Facing $2 billion in debt coming due in November and likely short of the cash on hand it will need to operate in Q4, EchoStar plans to use spectrum assets to raise the funding it needs, CEO Hamid Akhavan said Friday as the company announced Q2 earnings. EchoStar has more spectrum than it needs for its wireless plans, Akhavan said. But the company doesn't intend to dispose or relinquish ownership of spectrum holdings, he said. Instead, it's considering financing options that don't require selling.
The FCC’s NPRM on AI and robocalls that commissioners approved Wednesday saw numerous changes from its draft version, beyond the addition of a notice of inquiry (see 2408070037). Incompas and the Cloud Communications Alliance asked the FCC to move parts to a NOI, citing the lack of specific proposals (see 2408050029). “The item itself is seemingly more of an investigation into the state of AI technologies rather than a series of specific proposals,” they said.
Backers of resurrecting the FCC’s affordable connectivity program are tempering their expectations about how much a pair of July developments may increase Congress’ appetite for injecting stopgap funding into the lapsed initiative this year. The Senate Commerce Committee approved a surprise amendment July 31 to the Proper Leadership to Align Networks for Broadband Act (S-2238) that would allocate $7 billion to ACP for FY 2024 (see 2407310048). Former President Donald Trump earlier that month selected Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, a Republican who backed ACP funding in the face of opposition from party leaders, as his running mate (see 2407150062).
The FCC Media Bureau approved a waiver from Warner Bros. Discovery for TBS and TNT on the agency's audio description rules (see 2406210030). In a docket 11-43 order Thursday, the bureau said WBD has committed to an amount of audio description on the channels and on TruTV that exceeds the current quarterly requirement. It also said the unopposed petition saw support from advocates for blind and visually impaired consumers.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision eliminating Chevron deference shouldn’t affect the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' approach to Gray Television’s appeal of an FCC $518,000 forfeiture order, the agency said in a supplemental brief Wednesday. The 11th Circuit requested supplemental briefs from the FCC and Gray after SCOTUS’ Loper Bright v. Raimondo decision (see 2407110058). The agency applied the best reading of its rule against affiliate swaps and so doesn’t require special deference for the court to rule in its favor, the FCC said. Gray’s argument that its purchase of a station affiliation in Anchorage didn't “result” in a top-four duopoly because Gray already owned such a duopoly “is not the best or most natural reading” of the text of the FCC’s rules, the agency said. The court should also favor the FCC’s interpretation of its own rules under another SCOTUS precedent that wasn’t affected by Loper Bright, Kisor v. Wilkie, the FCC said. Kisor requires that the court consider a regulation as if there were no agency interpretation, but if ambiguity remains, it allows the court to conclude that the agency interpretation may be appropriate. Gray has argued that the Loper Bright decision invalidated Kisor precedent. “This Court is not the proper forum to revisit binding Supreme Court precedent,” the FCC said. The 11th Circuit shouldn’t consider Gray’s arguments that the FCC doesn’t have statutory authority over the sale of a station’s affiliation because Gray didn’t raise the argument earlier in the case and because it's outside the scope of the supplemental brief the court requested, the agency said. Gray “improperly expanded the scope of the supplemental briefing, and the court may not reach arguments on which the FCC had no ‘opportunity to pass’ in the administrative proceedings,” the FCC said.
OMB approved for three years collection of information associated with the FCC's revised rules for numbering authorization applications, a notice in Thursday's Federal Register said. Commissioners approved the modified rules in September for interconnected VoIP providers seeking direct numbering access (see 2309210055).
Rather than wait for congressional action on georouting of 988 calls, the FCC and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration should "take immediate, decisive action," mental health organizations said in a docket 18-336 filing Thursday. The advocates said that while the agencies have encouraged wireless carriers and industry associations to identify a 988 georouting solution, "it is simply not enough -- especially when we know there are existing solutions at the ready today." Signers of the letter include the American Psychiatric Association, National Alliance on Mental Illness, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and American Mental Health Counselors Association. The FCC 5-0 adopted a 988 georouting NPRM in April (see 2404250054).
New York state will halt enforcing its affordable broadband law while the U.S. Supreme Court considers a petition from ISP groups for a writ of certiorari, the industry groups wrote to the court Thursday. CTIA, NTCA, USTelecom, ACA Connects, the Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Association and the New York State Telecommunications Association said they plan to file that petition Monday in case 24A138. Last week, the ISP groups filed an application for emergency stay of the state law at SCOTUS. In Thursday’s letter, the groups said they no longer need a ruling on that application by Aug. 15, but they can’t withdraw the request entirely because New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) hasn’t agreed to stay enforcement if the court grants cert, “absent a ruling from the Court compelling it not to enforce that law.” ISPs waited for the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to stay the FCC’s order reclassifying broadband as Title II before appealing the 2nd Circuit’s ruling that upheld New York’s law based on a Title I regime (see 2408010065 and 2406170042). The 2nd Circuit ruled in April that federal law doesn’t preempt the 2021 New York law requiring $15 monthly plans with 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload speeds for qualifying low-income households (see 2404260051). In the Aug. 2 application for stay, the ISP groups said their forthcoming cert petition “will seek review of a divided panel decision that presents fundamental questions about whether the Communications Act of 1934 preempts States from regulating rates for broadband internet access service and other interstate information services.”
Representatives of Public Knowledge and New America’s Open Technology Institute met with FCC Wireless and Public Safety bureau staff on the groups' concerns about giving FirstNet, and AT&T, control of the 4.9 GHz band (see 2407230045). The groups pointed to AT&T’s February wireless outage, the topic of a recent FCC report (see 2407220034). “The network configuration error that shut down the AT&T Network simultaneously shut down access by first responders to FirstNet because FirstNet operates on the same AT&T network and relies on the same device certifications as all other devices connecting to the AT&T mobility network,” a filing posted Thursday in docket 07-100 said. There should be “no doubt that giving FirstNet an overlay license to the 4.9 GHz spectrum means that the 4.9 GHz band will be fully integrated into AT&T’s network, primarily for use by AT&T,” the groups said. The Lincoln, Nebraska, Fire & Rescue Department, meanwhile, said the band should be given to FirstNet. Giving FirstNet control “will enable the deployment of next-generation technologies such as 5G, AI, and IoT, which are crucial for effective emergency response,” the department said.
Test solutions company Keysight Technologies spoke with FCC Public Safety Bureau staff about the company’s perspective on the agency’s cyber trust mark program (see 2403140034), including ways to make the program “more successful,” a filing posted Thursday in docket 23-239 said. Among the topics discussed were “the role of security test automation to the program,” the importance of “standardized data interchange” and “keeping the cost of the program reasonable," Keysight said.