The Competitive Carriers Association supported petitions for reconsideration of the FCC’s August order launching a 5G Fund filed by the Coalition of Rural Wireless Carriers (CWRC) and the Rural Wireless Association (see 2501140056). CCA agrees that “several aspects” of the order “require prompt reconsideration,” said a filing posted Friday in docket 20-32.
Major providers discussed what they saw as the key technical rules for the upcoming AWS-3 auction in comments on a March public notice on its bidding procedures. Initial comments are already in on a separate NPRM looking more generally at changes to auction rules (see 2504010055). Replies on the NPRM are due next week. The auction will offer licenses that affiliates of Dish Network returned to the FCC in 2023, as well as unsold licenses from the initial AWS-3 auction 10 years ago.
Comments in Chairman Brendan Carr's “Delete, Delete, Delete” docket (25-133) continue to roll in to the FCC. As of late Friday, the due date, nearly 600 comments have been filed. Also on Friday, USTelecom CEO Jonathan Spalter compared the docket to “spring cleaning.”
Letting ISPs retire copper lines and move to next-generation technologies is critical to broadband deployment, industry experts said during a USTelecom forum Thursday. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has said repeatedly that the agency wants to make it easier for ISPs to modernize their networks (see 2504030011). Other executives warned that uncertainty in the BEAD program could be slowing broadband deployment.
Spectrum sharing is taking off as a concept in nations around the world, speakers said during the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Spectrum Management Conference, which streamed from Bahrain on Thursday. Sharing technologies is becoming more dynamic as the need for access to spectrum grows, speakers said.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit heard oral argument Wednesday on the National Treasury Employees Union’s pursuit of an emergency stay of President Donald Trump's executive order slashing staff at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The challenge is one of several that NTEU, which represents FCC employees, has against recent efforts by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and the Trump administration (see 2503310047).
Internet connections, even if they’re slow, are critical to agriculture, said Joy Sterling, CEO of California’s Iron Horse Vineyards, during a Broadband Breakfast webinar Wednesday. Other speakers called on the FCC to continue the work of its Precision Ag Connectivity Task Force following its final meeting last year (see 2412050050). Sterling served on the task force.
Generative AI will see rapid growth in the U.S., including by telecom carriers, said Nelson Englert-Yang, industry analyst on strategic technologies at ABI Research. But many providers and other companies remain confused about how they will use AI, other experts said Tuesday during an RCR Wireless webinar.
The FCC’s “Delete, Delete, Delete” docket is active, with 159 filings as of late Tuesday. While big industry players haven't yet weighed in, comments so far represent a hodgepodge, mostly from individuals discussing pet projects. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr launched docket 25-133 last month (see 2503120055) as part of the agency’s commitment “to ending all of the rules and regulations that are no longer necessary.”
The FCC posted Monday draft items for the commission’s April 28 open meeting (see 2504040070), including rules for the lower 37 GHz band that would require nonfederal users to obtain a nationwide nonexclusive license before registering sites in the band. The decades-old geostationary orbit (GSO)/non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) spectrum-sharing regime in the 10.7-12.7, 17.3-18.6 and 19.7-20.2 GHz bands is “the single most constraining regulatory requirement on NGSO satellite systems currently deploying at breakneck speed,” the FCC said in a notice proposing to revisit those sharing rules.