The FCC is moving quickly to allow cellular vehicle-to-everything deployments in the 5.9 GHz band, said Dean Brenner, Qualcomm senior vice president-spectrum strategy and technology policy, during a virtual Qualcomm conference Tuesday. The conference featured companies and government agencies anxious to fully deploy C-V2X. The FCC is expected to consider rules as early as commissioners' Oct. 27 meeting (see 2009090058).
A bipartisan pair of senators introduced legislation Tuesday to amend Communications Decency Act Section 230 and require platforms to report illegal drug sales and other illicit activity. Tech industry and privacy advocates oppose the bill. Experts raised issues with proposals aimed at amending industry’s liability shield, in interviews.
Local governments and utilities challenged FCC-asserted authority upheld by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in August. Locals and the American Public Power Association separately sought en banc rehearing of a three-judge panel decision mostly supporting FCC 2018 wireless infrastructure orders on small cells and local moratoriums. Commissioner Brendan Carr responded Tuesday that the court’s August decision supports quick infrastructure deployment.
A draft order on streamlining and standardizing the process by which FCC applications from foreign-owned companies are reviewed by the “Team Telecom” executive branch agencies is expected to be approved unanimously at Wednesday’s commissioners' meeting, said commission and industry officials.
Votes on the 5G Fund and rule changes to make it easier for tower companies to expand the footprint of cellsites appear likely to be added to the agenda for the Oct. 27 commissioners’ meeting, FCC and industry officials told us. The gathering is the last before the election and would wrap up two big 5G items. Both are expected to be controversial.
FCC commissioners will likely approve an order 5-0 Wednesday cutting IP captioned telephone service (IP CTS) rates, though FCC Democrats Jessica Rosenworcel's and Geoffrey Starks' concerns are expected to be discussed, FCC and industry officials said. Among the biggest is how well automated speech recognition (ASR) technology will work to generate captions. There has been little input from consumers since the draft was proposed, officials said. An FCC spokesperson didn’t comment.
The looming battle for Senate confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett could either help or hurt FCC nominee Nathan Simington's chances of getting the chamber's approval before the election, lawmakers and others told us. President Donald Trump announced his Barrett pick Saturday to succeed the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, as expected (see 2009220022). Trump earlier named Simington, an NTIA senior adviser, as his pick to replace Commissioner Mike O'Rielly (see 2009150074).
COVID-19 robocall scams remain a problem and are becoming more sophisticated, FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau Associate Chief Ed Bartholme warned the FCC Consumer Advisory Committee Friday. Ensuring consumers answer calls from COVID-19 contact tracers is a growing concern, he said. CAC members said broadband deployment continues to be a rural issue. The meeting was the last under CCS' current charter, though the FCC rechartered the group (see 2007070052).
The U.S. can reach a data transfer agreement with the EU without wholesale revisions to American surveillance laws, said Department of Commerce EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Director Alex Greenstein Friday (see 2009100001). On an ACT|The App Association webcast, he said any deal will depend on EU interpretations of the general data protection regulation.
Washington, D.C.’s 911 audit will test if “specific incidents add up to a larger picture” of systemic dispatching problems at the Office of Unified Communications, city Auditor Kathy Patterson said in a Friday interview. After the Office of D.C. Auditor (ODCA) released a request for proposals Thursday (see 2009240066), OUC and D.C. Council Judiciary and Public Safety Committee Chairman Charles Allen (D) welcomed an audit. They offered some defenses for local 911 personnel.