Advocates for incarcerated people, corrections trade groups and prison-calling companies disagree about the FCC’s draft order on incarcerated people’s communications services (IPCS), according to filings last week in docket 23-62. Thirty-five House Democrats panned the item in a letter (see 2510220049) and advocacy group FWD.us said the proposed rule would increase rate caps by up to 83%, “is based on misleading information, and unfairly shifts facility costs onto the families of incarcerated people.” Securus, meanwhile, said the rule revisions in the draft “make considerable progress towards placing IPCS on a sustainable path, both economically and legally, a critical outcome to all stakeholders.”
The FCC is expected to hold its open meeting Tuesday as scheduled, despite the government shutdown, said Chairman Brendan Carr and other agency officials in interviews. “The plan is to move forward with an in-person October open meeting as scheduled,” an FCC spokesperson told us.
The Consumer Technology Association's ex parte meeting with the FCC to discuss ATSC 3.0 took place Monday (see 2510220047)
In two recent interviews, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr suggested that the agency could auction the spectrum of broadcasters that don’t wish to comply with its public interest standard. “Maybe some of these broadcast TV stations that have the public interest obligation and don't want to comply with it anymore, we can effectively auction that spectrum if they want to purchase it without the public interest discount,” Carr said in an interview Tuesday on the Salem News Channel’s The Hugh Hewitt Show. “Maybe that's an idea that we should do, is reauction those broadcast airways.”
The FCC should rescind the post-Salt Typhoon cyberattack declaratory ruling it made in January, which requires carriers to secure their networks against unlawful access and interception, said CTIA, NCTA and USTelecom in an ex parte filing posted Thursday. The trade groups filed a petition for reconsideration of the ruling in February (see 2502190081).
It's concerning that the FCC's further NPRM on broadband labeling, which is on the agency's October meeting agenda, doesn't address concerns about whether providers are complying with the rule or ask how the label can be improved, tech policy groups told Commissioner Oliva Trusty's office. In a docket 22-2 ex parte filing Thursday, they criticized the draft FNPRM for focusing solely on weakening requirements.
Comcast, Google and T-Mobile are among at least 10 tech and telecom companies that the White House said Thursday have donated to President Donald Trump’s proposed 90,000-square-foot ballroom. Trump on Wednesday estimated the ballroom’s construction will cost $300 million, up from the administration’s initial projection of $200 million. Other donating companies include Amazon, Apple, HP, Facebook parent Meta, Microsoft, Micron and Palantir. The family of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is also a donor, the White House said.
The suspension of most FCC functions as part of the broader government shutdown (see 2509300060) is already generating “a fair number of negative consequences” for the agency, and the gridlock will worsen the longer the closing lasts, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said Thursday during a USTelecom event. Meanwhile, Senate Communications Subcommittee Chair Deb Fischer, R-Neb., and Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., raised continued concerns about how NTIA’s June 6 policy restructuring notice for its $42.5 billion BEAD program (see 2506060052) is affecting their respective states’ plans for their allocation of the connectivity money.
The Consumer Technology Association “remains concerned” about NAB’s proposal for an ATSC 3.0 tuner mandate, the trade group said in a meeting Monday with aides to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr and Media Bureau staff, according to an ex parte filing in docket 16-142. The group praised the FCC’s draft ATSC 3.0 further NPRM for asking questions about consumer costs and technical feasibility of the 3.0 transition.
The supplemental coverage from space service that SpaceX plans to offer using AWS-H block spectrum rights, which it intends to buy from EchoStar, wouldn't include Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, according to the satellite operators. In a docket 25-302 filing posted Wednesday, the companies said that's because the AWS-H block license for those territories was sold to Liberty Latin America in 2024. The filing recapped a meeting that SpaceX and EchoStar representatives had with staffers from the FCC Wireless and Space bureaus and the Office of General Counsel.