House Agriculture Committee leaders eyed how to address broadband issues in the 2023 farm bill during a Thursday hearing, with panel ranking member Glenn Thompson, R-Pa., and some others noting dissatisfaction with the degree to which the $65 billion in connectivity money included in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act would affect rural areas. “Rural broadband will continue to be a major focus” for House Agriculture despite House passage of IIJA’s connectivity money instead of the panel-approved Broadband Internet Connections for Rural America Act (HR-4374), which included $43 billion to Rural Utilities Service programs for FY 2022-29 (see 2107140061), said panel Chairman David Scott, D-Ga.
TikTok has employees in Beijing as do many other global tech companies, TikTok Chief Operating Officer Vanessa Pappas told the Senate Homeland Security Committee during a hearing Wednesday.
Carriers worldwide are moving to cloud-native technology but need to learn from their peers, experts said Wednesday during a TelecomTV virtual summit. Experts agreed carriers will find they need to hire staff with cloud expertise to supplement their more traditional telecom experience.
Steve Berry, who is leaving the Competitive Carriers Association at the end of the year (see 2209130072) after 13 years as president, told reporters a top priority for the rest of the year is getting Congress to fully fund the rip and replace program needed to remove Chinese gear from small carrier networks (see 2209090053). The program faces a $3.08 billion shortfall. “We need to get that done, we need to secure our networks,” he said: “It was a decision made by Congress. Now we’ve got to make sure that they actually pay for it.”
It’s “really important” that states take advantage of the FCC’s new broadband maps and challenge process before NTIA allocates its funding for the broadband, equity, access and deployment program, said Technology Policy Institute President Scott Wallsten during a Fiber Broadband Association webinar Wednesday. “The purpose of the maps is for NTIA to decide how much money every state will get,” Wallsten said, but “states are not obligated to use that map.”
State departments of transportation in Florida, Georgia and Maryland, seeking waivers to launch cellular vehicle-to-everything operations in the 5.9 GHz band, got broad support in comments posted at the FCC by Tuesday. The applications came after a broader waiver request was filed late last year. Several comments said the waivers are important to U.S. competitiveness. Industry observers expect relatively quick action addressing the waivers (see 2209010047). Comments were due Monday in docket 19-138.
The Senate Judiciary Committee hasn’t moved to subpoena testimony from Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, committee leaders told reporters Tuesday. Their comments came after bipartisan concern over data security allegations about the platform during a hearing with a company whistleblower. Tuesday’s hearing confirms that allegations from whistleblower Peiter Zatko are “riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies,” a company spokesperson said in a statement.
No one has ever applied to participate in the FCC’s broadcast incubator program, according to an FCC spokesperson. Created in 2018, then tied up in the Prometheus court proceedings (see 2104010067) for years afterward, the program aimed at providing more access to capital for minority and female radio station owners was reinstated in 2021 but a year later is seen by some as dead. The agency hasn't received any applications and doesn't track informal inquiries, an FCC spokesperson told us. “I think those interested in promoting diversity in the industry have pretty much given up on this program,” said former FCC Commissioner Henry Rivera, a longtime participant in FCC diversity efforts. “NAB has been supportive of this program since its creation and encourages the FCC to promote this important initiative as it actively encourages greater diversity in broadcast ownership,” an NAB spokesperson emailed. “It is an incomplete success,” said David Honig, of the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council.
The Senate is highly unlikely to act on FCC nominee Gigi Sohn before the November election amid a busy legislative calendar and a campaign-centric atmosphere on Capitol Hill that’s made confirmation next to impossible for any Biden administration picks who lack GOP support, lawmakers and lobbyists said in interviews. Top Senate Commerce Committee Republicans all but shot down speculation that circulated during the August recess that pairing Sohn with an eventual replacement for retiring GOP FTC Commissioner Noah Phillips (see 2208170039) could ease GOP opposition to the FCC nominee’s confirmation.
Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., are nearing agreement on legislation that would create a new consumer protection agency to regulate the tech industry, they confirmed with us.