NTIA faces a pressing deadline to review BEAD final proposals and start distributing money to states and territories, broadband policy experts told us. The agency committed Friday to approving at least some final proposals by year-end.
The durability of fixed wireless access (FWA) competition has been somewhat surprising, Comcast CFO Jason Armstrong said Thursday. Speaking at Citi's Global TMT Conference, Armstrong said FWA will be a permanent competitor. Separately, at the Bank of America Securities Media, Communications & Entertainment Conference, Charter Communications CFO Jessica Fischer said FWA has been an effective competitor, but its growth will slow since wireless carriers need that capacity for their mobile businesses.
The cable ISP industry has assembled a coalition of senior executives to combat vandalism and other damage to communications networks. Chairing the Strategic Threat Response & Infrastructure Knowledge Exchange (STRIKE) is Comcast Chief Network Officer Elad Nafshi. Tom Monaghan, Charter Communications' executive vice president of field operations, is vice chairman. NCTA and CableLabs subsidiary SCTE, which are spearheading STRIKE, said members also include Altice USA, Cable One, Cox, Mediacom, Rogers and GCI.
The FCC's NPRM examining whether light poles should come under its regulation will get vigorous opposition from utility and local government interests, we're told. Adopted at its July meeting, the NPRM asks whether Section 224 of the Communications Act, which governs pole attachments, also covers light poles (see 2507280053).
Any changes to the non-geostationary/geostationary orbit satellite spectrum-sharing regime should protect incumbent services, numerous terrestrial and satellite incumbents told the FCC in docket 25-157 this week. Commissioners in April adopted an NPRM looking at changing the satellite spectrum-sharing regime in the 10.7-12.7, 17.3-18.6 and 19.7-20.2 GHz bands (see 2504280038). It sprung from a 2024 SpaceX petition urging changes to the NGSO/GSO sharing methodology for NGSO fixed satellite service downlinks (see 2408120018).
Political scrutiny of Skydance Media's purchase of Paramount Global is growing, with the ranking members of the House Commerce and Judiciary committees demanding Thursday to see internal company communications, as well as those between the FCC and the companies.
States face a challenge getting their BEAD final proposals to NTIA by the Sept. 4, but most will meet the deadline, Colorado Broadband Office Executive Director Brandy Reitter said Tuesday at the Technology Policy Institute's Aspen Forum. Large states like Texas and California will probably need extensions, she told us. Reitter said she was fairly confident NTIA in turn would meet its deadline for reviewing the final proposals within 90 days of receiving them.
The FCC’s top telecom priorities include the components of Chairman Brendan Carr’s “Build America Agenda,” stabilizing USF and deregulation, agency Chief of Staff Scott Delacourt said. NTIA Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Adam Cassady said finishing BEAD "is job one," but other tasks include space policy revisions and identifying spectrum for commercialization. The two spoke Monday at Technology Policy Institute’s annual Aspen Forum.
While traditional and virtual MVPDs will always be "a critical pathway" for distributing its sports content, Monumental Sports & Entertainment sees the clear cord-cutting trend and has to be able to go direct-to-consumer (DTC) as well, according to Zach Leonsis, its president of media and new enterprises. The company, which had a 33% stake in NBC Sports Washington, D.C., bought out Comcast's 67% stake in the regional sports network (RSN) in 2022. A year ago, it launched its Monumental+ app.
While SpaceX is challenging at least one state, saying it was unfairly precluded from BEAD locations it should have won, a Vernonburg Group analysis points to low earth orbit (LEO) satellites being able to serve at most 26% of BEAD-eligible unserved and underserved locations nationwide. That lines up with the concerns of fiber advocates and others about LEO networks' ability to meet the legislative definition of a priority project -- such as delivering 100/20 Mbps service -- at BEAD scale, former BEAD Director Evan Feinman told us.