FCC Chairman Brendan Carr names Allison Howell, a former FCC intern, as a law clerk in his office … Eduardo Ruiz Sanchez, Televisa, joins the North American Broadcasters Association board … Satellite telecommunications provider Kepler Communications taps Beau Jarvis, ex-Phase Four, as chief revenue officer, a new position.
Eutelsat wants to raise $1.76 billion, which will affect its ownership and in turn require a transfer of its licenses, it told the FCC Space Bureau on Wednesday. In applications covering its OneWeb and Satelites Mexicanos subsidiaries that have U.S. market access, Eutelsat said the proposed fundraising transaction would see the French government increase its share of capital to 29.65%, up from 13.59%. It said other key shareholders will also participate, and the transaction will give France three board seats, compared with the one it has now. The additional financing will let Eutelsat accelerate its investment in existing low earth orbit projects and new initiatives, it said.
Paramount Skydance will reportedly make a bid to purchase Warner Bros. Discovery, according to a Wall Street Journal article Thursday. The deal would include all the company’s cable networks, including CNN and HBO, the article said. Because Warner Bros. doesn’t own broadcast stations, the deal likely wouldn’t require FCC approval, communications attorneys told us. However, if it's consummated, it could make it easier for FCC Chairman Brendan Carr to apply pressure to a wider swath of media through the agency's open news distortion proceeding. Paramount recently hired a news ombudsman to appease the FCC (see 2509090065). Carr has said the agency will be monitoring Skydance Paramount’s commitments against diversity initiatives and its news policies, and he has targeted large media companies over their smaller broadcast divisions in the past (see 2412270039). It’s not yet clear how such a combination would fare at the DOJ, attorneys told us.
The FCC unanimously approved a $40,000 forfeiture against Wilner Baptiste for operating a pirate radio station in Spring Valley, New York. Baptiste operated “M-One Radio Live,” also known as “M-One Live Radio," according to the forfeiture order. Enforcement Bureau field agents traced Baptiste’s signal in February and June 2024, and the FCC issued a notice of apparent liability against him in September 2024 (see 2409260026).
The full FCC has voted to reject the Weather Alert Radio Network’s appeal of a 2024 Media Bureau decision rejecting 105 WARN applications for low-power FM stations in nine U.S. states and the U.S. Virgin Islands, said an order Thursday. WARN’s applications didn’t meet FCC requirements for a public safety radio service, and it didn’t provide any documentation that it had been in contact with state, local and national public safety entities, the order said. “Because WARN had not established that a public safety organization had officially authorized it to provide a public safety radio service on its behalf in the relevant proposed service area,” it didn’t meet the agency’s requirements that it have jurisdiction in its service area.
CTIA, NCTA and USTelecom met with aides to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr on their request to overturn a January declaratory ruling and NPRM addressing the Salt Typhoon cyberattacks (see 2501160041). The ruling found that Section 105 of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act requires “carriers to secure their networks from unlawful access or interception of communications.” The association representatives “discussed measures that providers are taking to address past and ongoing threats to cybersecurity, including risk management and remediation,” said a filing posted Thursday in docket 22-329.
Nokia filed at the FCC data related to its initial commercial deployment as a spectrum access system administrator for the citizens broadband radio service band (see 2407180035). All the data was redacted from the filing made Wednesday in docket 15-319.
Representatives of the RAIN, LoRa, Wi-Fi, WiSUN and Z-Wave alliances met with an aide to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr about their objections to NextNav’s proposal to offer a terrestrial complement to GPS using 900 MHz spectrum (see 2507280039).
Consumer Technology Association representatives discussed spectrum, national security and other issues with Commissioner Olivia Trusty, according to a filing posted Thursday in 21-232 and other dockets. “CTA encourages continued investment in 5G and 6G infrastructure, broadband expansion and efficient use of licensed and unlicensed spectrum,” the filing said. “To that end we are pleased with the reinstatement of the FCC’s spectrum auction authority.”
A broad coalition of associations urged the FCC to move with caution on revamped equipment reauthorization rules in response to a Further NPRM that commissioners approved in May (see 2505220056). The groups joining the filing were the Consumer Technology Association, the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers, Incompas, the Information Technology Industry Council, the National Electrical Manufacturers Association and the Telecommunications Industry Association.