Comcast confirmed Tuesday that FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has asked the Enforcement Bureau to launch a probe of its and subsidiary NBCUniversal’s diversity, equity and inclusion programs to determine if they violate equal employment opportunity laws. The move is Carr’s latest foray against U.S. broadcasters, including probes of CBS, NPR and PBS (see 2502050063 and 2501300065), since he became FCC chairman Jan. 20. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., railed against the FCC and other federal agencies Tuesday for collectively “waging a relentless war on online speech and independent journalism” in the weeks since President Donald Trump returned to office last month.
Expect big changes to BEAD, with the Donald Trump administration and congressional Republicans rewriting the rules and putting more emphasis on efficient use of funding, tech policy experts said Tuesday at the annual State of the Net conference. Consultant Mike O'Rielly, a former FCC commissioner, said NTIA isn't likely to process any state's final proposals in the near term as it awaits where the administration and Congress take BEAD. States must be flexible and ready to pivot once that new direction becomes clear, he added.
Changes in the office of FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington: David Brodian promoted to senior legal adviser and Sara Rahmjoo to legal adviser; policy adviser Michael Sweeney leaves ... Nokia names Justin Hotard, ex-Intel, president and CEO, effective April 1, replacing Pekka Lundmark … Afiniti selects Jerome Kapelus, ex-PWCC Marketplace, as CEO, replacing Hassan Afzal, remaining as strategic adviser … Joseph Cramer, ex-Boeing and former FCC adviser, joins Freedom Technologies as senior vice president-international, new position.
Sateliot wants the FCC to revisit its Space Bureau's January decision dismissing the company's U.S. market access petition. In an application for review filed Friday, Sateliot said the bureau's rejection of the application to offer IoT services in the 2 GHz mobile satellite service (MSS) band, due to unavailability of that spectrum (see 2501080037), runs contrary to the FCC's 2019 smallsat order. That order lets applicants seeking authority under the streamlined small satellite processing rules apply for MSS frequencies, it said. Sateliot argued that the bureau was wrong in saying there wasn't enough information in the record to determine if Sateliot's system would meet the spectrum-sharing requirements under the smallsat processing rules.
CBS’ editing of an interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris last November “looks like editorial judgment, not an instance of splicing footage to create a misleading response that never happened,” and the FCC probe into CBS isn’t justified by the previous administration’s action against Fox, the Wall Street Journal editorial board said in a column Sunday. News Corp. owns the WSJ and Fox. In a recent interview, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr pointed to the previous FCC’s proceeding on WTXF Philadelphia as setting the precedent for the agency’s current news distortion investigation against CBS (see 2502060059).
Sytel, which sells dialer and contact center products, urged FCC Chairman Brendan Carr to rethink the agency's Telephone Consumer Protection Act rules to focus on “dialing outcomes” rather than the dialing method used. “Current TCPA interpretations focus on the capability of dialing systems rather than their actual use,” said a filing Friday in docket 02-278. “This has led to complex enforcement challenges and continuing legal uncertainty. As the FCC appreciates, it has led to an interpretation of the TCPA that the only safe dialing process is a manual one, eschewing the benefits that proper automation can bring.” Neither manual nor hybrid dialing methods, with people “trying to emulate predictive dialers, can achieve anything like the performance of automated predictive dialers,” the U.K.-based company said. “The idea that humans can by themselves dial and profitably manage predictive campaigns of any size, without causing considerable levels of nuisance calls to consumers, is unfounded.”
The FCC Wireless Bureau is seeking comment by March 13 on an application by Hawks Ear Communications to serve as a contraband interdiction system (CIS) operator to help address contraband phones in correctional facilities. In a notice Monday in docket 13-111, the bureau noted a change to the usual protective order provisions being adopted for this proceeding. “Under this Protective Order, experts employed by wireless providers participating in the proceeding will be permitted to have access to Confidential Information,” while experts “employed by other commercial entities” won't.
T-Mobile disputed arguments by EchoStar, parent of Dish Wireless, that T-Mobile’s proposed buy of spectrum and other assets from UScellular is designed in part to keep other companies from adding to their 600 MHz holdings (see 2501290019). EchoStar is wrong that T-Mobile is pursuing “a foreclosure strategy” as part of the transaction, said a heavily redacted filing posted Monday in docket 24-286. The transaction would include T-Mobile gaining only a “put/call option” to use a small number of 600 MHz licenses, it said. “As EchoStar well knows, a put/call option is not a cognizable interest under well-established FCC precedent, nor a plausible foreclosure strategy given the very small amount of spectrum subject to the option.”
NCTA, major cable companies and other groups met with an aide to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr to oppose proposed changes to rules for the citizens broadband radio service band, including higher power levels and relaxed emission limits. The lobbying reflects arguments a larger group of associations and companies made last week in a letter to Carr (see 2502060050). Those changes would “fundamentally alter the longstanding nature of CBRS, result in massive harmful interference to existing deployments" and "undermine existing and planned investments," said a filing posted Monday in docket 17-258. The changes could also "damage the trust in federal/commercial collaboration and sharing that has led to successful protection of national security operations while enabling innovative and competitive commercial use, and immediately halt America’s global momentum in private wireless networks,” it said. Others represented at the meeting included Spectrum for the Future, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and the Wireless ISP Association.
The FCC Wireline Bureau on Monday approved vCom's application to sell its operations, including FCC licenses, to AppSmart. The bureau noted that it sought comment last month (see 2501100041), and none were filed. “Applicants claim that the public interest benefits associated with the transaction include providing Licensees with access to Transferee’s and its affiliates’ financial and operational expertise and their larger client base, and permitting Licensees to continue to provide robust communications solutions to their customers and to better compete in the U.S. communications marketplace,” said the notice in docket 24-657. “We find that grant of the Application will serve the public interest, convenience, and necessity.”