FCC commissioners appear likely to approve, with few changes, a draft order that would expand parts of the 6 GHz band where new very-low-power (VLP) devices are permitted to operate without coordination. One wrinkle, industry officials said, is that Commissioner Nathan Simington appears sympathetic to concerns NAB raised earlier. Commissioners are scheduled to vote on the order at their open meeting Wednesday.
Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and some other congressional leaders are objecting to a compromise version of the FY 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (HR-5009) released Saturday night with language allocating $3.08 billion to fully fund the FCC’s Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program (see 2412070001). The leaders’ concerns complicate plans for HR-5009's passage. House leaders are eyeing a vote on the measure this week. Meanwhile, some lawmakers want to attach the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act (HR-8449) and permanently lift some telehealth restrictions via other end-of-year measures.
The Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA), which has complained to the FCC about SpaceX's alleged conduct in the Russia-Ukraine War, is now raising concerns about the company's environmental impact and CEO Elon Musk's role in President-elect Donald Trump's incoming administration. In a petition to deny last week filed with the FCC Space Bureau, UCCA said the agency has a legal responsibility to consider whether there needs to be an environmental assessment or impact statement done for large constellations as part of its review of proposed launches of Starlink satellites from SpaceX's Texas launch site. "More satellites and launches lead to more polluting, soot, gases and metals in the Earth’s atmosphere," it said. UCCA urged the agency to refrain from any further authorizations to Starlink for satellites, frequencies or capacity absent an environmental assessment/ impact statement and before SpaceX shows that further launches of its rockets won't cause environmental harm around the launch site. In a separate motion for stay, UCCA said Musk's role as co-head of the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency, while also running SpaceX, violates the Federal Advisory Committee Act by creating a conflict of interest or the appearance of one. It called on the agency to stop processing all SpaceX applications and requests until any conflicts of interest are addressed. Given Musk's companies' dealings with the federal government -- both as regulatees and as suppliers -- having him in charge of DOGE "is equivalent to allowing a fox to guard the henhouse," the group said. SpaceX didn't comment Friday. The Ukrainian-American organizations' umbrella group petitioned the FCC in April seeking an investigation of whether SpaceX should lose its licenses because it allegedly disabled the Ukrainian military's use of Starlink while allowing its use by Russia (see 2404240019). Space regulatory experts don't expect the agency to start requiring environmental reviews of satellite systems anytime soon (see 2409200008).
Sierra Nevada is eyeing a June launch for its proposed constellation of three non-geostationary orbit RF-sensing earth exploration satellite system satellites, it said in an FCC Space Bureau application posted Friday. The three are intended to detect and geolocate signals in the VHF, UHF, global navigation satellite system, X-, S-, L- and Ku/Ka-bands, it said.
The FCC is seeking comment on NAB’s request for a retroactive waiver of the agency’s audible crawl rule while the comment period on the association's previous request for an extension of a waiver of the same rule remains open, said a public notice Friday. The FCC’s rule requiring aural description of visual, non-textual emergency information, such as radar maps, has been repeatedly waived since 2015, but the most recent waiver lapsed Nov. 26. NAB had already requested an extension by then, but comments on that request aren’t closed until Jan. 9, so the trade group last week asked the FCC to issue a retroactive temporary waiver until the agency decides on issuing a longer one (see 2411290007). Comments on the retroactive waiver are due Dec.13, replies Dec. 18, in docket 12-107, Friday’s PN said. Without the retroactive waiver, many broadcasters have ceased using radar maps to avoid violating the aural description requirement, NAB told the FCC. NAB has maintained that automated audio description of a visual graphic isn’t currently technologically feasible.
FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, the incoming chair, suggested Friday the agency could open a proceeding on the definition of the broadcaster public interest requirement and that he's open to broadcast ownership deregulation. In an interview with CNBC Friday, Carr said broadcasters “have to operate in the public interest, and ... it's probably appropriate for the FCC to take a fresh look at what that requirement looks like.” He added, “There is something different about broadcasters and say, podcasters, where you have to operate in a public interest,” Carr said. “So right now, all I'm saying is maybe we should start a rulemaking to take a look at what that means.” Carr also said he wants a fresh look at “a whole set of ownership issues” and ensuring “we get investment in local news.” He reiterated that revocation of broadcaster licenses for not meeting the public interest is “on the table,” though he also said that the law prevents the FCC from engaging in censorship. “I don't want to be the speech police.”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled Friday that a federal law banning TikTok unless its Chinese government-controlled owners divest from it is constitutional. TikTok, parent company ByteDance and a group of TikTok users had challenged the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. The ban “does not suppress content or require a certain mix of content” but “narrowly addresses foreign adversary control of an important medium of communication in the United States,” Judge Douglas Ginsburg wrote in the majority opinion. Because the law doesn’t target content of speech on TikTok but instead the ability of China to covertly manipulate that content, it “is wholly consonant with the First Amendment,” Ginsburg wrote. The evidence and judgment of Congress and the White House that TikTok is a national security threat “is entitled to significant weight,” Ginsburg added. “In this case, a foreign government threatens to distort free speech on an important medium of communication,” and the law would end China’s control over that medium, Ginsburg said. “Understood in that way, the Act actually vindicates the values that undergird the First Amendment.” A ban of the social media platform is set to take effect Jan. 19. Unless TikTok executes a qualified divestiture by then or the White House grants it a 90-day extension before then, “its platform will effectively be unavailable in the United States, at least for a time,” said the order. President-elect Donald Trump, who opposes the TikTok ban after kicking off the effort during his first term, takes office Jan. 20. House Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., and Communications Subcommittee Chairman Bob Latta, R-Ohio, praised the D.C. Circuit ruling as “a major win for the rule of law.” House Commerce unanimously advanced the TikTok divestiture measure in March (see 2403070063). “From the beginning, Congress gave TikTok a very clear choice: Divest from your parent company -- which is beholden to the Chinese Communist Party -- and remain operational in the U.S. or side with the CCP and face the consequence,” Rodgers and Latta said. “The United States will always stand up for our values and freedom, which is why the days of TikTok targeting, surveilling, and manipulating Americans are numbered.” FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, an early vocal proponent of the ban effort, didn’t comment.
ExteNet Systems executives met with aides to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and Commissioners Geoffrey Starks and Anna Gomez on concerns raised by the December 2023 pole attachment Further NPRM (see 2402140048). The company deploys and operates distributed mobile infrastructure. ExteNet supports streamlining the rules but is concerned “that comments from some, such as the Coalition for Concerned Utilities, indicate a desire to rollback the progress made on pole attachments, including those rules related to transparency and communication,” said a filing posted Friday in docket 17-84. “Rolling back these provisions will increase delays and prevent consumers from receiving the wireless services they need,” ExteNet said.
The FCC received OMB clearance to collect more granular data on public safety deployments in the 4.9 GHz band, said a notice for Monday’s Federal Register. The collection requirement takes effect that day, the notice said. FCC commissioners approved it as part of an order last year (see 2301180062).
The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology conditionally approved Axon Networks’ plan to operate an automated frequency coordination (AFC) system to manage access to the 6 GHz band by standard-power unlicensed devices. In February, OET approved the applications of seven AFC providers (see 2402230050) and in July, conditionally approved C3Spectra's application. Axon “has sufficiently demonstrated that it has the technical capability and knowledge to operate an AFC system and may now move to the testing phase of the AFC system approval process,” said an order posted last week in docket 21-352.