EchoStar, RS Access and Go Long Wireless reached an agreement with the Navajo Nation that allows it to use as much as 100 MHz of the 12.2 GHz band for wireless if the FCC approves fixed wireless use of the spectrum. The agreement was filed Monday at the FCC in docket 20-443. The companies hold nearly 90% of multichannel video distribution and data service licenses nationwide “and they stand ready to extend the agreement provided herein on the same terms to any Tribal entity,” the filing said. “This approach would help close the longstanding digital divide for hard-to-reach Tribal lands, while simultaneously respecting tribal sovereignty and self-determination.” The agreement is "a direct spectrum assignment to participating Tribal entities, empowering them to deploy the spectrum as they see fit,” the companies said.
The Wireless Future Program at New America is calling on policymakers to take a harder look at rules for indoor-only use of spectrum bands, as the administration studies the future of the lower 3 and 7/8 GHz bands. Michael Calabrese, director of the program, said the group filed its report at the NTIA, at the agency's urging, as part of a multistakeholder review process last month and Monday released a public version. “The potential benefits of different rules for indoor-only use are becoming more evident,” the report said, noting the FCC’s 2020 decision to authorize low-power, indoor (LPI) use across the 6 GHz band. Incumbent licensees already are using the spectrum, including more than 50,000 high-power fixed microwave links, the report said: LPI use is limited “to roughly one-fourth the standard power of Wi-Fi, yet is considered extremely useful since the vast majority of internet data (including at least 80% of mobile device data traffic) is transmitted indoors and over Wi-Fi.” LPI in 6 GHz “highlights the potential to authorize indoor-only use in many other bands where users comply with power, device form factor, database coordination, or other technical requirements necessary to protect the primary licensees from harmful interference,” New America said. While LPI in 6 GHz is authorized under Part 15 of the commission’s rules, “LPI can be adopted as part of a licensed-by-rule framework or licensed exclusively to select categories of facilities (such as factories and schools),” the report said. It notes DOD concerns about sharing the lower 3 GHz band, which the military uses broadly. “Similarly, large portions of the 7 GHz band” are “currently used by sensitive military systems in the United States and in Europe (e.g., NATO operations in 7250–7750 MHz).” New America points to five frequency ranges that may be particularly suitable for LPI use: 3100–3450, 7125–7250, 7250–7750 and 2900–3100 MHZ, and 10–10.5 GHz. Of lower 3 GHz it says that “while a dynamic coordination system should enable DOD to share at least portions of the band for low-power use outdoors … a broader underlay authorization for LPI use should be considered as an option for this band.”
Attorneys general from 15 states asked the FCC to move forward on uniform handset unlocking rules, Massachusetts AG Andrea Joy Campbell (D) said Monday. “Inconsistent policies and arbitrary timelines across carriers have made purchasing a mobile phone and choosing a service provider all too confusing and expensive for consumers,” Campbell said. Proposed in a unanimously approved NPRM (see 2407180037), the rules' outlook could be in doubt given the pending change in administrations (see 2411150043). The rules “will benefit consumers by reducing handset costs, increasing competition between providers, and creating a clear and uniform timeline for unlocking devices so that consumers can pursue the services that best meet their needs,” the letter said. AGs from Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island also signed the letter.
The FCC’s extension for up to six years of its freeze on federal-state jurisdictional separations of telecom costs and revenue for rate-of-return incumbent local exchange carriers (see 2411130043) is now effective, said a notice in Monday’s Federal Register. The FCC referred to the Federal-State Joint Board on Jurisdictional Separations the issue of whether to permanently freeze the rules and whether carriers still using separations should be allowed to unfreeze their category relationship every few years.
The FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau approved conditional waivers for T-Mobile and Hamilton Relay on a rule requiring providers of text telephone-based telecom relay service to offer a service capable of communicating with devices using the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) format. In 2022, T-Mobile asked that the FCC initiate a rulemaking eliminating the ASCII reference because it's "an obsolete and infrequently used format,” said an order in Monday’s Daily Digest. Hamilton filed in support, the bureau said. “In these particular circumstances, we find that, given ASCII’s technological obsolescence, the absence of significant demand for it, and the presence of viable alternatives, there is good cause to grant T-Mobile and Hamilton waivers of the requirement to offer TTY-based relay service in ASCII format,” the bureau said.
The federal government defended the FCC’s decision denying petitions for declaratory ruling on the agency’s over-the-air reception device (OTARD) rules in response to Indian Peak Properties' challenge in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (see 2405060035). The FCC declined to step in following a dispute between the company and Rancho Palos Verdes, California (see 2410290011). “The Commission correctly construed the Rule to require a regular human presence at an antenna’s location,” the government said. “This requirement is evident from the Rule’s text and the Commission’s historic treatment of the Rule, and is consistent with Congress’s original purpose of protecting viewers’ access to video programming.” The pleading discussed the dispute's long history. After a city inspection revealed at least 11 antennas on the property in question, “plus other equipment on the roof, the City ordered Indian Peak to remove all but five antennas, and the parties began several years of discussions,” the pleading said, noting that in 2020, after suing the city, Indian Peak sought FCC review. The pleading said the commission’s determination “that Indian Peak failed to adequately allege that its antenna use fell within the Rule’s scope was supported by substantial evidence: Indian Peak repeatedly told the Commission that no one lived at the Property, emphasized the importance of remote access, and offered vague and inconsistent descriptions of how the Property was used.” From its origins protecting viewers’ access to satellite video at their homes, the OTARD rule “has always contemplated that a protected antenna serve a human end user at the antenna’s location,” the government said. “Indeed, if the Rule did not contain a human-presence requirement, it would necessarily extend to antennas on unoccupied buildings -- a result which nothing in the Rule’s history supports.”
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Anne Neuberger, deputy national security adviser-cyber and emerging technology, met with U.S. telecom executives Friday to discuss China’s “significant cyber espionage campaign targeting the sector,” the White House said. Senate Privacy Subcommittee Chairman Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., last week called for an FCC investigation of a Chinese hacking campaign, which in part allegedly targeted communications from Vice President-elect JD Vance and the presidential campaign for Vice President Kamala Harris (see 2411190073). “The meeting was an opportunity to hear from telecommunications sector executives on how the U.S. Government can partner with and support the private sector on hardening against sophisticated nation state attacks,” the White House said. Officials didn’t disclose what companies’ executives attended the meeting.
In an investors' note Monday, New Street’s Blair Levin discussed reasons why the U.S. Supreme Court may overturn the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' 9-7 en banc decision, which found the USF contribution factor is a "misbegotten tax.” Consumers' Research, a conservative group, challenged the contribution factor in the 5th Circuit and other courts.
Competition is a better guarantor of good customer service than FCC rules, multiple industry groups said as they pushed back against proposals floated in the FCC's customer service NOI. The NOI was adopted 3-2 in October along party lines (see 2410230036). In comments in docket 24-472, which were due Friday, some industry groups also argued that the agency lacks legal standing on customer service rules. "Careful consideration will confirm that the Commission lacks anything like the plenary authority" to adopt a single set of customer service rules, CTIA said. Disability advocacy organizations, meanwhile, made suggestions for customer service requirements.
The FCC has signed off on SpaceX providing commercial supplemental coverage from space services using its Starlink satellites. In an FCC Space Bureau order issued Tuesday, the bureau said the direct-to-smartphone service -- done in partnership with T-Mobile and using 1910-1915 MHz unlinks and 1990-1995 MHz downlinks on a secondary basis -- is likely to avoid causing harmful interference with in-band terrestrial operations. The bureau said it's in T-Mobile's "best interest to ensure that SpaceX will not cause harmful interference." It also said its own "rigorous analysis" of SpaceX plans indicate the satellite company can adjust its equivalent isotropically radiated power in a way that won't cause interference with Omnispace, which had raised interference concerns with the agency.