighting systems and control devices,” the order said. The bureau noted that CE serves 11 co-ops in Mississippi and has 85 towers subject to inspection requirements. CE uses the FCC-approved Vanguard Monitoring System and its network operations centers to receive alarms from that system, the bureau said.
NTIA told the FCC that utilization of the citizens broadband radio service band is up sharply and the three-tier shared band has been a success. “With CBRS, the Commission established a ground-breaking spectrum-sharing paradigm that has enabled commercial access to mid-band spectrum and has evolved to demonstrate the success of a collaborative partnership among stakeholders in the public and private sectors,” said a filing posted Friday in docket 17-258. CBRS deployments increased 270,621 from April 1, 2021, to July 1 this year, the filing said. Rural CBRS devices (CBSDs) “more than doubled, with an increase of 166,650 (160.6%)" and "67.5% of all CBSDs were in rural census blocks,” NTIA said. It found that 82.7% of all U.S. counties used at least one CBRS channel and 41% used all 15 as of July 1.
Tech companies' recent filing (see 2411070023) countering a broadcaster study on interference to electronic news-gathering (ENG) operations from very-low-power (VLP) devices in parts of the 6 GHz band doesn’t oppose an ENG “safe harbor,” NAB noted in a filing at the FCC. Broadcasters have asked that the agency “temporarily reserve a small fraction of the 6 GHz band -- the 55 MHz band at the top of the U-NII-8 sub-band … as a ‘safety valve’ in the event of interference,” said a filing Thursday in docket 18-295. “The claim that the ‘vast majority of VLP devices will not operate in locations where they could cause harmful interference’ is specious,” NAB added: “The whole point of the VLP service is that the devices can be used anywhere and need not be under the control of an access point.”
The FCC Wireless and Public Safety bureaus on Friday updated the 4.9 GHz band licensing freeze, consistent with an order commissioners approved last month (see 2410220027). The changes take effect immediately, the bureaus said. They added to the list of affected applications “applications filed by incumbent 4.9 GHz licensees to modify existing licenses in the 4.9 GHz band, whether for permanent fixed sites or geographic areas” and “applications filed by incumbent 4.9 GHz licensees for new permanent fixed site operations located within their licensed service areas.” A critic of the order noted last week that the FCC expanded the freeze in a way that was likely not well understood by public safety agencies when it was handed down (see 2411130027). The bureaus said the FCC would continue accepting some applications, including to renew existing licenses without modification or seeking to modify existing licenses by deleting frequencies or fixed sites.
As its cable landing license application is processed, Trans Americas Fiber (TAF) in the meantime is asking the FCC for special temporary authority to build and test portions of the TAM-1 submarine cable system in U.S. territory. In an application posted Friday, TAF said that without such authority, "connectivity on the TAM-1 system would likely be delayed at significant cost" to it. The 7,010-kilometer TAM-1 would connect Florida, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and Panama.
Industry groups widely opposed an FCC notice of inquiry seeking comment about the impact of broadband data caps on consumers and potential regulatory steps the agency could take. In comments posted Friday in docket 23-199 (see 2410150069), many warned the proceeding was a step toward rate regulation and potential consumer harm should the FCC limit the use of data caps. Some public interest groups urged the commission to proceed, however.
The Biden administration is making progress on each of the five bands it's studying as part of the national spectrum strategy (see 2311130048), Shiva Goel, NTIA senior adviser-spectrum policy, said during a Center for Strategic and International Studies webinar late Thursday. Other speakers said the government must make available more high-powered licensed spectrum to ensure the nation doesn’t fall behind China and other competitors.
CTA is optimistic it can work with the new Trump administration on tech issues, two of the group's top policy officials told us. The outlook on spectrum policy and other issues isn’t completely clear, they added.
The incoming Republican administration and Congress will likely work at rolling back many of the current FCC’s policies through a combination of agency action, court decisions and the Congressional Review Act (CRA), attorneys and analysts told us in interviews. The CRA's threat also will likely limit the current FCC's agenda, they said. “The CRA is kind of looming over anything the FCC wants to try to do before the administration switches over,” said Jeffrey Westling, American Action Forum director-technology and innovation.