Industry and state broadband officials encouraged engagement with local stakeholders and providers as states prepare to implement their plans for NTIA's broadband, equity, access and deployment program (see 2402060081). NTIA is "looking at 2024 as the year of execution" for the BEAD program, said acting Deputy Administrator Sarah Morris during a USTelecom webinar Wednesday.
Don't expect supplemental coverage from space to ever provide terrestrial broadband-like service -- there's not a strong business case, multiple operators said Wednesday at the SmallSat Symposium in Silicon Valley. Several questioned the economics of a robust SCS service with a thick data pipeline.
Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., will seek unanimous consent (UC) for five committee-passed kids’ online safety bills, he told reporters Tuesday.
State broadband officials shed some light Tuesday into NTIA’s process for recommending changes to states’ broadband, equity, access and deployment (BEAD) initial plans. NTIA’s so-called “curing" process lacks the transparency from earlier in the process when states sought public comments on drafts, some state and industry officials said during an FCBA webinar. States said they expect to use a mix of network technologies to reach everyone who needs high-speed internet.
MVPDs and their allies opposed the FCC's proposed crackdown on video service fees, though backers, ranging from states and localities to broadcasters, cheered. Comments were filed this week in docket 23-405. During its December meeting, a 3-2 commission vote approved the video service fees NPRM, which proposes banning early-termination fees (ETF) and requires prorated refunds when service is canceled (see 2312130019).
The New Hampshire House Science, Technology and Energy Committee unanimously rejected an RF safety bill, which would have required warnings on 5G towers. In addition, the lawmakers approved a measure 20-0 that addresses public safety agencies’ access to cell towers, dropping a requirement that would give agencies access to towers in favor of more study.
Expect continuing friction at the 2027 World Radiocommunication Conference and the WRC-31 between geostationary and non-geostationary orbit satellite operators over interference protections, River Advisors CEO Katherine Gizinski said. She and other panelists Tuesday at the SmallSat Symposium in Silicon Valley said those equivalent power flux density (EPFD) protection items were a hot-button issue at WRC-23. The FCC has seen constellation operators post-WRC-27 joust over EPFD limits (see 2401300032). Several panelists also discussed the changing availability of financing that helped launch numerous space startups in the past nine years.
In-person meetings at the FCC are increasing, but the majority are virtual, as they have been since the COVID-19 pandemic began nearly four years ago. The number of in-person ex parte meetings appear roughly the same as a year ago, based on a review of filings and industry interviews. Beginning last March, more staff began working in the office on more days of the week (see 2303030047). One tendency, industry officials say, is that more meetings with commissioner advisers are now at FCC headquarters. But meetings with the offices and bureaus are mostly virtual because staffers have differing in-office schedules. Virtual meetings seem the best way of ensuring everyone who needs to attend a meeting can.
The FTC should deny a petition for a right-to-repair rulemaking because the proposal would chill innovation and undermine market-based solutions, tech and telecom groups told the agency in comments due Friday (see 2401040020). U.S. Public Interest Research Group and iFixit filed a petition in November for an FTC rulemaking seeking rules making independent repair easier and more widely available.
FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington thinks the agency should provide consumers with more of an explanation about why they should buy secure smartphones and other devices, he said during a Silicon Flatirons’ conference on global fractures in tech policy. The two-day conference ended Monday.