NCTA representatives discussed concerns about Samsung Electronics America’s request for a waiver for a 5G base station radio that works across citizens broadband radio service and C-band spectrum (see 2309130041), speaking with an aide to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. Earlier, NCTA raised questions as well (see 2404090058). Samsung’s proposed radio threatens the utility of the CBRS band because of Samsung’s design choice not to use a filter between the C-Band and the CBRS band,” said a filing last week in docket 23-93. “The Commission could not justifiably grant Samsung’s waiver request without setting a precedent that future parties would rely on for other radios in these frequencies and many others,” NCTA said. Among those represented at the meeting were Comcast, Charter Communications and Cox Enterprises.
T-Mobile is proposing a swap with SoniqWave in which it would trade licenses purchased in the 2021 3.45 GHz auction for more 2.5 GHz spectrum. The swap would let T-Mobile “provide improved broadband coverage and enhanced data capacity using contiguous 2.5 GHz … spectrum in multiple markets throughout the United States,” said a Form 603 filing at the FCC. In exchange, SoniqWave would get 28 licenses in 14 partial economic areas “in the developing 3.45 GHz band,” the filing said: “SoniqWave believes that the growing eco-system around the 3.45 GHz band, coupled with the variety of wireless carriers that are, or soon will, be deploying in that band, offers exciting opportunities not presently available to it.”
CTIA representatives updated the FCC about its stance on a proposed 5G Fund, now before commissioners (see 2403260052). An auction should occur only after funding is released for the broadband access, equity and deployment program, the CTIA representatives urged in meetings with aides to Commissioners Geoffrey Starks, Nathan Simington and Anna Gomez. “The wireless industry is making record investments to deploy 5G nationwide, but there are some areas where difficult geography or sparse population mean that subsidies will be necessary to support mobile broadband,” a filing posted Monday in docket 20-32 said: “While the BEAD program will not directly fund mobile broadband deployment, it is likely to result in the deployment of fiber broadband backhaul facilities and fixed wireless services that will facilitate the expansion of 5G coverage in rural areas.” Representatives of AT&T, UScellular, Verizon and T-Mobile attended the meetings.
The FCC wants comments by May 28, replies by June 7, in docket 03-123 on Telecom Relay Services Fund compensation formulas, funding requirements and contribution factors from July 1 through June 30 that Rolka Loube Associates proposed, a Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau public notice Friday said.
The House is set to vote as soon as Tuesday night on a revised version of the NTIA Reauthorization Act (HR-4510) under suspension of the rules, the office of Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said Friday night. The House Commerce Committee-cleared measure would elevate the NTIA administrator from assistant secretary to undersecretary of Commerce. It also proposes other steps aimed at improving coordination of federal spectrum (see 2307270063). Chamber leaders pulled HR-4510 from consideration in early March amid objections from leaders of the House Armed Services Committee over the fight between NTIA and DOD about allowing 5G use of the 3.1-3.45 GHz band (see 2403060062). In addition, the House will consider the Senate-passed FAA Reauthorization Act (HR-3935) amid questions about whether backers of additional funding for the FCC’s affordable connectivity program and Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program will attempt to attach money for those initiatives to it. Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., and other senators unsuccessfully sought an amendment aimed at including $6 billion for ACP and $3.08 billion for rip and replace in HR-3935 (see 2405100046).
The FCC Enforcement Bureau classified a group of bad actors as a consumer communications information services threat (C-CIST) for "persistently facilitating robocall campaigns, aimed at defrauding and harming consumers," a news release Monday said (see 2308010075). In an enforcement advisory, the bureau classified Royal Tiger as a C-CIST for "impersonating government agencies, banks, and utilities." The entity, which included a group of individuals and entities based in India, the U.K., the United Arab Emirates and the U.S., received FCC warnings beginning in 2021. The first of its kind classification will allow the bureau to "formally name threat actors that are repeatedly using U.S. communications networks to perpetuate the most harmful, illegal schemes against consumers." It will also give industry stakeholders information to enhance their know-your-customer and know-your-upstream-provider processes.
AT&T says the FCC should vacate a recent forfeiture order against the company on grounds that it’s arbitrary, capricious and an abuse of discretion within the meaning of the Administrative Procedure Act, said its petition for review Thursday (docket 24-60223) in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In the April 29 order, the FCC imposed a $57.3 million penalty for AT&T’s violations of Section 222 of the Communications Act and commission regulations governing treatment of customer proprietary network information (CPNI). It found that AT&T failed to use reasonable measures for discovering and protecting against attempts to gain unauthorized access to customer location information. However, AT&T said as a “threshold matter,” the location data isn’t CPNI within the meaning of Section 222. Accordingly, the company's petition for review said the FCC lacked statutory authority to issue the order. “At a minimum,” by first announcing its “novel and expansive interpretation” of Section 222 in its enforcement proceeding and “retroactively punishing” the carrier for conduct preceding that announcement, the FCC “failed to provide the fair notice that AT&T was due,” it said. Even assuming otherwise, the agency’s finding that AT&T acted unreasonably in discovering and protecting against unauthorized access to customers’ location data is arbitrary and capricious, it added. The imposition of a $57.3 million penalty based on the existence of 84 distinct location-based-services providers, despite zero breaches by those providers, “defies law and logic,” it said. The FCC “has long lauded the valuable and sometimes life-saving benefits of location-based services, the growth of which AT&T has facilitated by implementing industry-leading data security safeguards,” the petition said. Yet the order “takes the nonsensical position that AT&T should have abruptly cut off access to customer location data in response to a news report of a single provider’s misuse,” of which the FCC had been aware for a year, “and despite the absence of any evidence that AT&T customers’ information was subject to unlawful use,” it said. The agency’s enforcement regime also “runs afoul” of the Constitution, the petition argued. Rather than grant a hearing to an alleged violator, it may elect to issue a notice of apparent liability, pass judgment on its own proposed liability finding and penalty, and then demand payment as a prerequisite to an appeal, the petition said: “That regime violates due process, Article III, the Seventh Amendment, and the nondelegation doctrine.”
Opening the 2 GHz band and the 1.6/2.4 GHz band to more satellite operators won't happen without a fight from incumbent satellite operators in those bands. SpaceX is pushing for such openings (see 2403270002). EchoStar and Globalstar argued against amending the rules governing those bands in comments posted Monday. The FCC Space Bureau in March rejected SpaceX requests to operate in the bands but put on public notice SpaceX petitions about amending the rules governing the bands.
Firefly Aerospace anticipates a November launch for its BGM1 lunar lander, which plans to deliver commercial, scientific and government payloads to the moon's surface as part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, the company said in an FCC Space Bureau application Friday. Firefly said it expects the lander to reach the moon about six weeks later, by year's end.
The FCC license for 112 non-geostationary orbit remote sensing satellites granted to Theia Group in 2019 is now EMTech Global's. That license was satellite startup Theia's "largest asset by far," U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel for the Southern District of New York said in 2021 in a docket 1:21-cv-06995 order appointing a receiver for Theia as part of litigation that investors FCS Advisors brought against the company. LTS Systems bought Theia's assets, including the license, at auction in 2023, with EMTech Global then acquiring the assets from LTS and subsequently seeking FCC OK on transferring the license to an EMTech subsidiary, according to EMTech's transfer application. The Space Bureau approved the transfer Friday, said a notice in Friday's Daily Digest.