Talkie Communications this week urged NTIA to reject Delaware's draft final BEAD proposal. In a letter Tuesday, the ISP raised concerns about the state's draft. For example, it includes 31 locations eligible for funding that overlap with existing FCC Rural Digital Opportunity Fund enforceable commitments, Talkie noted. As such, approving the proposal "wastes taxpayer resources." Talkie accused the Delaware Department of Technology and Information of "favor[ing] and cater[ing] to large businesses," saying the draft "effectively created insurmountable barriers for small businesses." DTI inappropriately proposes spending an "excessive" amount of its BEAD funding on non-deployment initiatives, Talkie added.
The aim of the FCC's one-to-one telemarketing consent rule is stopping abuse of the agency's prior written consent requirement, said an FCC fact sheet in Thursday's Daily Digest. The FCC adopted the rule 12 months ago (see 2312130019); it becomes effective Jan. 27. Lead-generated communications comprise a large portion of unwanted robocalls and robotexts, the commission said, and they "often rely on flimsy or nonexistent" consent claims. The FCC bars lead generators from using a single consumer-written consent for multiple unwanted telemarketing robocalls and robotexts from an array of sellers when a consumer visits comparison shopping websites, and the FCC said it made clear each caller or tester soliciting consumers must obtain express written consent from each consumer before making such robocalls or robotexts. Moreover, the FCC said the consent rule doesn't impact the practice of connecting a third-party agent to a prospective customer on a telemarketing call that isn't autodialed and doesn't include a prerecorded or artificial voice message. The one-to-one rule is the subject of a challenge at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, with judges hearing oral argument earlier this month (see 2412180008).
The FCC approved additional and modified environmental sensing capability sensor deployment and coverage plans for the citizens broadband service band for Federated Wireless in Hawaii, said a notice in Thursday’s Daily Digest. The sensors protect DOD installations from harmful interference. The FCC took the step “in close consultation” with NTIA and DOD, the notice said. The plans cover three dynamic protection areas in the state.
The FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau in separate orders this week conditionally certified Nagish and InnoCaption to receive compensation from the interstate telecommunications relay services fund for providing IP relay service. However, the companies must demonstrate that their service “meets or exceeds” the commission’s minimum TRS standards. The authorizations run through Dec. 23, 2026, “or the date of grant or denial of full certification, whichever occurs earlier,” the orders said. “Nagish proposes to provide IP Relay on a fully automatic basis, i.e., using text-to-speech technology to deliver the IP Relay users’ communications to hearing call participants and using automatic speech recognition (ASR) to deliver hearing parties’ communications to IP Relay users, without any reliance on communications assistants (CAs),” the bureau said: “Nagish states that it has contracts with various vendors to render speech into text using ASR and can incorporate new ASR vendors as needed.” InnoCaption “proposes to provide IP Relay using either ASR-only or human stenographers, at the IP Relay user’s option, to transcribe the other party’s communications for the IP Relay user,” said the second order. “InnoCaption additionally proposes to use a text-to-speech engine in lieu of a CA to relay the IP Relay user’s text communications to the hearing party.”
Meta's Edge Cable Holdings hopes to start commercial operation of its planned Orca subsea cable system linking Taiwan and California in Q1 2027, it told the FCC in an application posted Thursday. It said the fiber-optic submarine cable network would connect Toucheng, Taiwan, and Hermosa Beach and Manchester, California. Edge said it would use Orca capacity for Meta affiliates' services or to provide bulk capacity to wholesale and enterprise customers. Edge said Orca will provide facilities-based competition with the existing Faster, New Cross-Pacific, Pacific Light Cable and Trans-Pacific Express systems and the planned Taiwan-Philippines-U.S. cable system under construction. Edge said it hoped for an FCC cable landing license by the end of 2025, which would allow construction activities to keep on schedule.
Incompas and its members “generally support” Verizon’s proposed acquisition of Frontier, but with conditions, the group said in a reply comment posted Thursday in docket 24-445. Verizon and Frontier this week urged approval without conditions (see 2412240028). Incompas members are concerned about ensuring that business data services (BDS) the applicants offered “are provided to competitors at just, reasonable and not unreasonably discriminatory rates, terms, and conditions,” the filing said. Incompas also supports a request by the Coalition for IP Network Transition, which said the FCC should approve the deal only if the companies agree that they will “interconnect with all other carriers” on an IP basis (see 2412100021). Incompas is “unwilling to concede to the Applicants’ assertions that the transaction will not result in competitive harms, particularly with respect to the impact pricing decisions associated with business data services and more traditional time division multiplexing services, such as DS1s and DS3s, will have on competitive providers,” the filing said: “According to our members, Frontier currently charges significantly more for its high-capacity BDS connections, including DS1, DS3, and 10-mile circuits.” A competitive LEC, Teliax stressed the importance of an IP connection requirement. “Pre-merger, the Applicants have extended IP interconnection to some but not all interconnecting carriers,” Teliax said: “Should the FCC approve the proposed combination, the FCC should expect that the combined company will continue to use its newfound scale to delay the full transition to IP interconnection, thereby extending intercarrier compensation revenues tied to TDM networks.”
Free State Foundation President Randolph May said this week that Senate Commerce Committee member Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., was wrong to argue (see 2412120066) that the U.S. Supreme Court’s July overturning of the Chevron doctrine in Loper Bright v. Raimondo was detrimental because it removed consistency from the regulatory process. Klobuchar made the argument during a Broadband Breakfast event earlier this month. The lawmaker “is right that stability in the law is important for businesses so they can intelligently plan investments and judiciously execute other business decisions,” May said Tuesday in a Washington Times opinion piece. But she “and others who take the same line should know better, especially those … who are familiar with communications law and policy. They have witnessed firsthand how reliance on the Chevron doctrine has promoted instability in the legal regime governing broadband internet providers under the guise of ‘net neutrality.’ The back-and-forth ‘switcheroos’ between the imposition of heavy-handed public utility regulations and a light-touch regulatory regime is a prime example.” Each time there has been a Democratic majority over the past decade, the FCC “has adopted stringent utility regulations for broadband providers,” while “each time the Republicans regained control, the FCC reinstituted a deregulatory regime,” May said: That’s likely to happen again when President-elect Donald Trump returns to office Jan. 20.
The FCC “will take quick steps” to secure the additional funding that Congress authorized in the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law this week (see 2412240036), said a Thursday notice. The NDAA authorizes the commission to borrow as much as $3.08 billion from the Treasury Department to fully fund the program, said the notice from the Wireline Bureau and Office of Managing Director. While the commission secures funding, “recipients can and should continue their work to remove, replace, and dispose of covered communications equipment and services,” the agency said: “The Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act, as implemented through the Commission’s rules, requires recipients to remove, replace, and dispose of all Huawei and/or ZTE communications equipment and services that were in their networks as of the date of the submission of the application even if the recipient received a prorated allocation.”
Communications Daily is tracking the lawsuits below involving appeals of FCC actions.
For her final meeting, FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel appears poised to follow an approach closer to that of former Chairman Tom Wheeler at the end of the Obama administration than of Ajit Pai when the first Donald Trump presidency concluded. Rather than scheduled votes, the Jan. 15 open meeting will feature commission staff leading four presentations (see 2412230045).