The FCC’s Disability Advisory Committee approved a resolution Tuesday urging the FCC to launch a rulemaking on unresolved real-time text technical issues. In December 2016, FCC commissioners approved 5-0 a common standard for the transition from text technology (TTY) to real-time text (RTT) (see 1612150048). DAC members said some tricky issues remain.
Tech companies cheered Tuesday's ruling that the right to be forgotten by search engines doesn't apply outside the EU. The case involved a dispute between Google and French privacy authority CNIL (Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertes) over whether a subject's request to have links to web pages containing personal data delisted must be honored worldwide. The CNIL said the European Court of Justice didn't buy its approach to that right, but it provided some clarity. One privacy lawyer predicted the ruling won't change much, but a reputation protection firm said it could affect job-seekers for many years.
Groups differ over how much broadband deployment data the FCC should collect from providers, in what form, and how others should be able to challenge its accuracy. Comments posted through Tuesday on docket 19-195 weighed in on the agency's plans to update its Form 477 broadband mapping reporting requirements (see 1908210008). Parties mostly agree more granular information is needed to ensure USF dollars are allocated properly in upcoming Rural Digital Opportunity Fund auctions (see 1906280059), but some say holding out for detailed location fabrics that attempt to pinpoint every serviceable structure in the nation could slow the program.
Evan Swarztrauber, an aide to FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, is expected to be tapped this week to replace Nathan Leamer as a policy adviser to Chairman Ajit Pai. Leamer was widely viewed as providing Pai with ties to key interest groups, especially those on the right. Other Pai aides have more of a legal or policy rather than communications background.
TAMPA -- Local telecom officials and their legal representatives are wary of future federal moves to encroach on their authority. They identified a wide gulf between their need for oversight of and compensation from providers and FCC actions this year and last, plus expected future agency deregulation. In interviews this week on the sidelines of their annual conference, NATOA board members and others had much criticism for the agency.
TAMPA -- Localities can get better 5G outcomes by proactively engaging with a wide array of stakeholders to get consistent and uniform policies, recommend NATOA panelists. Part of whether such smart city, fast broadband and digital divide narrowing technology succeeds and in an aesthetically palatable way depends on how far ahead communities plan for fifth-generation technology, industry representatives said Monday. Other suggestions included having published standards and encouraging collocating equipment including small cells with utilities and other carriers.
"Confronting a rising China" is the "foreign-policy challenge of our time," Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., told the U.S. Institute for Peace Monday. The government of Chinese President Xi Jinping is “making a play for dominance” globally in 5G, artificial intelligence, robotics and biotech, and the Trump administration's China policy is too "shortsighted" to stop it, said the Senate Intelligence Committee’s ranking member.
The biggest industry question mark going into the Tuesday to Thursday 2019 Radio Show in Dallas is the future of the AM/FM subcaps, said broadcasters, media brokers and broadcast attorneys in interviews. An NAB spokesperson said the trade group doesn’t announce show attendance, but it’s generally 1,500-2000.
Rural broadband providers want the FCC to update or clarify eligibility requirements for applicants in its upcoming Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) auctions to award up to $20 billion in USF dollars to companies that can deliver high-speed broadband to unserved and underserved parts of rural America (see 1908010060). In comments posted through Monday on docket 19-126, industry groups differed on whether and how to expand the pool of applicants that could receive the federal funding to deliver high-speed internet service to remote communities.
TAMPA -- Municipal relations with carriers are generally better than with the FCC, some local representatives told us Monday. A lawyer for localities and a consultant to them criticized the FCC for tensions. A cable and telecom official from a Washington suburb and a NATOA board member who's a utility-company lawyer said they're getting along OK with wireless-service providers.