Cloud communications company Bandwidth opposed AT&T’s petition at the FCC to stop accepting applications for special access DS3 services wherever they’re still offered to new customers throughout the company’s 21-state legacy wireline footprint (see 2508180039). Bandwidth said that if the service ends, there’s “no reasonable substitute available” for time-division multiplexing, particularly for 911 call centers. Comments on the application were due Friday, and Bandwidth was the only company to file.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday stayed the reinstatement of FTC Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter on a 6-3 vote and scheduled the case for December argument (see 2509160057). Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.
NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield warned that changes in the BEAD program could mean that many of the group’s members will sit it out though a good number are well positioned to participate. Departing next year after 25 years at NTCA's helm (see 2509170060), Bloomfield spoke with former FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly during a Free State Foundation webcast. “This is a tougher business than people think it is,” she said.
The FCC, which previously shot down SpaceX's plans to operate in the 2 GHz band, will likely think differently now, satellite spectrum experts said. The company applied Friday to launch and operate as many as 15,000 satellites to provide direct-to-device (D2D) service globally. The constellation would use spectrum that SpaceX is buying from EchoStar, including the 2 GHz band.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr’s comments pressuring ABC and broadcast companies to cease airing Jimmy Kimmel Live! were condemned by lawmakers and some conservative publications and groups over the weekend, including the Cato Institute, the National Review and the Free State Foundation. In a Concordia Summit Q&A on Monday, Carr said Kimmel’s show being taken off the air -- just hours after he publicly warned of possible FCC action against ABC and urged broadcasters to preempt it -- was “a business decision” and “not because of anything that’s happening at the federal level.”
Twilio CEO Khozema Shipchandler and others from the company met with FCC Chairman Brendan Carr about ways to target and eliminate unlawful robocalls, said a filing Friday in docket 17-59. They “discussed the Commission’s efforts to strengthen STIR/SHAKEN to combat illegal robocalls and the actions that Twilio has taken to do the same,” the filing said.
The FCC Enforcement Bureau ordered Andrew Mart of Naperville, Illinois, to explain within 10 days his operation of an amateur radio that was found to be transmitting at 20.8 MHz, outside permitted bands. No amateur radio license, issued by the U.S. or another country with reciprocal U.S. operating privileges, “allows transmissions on frequencies outside the authorized amateur bands, including the transmissions you admitted making,” the letter said.
The FCC Public Safety Bureau on Friday reminded carriers with supplemental coverage from space “arrangements” that they must file annual reports by Oct. 15. The reports must cover “911 voice calls, text messages and emergency call center data,” said the notice in docket 24-318. The commission “adopted these reporting requirements in 2024 as part of interim 911 requirements for terrestrial providers that use SCS arrangements to extend their coverage service areas.”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Friday scheduled oral argument for Nov. 24 on challenges to the FCC’s 4.9 GHz rules (docket 24-1363). The FCC approved the order during the last administration with support from current Chairman Brendan Carr (see 2411130027).
WTA representatives met with FCC Commissioner Olivia Trusty to discuss various concerns, including the USF and the agency's notice of inquiry on the future of Telecom Act Section 706 reports (see 2509090010), said a filing posted Friday in docket 25-233. The group also met with aides to Chairman Brendan Carr and Commissioner Anna Gomez.