Members of the Interdepartment Radio Advisory Committee have reviewed and don’t object to a Liberty Defense request for three waivers of Part 15 rules so that the company can obtain FCC equipment authorization to upgrade full-body screening scanners at U.S. airports, NTIA told the FCC. The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology sought comment last year (see 2307200030). Upgraded equipment would allow the Transportation Security Administration to “enhance the legacy fleet of body scanners to operate at a higher performance level, resulting in improved airport security,” a filing posted Tuesday in docket 23-245 said.
The Coalition for Emergency Response and Critical Infrastructure (CERCI), the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials and the 4.9 GHz Coalition jointly urged that the FCC name a national band manager in the 4.9 GHz band. “It has been almost 18 months since the FCC adopted its decision to designate a nationwide Band Manager” and a freeze remains on new licenses in the public safety band, a filing posted Tuesday in docket 07-100 said. The groups noted they oppose FirstNet Authority “licensing, leasing, or other controlling use of this spectrum.” Instead, they favor a plan that would appoint the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials, AASHTO and other public safety frequency coordinators as the band managers. “The wholesale licensing or leasing of this band to FirstNet and, therefore, to AT&T for integration into its commercial, consumer-focused network (or an arrangement that accomplishes the same end under a thinly veiled ‘shared use’ nomenclature), would be antithetical to the FCC’s locally controlled public safety primacy commitment,” they said. Meanwhile, top officials from the Major Cities Chiefs Association and the National Sheriffs’ Association met with Commissioner Brendan Carr They warned Carr against giving FIrstNet control of the band. “We discussed how it is important for public safety to continue to have access to multiple service providers in the 4.9 GHz band and how giving the band to the FirstNet Authority would eliminate choices for public safety since the FirstNet Authority has an exclusive contract with a single network provider, AT&T,” the police groups said.
The FCC Wireless Bureau on Tuesday approved MatrixSpace's petition for waiver of the U.S. table of frequency allocations and the commission’s Part 87 rules for radars mounted on drones that could provide radionavigation or radiolocation in the 24.45-24.65 GHz band, for a period of five years. T-Mobile opposed and then withdrew its opposition to the proposal (see 2310260016). The waiver is subject to the outcome of an Echodyne petition seeking rules for the band, the order said. “This request would serve the underlying purpose of our ruling to establish permanent rules for secondary use of the 24.45-24.65 GHz band for radiolocation operations (see 1906130051), as we already permit use of the 24.45-24.65 GHz band” for uncrewed aircraft system (UAS) detection “as part of a ground-based air traffic control system, thus allowing use of the band for other UAS detection does not conflict with that purpose,” the bureau said: MatrixSpace says the radar “can be used for UAS detection in security systems, target tracking systems, and UAS or other drones” and “all opposition to this request has been withdrawn in light of the updated technical information MatrixSpace submitted in the record.” The bureau also extended for five years the waiver for Ecodyne, which uses the band for its EchoGuard offering. “Echodyne again emphasizes the public interest benefits that EchoGuard can support, including protection of infrastructure, stadiums, prisons, and the U.S. border,” a Tuesday order said.
The FCC unveiled an email address that state officials can use when requesting activation of the agency’s Mandatory Disaster Response Initiative for wireless providers. Released Tuesday, the information was contained in a public notice and a press release tying the agency's recent public safety moves to preparations for Atlantic hurricane season. “After each hurricane, we examine what worked, what didn’t work, and what lessons we can apply to improve access to communications during future disasters,” said Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel in the release. “That led us to adopt the new Mandatory Disaster Response Initiative, which requires wireless providers to collaborate during disasters so that people can stay connected when they most need it.” The MDRI requires wireless providers and public safety officials assist each other during disasters to prevent outages and facilitate service restoration. In Tuesday’s PN announcing procedures for state activation requests, the Public Safety Bureau said state officials must email the requests to activate the MDRI rules to: MDRI@fcc.gov. “In their requests, states will need to demonstrate that they have activated their State Emergency Operations Center, activated mutual aid, or proclaimed a local state of emergency.” The Public Safety Bureau “will announce grant of a state request to activate the MDRI by releasing a Public Notice stating the counties of interest for which the MDRI activation applies,” Tuesday’s PN said. Along with the MDRI procedures, the FCC’s release listed improvements to outage reporting and increased sharing of that information with state officials as among its preparations for the hurricane season. In addition, it added rules and proposed rules aimed at making emergency alerts multilingual.
The FCC Wireline Bureau updated the list it uses for determining rural health care program eligibility to reflect the 2020 census. On Tuesday, the bureau also granted a waiver for FY 2025 of its eligibility rules for existing providers. In an order in docket 02-60 it said that it will "allow health care providers whose status has changed from rural to urban to continue to participate in the RHC program as if they were rural." The "once-per-decade update to areas identified as rural creates special circumstances justifying our action to ease impacted health care providers’ transitions," the order said. It noted that many sites "play an important role in delivering health care and a sudden change in eligibility due to the loss of a health care provider’s rural status could have a serious effect on its ability to deliver needed health care services to patients in a given area."
Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr on Tuesday urged the FCC to address allowing jamming to fight contraband cellphones in correctional facilities. “In prisons and jails throughout the country, contraband cell phones are being used to plan and orchestrate violent attacks and other criminal activity, posing a real and substantial safety risk to correctional officers, visitors, inmates, and the public at large,” Carr said. Jamming is “the easiest way to protect the public” from the dangers of contraband cellphone use, Carr added. The wireless industry has embraced managed access systems as the most effective tool for curbing contraband cellphones in prisons (see 2109140049).
The FCC’s Oct. 25 declaratory ruling authorizing E-rate funding for Wi-Fi on school buses (see 2312200040) was simply the commission’s response to requests to add to the list of services eligible for support under the E-rate program, the FCC’s 5th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court appellee brief said Monday (docket 23-60641) in support of the ruling.
Increased lunar activity is revealing a host of unanswered spectrum and other regulatory questions, space law experts said Tuesday at an American Bar Association space law symposium in Washington. In addition, legal liability questions about space mishaps are another area with more uncertainty than definitive answers, speakers said.
Investors aren't concerned with much that regulators do, but some are closely watching the FCC's reimposition of Title II net neutrality rules, discrimination rules and the agency’s bulk-billing proposal, said former FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, now a partner at private-equity firm Searchlight Capital. Pai spoke during a Free State Foundation webcast posted Tuesday. Also joining the webcast was former Commissioner Mike O’Rielly, who served with Pai.
Sinclair Broadcast will sell anything in its portfolio -- at “the right price” -- so it can close the gap between its valuation and share price, CEO Chris Ripley told The Media Institute during a luncheon Tuesday. Ripley also predicted that generative AI eventually will create most media, and said asymmetric regulation and increased competition are broadcasting’s biggest obstacles. “Unfortunately, for our industry, we can't seem to get out from underneath some of these old regulations,” Ripley said. “There really isn't any reason for that to be, besides that's the way it always was.”