Broadcast, Robocall, Wireless Infrastructure Items Issued; Other Meeting Items Pending
Four items approved at Thursday's FCC meeting were released by Monday afternoon -- orders on ATSC 3.0, media ownership, robocalling and wireless infrastructure. The agency released items on ATSC 3.0 and media ownership Monday. The ATSC 3.0 item authorizes a…
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new broadcast standard and requires broadcasters to simulcast in the current standard during the transition process. The reconsideration order on media ownership gets rid of rules that barred broadcasters from owning duopolies in certain markets or from owning both a TV station and a newspaper in the same market. The recon order also eliminates a rule making TV joint sales agreements attributable for calculating broadcast ownership, and establishes an incubator program to encourage new industry entrants. Comments are due Jan. 23, with replies Feb. 22 on possible ways to ensure calls erroneously blocked as illegal robocalls can be unblocked and on ways of measuring the FCC's effectiveness in its robocalling efforts, said the robocall order and Further NPRM in Monday's Daily Digest. The commissioners 5-0 approved rules spelling out how voice service providers can block calls likely to be illegitimate due the lack of any legal reason to spoof certain kinds of numbers (see 1711160054). In the order, the agency also directs its Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau to prepare, along with the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, a report on robocalling, including on the progress being made in combating illegal robocalls and the hurdles that remain. The FCC Friday released an order in docket 17-79 aimed at promoting 5G and other wireless infrastructure deployment by making it easier to replace utility poles under the National Historic Preservation Act (see 1711160032). The order eliminates a historic preservation review requirement "when utility poles are replaced with substantially identical poles that can support antennas or other wireless communications equipment," it said. The order excludes "from historic preservation review only those replacement poles that are situated no more than ten feet away from the original hole; are no more than 10 percent or five feet taller than the original pole, whichever is greater; and are consistent with the quality and appearance of the original pole." The FCC as of Monday afternoon hadn't issued texts of meeting items on wireline infrastructure deployment, Lifeline USF low-income subsidies (see 1711160021), its most recent spectrum frontiers order, which opened up additional high-band spectrum for mobile use (see 1711160026), or its NPRM on eliminating cable Form 325 reporting requirements.