Matt Daneman

FuboTV will likely succeed in proving that the planned ESPN/Warner Bros. Discovery/Fox Sports streaming joint venture will violate federal antitrust law, a federal judge ruled Friday as she granted plaintiff Fubo a preliminary injunction to block it. The sports streaming JV, Venu, has raised anticompetitive concerns on the part of some federal lawmakers (see 2404170067).

Streaming services increasingly are cracking down on password sharing as they see the success that Netflix has had with its initiative, industry analysts tell us. Executives at streamers tell Wall Street the effort will help drive revenue growth.

Don’t expect major daylight between a Kamala Harris administration and the Joe Biden White House on major communications policy issues, industry and policy experts predicted. Much focus and effort would center on defending the FCC's net neutrality and digital discrimination orders in the current federal circuit court challenges, as well as pursuing net neutrality rules, they said. Less clear would be the nature of the relationship between Harris' White House and Big Tech. The Harris campaign didn't comment. Deregulation and undoing net neutrality are considered high on the to-do list for the administration of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump if he's elected (see 2407110034).

SpaceX is facing opposition from wireless and satellite entities over its requested waiver that would allow relaxed out-of-band power flux density limits for the company's proposed supplemental coverage from space service, according to docket 23-135 filings Tuesday. In its June waiver request, SpaceX said its proposed PFD limits would protect adjacent band networks from interference while avoiding too-restrictive limits. Separately, Omnispace petitioned the FCC, urging denial of SpaceX's pending request to add the 340-360 kilometer altitude shells as a deployment option for its SCS service (see 2406210006).

An FCC notice of inquiry on whether to require cable, phone and broadband providers to offer simple cancellation and access to live representatives is getting applause from consumer advocacy groups. FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel's office on Monday circulated the draft customer service NOI. The White House said the NOI was part of a broader "time is money" initiative aimed at consumer woes. In addition, the effort will investigate whether health insurers make it difficult for customers to submit claims online.

Facing $2 billion in debt coming due in November and likely short of the cash on hand it will need to operate in Q4, EchoStar plans to use spectrum assets to raise the funding it needs, CEO Hamid Akhavan said Friday as the company announced Q2 earnings. EchoStar has more spectrum than it needs for its wireless plans, Akhavan said. But the company doesn't intend to dispose or relinquish ownership of spectrum holdings, he said. Instead, it's considering financing options that don't require selling.

Some states emphasize Buy American preference requirements more than others in their broadband equity, access and deployment plans, we found in our analysis of NTIA-approved BEAD volume 2 initial proposals. Whether Buy American provisions in state BEAD plans mean all the fiber optics and other materials used will be solely American-made is unclear. NTIA has signed off on 34 BEAD volume 2 plans so far, including Wyoming's on Thursday (see 2408080054).

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr is maintaining a constant drumbeat about what he calls the slow tempo of the broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program rollout. On July 29, he posted on X that it's 987 days since BEAD was enacted and "0 Americans have been connected, 0 Shovels worth of dirt turned." On Aug. 4, it was 993 days. "While there’s time to course correct, the trend line is not good," he posted Aug. 6. In his posts, he frequently lays the blame at the feet of Vice President Kamala Harris. His tweets repeatedly say that in 2021 Harris "agreed to lead a $42 billion plan to expand Internet service," and "no one has been connected."

States are using several approaches to prevailing wages in their broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) state plans, we found in our analysis of BEAD volume 2 initial plans. How a state considers prevailing wages in application reviews could possibly affect providers' participation in BEAD (see 2309080027) and 2403060005). NTIA has signed off on 31 BEAD volume 2s so far.

Carriers are working on implementing 988 georouting and the FCC needn't interfere with mandates and rules, telecom trade groups said in docket 18-336 comments this week. Commissioners in April adopted an NPRM proposing the georouting requirement (see 2404250054).