The Free State Foundation’s Seth Cooper said Wednesday that Verizon is correct and the FCC should ignore the Coalition for IP Transition's arguments urging conditions on Verizon’s buy of Frontier (see 2504010070). “The Coalition doesn't identify any specific harms arising from the merger,” Cooper blogged: “Under prevailing agency precedents (even if sometimes breached to achieve pro-regulatory ends), merger conditions may only be imposed to remedy transaction-specific harms.” May noted that “on its face,” the coalition’s filing “is addressed to matters pertaining to the entire voice services market.”
FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington expects an extension of the categories of equipment that can receive the cyber trust mark, a more empowered NTIA under the current administration, and an FCC “one-stop shop” for space company permitting, he said Wednesday at the Information Technology Industry Council’s Intersect 2025 summit. “I think the emphasis that you're going to see within the commission specifically is an emphasis on greatly streamlining the licensing procedure,” he said. The FCC is “internally working on” creating “some sort of a one-stop shop where we can consolidate the process of getting to space and creating an interface that's usable” for a wide variety of companies. He said it’s not clear if that one-stop shop would ultimately be part of the FCC, but the agency is taking on the job of “figuring it out.”
Communications Daily is tracking the lawsuits below involving appeals of FCC actions. New lawsuits are marked with a *.
Lawyers for the Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition and the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society said Wednesday that groups defending the USF had a good day last week, as the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in the Consumers' Research case (see 2503260061). They spoke during a SHLB webinar.
The FCC should use a still-open 2017 proceeding to eliminate the national ownership cap, NAB said in a letter to the agency Wednesday. The rule bars any single TV broadcaster from owning stations that, as a group, reach more than 39% of the total number of U.S. TV households. “This outmoded rule prevents broadcasters -- but not any other video service providers -- from competing for audiences and vital advertising revenues across the county,” NAB said.
With the FCC launching a notice of inquiry last week (see 2503270042) on alternatives to GPS for positioning, navigation and timing (PNT), several options will likely move forward, experts said during an FCBA webinar Wednesday. But the U.S. faces a significant risk of remaining too dependent on GPS, they warned.
Not taking full advantage of the various global navigation satellite system (GNSS) signals available harms the U.S. "at no cost to America's foreign adversaries," authors said in an Apple-funded white paper filed at the FCC Tuesday (docket 25-110). John Raquet, senior vice president at Integrated Solutions for Systems, and Terry Burruss, a former senior intelligence officer in the CIA's Directorate of Digital Innovation, said that for internet-assisted navigation and timing systems, having access to multiple GNSS signals carries little risk. Allowing access to multiple GNSS constellations also lets U.S. companies compete better, they said. Investing in GPS "is paramount," but adopting open access to GNSS signals "will allow the U.S. to continue to lead in GNSS-related technology, as it has since the inception of GPS."
Satellogic told the FCC Space Bureau on Monday that it was withdrawing its application seeking authorization for a planned 120-satellite X-band earth exploration service constellation (see 2403080002). The company didn't elaborate.
With Comcast and Yankees Entertainment and Sports Network having reached a carriage agreement Monday, YES is withdrawing its program carriage complaint against Comcast and its motion for a temporary injunction to head off a blackout (see 2503310020), the network said Tuesday (docket 12-1). Writing on X late Monday, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr applauded the carriage deal: "Going dark wouldn’t have been in anyone’s interest."
Teamsters General President Sean O'Brien met with FCC Chairman Brendan Carr to urge that the agency memorialize Skydance Media's pro-worker commitments in any approval of Skydance buying Paramount Global, said a filing Tuesday in docket 24-275. Barring that, the FCC should encourage the parties to agree on protecting workers post-transaction, the Teamsters said. The union said it hasn't heard from Skydance about union proposals such as "applying Paramount's current collective bargaining agreement to all New Paramount employees." Multiple unions have pressed the FCC to codify labor-related promises Skydance has made (see 2411010034).