Consumers’ Research and its allies objected Friday to the proposed USF contribution factor for Q4, citing unanswered questions from the group’s unsuccessful challenge in the U.S. Supreme Court in late June. The factor is projected to increase from 36% in Q3 to 39.3% in Q4, based on the latest projections from the Universal Service Administrative Co. (see 2508040049).
Items on emergency alerting, business data services (BDS) and satellite licensing saw some changes of note before they were approved by FCC commissioners last week. The items were posted in Monday’s Daily Digest. The next FCC meeting won't be until Sept. 30.
The current administration's position on race- and gender-based governmental affirmative action obligations makes it unlikely that there will be future filings of the biennial ownership reports from broadcasters, Wilkinson Barker broadcast lawyer David Oxenford wrote Friday. The reports were instituted in large part to obtain race and gender information about broadcast ownership, as the data could potentially be used for FCC affirmative action considerations, Oxenford noted. In late July, the Media Bureau waived the requirement to file those reports for 18 months; they were to be due Dec. 1 (see 2507300070). Oxenford said the FCC's "Delete" proceeding has teed up a variety of other routine required filings from broadcasters that could be axed, such as the annual children's TV reports and the annual equal employment opportunity public inspection file reports.
Alleged pirate radio operators in two New England states face a total of $45,000 in proposed FCC fines, the Enforcement Bureau said in notices of apparent liability in Friday's Daily Digest. The agency proposed a $25,000 fine against Noah Opoku Gyamfi of Worcester, Massachusetts, and a $20,000 fine against Amoce Pamphile, Alemy Mondestin and Radio Evangelique de la Grace of Providence.
Members of the Ad Hoc Broadband for Rural Health Group complained to the FCC about their difficulty understanding the rules for the rural health care program’s Healthcare Connect Fund (HCF). They met with aides to Commissioners Anna Gomez and Olivia Trusty and agency staff, said a filing Friday in docket 25-133.
The Rural Wireless Association, Communications Workers of America and public interest groups asked the FCC to consider AT&T’s proposed purchase of spectrum from UScellular in the context of the T-Mobile/UScellular deal. In addition, the groups said it would be “unlawful” for the AT&T transaction to be approved on delegated authority, as the T-Mobile deal was (see 2507310041). New America’s Open Technology Institute and the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society also signed the filing, posted Friday in docket 25-192.
The Ecommerce Innovation Alliance reported on meetings at the FCC about the group’s pursuit of a declaratory ruling that people who provide prior express written consent to receive text messages can't claim damages under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act for messages received outside the hours of 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. (see 2503030036). The group is being represented on the issue by former FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly, who met with Commissioner Olivia Trusty and aides to Trusty and Chairman Brendan Carr, according to a filing Friday in docket 02-278.
The FCC Office of International Affairs has approved licenses for Google's Starfish to construct and operate a pair of Pacific submarine cable systems. Its Proa cable system will connect Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands to Japan, the agency said in a public notice Friday, while the Taihei cable system will link Hawaii and Japan.
House Commerce Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., on Friday praised the FCC's adoption Thursday of its undersea cable order and accompanying Further NPRM (see 2508070037). The order aimed to simplify the approval process and address national security risks. “Subsea cables underpin the overwhelming majority of international internet traffic, and [the FCC's] unanimous decision protects that critical infrastructure from interference by our foreign adversaries,” Guthrie said. “Continued investment and streamlining our approval processes for submarine cable infrastructure will enhance the resiliency of these critical networks and enable the [U.S.] to expand our global technological dominance.” The U.S. “must defend against our adversaries, such as China, who seek to access and tamper with American networks.”
The FCC should be applauded for using the direct final rule (DFR) as a tool to quickly do away with archaic rules on its books, Free State Foundation President Randolph May wrote Friday. The idea of agencies using the DFR that way has been around for decades, and now the FCC is embracing the approach, May said. Under the DFR process, there's still an opportunity for public comment, he noted, and adjustments can be made to ensure that serious, substantive objections are properly considered. A split FCC in July adopted an order clarifying that its bureaus have authority to delete rules under the DFR process without commission votes (see 2507240055).