FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez on Wednesday slammed the agency's move to reverse its January declaratory ruling and NPRM addressing the Salt Typhoon cyberattacks. The new FCC item, set for a vote at Thursday's meeting, would withdraw the NPRM and find that the FCC erred in affirming the legal responsibility of carriers to secure their networks under the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA).
ORLANDO -- BEAD-related fiber deployments will face sizable data center competition for fiber-optic cabling, and the BEAD camp is likely to lose out, supply chain experts predicted this week at the Broadband Nation Expo.
The FCC Media Bureau is seeking comment by Dec. 10 on possible agency oversight of network/affiliate contracts, broadcaster preemption rights and future rulemakings on programming agreements, said a public notice Wednesday.
Nexstar and Tegna want the FCC to waive the nationwide TV station ownership cap, along with local ownership limits in 23 markets, if those rules remain in effect when the agency decides on the companies' $6.2 billion merger, said transfer of control applications submitted Tuesday.
USTelecom and other commenters warned the FCC against abruptly detariffing legacy business data services (BDS), as is proposed in an NPRM that commissioners approved ahead of their August meeting (see 2508050056). Unlike most deregulatory proposals from the FCC, industry groups mostly aren’t on board with the BDS changes. Comments were posted Tuesday and Wednesday in docket 21-17.
Citing a California law barring the state from collecting Social Security numbers or sharing data with the federal government, the FCC said Thursday that it was suspending California's ability to run its own Lifeline verification program. Instead, the state will have to go through the federal Lifeline verification system, the commission said. A spokesperson for California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) didn't immediately comment.
The FCC doesn’t have the authority to do away with the national broadcast-ownership cap or waive it on a case-by-case basis, said Vanderbilt Law School professor Brian Fitzpatrick in a Nov. 3 letter posted Tuesday in docket 17-318. Fitzpatrick’s filing was amplified in a news release from Newsmax, which has opposed eliminating the cap. "Congress forced the Commission to adopt the 39% ownership cap in the 2004 amendments to the Telecommunications Act and further commanded that any entity that grew beyond that number must divest in a timely manner,” wrote Fitzpatrick. “The Commission cannot ‘waive’ these statutory commands. Nor can it circumvent them by manipulating the UHF discount or permitting sidecar deals.”
Nexstar and Tegna have filed transfer of control applications with the FCC to begin the regulatory review of their proposed $6.2 billion deal, Nexstar said in a news release Tuesday. The deal would put Nexstar over the national TV ownership cap, and the applications include requests for waivers of the cap and other FCC ownership rules, the release said. “The applications address why, if certain of the FCC's rules governing television ownership remain in effect, waiver of the rules would serve the public interest, especially in the local communities Nexstar's stations will serve.” The FCC's authority to waive the cap was disputed in a recent ex parte filing (see 2511180049)
T-Mobile told the FCC on Tuesday that AST SpaceMobile still hasn't fully explained interference issues raised by its proposed supplemental coverage from space (SCS) operations in the 700 and 800 MHz bands (see 2507170030). “AST has failed to demonstrate that its proposed SCS operations will satisfy the Commission’s stated goal to minimize the risk of interference from SCS services to existing terrestrial networks,” said a filing in docket 25-201. AST hasn't filed “vital information” about where its beams will reach and “how those signals will impact existing terrestrial licensees.”
The Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials supports the Safer Buildings Coalition’s July petition asking the FCC to launch a rulemaking on guidelines for getting consent from licensees to install signal boosters, said a filing posted Tuesday in docket RM-12009 (see 2511130025). The commission’s current rules for industrial signal boosters were adopted in 2013 and “would benefit from updates to address gaps that have contributed to inconsistent deployments, instances of harmful interference and diminished confidence among licensees,” APCO said.