Matt Daneman

Small and mid-sized cable operators are largely bullish about President-elect Donald Trump's incoming administration and his choice of FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr to head the agency, expecting aggressive deregulation, ACA Connects President Grant Spellmeyer said during an interview with Communications Daily. Spellmeyer discussed the industry group's 2025 priorities, growing questions surrounding BEAD, and what one does during the lame-duck weeks before inauguration and a new administration. The following transcript was edited for length and clarity.

Incarcerated people's communications service (IPCS) providers pushed back against FCC proposals for setting uniform service quality standards. While they also argued for redoing the reimbursement process adopted earlier this year, that argument is seeing opposition. Reply comments were filed this week in docket 12-375. The FCC's IPCS order, adopted in July, included a Further NPRM seeking comment on establishing video IPCS rates, updating the definition of jails and prisons, and addressing other service quality issues (see 2407180039).

Saying China-affiliated parties have compromised telecom networks, stolen customer call record data and accessed private communications of senior U.S. officials, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Wednesday issued mobile communications best practices guidance that it said mirrors advice it's giving federal agencies and Congress. "There is no single solution," but the guidance's content will enhance security, Jeff Greene, executive assistant director-cybersecurity, DHS' CISA, told press members.

Federal appellate Judge Robert Luck repeatedly expressed skepticism Wednesday about the one-to-one robotext consent policy the FCC adopted a year ago (see 2312130019). During roughly 33 minutes of oral argument before the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (docket 24-10277), Luck and Matthew Dunne from the FCC Office of General Counsel repeatedly circled around the issue of whether the agency went too far in implementation. The Insurance Marketing Coalition (IMC) is challenging the FCC order, arguing that the agency exceeded its Telephone Consumer Protection Act statutory authority (see 2405170005). Some observers had predicted the FCC could face an 11th Circuit having particular misgivings regarding regulatory agency reach (see 2412060029).

Facing SEC requirements of prompt public disclosure of material cybersecurity incidents, many companies are reporting out of fear of violating the rules, sometimes going public with nonmaterial incidents, cybersecurity experts say. In an FCBA CLE Monday, Wiley cybersecurity lawyer Josh Waldman said the SEC's lawsuit against SolarWinds over the software company's disclosure practices seemed like it would trigger vast under- or overreporting, with the latter seemingly emerging as the dominant trend. While there's a willingness among agencies and Congress to harmonize different agencies' privacy, data security and cybersecurity rules, there's not a clear way of doing so, cybersecurity experts said.

President-elect Donald Trump's incoming administration will likely change BEAD rules, making the program more open to satellite and unlicensed fixed wireless access, connectivity policy experts tell us. A variety of policy statements from Republicans, including Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz (R-Texas) (see 2411040030), suggest a forthcoming policy change, said Chris Mitchell, Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) director-community broadband networks.

Faced with an increasingly vulnerable GPS system that rival global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) are eclipsing, the U.S. must align positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) policy with where the commercial sector is headed, PNT experts said during an FCBA panel in Washington Thursday. The lack of a national backup to GPS “is quite shocking,” but no one solution will address all needs, said Ed Mortimer, NextNav vice president-government affairs. He said a variety of commercial solutions are near but they require a policy environment open to competition.

NOAA is making plans with NASA for what could result in a high accuracy and robustness service (HARS) that augments GPS, members of the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) Advisory Board heard Wednesday. Board members also discussed a draft presidential transition issue paper urging the President-elect Donald Trump's incoming administration to bolster reliable national PNT capabilities.

The next FCC and Trump administration will place a major focus on deregulation of commercial space activities and streamlining the approvals processes, space policy experts tell us. In addition, some expect long-awaited clarity on what agency oversees novel space missions like in-orbit servicing, assembly and manufacturing, or asteroid mining. Moreover, the experts anticipate increased openness about the use of satellite communications in federal programs fighting the digital divide.

Competition is a better guarantor of good customer service than FCC rules, multiple industry groups said as they pushed back against proposals floated in the FCC's customer service NOI. The NOI was adopted 3-2 in October along party lines (see 2410230036). In comments in docket 24-472, which were due Friday, some industry groups also argued that the agency lacks legal standing on customer service rules. "Careful consideration will confirm that the Commission lacks anything like the plenary authority" to adopt a single set of customer service rules, CTIA said. Disability advocacy organizations, meanwhile, made suggestions for customer service requirements.