Title I or Title II of the Communications Act would bar the New York Affordable Broadband Act (ABA), said amici supporting ISP groups in briefs Friday at the U.S. Supreme Court. NCTA, a cable industry group that didn’t join the original May 2021 challenge that several national telecom associations filed in a district court, said the ABA “would impose unprecedented and unlawful rate regulation on broadband services.” The Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council (MMTC) also condemned the state law. “If the ABA becomes effective, it will achieve the opposite of what it purports to accomplish, making it harder for communities of color to subscribe to broadband.”
ISPs and consumer advocates recommended tweaks as the California Public Utilities Commission began finalizing state rules for NTIA’s broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program. The CPUC plans voting Sept. 26 on a proposed decision approving rules implementing volume two of the CPUC’s proposed rules, which it submitted to NTIA in December. Determining the extremely high cost per location threshold (EHCPLT) on a project area unit (PAU) basis as proposed "will lead to inconsistent results,” said AT&T in comments Thursday, recommending a statewide approach instead. “Such piecemeal and fluctuating EHCPLT determinations make project predictability difficult as applicants formulate their submissions and will likely increase the number of PAUs that would be too costly for fiber deployments.” Also, several proposals would "result in rate regulation in violation of the Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act," including a proposed middle-class affordable option with a $74 monthly rate cap, AT&T said. The California Broadband & Video Association advised that CPUC maximize BEAD funding’s reach “by prioritizing private matching funds over speculative awards from other grant programs and by ensuring that applicants have the financial capability and sustainability for their proposed projects.” Avoid discouraging participation with "restrictive price caps" or "skewed scoring criteria related to affordability, labor, and network resilience,” the cable association said. But Tarana Wireless asked the CPUC to reconsider scoring criteria that favor big companies. For example, one category "will only award a full 20 points to providers capable of providing at least a 65% private sector match or more of requested funding amount," a requirement that's "unusually high and favors larger and wealthier service providers.” The CPUC’s independent Public Advocates Office urged setting "a hire bar" for allowing a subgrantee to increase the price of a required $30 low-cost option. Center for Accessible Technology, another consumer group, asked why companies may request increasing low-cost plan prices to account for inflation or increased costs, but there’s no way to reduce prices “when a provider’s financial viability can be sustained at the lower level.” The Utility Reform Network said the CPUC should plan for the possibility that the low-cost option and affordability issues may need to be revisited, including due to the end of the affordable connectivity program.
DirecTV and Disney are pointing fingers at each other after rejecting offers to temporarily restore content during their carriage agreement fight. Subscribers have lacked Disney content since Sept. 1 (see 2409090003). Disney rejected a request for a carriage agreement extension that would return all Disney channels to DirecTV customers through Monday, DirecTV said Tuesday. Disney said it "remain[s] at the table negotiating with DirecTV and the restoration of our programming to their subscribers is completely within their control." Disney said DirecTV rejected a three-hour feed of NBC News coverage of Tuesday night's presidential debate. DirecTV said the arrangement would confuse subscribers.
Panelists clashed during a Federalist Society webinar Thursday over the future of the lower 3 GHz band, a top target of carriers for 5G and 6G. They also disagreed on some details of how federal bands should be studied for sharing or licensed use.
Some IP-captioned telephone service (IP CTS) providers welcomed an accessibility coalition's petition asking the FCC to require that all IP CTS providers using automated speech recognition (ASR) as the sole means of transcribing speech also provide users the option of requesting a communications assistant (CA) at the start or any point during an IP CTS call (see 2408010057). The coalition also sought quality metrics for the service and asked that the commission not certify new IP CTS providers until its petition is addressed.
Pennsylvania should quickly adopt the FCC’s December changes to pole attachment rules, Verizon and wireless companies said in comments posted Tuesday at the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission. Some additional work may be needed to adapt the FCC’s rapid-response team, they acknowledged in docket L-2018-3002672. However, energy companies disagreed with the Pennsylvania PUC adopting either the team or a rule requiring reports on pole inspection.
Although U.S. officials say export controls on advanced semiconductors and related equipment are designed to slow Chinese technological innovation, those controls have so far hurt American toolmakers the most, a technology policy expert said.
Benton Institute for Broadband & Society asked the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to hold in abeyance scheduled briefings on the pending challenge of the FCC's net neutrality rules following the court's decision to stay the rules and schedule oral argument for the fall (see 2408010065). In a motion Tuesday the FCC did not oppose (docket 24-7000), Benton cited a pending petition before the commission that "makes it possible that other further action of this could likely render moot or alter the issue" presented before the court. "Courts of Appeal commonly hold proceedings in abeyance when overlapping petitions for administrative reconsideration have been filed," Benton said: "That is the most prudent course here." A coalition of industry groups conditionally opposed the motion, saying the court “plainly should not hold industry petitioners’ cases in abeyance, nor should it pause the briefing of industry petitioners’ cases while it considers the abeyance motion.” CTIA, USTelecom, NCTA, ACA Connects, the Wireless ISP Association and several state telecom associations said they didn’t oppose the motion only if Benton sought “for only their own petitions to be held in abeyance.”
Nearly all Senate’s Republicans called on President Joe Biden last week to accelerate the delivery of congressionally approved weapon systems and ammunition to Israel.
The U.S. opposed Turkish exporter Habas Sinai's motions to intervene as an intervenor in an antidumping case and for an injunction on the liquidation of its entries, arguing that Habas' entries are already liquidated and that the company offers no "good cause" for its delay for timely seeking an injunction from the court (Kaptan Demir Celik Endustrisi ve Ticaret v. United States, CIT # 24-00018).