Google's GU Holdings has received a green light from the FCC Office of International Affairs to build and operate a non-common carrier submarine cable system linking California and Guam to Taiwan and the Philippines, the agency said Friday. The cable system, TPU, will have a total capacity of about 260 Tbps, it said. GU -- which had previously received special temporary authority to construct and test the portions of the cable system in U.S. territory -- plans to begin offering commercial service on TPU in May.
Permitting difficulties and inaccurate Form 477 data have hampered SCI Broadband's efforts to meet its rural deployment opportunity fund buildout obligations, according to CEO Ron Savage. In a docket 10-90 filing posted Friday recapping a meeting with the FCC, Minnesota's SCI said it was bringing the issues to the agency's attention before potentially seeking a waiver from serving certain census blocks where it received RDOF funding.
Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Senate Homeland Security Committee member Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., are raising concerns about the FAA's proposed purchase of technology to communicate aviation weather information from SpaceX's Starlink, given CEO Elon Musk's influence within the Trump administration. The FAA is reportedly considering canceling a $2.4 billion contract with Verizon for that technology in favor of Starlink. Blumenthal pressed Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy Thursday night for “information and records” about the Starlink deal, which he said would potentially deliver “a windfall” to Musk.
The Fixed Wireless Communications Coalition (FWCC) questioned SpaceX's advocacy last summer that satellite earth stations should be included as part of the FCC's light-licensing framework for the 70/80 GHz band. Including earth stations “would promote rapid deployment of satellite backhaul networks to support high-speed, low-latency connectivity for American consumers in all parts of the country,” SpaceX said. The company concedes the need to protect fixed service use of the band, but its proposals “remain insufficient,” FWCC said in a filing posted Friday in docket 20-133. “FWCC supports well-managed spectrum sharing as a solution to spectrum scarcity,” the filing said: “However, the rules adopted in shared bands must fully protect all licensees in the band and should maximize licensed access to the band, especially where a new service has the potential to foreclose access to significant portions of the band.”
TV broadcast executives during Q4 earnings calls last week were bullish on merger and acquisition opportunities under the new White House and FCC leadership, but several also mentioned “softness” in some advertising categories, possibly connected to tariffs. Concern with tariffs is “putting a natural chilling effect upon advertising in the automobile sector” but should eventually “settle out,” said Gray Media co-CEO Hilton Howell.
A group of more than 50 unions, public interest and consumer groups released a statement last week opposing White House control of independent agencies like the FCC. Meanwhile, major telecom and media trade associations and companies have been mostly quiet concerning the Donald Trump administration's actions to assert control of independent agencies and its dismissal of Democrats serving on federal commissions.
Michael Powell to retire this year as NCTA president and CEO ... FCC promotes Zenji Nakazawa to acting chief, Public Safety Bureau, replacing Deb Jordan, retiring ... Comcast names Hensey Fenton, ex-Covington & Burling, deputy general counsel-privacy and digital governance … Changes at NASA: Vanessa Wyche promoted to acting associate administrator, replacing Jim Free, retired; Stephen Koerner advanced to acting director-Johnson Space Center, replacing Wyche; Jackie Jester, ex-Relativity Space, appointed associate administrator-office of legislative and intergovernmental affairs.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Thursday rejected Hikvision’s request that the court order the FCC to begin processing the Chinese company’s authorization requests for gear it wants to sell in the U.S. (see 2502240045). The FCC had asked the court not to take that step (see 2502110040). Hikvision said many of the products it sells can’t be connected to the internet. The court issued a brief order saying the motion was denied. Hikvision and Dahua won a partial victory last year (see 2404020068) when the D.C. Circuit found that the FCC’s definition of critical infrastructure in a 2022 order was “overly broad.”
The FCC’s World Radiocommunication Conference Advisory Committee will meet in person April 15 at 11 a.m. in the Commission Meeting Room, the agency said Thursday. This will be the first meeting of the committee during Donald Trump's second presidency. The meeting will be livestreamed.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr told reporters Thursday that he will look “very closely” at the state of play on legacy copper in carrier networks. “We have a regime in place where we are requiring carriers to invest billions and billions of dollars into aging, legacy copper networks,” sometimes in parallel with building a modern network, Carr said. “We need to find a way to create the incentives so that we can transition people to next-generation services and incentivize investment in new infrastructure.”