The House Commerce Committee was still waiting early Tuesday night to mark up the Television Viewer Protection Act (HR-5035) and nine other tech and telecom bills, amid a protracted debate on unrelated measures. The tech and telecom measures besides HR-5035 appeared all but certain to advance out of committee on voice votes. HR-5035, which would reauthorize parts of the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act, also appeared likely to pass, albeit on a more uncertain roll call vote. House Commerce leaders failed to reach a deal before the markup on a compromise manager's amendment to HR-5035, dashing hopes for an easy consensus. The House Judiciary Committee remained on track to mark up the related Satellite Television Community Protection and Promotion Act (HR-5140) Wednesday.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is expected to announce Wednesday the FCC will tackle sharing in the 5.9 GHz band between safety systems and Wi-Fi at the Dec. 12 FCC meeting. Pai is to speak Wednesday at a WifiForward event in Washington on a smart spectrum future. It's unclear whether the FCC has worked out a deal with the Department of Transportation, industry officials said Tuesday. Pai is expected to propose reallocating 45 MHz of the 75 MHz band to unlicensed use, officials told us.
The FTC's probing major platforms other than Facebook, which is under antitrust investigation, Chairman Joe Simons said Monday. He expects the Competition Bureau’s Technology Enforcement Division, which is “burning the candle at both ends,” will be successful, he said at an American Bar Association antitrust event.
T-Mobile CEO John Legere will step down at the end of April after his contract expires, to be replaced by Mike Sievert, currently president-chief operating officer, T-Mobile said Monday. Legere said on an analyst call he will remain on the board and T-Mobile isn’t backing down from its buy of Sprint. Legere became CEO in 2012 and is credited with turning the company around. The development “changes nothing” on the Sprint buy, Legere said. “We are not done yet. … This will be the start of T-Mobile’s next chapter.”
The FCC isn’t expected to issue a 2018 quadrennial ownership review order this year, and many broadcasters aren’t betting on quick movement on that issue, licensees and broadcast attorneys told us. Broadcasters “weren’t ever holding their breath” waiting for the radio ownership deregulation and possible changes to top-four ownership restrictions that might have been expected in a 2018 QR order, said Fletcher Heald broadcast attorney Anne Crump. The FCC didn’t comment.
SAN ANTONIO -- The FCC seems poised to allow unlicensed devices including Wi-Fi to use at least part of the 6 GHz band that utilities and some others occupy to monitor infrastructure like power grids. Even though utilities and state telecom regulators have concerns about that approach, the federal regulator seems ready to act in coming months, said stakeholders on all sides that we spoke with on the sidelines of NARUC.
The path forward on House work on Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act reauthorization remained murky Monday, before a Tuesday Commerce Committee markup of its Television Viewer Protection Act (HR-5035) and the Judiciary Committee's circulation of the related Satellite Television Community Protection and Promotion Act (see 1911180014). The House Communications Subcommittee advanced HR-5035 last week on a voice vote, though House Commerce ranking member Greg Walden, R-Ore., and others raised concerns (see 1911140056). The Senate Commerce Committee postponed consideration (see 1911130055) of the similar Satellite Television Access Reauthorization Act (S-2789) amid committee members' revolt.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai will circulate an order seeking approval of a public auction of 280 MHz of C-band spectrum in 2020, for a vote early in the new year, FCC officials said Monday. The order won't be on the agenda for the Dec. 12 commissioners’ meeting. The decision is considered a huge loss for the C-Band Alliance, which pressed for a private auction (see 1911150046). President Donald Trump called Pai Oct. 30 to find out more about the C band but didn’t express a view the FCC should hold a public auction, FCC officials said. Pai unveiled the decision in a letter Monday to leaders in Congress.
Facebook supports industry setting content moderation standards, said Public Policy Manager Lori Moylan Friday. Speaking at a George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School event, she said companies should collaboratively define terms like manipulated media and deepfake.
State and federal officials vote this week on policies to advance IP captioned telephone services that offer speech captioning through internet-based communications for use by the deaf or hard of hearing. NARUC members at their conference in San Antonio will consider a resolution that would ask the FCC to adopt service quality standards for all IP CTS providers before migrating to exclusively automated speech recognition (ASR) services (see 1911050040).