The Bureau of Industry and Security's upcoming export controls on advanced AI semiconductors will introduce hurdles that could push U.S. allies closer to China, a technology think tank and a semiconductor industry group said this week. Both the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and the Semiconductor Industry Association urged President Joe Biden's administration to reverse course. ITIF said it should “immediately” rethink the "overdesigned, yet underinformed" restrictions, which are expected to be published as an interim final rule before Biden leaves office. SIA, "deeply concerned by the unprecedented scope and complexity" of the potential regulation, asked the government to instead issue the restrictions as a proposed rule -- which would allow for industry feedback and possible revisions without a set effective date -- or allow the new Trump administration to decide how to move forward.
At the SEC's insistence, tech media and telecom (TMT) companies are increasingly warning investors and the public about cyberattack risks, as well as steps they're taking when incidents are discovered. The SEC began requiring that companies report on cybersecurity practices and incidents in 2023. And TMT companies’ cybersecurity disclosures in their 2024 10-K annual reports varied widely in depth and detail: TDS' totaled a little more than 300 words; Lumen's was more than 1,400.
The FCC increased application fees to reflect a 17.41% increase in the Consumer Price Index, said an order in Wednesday’s Daily Digest. The order was unanimous, with FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, President-elect Donald's Trump pick for chairman, reluctantly concurring, according to a statement. The increase “means some applications now cost hundreds, or in some cases, thousands of dollars more than they did just a few years ago,” Carr said. “It is difficult to support what is ultimately a direct tax increase on startups and other job creators at a time when they are already battling rising costs from inflationary policies,” but “the law does not provide the FCC with much discretion in terms of how these fees are assessed.” The agency is required to adjust the fees to reflect the CPI in every even-numbered year. The 2022 increase reflected a rise in the CPI of 11.6%. The higher fees mean a major change for full-power TV stations has risen from a $4,755 application fee to $5,000, according to the 2022 and 2025 orders. The application fee for a petition for declaratory ruling for a non-geostationary orbit foreign-licensed space station to access the U.S. market rose from $16,795 to $17,670, the orders said.
New Street’s Blair Levin on Wednesday slammed the $20 billion rural digital opportunity fund, calling it a huge failure, during a Broadband Breakfast webinar. Approved under former President Donald Trump, RDOF has its defenders, including FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, who has called it a bigger success than the BEAD program, which President Joe Biden approved (see 2409270032).
Meta’s announcement Tuesday that it will scrap fact-checking on Facebook is a “good step in the right direction,” said FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr in a post on X. “I look forward to monitoring these developments and their implementation. The work continues until the censorship cartel is completely dismantled and destroyed.” Carr, President-elect Donald Trump's choice to head the FCC, wrote to Facebook questioning its use of fact-checkers (see 2412160052), and has previously named fact-checkers and social media companies as components of the "censorship cartel," a term that he has frequently used in interviews and social media posts. Other components of the cartel include President Joe Biden’s administration, advertising agencies and European governments, Carr has said. In a Facebook video Tuesday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company would shift to using crowdsourced fact-checking, similar to X. Carr credited Trump with causing the change at Meta. “President Trump’s resolute and strong support for the free speech rights of everyday Americans is already paying dividends,” he said. During a news conference Tuesday, Trump responded “probably” when asked if Meta’s shift was a response to his threats, which included calling for Zuckerberg to be imprisoned for life. “Meta is a private company that can decide how it manages its platform,” responded FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez in an X post Tuesday. “However, under the First Amendment, government threats to private companies over speech can have a chilling effect and are dangerous.” "As our database of false narratives continues to demonstrate, Meta has perennially been a home for Russian, Chinese, and Iranian disinformation," said Gordon Crovitz, co-CEO of fact-checking service NewsGuard, in an emailed statement. "Now, Meta apparently has decided to open the floodgates completely."Public interest groups condemned Meta’s changes. “Everyone should be concerned when major technology firms and their billionaire owners kowtow to a leader like Trump who is intent on undermining the checks and balances that are fundamental to a healthy democracy,” Free Press Senior Counsel Nora Benavidez said in a news release. Said Common Sense Media CEO James Steyer, “With this announcement, Mark Zuckerberg's playbook is as clear as day: Protect Meta's bottom line and cozy up to political leaders while leaving users to fend for themselves.” Ishan Mehta, Common Cause Media and Democracy program director, said, “Americans deserve to know the truth, and Meta’s move to end its third-party fact checking opens the door to endless political lies and disinformation.” Meta’s recent decision to move away from third-party fact-checking is a stark reminder of the growing challenges posed by misinformation online," NAB said in a blog post Tuesday touting the reliability of broadcast news. "While Big Tech platforms operate without any constraints, local stations are bound by regulations that haven’t kept pace with the marketplace," it added. "Policymakers must act to modernize these rules, leveling the playing field so local stations can continue providing the high-quality journalism communities depend on."
CTA CEO Gary Shapiro used his annual state of the industry address Tuesday to warn against the threat from tariffs expected under the administration of President-elect Donald Trump. Meanwhile, other speakers highlighted challenges consumers and industry will face as AI is added to smartphones and becomes a part of daily life.
House Commerce Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., said Monday Kate Harper will continue serving as Communications Subcommittee chief counsel for this Congress. The subpanel’s Republican chief counsel since October 2019, Harper was previously NTIA chief of staff and deputy director-congressional affairs during President-elect Donald Trump’s first administration and an aide to Senate Commerce Committee member Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska. Guthrie said he’s named Giulia Leganski as Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade Subcommittee chief counsel. Leganski was previously a House Communications aide.
House Commerce Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., and Communications Subcommittee Chairman Richard Hudson, R-N.C., on Monday hailed the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling last week (see 2501020047) vacating the FCC’s April net neutrality order. “The American people” in the November elections “voted to reject Democrats’ heavy-handed regulatory agenda,” Guthrie said in a statement. “Now, the courts are finding that the Biden-Harris Administration’s net neutrality rules were unlawful in the first place.” Republicans “are ready to move on from misguided, burdensome approaches to internet regulation and support innovations leading to increased speeds and investment,” he said: “I am thrilled by this decision, which is a precursor to many more pro-innovation developments still to come.” Hudson said he will “work with [President-elect] Donald Trump to ensure faster, more reliable, and more affordable internet access for all Americans. The court’s decision to strike down these Obama-era regulations is good news for the American people.”
Cable broadband subscriber losses should moderate this year, with fiber and fixed wireless providers' gains plateauing, LightShed Management wrote Monday. In addition, there could be renewed M&A interest in cable, LightShed said, triggered by slower growth across all connectivity companies and favorable regulatory sentiment. However, none of the three major wireless carriers seems a likely buyer. Moreover, LightShed sees the possibility of a U.S. Supreme Court stay preventing the TikTok divestiture/ban from taking effect Jan. 19. The Trump administration will likely devise terms that safeguard users' data security and mitigate national security concerns. Also expect rollout of a more-robust direct-to-device service via SpaceX and T-Mobile as additional satellites are launched and FCC power restrictions are resolved, it said. LightShed predicted the next FCC will provide a waiver of the power limits. It said with more satellites and higher power, the service could extend to IoT. After the Skydance/Paramount deal closes in the first half, Paramount will likely slash its linear cable network operations, shedding some networks, LightShed predicted, and it will invest those savings into streaming. A Trump administration ban on pharmaceutical advertising on TV could drive TV station group M&A, it added.
Deputy NTIA Administrator Sarah Morris on Monday defended the agency's pace in administering the BEAD program (see 2412120066). The agency has moved "at breakneck speed" to get funding out the door and is making "tremendous strides," Morris said during an American Association for Public Broadband webinar. "We are working with the program that Congress gave us and trying to do this work as quickly as possible, as carefully as possible, and do it in a way that itself is innovative when it comes to federal programs." Citing "many important steps" in the BEAD process, Morris noted that the agency was ahead of schedule on funding allocation announcements and state challenge processes are being developed. "The states are essentially determining the implementation strategy for the funding that they've been given," she said. Morris dismissed concerns about programmatic changes under the incoming Trump administration. NTIA will continue supporting states and "keep this program moving, so we can hand them off to the next administration in the strongest shape that's absolutely possible." She added, "We have so much momentum right now ... We can disagree about the details of implementation and where others might feel we need to make course corrections at the margins, but fundamentally ... these programs are just so important, so critical, so intertwined and so far along, that the best path forward is to just keep up the momentum that we've built." Morris encouraged those feeling anxious about BEAD's future to engage with their state broadband offices and to educate lawmakers on how BEAD and other NTIA broadband grant programs were designed to complement each other. The agency is reviewing applications for its digital equity competitive grant program, she noted.