Communications Daily is tracking the lawsuits below involving appeals of FCC actions.
California’s continuing interest in VoIP regulation is a concern, and the lack of FCC preemption of state VoIP oversight is proving to be a problem, speakers said Wednesday at a vCon conference about AI and telecom issues. Also at the event, Ecommerce Innovation Alliance (EIA) President David Carter said the e-commerce industry, faced with rocketing amounts of “shakedown litigation" about texts sent during quiet hours, is anxiously hoping that the FCC will act soon on the group's 9-month-old petition for a declaratory ruling (see 2503030036). An agency affirmation that prior consumer consent means those texts don’t violate the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) “should have been a no-brainer,” Carter said.
House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said Wednesday that he's demanding that CBS News Ombudsman Kenneth Weinstein investigate whether President Donald Trump improperly influenced and coerced the network’s editing of a 60 Minutes interview that aired in early November.
The House Commerce Committee advanced the American Broadband Deployment Act (HR-2289) Wednesday by a closer-than-expected 26-24 party-line vote, with unified Democratic opposition and a smattering of Republican absences at that point in the markup session. The panel also unanimously advanced the Broadband and Telecommunications Rail Act (HR-6046) and five other bipartisan connectivity bills, as expected (see 2512020063).
The FCC will be expanding its rule deletion efforts in 2026, tackling more items at open meetings and focusing on churning out orders stemming from the many NPRMs it issued in 2025, said Chairman Brendan Carr and bureau and 10th-floor staff at a Practising Law Institute event Wednesday. “I think you’re going to see even more results in getting to orders here in the second year” of his chairmanship, Carr said during a Q&A.
Comments are due Jan. 2, replies Feb. 2, on an FCC NPRM aimed at more intense use of spectrum in the 24, 28, upper 37, 39, 47 and 50 GHz bands, said a notice for Wednesday’s Federal Register. The item was approved by commissioners 3-0 in October (see 2510280024).
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr “acted responsibly in reminding broadcasters of their public interest obligations” when he urged stations to preempt Jimmy Kimmel Live! in September, said the Center for Renewing America in a paper filed in docket 22-459 and posted Tuesday.
AST SpaceMobile's supplemental coverage from space (SCS) partnership with Verizon and AT&T will use the 800 MHz cellular frequencies of those wireless carriers only within the carriers' cellular geographic service areas and adjacent unserved areas, according to Verizon. In a docket 25-201 filing posted Monday, Verizon said the SCS service wouldn't use another carrier's licensed spectrum, as the Competitive Carriers Association has argued (see 2511190020). AST's satellite system will protect in-band and adjacent licensees from harmful interference, and AST operations will be secondary to any nearby wireless operations, Verizon added.
NCTA opposed a waiver request from Brownsville, Texas, asking to operate a city network that uses the citizens broadband radio service band at +60 dBm effective isotropic radiated power, which is higher than the +47 dBm allowed by FCC rules (see 2511250015). The group is concerned that approving the waiver “would increase the risk of interference with other CBRS operations, undermining the carefully calibrated framework that is vital to the band’s success,” said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 17-258.
NTCA representatives discussed with the FCC its members' concerns about changes to the enhanced alternative Connect America cost model (E-ACAM) program, according to a filing Tuesday (docket 10-90) that recapped a meeting with aides to Chairman Brendan Carr. Adjustments should be made in a way “that reasonably reflects the costs associated with serving rural geographies and mitigates potentially substantial volatility in support, so that providers can fulfill the obligations of the program consistent with a reasonable ground-level understanding of the areas to be served at the time of program elections,” NTCA said.