Key FAA drone rules on remote ID and operations over people are still on schedule to be published in December as the agency refocuses on beyond-line-of-sight rules, said Jay Merkle, executive director of the FAA Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration Office, at a virtual Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International conference Wednesday. “They are currently in interagency review … the last step before we go to a final rule,” he said. Other speakers said public perception of drones is critical to adoption and how regulators view them and was helped by increased use during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and House Commerce Committee ranking member Greg Walden, R-Ore., filed the Beat China by Harnessing Important, National Airwaves for 5G Act Wednesday in a bid to codify the DOD’s deal with the FCC to sell commercial use of the 3.45-3.55 GHz band (see 2008100038). Americans for Tax Reform, Heritage Action, TechFreedom and 40 other right-leaning groups, meanwhile, raised concerns with Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., that DOD’s recent request for information on dynamic spectrum sharing of the frequency slice (see 2009210056) could be an avenue to 5G nationalization.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, if he wins the Nov. 3 election, is likely to be “very receptive” to coming legislation from House Antitrust Subcommittee members to implement recommendations from their Tuesday report on competition in the digital economy, subpanel Chairman David Cicilline, D-R.I., said Wednesday. The report called for bills to institute structural separation and line of business restrictions to address alleged abuse of market power by Google, Facebook, Amazon and other major tech companies (see 2010060062).
Recent Viasat and Hughes challenges to SpaceX's latency claims for its nascent Starlink constellation (for example, see 2009210012) are aimed at forestalling its being competition in the upcoming Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Phase I auction, we're told. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said it will be difficult for a low earth orbit constellation like SpaceX's to qualify (see 2006090031). An FCC official told us the qualified bidder list for the auction could be released as soon as Thursday. The FCC declined comment.
A possible switch from an elected to governor-appointed New Mexico Public Regulation Commission is dividing current and possibly future members. New Mexicans will vote Nov. 3 on that issue and on who will fill two commissioner seats at least until 2023, when the change would take effect. Nine other states also have utility regulator elections this year, with several candidates talking broadband.
The Supreme Court met arguments from Google and Oracle with skepticism Wednesday in a case that could decide whether programming code is copyrightable (see 2008070054). Oracle sued Google for its use of Java programming code. Google has a right to provide a “certain functionality to make a computer do something” under Section 102(b) of the Copyright Act, argued Google attorney Thomas Goldstein. If there were alternatives, that would be “another matter,” he said, but because there’s only one way, there’s no copyright protection.
COVID-19 pulled the telemedicine industry “forward by a number of years,” Doctor on Demand CEO Hill Ferguson told an Axios webinar Tuesday. “Overall patient demand has pulled in at least two or three years.” The “overall acceptance” of telemedicine by the “broader healthcare ecosystem has probably accelerated five to 10 years,” he said.
Disagreements surfaced in replies in the annual Communications Act Section 706 proceeding on whether broadband is now being deployed in a reasonable and timely manner, with a majority urging the FCC to back away from the conclusion, especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. In April, FCC Democrats also said the agency was wrong to draw that positive finding, given current deployment levels (see 2004240042). Replies were posted Tuesday in docket 20-269.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals should grant the FTC’s request for en banc review in its antitrust case against Qualcomm (see 2009250068), tech groups, auto manufacturers, consumers and scholars told the court in briefs filed through Tuesday (in Pacer). The agency is appealing a three-judge panel’s decision in favor of Qualcomm (see 2008190043).
An FCC order on allowing AM stations to go all-digital wouldn’t codify a specific technical standard or impose additional interference restrictions on the fledgling service and would require a 30-day waiting period for stations to provide notice, said the draft Tuesday. The order was released with other drafts for the Oct. 27 commissioners’ meeting (see 2010060056).