Alaska Telephone Co. notified the FCC that it plans to drop its wireline broadband internet access service (WBIAS) offerings, including consumer broadband-only loop service, effective July 1. “Upon discontinuance of the tariffed offerings, the Company will provide WBIAS on a permissive detariffed basis,” said a filing Friday in docket 02-33.
The House Budget Committee voted 21-16 Friday against advancing Republicans’ combined “One Big, Beautiful Bill” budget reconciliation measure, which includes Commerce Committee-cleared spectrum language (see 2505140062). House Commerce's measure would restore the FCC's lapsed auction authority through the end of FY 2034 and requires the commission to sell at least 600 MHz of reallocated airwaves within six years (see 2505120058). Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz of Texas and some other Republicans are eyeing alternative spectrum language (see 2505130059).
FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez said Friday at a policy forum that removing all minority-party commissioners would weaken the agency’s ability to defend its rules in court. “The Communications Act doesn't just require three commissioners for quorum,” she told the Competitive Enterprise Institute and Tech Freedom audience. “It requires that there will be one member of a minority party, and that, in and of itself, could weaken whatever defense that a future FCC may have if there is no such single minority party member.” The agency also wouldn’t be able to present evidence that it had considered dissenting opinions, making it harder for a one-party FCC to present itself as an expert agency, said Gomez and Tech Freedom President Berin Szoka.
Attorneys general from nine states on Friday opposed CTIA’s request for a rulemaking to update regulations implementing the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The proposal faces extensive opposition (see 2505010019), but CTIA said it found broad support for moving forward. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has promised to focus on streamlining regulation and cutting red tape (see 2503030040). Reply comments were posted Friday in RM-12003.
HERSHEY, Pennsylvania -- As the FCC eliminates regulations, it will likely employ the good-cause exception to notice-and-comment rulemaking to do so quickly, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said Friday.
The FCC on Friday announced commission approval of Verizon’s $20 billion acquisition of Frontier, in an action by the Wireline Bureau (see 2505160024). The approval came immediately after Verizon filed a letter at the FCC agreeing to get rid of diversity, equity and inclusion programs, a recurring focus of President Donald Trump. DEI defenders criticized the order. Industry officials told us one reason FCC Chairman Brendan Carr probably didn’t seek a commissioner vote was because of the DEI provisions and concerns about opposition from the two Democratic commissioners.
Charter Communications wants to purchase fellow MVPD Cox Communications for $34.5 billion, the companies said in a joint news release and conference call Friday.
The FCC lacks statutory authority to require that most broadcasters gather and report data about their employees' race, ethnicity and gender, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday, backing a petition from the National Religious Broadcasters, Texas Association of Broadcasters and American Family Association challenging the agency order. "While its authority to act in the public interest is broad, the FCC cannot invoke public interest to expand the scope of its authority to act in ways Congress has not authorized it to act," Judges Jennifer Walker Elrod, Edith Jones and Carl Stewart said in a 19-page decision (docket 24-18) written by Elrod. The judges said that since the agency lacked the authority, the court wouldn't decide on the petitioners' arguments that the agency was violating broadcasters' First and Fifth Amendment rights or that the FCC was acting in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.
NTCA promotes Jeff Nourse to general counsel … Telecom registry firm Somos taps Sanford Williams, formerly FCC, as deputy general counsel and vice president-strategic initiatives, and Heather Hendrickson, also ex-FCC, as senior director-number administration strategy.
SpaceX -- which has petitioned the FCC for greater access to the 2 GHz band (see 2402230027) -- is now seeking agency approval to use parts of the band in its second-generation satellites. In an FCC Space Bureau application posted Thursday, SpaceX said its previous request for 2 GHz access was rejected on the basis of EchoStar providing a 2 GHz mobile satellite service (MSS) in the U.S., yet EchoStar's plans "never happened." SpaceX said EchoStar is using at most 5% of the band clustered in a few densely populated areas. Moreover, it said, EchoStar management has told Wall Street it doesn't have plans to launch additional satellites in the near term. "Since EchoStar has no satellite operations in the 2 GHz band and no meaningful terrestrial network, the fundamental premise underlying the Commission’s expectation that it would dismiss new MSS applications no longer holds true," SpaceX said. "EchoStar has squatted on its spectrum rights for a decade with little to show for it."