FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said Tuesday that he hasn’t made up his mind about how the FCC should handle the national ownership cap or the 2022 quadrennial review, and no application has yet been submitted for the Nexstar/Tegna deal. Carr has said in the past that the FCC has authority to alter the national cap and that broadcasters should no longer be constrained by ownership limits. During Tuesday's news conference, he also said he doubts the FCC will rule on Nexstar/Tegna in 2025, and the shutdown would likely affect the agency’s timeline for addressing the national cap and the QR.
The White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy should work with the FCC and NTIA to “remove barriers to global wireless leadership,” CTIA said in comments filed in response to the OSTP's request for information in connection with the White House AI Action Plan. “Spectrum and infrastructure deployment policies present key opportunities for reform to strengthen U.S. leadership” in AI innovation and adoption. OSTP should ensure that NTIA leads efforts to identify federal spectrum for repurposing, CTIA said. “Prior spectrum analyses required multiple agencies to act as ‘co-leads’ on spectrum studies, which led to unnecessarily long timeframes culminating in unusable reports.” OSTP should also coordinate with the FCC to “evaluate what existing laws and regulations are stifling infrastructure builds and innovation,” the filing said, pointing to the agency’s proceeding on streamlining environmental review policies. In addition, OSTP should promote “a uniform deregulatory approach to AI development and deployment.”
Digicel-Haiti sells calls from the U.S. to Haiti and thus should be subject to the Communications Act, UPM said in a reply brief filed Monday at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. UPM wants the court to reverse FCC decisions backing Digicel-Haiti’s 2014 deactivation of thousands of SIM cards that UPM purchased from a third party, which granted access to a Digicel-Haiti discount roaming plan (see 2506050044). The FCC has ruled that Digicel’s actions didn’t violate the law because it doesn’t qualify as a U.S. carrier. The language of the Communications Act creates jurisdiction over foreign communications originating in the U.S., UPM said. “The mere fact that Digicel is a terminating foreign carrier does not exempt it from the Act when it has taken actions within the U.S. with respect to those calls."
Clearing the upper C band should follow the same process that the FCC employed for clearing the lower C band, SES CEO Adel Al-Saleh told FCC Chairman Brendan Carr. In a docket 25-59 filing Monday recapping Al-Saleh and Carr's meeting, SES said clearing the upper C band will be more complicated than clearing the 3.7-3.98 GHz band, but a similar process with appropriate relocation costs and accelerated clearing payments would speed things up and ensure success.
Dish Network's assertions that it was excused from making payments on its master lease agreement because of its plan to sell spectrum prompted American Tower to sue, CEO Steven Vondran said. The preemptive lawsuit against Dish "is to make sure that there's no interruption" in its lease payments, he said in a call Tuesday with analysts. American Tower's agreement with Dish, which runs through 2036, represents about 4% of the company's U.S. and Canada property revenue. "We feel good about our contract [and] the collectability on it," Vondran said.
Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Communications Subcommittee ranking member Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., separately told us that during Wednesday's hearing on social media censorship, they plan to again raise FCC Chairman Brendan Carr's actions that critics have said are targeting the media’s free speech rights. Commerce Democrats have been pushing Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, to bring in Carr for a hearing. Cruz seeks to have Carr testify as part of a regular FCC oversight hearing, rather than during a censorship-focused panel (see 2510030062). Several Democratic leaders made Carr’s actions the focus of an unofficial hearing in late September (see 2509290062).
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, on Tuesday asked FCC Chairman Brendan Carr and Attorney General Pam Bondi to probe California's recent law clarifying that the state's Lifeline program “may provide assistance and services for individuals not lawfully present in the United States” under federal statutes (see 2509170065). The law also prohibits the state's Public Utilities Commission and Lifeline from sharing the immigration status of FCC Lifeline applicants or subscribers with other government entities without a valid subpoena or warrant. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed the law earlier this month (see 2510080007).
NTIA is making it explicitly clear to states that they can't impose rate regulation on BEAD projects, Administrator Arielle Roth said Tuesday. In a Hudson Institute address, Roth said the agency is telling states that providers must be protected from rate regulation and state-level net neutrality rules during the BEAD period of performance. Without those protections, state broadband regulations "could create perverse incentives" that push providers to move resources from BEAD commitments to other areas, she said, which would in turn raise the likelihood of defaults.
With one of the FCC's largest monthly agendas in recent years -- nine items -- the commissioners on Tuesday unanimously approved everything from a major revamp of the agency's satellite and earth station approvals process to a proposal to end simulcast requirements for the ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard. But three items were adopted Tuesday over the dissents of minority Commissioner Anna Gomez. She said the broadband labels further NPRM was "one of the most anti-consumer items I have ever seen." She also dissented on the prison-calling order and NPRM (see 2510280045) and the wireless direct final rule.
The FCC commissioners were booed and hissed by prisoner advocates at the agency’s open meeting Tuesday as they voted 2-1 to approve an order that will increase rates for incarcerated people’s communications services (IPCS) on an interim basis.