The FCC, with an increasingly aging workforce, could see lost institutional knowledge challenges with which many American workplaces are dealing, workforce experts told us. Some FCC trends stand out among other agencies, with older workers and fewer junior hires to decrease the average age of commission personnel, our review found. "People have always retired, but it's been onesies and twosies, smaller," said RTI International Workforce and Organizational Effectiveness Senior Program Director Jerry Hedge. "Now with the baby boom wave, it's larger numbers and that can be a scary thing."
While launch companies pursue a new generation of super-sized launchers aimed at everything from military to non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) markets, there's no clear idea how interested the commercial satellite industry might be. But launch and satellite industry experts generally agree bigger launchers shouldn't translate into bigger or new regulatory hurdles.
To change his mind on the need for a rollback of FCC Communications Act Title II regulation of the internet, Commissioner Mike O'Rielly would need to see evidence of real, not hypothetical, harm to consumers, substantive data evincing the need, or a showing of precedential or statutory obligations, he said in an interview on C-SPAN's The Communicators set to be televised starting Saturday. Once the agency is done later this month with receiving comments (see 1708170039) on the proposed rollback, "I'll wait to see if anyone makes a compelling case," he said.
Putting limits on legal blocking of calls and making voice providers offer free caller ID authentication by the end of 2018 were among filers' suggestions in comments in docket 17-97 on a call authentication notice on inquiry. There also was broad, but not universal, opposition to mandating any approach. Commissioners adopted the NOI at the July meeting (see 1707130054), with comments due Monday and replies Sept. 13.
An update to the FCC Electronic Comment Filing System saw some files from the old system that were lacking dates temporarily appearing Wednesday afternoon in ECFS as new files, a spokesman told us Thursday. By noon, the glitch -- which had 2,600 files lacking "date received" information showing up across multiple dockets -- appeared to be resolved.
Most or all major programmers are moving toward their own over-the-top video offerings by decade's end, following HBO Now, CBS All Access and -- as announced this week -- ESPN and Disney streaming services (see 1708080065), experts said.
Having received final FCC regulatory approval for its low-power mobile broadband plans in the 2483.5-2495 MHz band, Globalstar is ending for now plans for an L-band mobile broadband network. In a docket 13-213 filing posted Tuesday, the company said it was withdrawing its 2012 request for a rulemaking on terrestrial wireless operations in the 1610-1617.775 MHz band. The International Bureau on Tuesday approved a modification of Globalstar's satellite authorization to include a terrestrial low-power ancillary terrestrial component (ATC) network using mobile satellite service spectrum. The approval said Globalstar's ATC operations in the S-band are subject to the company's 2008 agreement with NTIA on out-of-band emissions into the 1559-1610 MHz band -- an issue raised by GPS Innovation Alliance (see 1706260022). Globalstar's 2012 petition for rulemaking proposed using 2483.5-2495 MHz for a terrestrial wireless service and a longer-term plan to use of spectrum in the 1.6 GHz/2.4 GHz band for an LTE-based mobile broadband network. Globalstar General Counsel Barbee Ponder told us that having received the authority for its short-term plan -- the FCC in December OK'd terrestrial use of the 2473-2495 MHz band for low-power mobile broadband use (see 1612230060) -- the company "is going to focus on that," particularly on getting international regulatory approvals for its terrestrial broadband plans. Ponder said Globalstar has applications pending in various countries and could get some international approvals this year. FCC bureau approval "marks the end of the FCC regulatory process to obtain terrestrial authority over our S-band spectrum and the beginning of a new range of innovative wireless services," CEO Jay Monroe said: It's working with chipset and infrastructure providers "to put this spectrum to more intensive use."
The FCC might need to launch a processing round for satellite use of the C-band, after an application for a non-geostationary orbit satellite constellation prompted by two previous processing rounds, agency and satellite representatives told us. That New Spectrum Satellite application (see 1707270023), raising new issues, comes as the agency is trying to figure out how to accommodate and deal with later entrants in NGSO processing rounds.
The commercial space universe is still awaiting its own "devil's rope" -- also known as barbed wire, the invention of which allowed the homesteading and settling of the American West -- to drive more space utilization, said Space Foundation Director-Research and Analytics Micah Walter-Range at a foundation event Tuesday. He said NASA technology development and transfer of that tech to the commercial sphere could be a key policy for helping drive the domestic space industry. He said challenges facing the Russian launch industry could extend for some time, with Russia -- which usually dominates the space launch market -- accounting for 17 launches last year, vs. 22 each in China and the U.S. That loss of market share continued into 2017, he said, with Russia facing possibly its smallest number of launches since the early 1960s. But the Russian launch industry took a nose dive after the fall of the Soviet Union and eventually rebounded, Walter-Range said. He said talk of an emerging Chinese commercial launch industry will likely follow similar models some other nations have followed, with government-supplied vehicles and a commercial marketing arm. Meanwhile, the U.S. workforce dedicated to space is seemingly declining -- compared with employment growth in Europe and Japan -- likely due more to the sector becoming increasingly integrated with other industries so counting jobs that are purely space becomes more problematic, Walter-Range said. He said Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, with the $1 billion in company stock he's cashing out annually for Blue Origin operations, gives him the 10th or 12th largest space budget on the planet, depending on how U.S. agency spending is counted. Walter-Range said the 232 satellites launched in 2016 marked the second consecutive year of declines, mostly due not to a particular downturn in the market but nanosatellite constellations causing a statistical blip.
As it looks to harmonize FCC 2016 approval of its broadband terrestrial low-power service plans across jurisdictions worldwide (see 1612230060), Globalstar had talks with regulatory agencies in 15 countries beyond what it announced in May, CEO Jay Monroe said in an earnings call Thursday. He said the company expects to have filed a number of applications internationally for terrestrial use of its 2483.5-2500 MHz band spectrum by year's end. He said it expects FCC approval of its mobile satellite service license modification application "within days," after the comment period ended in July without opposition (see 1705250011). He also said the company is in partnership discussions "with numerous companies" that either have or want their own terrestrial networks, since Globalstar doesn't expect to build its own.