FCC Chief of Staff Matthew Berry and a top CTIA official downplayed reports the Trump administration is pushing the Pentagon to move forward on developing a national 5G network. The wireless industry sent a letter to President Donald Trump Tuesday opposing efforts to nationalize 5G network infrastructure. Berry and Scott Bergmann, CTIA senior vice president-regulatory affairs, spoke Monday at the Americas Spectrum Management Conference. DOD isn’t planning to launch a competitive 5G network, Fred Moorefield, deputy chief information officer-command, control and communications, said at an FCBA virtual conference Tuesday. Moorefield said he had seen the reports on the White House push but couldn't confirm them.
Apple “foreclosed competition” in iOS subscription-based mobile gaming, and owns “monopoly power” in the relevant market with no “pro-competitive justifications” for that harmful “misconduct,” alleged a complaint (in Pacer) Thursday in U.S. District Court in San Jose that seeks class-action status. Coming nearly two months after Epic Games sued to break Apple’s alleged stranglehold on the iOS app distribution and payment market (see 2008130048), the new complaint argues Apple monopolization is forcing consumers to pay “supracompetitive prices” for the Apple Arcade mobile gaming subscription service.
Expect antitrust legislation to be introduced in the “late days of this Congress” to curb Big Tech’s dominance, House Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman David Cicilline, D-R.I., said Friday, discussing his panel’s recent report (see 2010070067). Regulation is on the agenda for this and next Congress, said during a Public Knowledge event, calling the report “just the beginning.”
The timing of the FCC’s move to new headquarters remains uncertain, and 87% of frontline FCC employees hope to telework full time until an effective COVID-19 vaccine is in wide use and the pandemic “subsides,” said a survey by the National Treasury Employees Union Chapter 209, which represents FCC employees. “At this juncture, I can’t provide you with a definite timeline for these next steps” in the agency's relocation, wrote FCC Chief of Staff Matthew Berry in an agencywide email at the end of September. “But I hope to be able to do so in mid-October.”
The net neutrality order set for an Oct. 27 vote at the FCC means that what could be the last big meeting of Chairman Ajit Pai’s tenure will include action on the same politically charged, divisive issue that took over his first year as chairman. The order is likely to be approved 3-2, but with strong dissents from FCC Democrats. Other contentious items are also on the agenda, including the 5G Fund, tower compound expansions and a final order on wireless infrastructure.
Don't expect the U.S. approach to C-band clearing for 5G to become the norm worldwide, with use of the spectrum here often being vastly different from how it's employed internationally, spectrum executives said Thursday in a Global VSAT Forum virtual panel. There's a push in many regions of the world to open the band to mobile, but alternatives for incumbent services are often a stumbling block, they said.
First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Sandra Lynch repeatedly challenged and expressed confusion about Massachusetts arguments on the FCC's LEC test, in oral argument Thursday. The Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Cable (MDTC) is challenging the commission's finding that the AT&T TV Now streaming service is effective competition to Charter cable service in Massachusetts and part of Hawaii, thus ending basic cable rate regulation there (see 1912230063).
Reported 911 dispatching issues in Washington alarmed Republican House Commerce Committee ranking members. Greg Walden of Oregon from the full panel, Communications Subcommittee's Robert Latta of Ohio and Environment Subcommittee's John Shimkus of Illinois asked District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) Thursday for a briefing “to better understand the failure of the ... emergency dispatch system, including whether the 9-1-1 system played a role,” the members wrote Thursday. Not everyone welcomed what they consider politicization.
The Wireless ISP Association plans a rare large telecom in-person meeting, Oct. 20-22 in Las Vegas. It also will be streamed. WISPA is limiting attendance to 250 and following government protocols -- masking, deep cleaning and barring attendance from some countries based on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisories. Experts worry about such gatherings during the pandemic.
The radio industry doesn’t know what to expect going forward, said Hubbard Radio CEO Ginny Morris and Connoisseur Media CEO Jeff Warshaw during the virtual Pillsbury Broadcast Finance panel Wednesday for the Radio Show. “We don’t think we have much visibility” into the industry outlook for the rest of this year and afterward, said Warshaw. “We don’t expect '21 to be a year like '19,” he said. “We don’t know what a norm is.”