Meeting the goals of the budget reconciliation package to make 800 MHz of spectrum available for auction (see 2507070045) won’t be easy, especially with 3.1-3.45 and 7.4-8.4 GHz exempted from potential reallocation, warned Joe Kane, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation's director of broadband and spectrum policy. Kane spoke with former FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly in a new webcast, part of a series for the Free State Foundation.
An FCC order on FY 2025 regulatory fees is expected to be unanimously approved soon and will likely contain few surprises, according to industry and FCC officials (see 2506050061). The draft order, circulated to the 10th floor last week, changes how fees are assessed in line with proposals in the June NPRM, but it doesn’t take up calls from broadcasters and satellite companies to expand the base of regulatory fee payors. FCC officials told us they anticipate that the order will be issued in time to allow fees to be paid by the deadline at the end of September.
Any changes to the non-geostationary/geostationary orbit satellite spectrum-sharing regime should protect incumbent services, numerous terrestrial and satellite incumbents told the FCC in docket 25-157 this week. Commissioners in April adopted an NPRM looking at changing the satellite spectrum-sharing regime in the 10.7-12.7, 17.3-18.6 and 19.7-20.2 GHz bands (see 2504280038). It sprung from a 2024 SpaceX petition urging changes to the NGSO/GSO sharing methodology for NGSO fixed satellite service downlinks (see 2408120018).
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr is pressuring YouTube parent Google in a looming carriage dispute with Fox Corp. "Get a deal done Google!" Carr wrote Tuesday on social media. "Google removing Fox channels from YouTube TV would be a terrible outcome. Millions of Americans are relying on YouTube to resolve this dispute so they can keep watching the news and sports they want -- including this week’s Big Game: Texas @ Ohio State."
The cable industry is urging the FCC to adopt shot clocks for review of rights-of-way permits and to bar moratoriums on right-of-way access. In a meeting with FCC Wireline Bureau staff, NCTA, Comcast, Charter Communications and Cox Enterprises representatives also pushed for a prohibition on onerous requirements or conditions to receive right-of-way permits, said a filing posted Wednesday in docket 17-84.
The FCC Media Bureau is restoring language in the agency’s ATSC 3.0 rules that it said was inadvertently deleted in 2023, according to an order in Wednesday’s Daily Digest. The language in question involved the requirements to show public interest for non-expedited applications to deploy ATSC 3.0, the order said. The provisions were accidentally removed from the Code of Federal Regulations when the FCC modified the 3.0 rules for multicast streams in 2023, it said. The FCC at the time “never stated or implied” that it “intended to rescind these subsections.” The bureau said it's restoring the rules without seeking comment, effective immediately, because fixing the error falls under the “good cause” exemption to the Administrative Procedure Act.
The FCC Wireline Bureau notified the Universal Service Administrative Co. on Wednesday that it has approved USAC’s FCC Form 471 program integrity assurance review procedures. The procedures are part of the schools and libraries cybersecurity pilot. The approval is subject to further modification and instruction from the bureau, said the notice in docket 23-234.
The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology sought comment Wednesday on a waiver request by Securaplane Technologies for a range-controlled radar system that operates in 5.8 GHz spectrum but could “radiate non-spurious emissions into the 5.35-5.46 GHz restricted frequency band.” Comments are due Sept. 26, replies Oct. 14, in docket 25-260. The system provides intrusion detection sensors installed in aircraft wheel wells “to detect movement within two to eight feet of the device,” OET said. It’s “part of a security system typically armed moments before the aircraft is parked and vacated and is automatically disabled when airborne.”
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr is pushing back against a probe by Senate Homeland Security Investigations Subcommittee ranking member Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., of the federal government’s review of Skydance's $8 billion purchase of Paramount Global (see 2507290066). Other congressional Democrats have also made corruption claims about the FCC’s July approval of the deal, in part citing Paramount’s settlement of President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against CBS over its editing of an October 2024 interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris (see 2507250029).
Gavin Wax, a former FCC 10th-floor aide who was at one time rumored to be in the running for a commissioner seat, has moved on to the State Department, he posted on LinkedIn Monday. Wax is starting a new position as chief of staff to acting Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Darren Beattie.