Comments are due Oct. 3, replies Oct. 20, on whether the FCC Wireline Bureau should make changes to its rules for granting extensions to providers unable to implement Stir/Shaken requirements (see 2508280040), said the notice for Wednesday’s Federal Register.
Representatives of Intrado and Communication Service for the Deaf spoke with FCC staff about how direct video calling (DVC) could improve emergency response. The two entities are working together on a pilot project “to see how DVC might be incorporated into 911 emergency response,” and “several Public Safety Answering Points have expressed interest in participating,” said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 21-479. They also discussed how the FCC could fund the pilot through the telecommunications relay services fund. “Staff requested additional information to demonstrate call flow options for incorporating DVC into 911, which CSD and Intrado committed to provide,” the filing said.
Puerto Rico Telephone Co. is seeking to reaffirm that its indirect foreign ownership is acceptable to the FCC. In a petition filed last week, PRTC said it's complying with the 2019 declaratory ruling that allows potential increases in telecom magnate Carlos Slim's family's ownership of its parent company, America Movil. The petition aims "to provide more granular information" about Slim family interests in America Movil, PRTC said. In addition, it said granting the petition won't change its ultimate control, with PRTC being indirectly controlled by America Movil, as well as Slim and members of his family, who are controlling shareholders of America Movil. PRTC said the FCC previously indicated it would allow up to 100% indirect foreign ownership investment in the company by Mexico's America Movil.
Odds are that EchoStar will continue pursuing its direct-to-device constellation plans in light of the $23 billion spectrum sale to AT&T, which was announced last week (see 2508260052), satellite and spectrum consultant Tim Farrar wrote Sunday. He said it seems likely that EchoStar is looking at other spectrum deals, and available options include AT&T swapping the 600 MHz spectrum it's buying from EchoStar with T-Mobile for that company's C-band spectrum, or Verizon buying EchoStar's AWS-3 spectrum and leasing its AWS-4 in urban areas. It's also possible that no wireless carrier ends up interested in EchoStar's spectrum at the prices it's asking, he noted. EchoStar's D2D constellation plans become moot only if T-Mobile buys all of EchoStar's midband spectrum, with some to be shared with SpaceX, Farrar said. As long as the FCC signs off on the EchoStar/AT&T deal, it "seems more likely than not that at least the first stage of EchoStar’s constellation will be built."
The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners spoke with FCC staff about the group's opposition to a NumberBarn application for authorization to obtain numbering resources (see 2412090055). Association representatives met with an aide to Commissioner Olivia Trusty, Wireline Bureau Chief Joseph Calascione and other bureau staff, said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 19-99.
Colt Telecommunications asked the FCC for permission to delay submission of its biannual broadband data collection filings, which were due Tuesday, following a cyberattack. The incident occurred Aug. 12 and didn’t involve customer data, the carrier said in a filing in docket 19-195. It requested a new deadline of Nov. 3. “While our technical team is focused on restoring the affected systems, Colt has not yet determined when its internal data may be sufficiently accessible for Colt to prepare and submit its biannual BDC report.”
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and the Center for American Rights (CAR) have taken aim at CBS over edits to an interview featuring Noem, which aired Sunday on Face the Nation. In a release from the Department of Homeland Security the same day, Noem accused CBS of editing the interview to remove portions where she talked about criminal allegations against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whom the Trump administration has repeatedly sought to deport.
Incarcerated people’s communications service (IPCS) providers and some public safety groups are leaning on the FCC not to rescind a Wireline Bureau order delaying some prison-calling deadlines until April 1, 2027. In a surprise move, the bureau postponed implementation deadlines that took effect in January and had been approved by commissioners last year (see 2506300068).
West Kentucky and Tennessee (WK&T) Telecommunications Cooperative CEO Karen Jackson-Furman and other witnesses plan to highlight for the House Small Business Committee their hopes for a restarted congressional working group’s bid for a USF legislative revamp (see 2507030051), according to written testimony released ahead of Wednesday's hearing on broadband deployment’s effect on rural entrepreneurs. Some urge lawmakers to continue addressing internet affordability as part of the USF revamp. Several of the witnesses also back Republicans’ bid to further ease permitting reviews of connectivity projects, including via the controversial American Broadband Deployment Act (see 2305240069). The House Small Business hearing will begin at 10 a.m. in 2360 Rayburn.
EchoStar is asking the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to require the FCC to change rules in the AWS-3 auction order that commissioners approved in July (see 2507240055). In the order, the FCC rejected arguments by EchoStar, parent of Dish Network, that the agency should use the same designated entity (DE) rules in the reauction that it employed in the original (see 2507220033).